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Integration of content and language pedagogies: cognitive discourse functions

in the CLIL history classroom

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Silvia Bauer-Marschallinger
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 CELTMatters 2(2018)

Integration of content and language

pedagogies: cognitive discourse functions
in the CLIL history classroom

Silvia Bauer-Marschallinger1

 A (very) short introduction to history education in Austria

 A theoretical inquiry into the role of language for teaching and learning historical
competences
 Empirical evidence of the interconnectedness of cognitive discourse functions (CDFs)
and historical competences
 A brief check-list for designing CDF- and competency-based history activities

1. Introduction
Until recently, CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) research has mainly
investigated aspects of language acquisition while CLIL teaching practice has been largely
defined by content-focused curricula and materials (Llinares, 2015). Lately, however,
researchers have started to highlight the importance of properly integrating content and
language pedagogies, as the label CLIL would suggest (Dalton-Puffer & Smit, 2013).
One suggested notion that is genuinely interdisciplinary and able to meaningfully bridge
language- and content-learning goals is the concept of cognitive discourse functions (CDFs).
Dalton-Puffer (2013) defines CDFs as recurrent language patterns used to express and
communicate thinking processes. To come up with a theoretically explicit as well as
operationalizable construct, Dalton-Puffer (2013) reviewed a considerable number of
academic language constructs which were then structured and condensed based on
underlying communicative intentions about dealing with knowledge (cf. functional pragmatics,
Ehlich & Rehbein, 1986), resulting in seven basic types of CDF, namely CLASSIFY, DEFINE,
DESCRIBE, EVALUATE, EXPLAIN, EXPLORE, and REPORT.

This paper aims to find out to what extent working with CDFs overlaps with working on
historical competences. Put differently, this study explores the role of language, in the form of

1University of Vienna, e-mail for correspondence: silvia.bauer-marschallinger@univie.ac.at

This contribution is part of a special focus on upper secondary CLIL. Please see the introductory
article “Introducing four papers on upper secondary CLIL. Crossing the divides between language and
content subjects” by Dalton-Puffer & Smit (2018) for further information.

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CDFs, for competency-based history education. For that purpose, the CDF-Construct will be
mapped against the FUER (Förderung und Entwicklung eines reflektierten
Geschichtsbewusstsein) 2 competency model (Körber, Schreiber, & Schöner, 2007), which
underlies the Austrian secondary history curriculum, on two levels:
First of all, the congruence of the CDF-Construct and the FUER model will be examined at
the level of theory by identifying CDF-Types relevant for the performance and acquisition of
all competences of the FUER model. Secondly, these overlaps will be indicatively cross-
checked from an empirical perspective via an analysis of two didactic units about the
Industrial Revolution taught in two Austrian history CLIL classrooms.
These two levels of analysis are encapsulated in the following research questions:

RQ1
Can the CDF-Construct be mapped onto the Austrian curricular model of history
education (FUER) in a meaningful way (analysis of concepts)?

RQ2
Do learners realize FUER historical competences via cognitive discourse functions in
naturalistic history lessons and if yes how (empirical analysis)?
Answering these two research questions will also shed light on the usefulness of the CDF-
Construct as an interdisciplinary tool in the context of CLIL history education.
However, before these questions can be answered, the FUER model will be briefly
introduced. For more information on the CDF-Construct, see Dalton-Puffer (2013, 2016).

2. A (very) short introduction to history education in Austria

Following a paradigm shift to a more competency-based approach, the Austrian curriculum
and new final exam (Matura) now centre on the acquisition of historical competences as
defined by the FUER research group (Körber, Schreiber & Schöner, 2007). Key aspects of
this model are self-reliance, responsibility and reflection as students should be willing and
able to apply their skills responsibly and autonomously (cf. Weinert, 2001). The FUER model
describes a cyclical thought process (see Figure 1) based on four different main skills:

2 Translation: promotion and development of a reflective historical awareness

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 CELTMatters 2(2018)

Figure 1: FUER competency model (Körber et al., 2007), translations by Bauer-Marschallinger

(2016)

