CLIL : Achieving Its Goals through a Multiliteracies Framework

This article examines how CLIL goals can best be realized by adopting a multiliteracies (New London Group, 1996) framework as it can provide 1) the critical link between content and language and allow students to not only develop their ability to produce and interpret texts, but also expand their critical awareness of the relationship between one another, discourse conventions, and social and cultural contexts, that our times demand and 2) an organizing principle for CLIL teachers that potentially promotes more principled curricular and pedagogical decision making and practices. Accordingly, I begin by examining shared rationales and goals between CLIL and a multiliteracies framework. Next, I highlight the ways in which to organize CLIL instruction through a multiliteracies framework. Finally, I conclude by presenting a model multiliteracies-based CLIL lesson.


INTRODUCTION
With the rise of globalization, the world has become interconnected in ways never seen before.New communication technologies are not only making it possible to exchange information broadly and quickly but are also allowing meaning to be made in increasingly multimodal ways.as an innovative form of education in response to the demands and expectations of the modern age".(Coyle et al., 2010, p. 5)) and a new pedagogy of literacy that the New London Group (1996) calls "multiliteracies", "one in which language and other modes of meaning are dynamic representational resources, constantly being remade by their users as they work to achieve their various cultural purposes" (Cope & Kalantzis, 2000, p. 5) .
Not only does the new economic, social and technological fabric change the way we might think about language and literacy, they also influence the way we might think about teaching and learning more generally.Graddol (2006) describes CLIL as "the ultimate communicative methodology".While communicative language teaching was "one step towards providing a more holistic way of teaching and learning languages… it has been insufficient in realizing the high level of authenticity of purpose which can be achieved through CLIL".(Coyle et al, 2010, p. 5).CLIL integrates four different but interrelated and contextualized components: content (subject matter), communication (language learning and using), cognition (learning and thinking processes) and culture (developing intercultural understanding and global citizenship), and calls for learners to be "active participants in developing their potential for acquiring knowledge and skills through a process of inquiry and by using complex cognitive processes and means for problem solving".(Coyle et al, 2010, pp 5-6) Similarly, literacy scholars, while recognizing the contributions made by communicative language teaching, acknowledge its shortcomings.Kern (2000) stresses that communicative language teaching, in primarily focusing on face-to-face, spoken communication, has by and large succeeded in its "goal of promoting learners' interactive speaking abilities " (p. 19).However, it has "tended to be somewhat less successful in developing learners' extended discourse competence and written communication skills-areas of language ability that are extraordinarily important in academic settings".(p.19) Furthermore, Swaffar (2006) underscores that communicative language teaching which "still reflects the strong structuralist leaning of its audiolingual predecessors" and "focuses on student recall of information rather than analysis of that information" (p.247) is not preparing learners to express and evaluate abstract ideas and concepts in the new language.She argues for "implementing a curriculum that enhance[s] students' intellectual horizons and, in so doing, enable[s] them to apply FL language abilities to a range of academic and practical endeavors" (Swaffar, 2006, p. 248).Swaffar, Arens and Byrnes (1991) contend that, from the start, students must do more than just learn vocabulary and grammar, and talk about their immediate world; they "must hear and read about verbally created worlds" (p.2).Primarily interested in the social dimensions of language learning, Kramsch (1993) sees the classroom itself as a special locus of "cross-cultural fieldwork" (p.29) where students learn and use the target language as well as reflect on its learning and use in order to achieve a deeper understanding of the target language and of themselves as intercultural explorers.For this kind of reflective engagement to take place, Kramsch and Nolden (1994) hold that a new type of literacy, one that is "centered more on the learner, based more on cross-cultural awareness and critical reflection" (p.28) has to be at the core of language education.Although the visions articulated here may differ on some level, CLIL and literacy scholars believe in the importance of moving from "a pedagogy of information-transmission to a pedagogy of meaning construction" (Kern, 2000, p. 21) in which learners have opportunities to create, interpret and reflect critically on the relations that exist between language and content and become aware of how meanings are designed and understood in their own culture and the other culture.A pedagogy of multiliteracies is one such framework that "can clear a path to new levels of understanding of language, culture and communication" (Kern, 2000, p. 16).Within this framework, Kern (2000) defined literacy as: The use of socially-, historically-, and culturally-situated practices of creating and interpreting meaning through texts.It entails at least a tacit awareness of the relationships between textual conventions and their contexts of use and, ideally, the ability to reflect critically on those relationships...It draws on a wide range of cognitive abilities, on knowledge of written and spoken language, on knowledge of genres, and on cultural knowledge.(p.16) In the next section, I focus on the what and how of a pedagogy of multiliteracies.

