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    Operationalizing Defining For Learners' Use PDF

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    Operationalizing “Defining” from a Cognitive Discourse Perspective for Learners’ Use Nashewa Nashaat Sobhy Universidad San Jorge, Spain, Dalton-Puffer’s (2016) construct of cognitive discourse function (cpr) invites TESOL and CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) educators to make “the process of thought available for learning” and to enable students to verbalize these thoughts. The construct includes seven interdisciplinary academic functions with different macro-realizers and internal structures, which are classifying, defining, describing, evaluating, explaining, exploring and reporting. The point of departure for this chapter was the operationaliza- tion of “defining’ as a cDF forleamer use (Dalton-Puffer, 2016, pp-29-54). This operationalization took the form of a template that was extended toa group of tertiary students in an English Medium Instruction program that adopts cut, principles. The definition template, illustrating the possible macro-moves when defining, was incorporated in different activities in a core non-language subject in the degree of education between February and May 2016. Students) perceptions about the template and the activities were surveyed anonymously, which together with the students’ actual use of the template and their written definitions were used to determine the usefulness of thei Summary of the Selected Research ‘The pedagogical activities reported here are based on Dalton-Puffer’s (2016) construct of cognitive discourse functions (CDFs), also referred to as aoa- demic language functions. The aim from the activities is to contribute to the operationalization of ‘defining’—one of seven coFs—for students’ use and to explore its role in connecting content and language learning in a bilingual educational setting, This initiative was motivated by the calls in the European Union (EU) by the Council of Europe (2014) and in North America (cf. Bailey, 2007) to outline students’ academic language proficiency in better measures than the existing ones. A quick search for what academic language proficiency entails typically leads toliterature explaining the difference between Cummin’s (© onisxuiyax exiit 1 t8up8N, 2029 | Dorsi9269/9768004992472_007 “DEFINING” FROM A COGNITIVE DISCOURSE PERSPECTIVE 95 (0979, 2004, 2008) concept of Basic Interpersonal Communicative Skills (31s) and Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (caLP), and to references con- cerning knowledge of discipline-specific terminology and rhetorical conven- tions, Teachers drawing on these resources when planning for teaching and assessing curricular goals wade through over fifty cognitive actions (Anderson & Krathwohl et al,, 2001; Bloom, 1956) which students are required to perform verbally across subjects to demonstrate their knowledge of content. This can be particularly difficult for teachers and students who share the status of users, of an additional or a foreign language (henceforth, La), where teachers of non- language subjects may not be in a position to deal effectively with language- related matters. However, if the linguistic realizations of interdisciplinary cognitive actions—ie, CDFs—are operationalized and accessible, the gap between content and language teaching and learning could be narrowed (Dalton-Puffer, 2016, p.30)-Because of the potential cbs have to provide its users with verbal- izations of seven cognitive processes as opposed to fifty-four cognitive actions and because the construct approaches academic language proficiency from an integrated content and language perspective, itis the research-based knowl- edge on which the pedagogical activities in this chapter are based. The follow- ing section expands further on the construct of cDFs and its importance in the context of teaching and leaming content through an L2. Dalton-Puffer (2016) being the foundation for the work at hand will be referred to in the remainder of this chapter as ‘Dalton-Puffer’ without further specifications except where stated differently. ‘The cpr Construct and its Grounding in Content and Language Education As previously mentioned, cDFs are verbal routines reflecting cognitive pro- cesses that teachers and leamers need to use in order to convey abstract knowledge. These were grouped under seven main communicative proto- types or categories, namely: classify define; describe, evaluate; explain; explore and report. Table 61 shows the seven categories and the cognitive discourse function verbs subsumed under each. ‘The left column represents the seven prototypical categories that group the range of verbs underlying a particular category as per Dalton-Puffer. The range of member verbs belonging to each category is spelled out in the right column, Itneeds to be noted the CDF labels are normal English lexemes whose meanings are activated differently in different contexts (Dalton-Puffer, 2013) 96 sosny ‘tasis6. CDF types and thelr member verbs Labels of coF types, Member verbs of the coe types cuassirr Classi, compare, contrast, match structure, categorize, subsume DEFINE Define identify, characterize DESCRIBE Describe, label, identify name, specify EVALUATE Bvaluate, Judge, argue, justify