1) In this model, the starting point of historical thought is questioning competence, which
is concerned with paying attention to historical questions and issues (identifying,
classifying and deconstructing questions) as well as asking one’s own questions
about the past (formulating questions).
2) As a next step, learners are supposed to find answers by turning to historical sources,
for which they need methodological competence, consisting of two sub-skills. First,
students should analyse the source on several levels (deconstruction competence).
Once they have deconstructed a number of sources and compared results, the
learners should synthesize these pieces of information into one narrative
(reconstruction competence).
3) These narratives should be used to orientate oneself in the present and manage
one’s historical awareness. This set of skills is termed as orientation competence and
includes the ability and willingness to use these newly gained insights to alter one’s
historical awareness (re-organisation competence) and identity, to take over other
perspectives (other-awareness) and to develop a set of tools that might be useful for
facing other present or future problems (action-repertoire).
4) Historical expertise does not form a distinct step in the process of historical thought.
Instead, this competence is concerned with knowledge management, which is
necessary for the whole process. Historical expertise consists of two sub-
competences, namely terminology competence which is about understanding and
accurately using historical terminology and structuring competence which describes
the ability to organize and structure historical content.

At the end of a historical thought process, new questions might arise, initiating a new cycle.

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3. Analysis of concepts

All competences and their subskills have been hermeneutically analysed by looking at their
connections to language, i.e. how these skills are likely to be realized in terms of CDF use. 3
For example, when students deconstruct a historical source, they might need to:

 identify the type of source (CLASSIFY)

 DESCRIBE the source
 DEFINE relevant terms
 EVALUATE its historical value
 EXPLAIN motives of the author/ artist
 compare it to other sources (CLASSIFY)
 make hypotheses about the source (EXPLORE)
 REPORT results

Table 1 presents an overview of the analysis of concepts, indicating which CDFs might be
relevant for the performance of the individual (sub-) competences within history.

Table 1: Overview of competences & CDFs4

CLASSIFY DEFINE DESCRIBE EVALUATE EXPLAIN EXPLORE REPORT

questioning
competence
    
methodological
      
competences
orientation
competences:
other-awareness      
identity    
re-organisation     
action-repertoire     
historical
expertise
      

These results suggest that the CDF-Construct is indeed compatible with the FUER
competency model as each competence, in theory, requires a broad range of CDF-Types
and each CDF-Type is connected to several skills. Therefore, it seems that competency-
based history teaching as specified by the curriculum is closely linked to language in the form
of CDF use.

3For a full discussion on the theoretical congruence of the FUER competences and CDF-Construct,
see Bauer-Marschallinger (2016, chapter 3).
4 Not-specified sub-skills share the same CDF relations as their superordinate skill.

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4. Empirical study: mapping CDFs and FUER competences onto

classroom discourse
The outcomes of the analysis of concepts were also examined empirically via lesson
observation.5

4.1 Research context

The empirical part of the study was conducted in two different secondary schools in Vienna
(details see Table 2 below), both offering CLIL as an option. In these bilingual branches two
to three subjects are taught in English every year. Furthermore, the teachers are regularly
accompanied by a native speaker teacher whose main task is to encourage students to
speak the target language and provide linguistic support in terms of vocabulary,
pronunciation, and spelling.
The units observed and analysed were not specifically designed for this study and focus on
the Industrial Revolution (IR), which is listed in the curriculum of both lower and upper
secondary. However, the two units address slightly different aspects as a result of the
different grade levels. The lower secondary students also had to come up with written group
reports on one aspect of children and the IR, which were also added to the corpus.

