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Cognitive Discourse Functions: A Bridge between Content, Literacy and

Language for Teaching and Assessment in CLIL

Article  in  CLIL Journal of Innovation and Research in Plurilingual and Pluricultural Education · January 2020
DOI: 10.5565/rev/clil.33

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 CLIL Journal of Innovation and Research
in Plurilingual and Pluricultural Education

To cite this article:

Morton, T. (2020). Cognitive Discourse Functions: A Bridge between Content, Literacy and https://doi.org/10.5565/rev/clil.33
Language for Teaching and Assessment in CLIL. CLIL Journal of Innovation and Research in e- ISSN: 2604-5613
Plurilingual and Pluricultural Education, 3(1), 7-17. https://doi.org/10.5565/rev/clil.33 Print ISSN: 2605-5893

Cognitive Discourse Functions:

CLIL
A Bridge between Content, Literacy and
Language for Teaching and Assessment in

TOM MORTON
AUTONOMOUS UNIVERSITY OF MADRID
tom.morton@uam.es

A C
s Bilingual Education programmes which adopt a CLIL on el auge de los programas de educación bilingüe que
approach grow, there is an ever-increasing need for conceptual utilizan el enfoque AICLE (aprendizaje integrado de contenidos
and practical frameworks to help teachers integrate content, y lengua extranjera), cada vez más se necesitan marcos
literacy and language in teaching and assessment. This article conceptuales y prácticas para ayudar a los profesores en la integración de
proposes that the construct ‘Cognitive Discourse Function’ or CDF los contenidos, las formas de comunicación específicas para comunicar
(Dalton-Puffer, 2013) has clear potential for achieving a deeper los contenidos (‘literacy’ en inglés) y el lenguaje. Este artículo propone
integration of content, literacy and language than what is common in que el constructo ‘Cognitive Discourse Function’ (función del discurso
current practice. Cognitive discourse functions refer to how cognitive cognitivo) o CDF en sus siglas en inglés (Dalton-Puffer, 2013) tiene una
processes involved in learning academic content (such as describing, potencial clara para ayudar a lograr una integración más profunda de
defining, explaining or evaluating) are realised in recurring linguistic los contenidos, ‘literacy’ y lenguaje de lo que se consigue en las prácticas
patterns in the classroom. As the article argues, these linguistic actuales. Las funciones del discurso cognitivos (CDFs) se refieren a cómo
patterns create a ‘bridge’ to link content, literacy and language and los procesos cognitivos del aprendizaje de contenidos académicos (p.
thus avoid the artificial separation of content and language that still ej. describir, definir, explicar o evaluar) se realizan a través de patrones
pervades much CLIL practice. Reporting on a research study which lingüísticos recurrentes en el aula. En el artículo se argumenta que
examined 6th year primary CLIL students’ production of one CDF estos patrones lingüísticos crean un ‘puente’ que enlaza los contenidos,
(definitions) in a Spanish bilingual programme, the article suggests ‘literacy’y lenguaje para así evitar la separación artificial de los contenidos
guidelines for how CDFs can inform CLIL practice at the levels of y lenguaje que todavía caracteriza muchas de las prácticas habituales
curriculum development, materials design, classroom teaching and en aulas bilingües. El artículo informa sobre un trabajo de investigación
assessment. llevado a cabo en un programa bilingüe en España, en el cual se investigó
la producción de una función (definiciones) de alumnos de 6º de
educación primaria. Basado en los resultados de este trabajo, y el marco
conceptual presentado en el artículo, se ofrecen unas pautas para guiar
la práctica de la educación bilingüe con un enfoque AICLE en las áreas
de desarrollo curricular, diseño de materiales, enseñanza en el aula, y
evaluación.

KEYWORDS: PALABRAS CLAVE:

Bilingual education; CLIL; cognitive discourse function; literacy; Educación Bilingüe; AICLE; función del discurso cognitivo;
assessment. evaluación.

CLIL Journal of Innovation and Research in Plurilingual and Pluricultural Education, 3(1), 2020: 7-17 7
 Cognitive Discourse Functions: A Bridge between Content, Literacy and Language
Morton, T. for Teaching and Assessment in CLIL

