Multimodal mediational means in assessment of processes: an argument for a hard-CLIL approach

ABSTRACT

In Japan, CLIL instruction falls under a soft-CLIL approach, content serving as secondary to language instruction. Furthermore, assessment in classrooms in Japan is oftentimes limited to assessing the product summatively. In the paper, we argue for the value of focusing on content in CLIL activities and assessing the process with the goal to promote learning. The present small-scale study at a Japanese university explored how learners (n = 6) used multimodal mediational means to build their conceptual understanding of ‘Earth breathing’ in order to create a presentation on it for a general English course. The further goal was to explore how inferences made from assessing this process of learners co-constructing their understanding can benefit the formative assessment of the outcome of their collaboration. We analysed learners’ face-to-face classroom interaction and forum posts using mediated action as the unit of analysis. The findings revealed that through building on multimodal mediational means, learners were able to build their conceptual understanding and use academic language with this understanding. Deeper insights into learner performance were obtained from assessing the process of their collaboration. We will discuss the implications of the findings for English as a foreign language (EFL) and CLIL classrooms in Japan and beyond.

KEYWORDS:

• CLIL
• multimodality
• assessment
• interaction
• truncated multilingualism
• Japan

View correction statement:

Correction

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Associate Professor Kate Sato and Associate Professor Chris Carl Hale for their valuable advice during our work on the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article was originally published with errors, which have now been corrected in the online version. Please see Correction (https://doi.org/10.1080/13670050.2020.1775539)

Notes

1 This was the term that the learners (s3) created in their interaction either having misheard the speaker’s words ‘breathes in’ as ‘breathing’ or having enough proficiency to create a gerund from themselves. See Excerpts 1 and 2.

2 The video script, which we could not reproduce here for the copyright reasons, was slightly different from the text quoted here from Al Gore (2006). Namely, the author in the video did not use the term CO₂, but rather consistently referred to it as ‘carbon dioxide'. He slightly changed several other words, such as replacing ‘disgorge' with ‘exhale' as well as ‘takes a big breath in and out once each year' with ‘once each year breathes in and out’ in addition to naturally using gestures as well as demonstrating the breathing by inhaling and exhaling in the video at the end of the Excerpt 1.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Dmitri Leontjev

Dmitri Leontjev is postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Language and Communication Studies of the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. He conducts research in language assessment, particularly assessment for learning, including on the impact of dynamic assessment on teaching and learning, teacher assessment literacy and teacher and learner beliefs about and practices in assessment.

Mark Antony deBoer

Mark Antony deBoer is a lecturer at the Department of English for Academic Purposes of Akita International University, Akita, Japan. He conducts research in Content and Language Integrated Learning, mediation, and curriculum design, particularly focusing on the processes of learning.