ORGANIZING CLIL INSTRUCTION USING A MULTILITERACIES FRAMEWORK: THE MEANING-MAKING PROCESS
A central notion in a multiliteracies framework is that knowledge and meaning are historically, socially and culturally located and produced.As such a multiliteracies framework (Kern, 2000;New London Group, 1996;Swaffar & Arens, 2005) expands the traditional and primarily language-based notion of literacy -typically defined as the ability to read and write -to include "not only the ability to produce and interpret texts, but also a critical awareness of the relationships between texts, discourse conventions, and social and cultural contexts" (Kern, 2000, p. 6), with the purpose of preparing learners to participate in diverse discourse communities, both at home and abroad, and fostering the critical engagement they need to "design their social futures" (New London Group, 1996, p. 60).Kern (2000) identified seven principles of literacy (interpretation, collaboration, conventions, cultural knowledge, problem solving, reflection and self-reflection, and language use) which can be summarized as "literacy involves communication" (p.17).According to Kern, "this seven-point linkage between literacy and communication has important implications for language teaching" (p.17) and supports the development of "translingual and transcultural competence", in other words, learners' ability to "operate between languages" (MLA, 2007, p. 3-4) as well as between their associated cultural framework.Design is a key notion of a multiliteracies framework and includes three interrelated concepts: Design is a dynamic process, a process of subjective self-interest and transformation, consisting of (i) The Designed (the available meaning-making resources, and patterns and conventions of meaning in a particular cultural context); (ii) Designing (the process of shaping emergent meaning which involves re-presentation and recontextualisation-this never involves a simple repetition of The Designed because every moment of meaning involves the transformation of the Available Designs of meaning); and (iii) The Redesigned (the outcome of designing, something through which the meaning-maker has remade themselves and created a new meaning-making resource-it is in this sense that we are truly designers of our social futures).(Kalantzis and Cope, 2008, pp. 203-204) In other words, Available Designs refers to all the resources-linguistic, visual, audio, gestural and multimodal, social and cultural-that a learner brings to a text to create meaning.
To interpret or produce a text, a learner draws upon these Available Designs to engage in Designing.Listening and speaking, reading and writing are all productive activities, forms of Designing.Oral and written texts are Available Designs.When engaging with texts, a learner draws on their experience with other Available Designs as a resource to making new meanings from these texts.In turn, Designing transforms the resources learners received in the form of Available Designs called the Redesigned.In order to facilitate the integration of textual interpretation and creation into CLIL instruction, learners would need to be made aware of their existing Available Designs in their L1 and help them decide which of their L1 Available Designs will be useful for interpreting or producing a given text and which should be replaced by Available Designs in their L2.
