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Apart from linguistic diversity and multilingualism, empirical research into diversity is only in its beginnings in the Austrian educational context. CLIL research, on the other hand, is well-established but has not tended to focus on pedagogical practices. This study explores teachers' and students' self-reported experiences in Austrian CLIL classrooms with regard to the phenomenon of diversity and the pedagogical practices addressing it. This mixed-methods study used the research instruments (questionnaires, interview guides) developed in the ADiBE project. Three Viennese secondary schools with two classes each participated in the study. In total, 132 students answered the questionnaires. Six focus group interviews with 6–8 participants were conducted (one for each participating class). Teacher questionnaires were distributed in but also beyond the participating schools (N = 30), and eight teachers from the participating schools were interviewed. With regard to the phenomenon of diversity as such, our results suggest a system-inherent ambivalence between segregation and egalitarianism. Concerning pedagogical practices during CLIL lessons, such as language scaffolding, learner-centred design or use of German, the responses of students and teachers show that different aspects of classroom reality carry different weight with the two groups of participants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue including immersion teaching, foreign language teaching and teacher professional development.

It is now widely recognized among educators that explicit attention to language is necessary in order to optimize both language and content learning in situations, such as CLIL, where learners, teachers or both operate in a second language. However, the requirement of attention to language sits uneasily with the fact that content-subject specialist teachers frequently feel unprepared to think and operate in linguistic dimensions. In an attempt to create a conceptualisation that would speak to subject teachers in terms that are meaningful to them from within their own subjects, a Construct of Cognitive Discourse Functions (henceforth CDFs) has been proposed. This construct is theoretically founded in both educational curriculum theory and linguistic pragmatics and consists of a seven-fold categorization of verbalizations which express acts of thinking about subject matter in the classroom (CLASSIFY, DEFINE, DESCRIBE, EVALUATE, EXPLAIN, EXPLORE, REPORT). As the theoretical background of the CDF Construct has been discussed at length elsewhere (Dalton-Puffer 2013, 2016), it will be presented only briefly at the outset of this article. The main purpose of this contribution is to report on steps taken towards an empirical validation of the CDF Construct. A total of four smaller-scale studies each focusing on the classroom discourse in one subject (biology, physics, economics, history) will be surveyed in order to find answers to the questions of whether CDFs actually occur in class-room interaction and if they do, which and to what extent. Comparisons to a small complementary study on a set of EFL lessons will be made where appropriate. Results show that CDFs are indeed a staple of teaching and learning in classroombased education but are in no way equally distributed. Also, they are almost never the object of conscious attention. As a number of further questions remain yet to be answered on the way towards empirical validation of a fully articulated CDF Construct, these will be discussed in the conclusion of the article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some consider CLIL to be a “particular pedagogic manifestation of the task-based approach” (Skehan 1998, 276). In this study we examine learners working on a range of naturalistic tasks following the rationales of CLIL social science subjects in three European contexts (Austria, Finland, Spain). The focus is on learners' use of interpersonal resources, especially the language of evaluation. Using an integrative analytical framework that draws on systemic functional appraisal theory (Martin & White 2005), Goffman's (1981) participation framework as well as educational-pragmatic notions of academic discourse functions (e.g. evaluating; Dalton-Puffer 2007, 2013), we analyze CLIL students' evaluative language across five ecologically viable task-types (whole-class discussions, group-work discussions, individual interviews, oral presentations and role-plays). Findings show clear differences in the frequency and distribution of different appraisal types between different tasks, with role-play and whole-class discussion forming the opposite ends of a continuum. The analysis puts particular emphasis on the resources for engagement because of its significance for expressing learners' epistemological stance on curricular content. In educational terms such resources are often framed in terms of higher order thinking skills or discourse functions like arguing, evaluating. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Abstract: The aim of this paper is to explore the realization of directive speech acts in naturalistic classroom discourse as part of an overall characterization of content-and-language-integrated classrooms as discourse environments for foreign language learning. Conceptually and methodologically this study is rooted in the research practices developed in interlanguage and intercultural pragmatics. A chiefly qualitative analysis of directive speech acts in six content lessons in Austrian upper secondary schools is carried out. Contrary to expectations regarding both classrooms and non-native speakers of English, the language behavior of the participants shows considerable degrees of indirectness as well as variability in the realization of directive speech acts. It is shown that the realization of requests varies according to goal (information/action), which is itself tied to classroom register (instructional/regulative). It is furthermore argued that interactive styles of the L1 culture should also be considered as explanatory factors. The analysis underlines that CLIL classrooms are as firmly situated within the circumference of educational discourse as EFL lessons. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]