Pedagogic risk, creativity, and content and language integrated learning

Content and language integrated learning (CLIL) focuses on the simultaneous teaching of new content and new language, and is now well established as an effective means to not only develop an additional language, but also for its positive contribution to academic achievement and higher order thinking, mother tongue language and literacy, and the development of intercultural competence. Yet teaching content in “a language that students don’t know”—such as teaching a Science lesson in Japanese to students who speak English—seems counter-intuitive to what seems like basic and necessary conditions for learning to occur; i.e., access to the medium of instruction.

Through classroom-based investigations of pedagogic practice, this project builds on Holzman’s (2010) concept of “mundane creativity” within CLIL spaces (Cross, 2012) to understand the nature of “risk”—as it relates to both teachers and learners—with particular attention to its role in enabling, and even encouraging, learning through a “willingness to explore uncertainty” (Stepanossova & Grigorenko, 2006, p. 254).

This project is seeking proposals from potential doctoral candidates related to this focus.

Key projects and related publications

• Cross, R. (2012). Creative in finding creativity in the curriculum: The CLIL second language classroom. Australian Educational Researcher, 39(4), 431-445. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13384-012-0074-8
• Ohki, S. (2021). A sociocultural perspective of risk: An activity theoretical investigation into the influence of risk on teachers’ pedagogical knowledge and practice in a Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) context. PhD Dissertation.
• DEd Project (Kristofer Sapoetra): Additional Languages Teachers’ Awareness on Vygotskian Concept of Risk

People

• Russell Cross
• Yvette Slaughter
• Shu Ohki
• Kristofer Sapoetra