For example, in an English-taught CLIL course focusing on earth's climate, several sessions might be devoted to examining the science and politics of global climate change, and the focus of one of these sessions might be ecolabels, how they came about and what their purpose is.For example, for learners to be able to design the meaning of the text Environmental Choice and graphic (three interlaced birds that make up a maple leaf) in the label in Figure 1, they must have an understanding of vocabulary and syntax, of typographical conventions (capitalization is typically used to draw attention), of style (familiarity with the label genre, which is often characterized by an elliptical style.If learners were to fill in what language has not been made explicit in the text, they would read "[By buying this product, you make a] choice [that is good for the environment].").Learners must also have background knowledge regarding the maple leaf, a symbol of Canada's historical, economic and environmental link to trees, the fact that Canada has two official languages-French and English-and that product labels must be shown in both languages to be in compliance with regulations, and of the stories related to the development of this label as a result of growing global concerns for ecological protection and its launching in 1988 by the Canadian federal government.One also cannot ignore the ideological component of the discourse found in the text and graphic of this label.Specific reader knowledge is key in interpreting such a text and graphic.While teachers' explanations can initially be the primary source of the background knowledge learners need, ultimately, learners will have to derive background knowledge in the same way native speakers do, that is by extensive experience with texts.It is by using these Available Designs that learners construct meaning and access the linguistic, social and cultural content of the label.Next, learners can make further use of these Available Designs to engage in Designing and by that means transform the text by modifying its vocabulary and grammar, drawing a different logo, or rewriting the text to better fit their purposes.Each of these transformations is an example of the Redesigned.And, now, the Redesigned becomes a new Available Design, a new resource of meaning-making.
To translate the process of meaning-making into the pragmatics of pedagogy, four curricular components-Situated Practice, Overt Instruction, Critical Framing, and Transformed Practice-proposed by the New London group (1996), provide the structure to organize multiliteracies activities which engage learners in acts of meaning design.
Situated practice activities give learners the opportunity to immerse themselves in meaningful, unrehearsed language use on topics anchored in the 'here and now' within a community of learners, which must include experts who can serve as mentors and designers of their learning processes.Situated Practice activities involve "the use of Available Designs in a context of communication but without conscious reflection, without metalanguage" (Kern, 2000, p. 133).Situated Practice contribute to what Cummins (1981) refers to as BICS (Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills), that is context-embedded language use, whereas the other three curricular components Overt Instruction, Critical Framing, and Transformed Practice contribute to CALP (Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency).For example, in Direct-Reading-Thinking Activities (DRTA), which is well suited for beginning learners, the goal is to lead learners to pause as they engage with a text, make hypotheses based on what will happen next, and articulate their reasoning.In the process, learners develop their procedural knowledge of reading, and also become aware of the individual and social dimensions of reading.
Overt Instruction activities are not about direct transmission, mechanical drills, and rote memorization, although it may have these connotations.Instead, in these activities, learners focus on Available Designs and their use, in other words, they identify and analyze the formal and functional aspects of texts which they may, in turn, use to create meaning on their own.Semantic mapping is an example of Overt Instruction.In this activity, learners explore a word or an idea found in a text, and identify relationships between the word or idea and other textual elements.The purpose of semantic mapping is to help learners become aware of the role played by contextual factors in their interpretation of words.
The goal of Critical Framing activities is to provide learners with opportunities to draw "on the metalanguage developed through overt instruction to direct conscious attention to relationships among elements within the linguistic system as well as relationships between language use and social contexts and purposes" (Kern, 2000, p.133).In other words, Critical Framing activities involve learners standing back from the meanings they are studying and looking at them critically in relation to their context.In critical framing activities, such as critical focus questions, the purpose is to make learners aware of the significance of the lexical and syntactical choices authors make on how they react to a text.Once learners understand the effect that one lexical choice versus another can have, they can be asked to rewrite the text from a perspective different than the one found in the original.At this point the critical framing activity has been extended to transformed practice.
Being able to identify, analyze, and articulate their understanding of the various elements that contribute to meaning or reflect on the relations and interactions among Design, communicative context and sociocultural context is not sufficient.Learners need to return where they began, Situated Practice, but now a practice, a Transformed Practice, which involves transfer in meaning-making.In Transformed Practice, transformed meaning is put to work in communicative, social and cultural contexts other than those for which they were intended in the first place.In the previous example, rewriting the text from a different perspective exemplifies what transformed practice is about.