Table 2: Overview of participants and data

School School A School B

Number and age of students 25, age 12-13 17, age 15-16
Teachers T1 (history, EFL), T2 (US native T1 (history, geography), T2
speaker teacher) (UK native speaker teacher)
School type public academic lower secondary private academic upper
secondary
Oral data 4 lessons, 9484 words 4 lessons, 12770 words
Written data5 171 exam responses 150 exam responses
7 written reports (1516 words)

Total number of CDF 256 (written & spoken data) 389 (written & spoken data)
realisations

4.2 Research process

The lessons, including group work phases, were filmed as well as partly transcribed, only
covering content-related utterances. Then, all student productions were coded twice, once
applying the categories of the FUER model and once applying the seven CDF-Types. The
CDF categorisation was based on assumed underlying communicative intention. These
utterances (or sequences) were also qualitatively analysed with regard to lexico-grammatical
aspects. The analysis presented here focuses on a discussion of the most apparent forms

5In the diploma thesis, the links between CDFs and FUER competences were also examined via
written competency-based tests. For these results, see Bauer-Marschallinger (2016, chapter 6).

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 CELTMatters 2(2018)

(e.g. cohesive devices, modality etc.) which helps provide an accurate representation of the
classroom reality.

A central aspect of the empirical analysis was comparing the results of the two different
categorisation processes in order to establish connections between competences and CDF-
Types. These overlaps were quantitatively described in terms of frequency and visualized in
heatmaps (see section 5).

To exemplify the analysis, an extract taken from a lower secondary group report is provided
below:

Most woman had lots of babies becouse [sic] birthcontrol was not widespread. Although
child-bearing was dangerous and many woman died at it. This was caused by queen
Victoria who had nine children. The royal house became a model for many woman. If a
woman gave birth to five, usually only three survived because of childhood diseases.
Here, the students tried to come up with a historical narrative explaining demographic
change in Victorian times. As such, this sequence was identified as an example of
reconstruction competence and EXPLAIN. Linguistically, the students used different strategies
to express cause-effect relationships, which have been marked in bold in this extract. Apart
from the typo, becouse and because of are used correctly. The caused-by construction,
however, is inaccurately linked. Phrased like this, it would mean that Queen Victoria were to
blame for high maternal mortality. This misunderstanding is enforced by an imprecise
anaphoric use of this. When reading on, it becomes somewhat clearer what the students
were trying to say.

5. Findings
In total, the students produced 265 CDFs in the lessons observed, with 73% appearing in the
upper secondary context (Figure 2). The lessons in school B, the upper secondary class,
were very dense in terms of content and activities whereas younger students often talked
about something unrelated to the task at hand. As can be seen in Figure 2, DESCRIBE was
the most common CDF-Type in both groups, which corresponds to similar studies concerned
with other subjects (e.g. Hofmann & Hopf, 2015; Kröss, 2014). In terms of frequency,
EXPLAIN, DEFINE, EVALUATE and CLASSIFY follow on a rather similar scale. Yet, significant
differences can be observed between the age groups. REPORT, however, was almost equally
used by both groups while EXPLORE (last rank) was only produced by upper secondary
students.

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 CELTMatters 2(2018)

Figure 2: CDF distribution in the lessons

50
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
CLASSIFY DEFINE DESCRIBE EVALUATE EXPLAIN EXPLORE REPORT

lessons school A lessons school B

The overlaps of CDF-Types and historical competences in the classroom data are
summarized in Figure 3 and 4 below. The absolute numbers of the co-occurrences of
competences and CDF-Types are reflected by the intensity of the shade (in relation to the
total number of this particular data set). In other words, the darker the shade, the more
frequently these two categories overlapped in the respective data set.
As for the lower secondary data set, these three observations are most noteworthy:

 Questioning competence and historical expertise are very rare and restricted to only
one CDF-Type in this data set.
 Learners frequently reconstructed their own narratives, which mainly consist of
descriptions, without ever critically analysing any source (deconstruction
competence).
 EVALUATE seems to be the prime CDF-Type for orientation competence.

Figure 3: Overlaps of FUER model and CDF-Construct in the lower secondary classroom

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 CELTMatters 2(2018)

The overall picture changes when turning to the upper secondary classroom data (Figure 4).
For example, methodological competences as well as historical expertise diversify
linguistically. Put differently, the more experienced students demonstrated a greater variety
of competences and performed these via a wider repertoire of discourse functions.

