Focusing on Content or Language?: Comparing Paired Conversations in CLIL and EFL Classrooms, Using a Corpus

Abstract

This preliminary comparative study examines two dyad interactions of Japanese learners of English in a Content and Language Integrated Learning classroom (CLIL) and a General English class (GE) at a Japanese university, focusing on discourse framework and the use of repair. Three research questions are addressed here: between these two settings, (1) are there any similarities and differences in numbers of words, turns and speaking time in the learner-learner dialogues?, (2) how do the learners frame discourses, and (3) what repairables are marked and what repair strategies are used in the respective contexts? The findings indicate longer but fewer turns were characterised in the interaction in the GE interaction, while shorter and frequent turn exchanges occurred in the CLIL one, which relates to discourse frameworks in the interactions in the two settings. Endorsement framework (topic initiation → suggestion for decision making → (dis-)alignment) was observed in the CLIL conversation with the frequent use of joint production, whereas the learners in GE adapted narrative framework (topic initiation → narrating → acknowledgement). The students in both contexts paid attention to linguistic/factual repairables. However, procedural repairables were marked only by the participants in the CLIL interaction. To repair the trouble sources, both self-repair and other-repair were used in the CLIL students although the GE participants only used the former. The distinct features in the two learner interactions might derive from differences in types of communicative action (c.f. Habermas J, Some further clarification of the concept of communicative rationality. In: Cooke M (ed) On the pragmatics of communication. The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, pp 307–382, 1996).