In Table 2 below, additional reading, writing and oral activities are listed in terms of each of the curricular components.Cummins (2008) sums up a multiliteracies framework best: The essence of this framework is that students should be given opportunities to engage in meaningful experiences and practice within a learning community, and the development of concepts and understanding should be supported by explicit instruction as required.Students should also have opportunities to step back from what they have learned and examine concepts and ideas critically in relation to their social relevance.Finally, they should be given opportunities to take the knowledge they have gained further-to put it into play in the world of ideas and come to understand how their insights can exert an impact on people and issues in the real world.(p.243).
These four curricular components do not make a linear hierarchy and do not represent a rigid sequence, there is no prescribed order in which they need to appear; they are related in complex ways and elements of each may at times overlap, while at different times, one or the other may take center stage; and they can be revisited at different levels during an instructional sequence.Situated Practice, Overt Instruction, Critical Framing, and Transformed Practice are four essential elements of a full and effective pedagogy and teachers will want to make sure that all four are represented when designing an instructional sequence.

IMPLEMENTING A PEDAGOGY OF MULTILITERACIES IN CLIL: A SAMPLE INSTRUCTIONAL SEQUENCE
Before offering a multiliteracies-based instructional sequence for a CLIL lesson that brings together all four curricular components, I first want to briefly focus on key differences between CLT (communicative language teaching) and multiliteracies frameworks to avoid confusion at the implementation stage.
It was established early on that while CLT has by and large succeeded in promoting learner's interpersonal spoken abilities, it has not been as successful in developing learners' extended discourse competence and written communication skills.This is due in large part to the fact that this framework does not incorporate many of the principles of literacy identified by Kern (2000): interpretation, problem solving, reflection, and self-reflection.Furthermore, when CLT appears to share principles with a multiliteracies framework, it turns out that they are fundamentally different.
One of these principles is collaboration.CLT, a learner-centered pedagogy, focuses primarily on individualistic oral self-expression carried out in pair, small group or teacher-led activities, and not on joint social engagement with texts.Typically, the purpose of collaboration in CLT is to practice language forms through the exchange of information about the self.Interactions are often socially de-contextualized.Reading and writing are viewed as solitary rather than collaborative acts and often take place outside of the classroom.
A second principle, only superficially shared by each framework, is language use.Language use refers to the way language is used in spoken and written texts to create discourse.In a multiliteracies framework, language use is always contextualized and involves both linguistic and schematic knowledge.It primarily occurs within the context of oral or written texts that belong to the secondary discourses of public life such as surveys, reports, or essays.On the other hand, CLT emphasizes language use for the purpose of practicing targeted structures within the context of oral or written texts that belong to the primary discourses of familiar life such as diary entries, personal narratives, or casual conversations.CLT focuses on language use whereas a pedagogy of multiliteracies focuses on language use and its relationship to language usage.
Conventions is another principle that also differs quite significantly between CLT and multiliteracies frameworks.CLT's focus is first and foremost on the acquisition of linguistic conventions (e.g., writing systems, grammar, vocabulary, and cohesion and coherence devices) to carry out specific functions such as ordering food, relating past events, or complaining about pains and aches.In a multiliteracies framework, conventions are viewed as culturally constructed, informing how learners read and write, and evolving through use over time.Conventions include linguistic resources as well as schematic resources related to a broad spectrum of written and spoken genres (e.g., advertisement, political posters, labels, speeches, etc.), their organizational patterns, and their specific ways of using language.
Finally, the cultural knowledge principle in CLT and multiliteracies frameworks is different too.While language and culture and the link between the two is tenuous at best in CLT, in a multiliteracies framework, language is viewed as operating within "particular systems of attitudes, beliefs, customs, ideals and values" (Kern, 2000, p.17).• Active participation -using language in face to face interaction in contexts and genres characteristic of primary discourses of familiarity • Active engagement -using language, reflecting on language use, revising and editing in contexts and genres characteristic of secondary discourses of public life  (Kern, 2000) in which they work in pairs to transform the testimony into an interview with 2 voices: a journalist and James Hansen.Then, in an Overt Instruction activity, students examine the discourse structure of James Hansen's testimony.In a Critical Framing activity, students answer critical focus questions asked by the teacher.The goal is to allow students to examine the discourse organization of James Hansen's testimony, see the linguistic devices used in the testimony and the effect they produce.Finally, students in a Transformed Practice activity elaborate on the Reader's theater activity they worked on earlier by writing up the interview with James Hansen for a weekly news magazine of their choice.This can serve as summative assessment for the lesson.