Figure 4: Overlaps of FUER model and CDF-Construct in the upper secondary classroom

6. Conclusion
The analysis of concepts suggests that the CDF-Construct and the FUER model are indeed
a good match as the performance of historical competences theoretically rests on a wide
range of different CDF-Types (RQ1). Furthermore, the empirical data also suggests a strong
connection between the two constructs, indicating that CDFs are an inextricable element in
working towards historical competences in the lessons observed (RQ2). As such, Dalton-
Puffer’s construct proved to be a useful heuristic for competency-based history education.
Nevertheless, explicit reference to any CDF-Type could only be rarely observed. Finally,
CDF use varies according to content goals, target competence and grade level. Concerning
grade level, the more experienced students did not only produce quantitatively more and
longer sequences but also qualitatively better CDF realizations in terms of greater lexical and
structural variety.
The results of this study imply that subject (CLIL) teachers should be more aware of the
interplay between language and subject-specific competences. Moreover, the findings further
indicate that teaching CDFs explicitly could not only promote language development but
could also be beneficial for the acquisition of subject-specific skills. A first, tentative guideline
how this could be done in a CLIL history setting is provided on the following page. However,
further (translational) research is necessary to better understand the conceptual links
between content and language and, more specifically, to provide more systematic and
extensive research-based guidelines concerning the integration of content and language
learning, ensuring that educational research can be carried into the classroom.

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 CELTMatters 2(2018)

Application Box
 When preparing competency-based activities, try to think about language
demands of your tasks (i.e. Which CDFs do learners need to meaningfully
perform the task?)
 With your target group in mind, decide which functions you want your students
to use and be explicit about it. For example, instead of asking them to ‘analyse’
the historical source, you could break up the task into its individual operations.

Here is an example: [To clarify the relationship between tasks and CDF-Types as
well as competences, target CDF-Types are indicated by SMALL CAPS and
competences by italics]

TASK – political consequences of the Industrial Revolution

Look at this political cartoon and do the tasks below. Argue with what you see on
the picture and what you know from the lessons.
1) Describe the cartoon. [DESCRIBE - deconstruction competence]
2) This caricature was produced in 1894, which is long after the peak of the
Industrial Revolution. Explain to what extent it is still connected to the Industrial
Revolution. [EXPLAIN: give reasons - deconstruction competence]
3) Discuss the artist’s intentions for producing this cartoon. [EXPLAIN motives/
EXPLORE - deconstruction competence/ other-awareness]
4) Argue whether (or in which ways) this cartoon is still relevant in the 21st century.
[EVALUATE - re-organisation competence]
Cartoon retrieved from https://www.workdayminnesota.org/day-historys/pullman-strike-
investigation

 Now, think about lexico-grammatical aspects needed to perform these CDF-

Types. For instance, when asked to explain, are your learners able to connect
causes and consequences adequately? 27 Think about how you could support
them to successfully realize the target CDFs.
 CELTMatters 2(2018)

References
Bauer-Marschallinger, S. (2016). Acquisition of Historical Competences in the CLIL History Classroom
(Diploma Thesis). University of Vienna, Vienna.
Dalton-Puffer, C. (2013). A construct of cognitive discourse functions for conceptualising content-
language integration in CLIL and multilingual education. European Journal of Applied
Linguistics, 1(2), 216–253.
Dalton-Puffer, C. (2016). Cognitive discourse functions: specifying and integrative interdisciplinary
construct. In T. Nikula, E. Dafouz, P. Moore, & U. Smit (Eds.), Conceptualising integration in
CLIL and multilingual education (pp. 29–54). Bristol ; Buffalo: Multilingual Matters.
Dalton-Puffer, C., & Smit, U. (2013). Content and Language Integrated Learning: A research agenda.
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Kommunikation. Tübingen: G. Narr.
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lessons (Diploma Thesis). University of Vienna, Vienna. Retrieved from
http://othes.univie.ac.at/37658/
Körber, A., Schreiber, W., & Schöner, A. (Eds.). (2007). Kompetenzen historischen Denkens: ein
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Kröss, L. M. (2014). Cognitive discourse functions in upper secondary CLIL Physics lessons (Diploma
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Pullman Company. (n.d.). [Cartoon]. Retrieved from https://www.workdayminnesota.org/day-
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