A3 Book section, Chapters in research books
Multimodal Perspective into Teachers’ Definitional Practices : Comparing Subject-Specific Language in Physics and History Lessons (2021)

Kääntä, L. (2021). Multimodal Perspective into Teachers’ Definitional Practices : Comparing Subject-Specific Language in Physics and History Lessons. In S. Kunitz, N. Markee, & O. Sert (Eds.), Classroom-based Conversation Analytic Research : Theoretical and Applied Perspectives on Pedagogy (pp. 197-223). Springer International Publishing. Educational Linguistics, 46. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52193-6_10

JYU authors or editors

Publication details

All authors or editors: Kääntä, Leila

Parent publication: Classroom-based Conversation Analytic Research : Theoretical and Applied Perspectives on Pedagogy

Parent publication editors: Kunitz, Silvia; Markee, Numa; Sert, Olcay

ISBN: 978-3-030-52192-9

eISBN: 978-3-030-52193-6

Journal or series: Educational Linguistics

ISSN: 1572-0292

eISSN: 2215-1656

Publication year: 2021

Number in series: 46

Pages range: 197-223

Number of pages in the book: 426

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

Place of Publication: Cham

Publication country: Switzerland

Publication language: English

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52193-6_10

Publication open access: Not open

Publication channel open access: 

Abstract

This chapter compares two teachers’ definitional practices in two Content-and-Language-Integrated-Learning (CLIL) lessons, i.e. physics and history, which are taught in English in Finland. It adopts Dalton-Puffer’s (Eur J Appl Linguistics 1(2):216–253, 2013; Cognitive discourse functions: specifying an integrative interdisciplinary construct. In: Nikula T, Dafouz E, Moore P, Smit U (eds) Conceptualising integration in CLIL and multilingual education. Bristol: Multilingual Matters, pp. 29–54, 2016) theoretical construct of cognitive discourse functions (CDF) and showcases how it can be operationalized with empirical grounding. Multimodal conversation analysis (CA) is used to trace and observe how the teachers employ various multimodal resources in performing definitions of key concepts in classroom interaction, whereby they make the conceptual field related to the lessons’ topic accessible to the students. The study has two aims. First, it describes the similarities and differences in the teachers’ definitional practices and thereby contributes to our emerging understanding of what subject-specific language comprises when approached from an interactional perspective. In doing so, it also provides new insights into the relationship between content and language not only in L2, but also in L1 teaching. Second, by proposing a ‘pedagogical reflection tool’ that is based on the repeated and comparative practice of viewing either videos or transcripts, it illustrates methods to help raise and broaden teachers’ awareness of the notion of subject-specific language and of the relevance of multimodal resources in teaching. The findings can thus serve as a stepping-stone for pre- and/or in-service teacher training, which is not meant to provide ‘recipes’ of how definitions ought to be done, but rather to demonstrate how locally situated, yet recognizable teachers’ definitional practices are. As such, they are also transportable and adaptable to different situations across different subjects.

Keywords: content and language integrated learning; educational methods; definitions; multimodality; conversation analysis; linguistic interaction; languages; teaching and instruction; teachers

Free keywords: CLIL; subject-specific language; definitions; conversation analysis ; multimodality

Contributing organizations

Related projects

Ministry reporting: Yes

Reporting Year: 2021

JUFO rating: 2