This instructional sequence serves to show how a multiliteracies approach can be implemented.This is not a template but rather a set of best practices that can help teachers structure CLIL instruction through a multiliteracies framework.

CONCLUSION
The field of FL education is in the midst of a major paradigm shift which is fueled in part by the realization that FL education can, not only help learners grow linguistically but also, help them develop critical thinking and discourse skills necessary for them to be successful in a complex world in which communities are ever more multiethnic, multilingual, and multicultural and in which meaning is increasingly made in multimodal ways.The call for change found in Kern (2000), Swaffar and Arens (2005), the 2007 MLA report is, first and foremost, a call for a type of contextualized language instruction aimed at promoting students' (critical) thinking skills while helping them develop proficiency in the target language.This goal perfectly aligns with the mission that meaning-based curricular approaches such as CLIL, supported by a pedagogy of multiliteracies, can foster.
Reaching the goals of a CLIL multiliteracies-based curriculum largely hinges on the professional development of language teachers.Given the predominance of CLT on language instruction, many instructors have consequently been trained in CLT, and thus may have limited or no knowledge of alternative frameworks, or how to apply them in the classroom.A multiliteracies-based curriculum demands that language teachers re-conceptualize the nature of their trade; in essence, it engages them in a struggle to explore, rearrange, and even reformat preconceived notions regarding language teaching and learning.
To prepare teachers for a multiliteracies-based curriculum, teacher educators must think of ways to prepare teachers not just as language experts but also as literacy experts.Teachers' perceptions of what language teaching is all about must be broadened.Issues related to Available Designs, the four curricular components, and the seven principles of literacy must be addressed.Targeted pedagogical strategies and instructional materials that teachers can use in the classroom must be examined.The development of conceptual knowledge and strategies for effectively implementing a pedagogy of multiliteracies takes time.
To implement a pedagogy of multiliteracies, ongoing professional development ought to include repeated opportunities for FL instructors to engage with and appropriate related concepts and pedagogical strategies.The methods course is not enough, and professional development opportunities beyond this course ought to include workshops, lectures/webinars given by outside experts, informal discussions, and/or additional coursework in applied linguistics or FL pedagogy.In addition, to be effective, professional development activities should be structured according to a multiliteracies framework and reflect the four curricular components and integration of principles of literacy such as interpretation, collaboration, reflection and selfreflection.
For example, the unit entitled "The spectrum of opinions on climate change: Scientists vs. the Public" shows how the four curricular components work together to develop students' academic literacy and linguistic competence (see Appendix).After an introductory lesson in which such notions as Co 2 and Greenhouse gases have been presented, the unit continues with lesson two, which starts off with Situated Practice in order to tap into students' Available Designs through interaction with a series of visual images of extreme weather phenomena.Students talk about what they see in the images and make hypotheses about what the common factor among these might be.This is followed next by students surveying their peers on their beliefs and attitudes toward climate change.Next, students scan James Hansen's 2008 testimony to the U.S. Congress, and highlight the climate phenomena mentioned in the text and their underlying causes.These activities are meant to prepare students for the next set of activities in which they will be examining the emotional, social, cultural, and linguistic aspects of James Hansen's 2008 testimony to the U.S. Congress.The instructional sequence continues with Overt Instruction in which students draw a climate change concept map based on James Hansen's 2008 testimony to the U.S. Congress.Next, students go back to James Hansen's 2008 testimony to the U.S. Congress, this time engaging in Situated Practice through a Reader's Theater