take a stance, ertique, recommend, comment; reflect, appreciate EXPLAIN Explain, reason, express cause/effect, draw conclusions, deduce EXPLORE Explore, hypothesize, speculate, predict, guess, estimate, simulate, take other perspectives, xevoRT Report, inform, recount, narrate, present, summarize, relate For example, “define” is « abel for one of the types of the cognitive discourse functions—not a terminology—and is also one of the actions (a verb) through which its corresponding cDF is carried out. Despite the apparent familiarity of cDFs to us as regular features in ace- demic curricula, the linguistic enactments of these processes are not intuitive, and are more challenging in the case of learners and teachers operating in La contexts, where content teachers have often voiced that they have limitations concerning language matters. Dalton-Puffer’s explorations into cs draw on 11 lesson transcripts from the corpus of the ConcLit. project (Conceptual Framework for Content and Language Integrated Learning), which includes a total of 41 lesson transcripts covering teacher and student exchanges in the subjects of history, geography, science, accounting, business studies, and tour- ism from Spain, Austria and Finland (cf, Nikula et al, 2016). Her main objec- tive was to identify examples from naturalistic oral classroom discourse that demonstrate the manner and the frequency in which these CDFs are enacted. ‘Though Delton-Pufier refers in her work to the context of content and language integrated learning (cL1L) developed in the European Union, it is important to digress and clarify two points, First, CLL is similar—if not syn- ‘onymous—to Content-Based Instruction (cx) in the Usa and Canadian French Immersion. Second, both cit and cer have multiple models that can range from being more oriented towards foreign or additional language learning or to content-subject learning through an La (Cenoz, 2015; Tedick & Cammarata, 2012). ‘DEFINING” FROM A COGNITIVE DISCOURSE PERSPECTIVE 97 ‘Thats to say, the contentof Dalton-Puffer’s proposal is equally valid for any edu- cational context where the students learn through a language other than their mother tongue. The proposal put forward by Dalton-Puffer is that cognitive pro- cesses across subjects are communicated through language discourse functions, needed by content and language teachers alike. By making the linguistic realiza- tions of these processes visible, the breach between expressing content and lan- guage can be bridged and teachers can use them as schemata or scaffolds to help students identify and produce discourse functions necessary for academic pro .g7ess. cDFs are also seen as a meeting point for language and content teachers to plan teaching and assessment inthe bilingual contexts of CLt1, cB1, Immersion or other similar programs. Dalton-Puffer’s (2013, 2016) explorations into cors showed that teachers tend to refer to cps implicitly; teachers and students use a limited range of linguistic resources to express CDF; and students have limited opportunities to use them during lessons. As mentioned in the introduction, this chapter focuses on the CDF of “defining” only, which is a vast topic on its own. The following section is a brief review on the importance of definitions and defining for academic literacy, its types, and the constituents or the realizers of each type. “Defining” asa cor ‘A definition is a speech act that expresses the relationship between a term and its exponents (Swales, 981). Defining’ isa core academic function across disciplines (Beacco, 2010; Vollmer, 2010) and is central to academic wating (Trimble, 1985). Not only is it a function that aids and maintains compre- hension in any given situation (Flowerdew, 1992), but it is also beneficial as a language learning skill as it engages students in learning and produc- ing syntactically constrained grammatical features that are representative of academic language. Students analyze their own knowledge and exert control over form(s) when producing information about a target term whether to show knowledge or share information with others; therefore, “defining” can be used to develop students’ vocabulary and grammar (Snow et aly 199i) It is important not to generalize the latter statement since definitions come in different shapes and sizes; they can occupy whole pages in specialized text (Trimble, 1985, p. 75), but can also be easily simplified in a word or a short phrase (Delton-Putfer, 2013). Syntactically, definitions are classified into three types: formal, semi-formal and non-formal, where formality refers to the structural preciseness of the definition, ie,, a precise definition is considered formal even if the employed register is informal. As shown in Table 6.2, the internal structure of the formal 98 sosHY ‘Tamte62 —Thelinguisticreaization of defining” as found in the Concii-corpus reported ‘im Dalton-Puer (2016) ‘Type Definiendum ‘Definiens__Diflerentia ‘Term (T) Class (C) Differences (D) Formal (Teacher's) Ahigh involvement Isadecision where alot of money ora decision lotof time is necessary to Just say yes orn, Seml-formal Ahigh involvement Is for example ifyoubuy a (Stadent’s) decision caryou will look for alot of diffrent offers and you wont buy the very first one,

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