1. Introduction expected forms of communication (e.g. typical texts) through

B
which this knowledge is expressed. That is why, in this article,
ilingual education programmes in which academic I will argue that CLIL teachers need to connect the three
content is taught through a second or foreign language, dimensions of content, literacy and language, when planning
and foreign language education programmes which and delivering instruction, and assessing their learners.
teach language through content, are rapidly growing all over
the world. Both these types of programme can come under the Connecting all three dimensions is particularly important
label of Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL), when it comes to considering how students should be assessed
the former as ‘hard’ CLIL, and the latter as ‘soft’ CLIL (Ball, in CLIL programmes. Assessment is seen as a thorny issue in
Kelly & Clegg 2015). Research findings and evaluations of CLIL, and many teachers complain of a lack of guidance in
CLIL programmes tend to find that, unsurprisingly, students going about it (see Otto and Estrada 2019 in this journal).
make gains in learning the foreign language, in comparison This uncertainty is understandable, and it stems from a lack of
to their counterparts in non-CLIL programmes. However, the clarity about the balance and integration of content, literacy
outcomes of these programmes in terms of content learning, and language objectives in CLIL programmes. After all, if we
which is particularly relevant to the ‘hard’ versions of CLIL, are not clear about the relative balance and roles of content,
are more uneven, as relatively few studies have focused on literacy and language objectives when planning and teaching,
this dimension. Those which have looked at content learning we are unlikely to be clear about what, and how, to assess.
have found mixed results, with some showing positive
This article addresses this problem by proposing that the
effects (e.g. Jäppinen 2005 and Surmont et al. 2016 on CLIL
construct Cognitive Discourse Function (CDF), as formulated
mathematics), and others showing possible negative effects
by Dalton-Puffer (2013) can act as a ‘bridge’ between content
(e.g. Anghel et al. 2012 on general primary education, and
learning objectives, and the literacy and language needed to
Fernández-Sanjurjo et al. 2017 on science). The context of the
express them. The main argument is that many educational
article is ‘hard’ CLIL programmes, as ‘soft’ CLIL approaches
objectives across all academic subjects are expressed as
place less emphasis on having well-defined content learning
verbs which describe specific cognitive operations, such
objectives as the focus of teaching and assessment.
as define, evaluate, explain, and that these operations, or
This division reflects a general problem with CLIL research functions, have specific linguistic realisations, that can be
and practice: the tendency (in spite of the acronym) to focus taught to students. CDFs form a link between cognition and
separately on content and language. Studies which focus on language or thinking and speaking/writing. As such, they are
language learning tend to pay little attention to the content a bridge between content learning objectives, the specific
being studied, while studies which look at content learning types of communication (literacies) associated with academic
outcomes do not usually have an explicit approach to language. subjects, and the language used to express knowledge and
Thus, ‘soft’ versions of CLIL see content as little more than thinking.
a vehicle for language learning, while ‘hard’ versions tend to
place their emphasis almost exclusively on the content, with
little attention to language. This has important implications
for CLIL teachers, as they may be left without any guidance
or framework by which they can actually do justice to the
CLIL acronym, that is, by integrating the teaching and “CDFs form a link
learning of both content and language. between cognition and
One source of these problems is that in education generally, language or thinking and
we may be unaware of the key role that language plays in
the learning and teaching of all subjects, right across the
speaking/writing. As such,
curriculum. Language is not just confined to the teaching and they are a bridge between
learning of language arts and foreign languages but should
be part of a Language Across the Curriculum (LAC) policy.
content learning objectives,
As Vollmer (2006) states, language learning and education the specific types of
occur “in each and every subject in school, in each and every
academic/mental activity, across the whole curriculum (p.5,
communication (literacies)
italics in original). Language in this sense does not refer to associated with academic
the teaching of isolated grammar or vocabulary, or language
for everyday communication, but, as Vollmer (p. 5) puts it,
subjects, and the language
“subject specific ways of thinking and communicating”. used to express knowledge
These forms of communication which are specific to the
different academic subjects are often referred to as subject
and thinking. ”
literacy. Thus, CLIL teachers, just like all teachers, will
need to keep in mind not only the conceptual content and
skills belonging to the subject and specific language features
needed to express them (e.g. terminology) but also the

8 CLIL Journal of Innovation and Research in Plurilingual and Pluricultural Education, 3(1), 2020: 7-17
Cognitive Discourse Functions: A Bridge between Content, Literacy and Language
for Teaching and Assessment in CLIL Morton, T.

The rest of the article is organised as follows. The following

(second) section prepares the ground for the introduction of
CDFs by exploring in more depth the links between content,
literacy and language in CLIL. The third section is where
CDFs are introduced, and where it is shown that they can
be a ‘missing link’ between content, literacy and language
which can provide teachers with a conceptual toolkit for the
integration of all three in CLIL teaching and assessment.
Section four presents some results from an ongoing research
project which looks at students’ content and language
development as they make the transition from primary to
secondary education, and which uses CDFs as a central
construct. The fifth section suggests some practical ways
in which CDFs can be part of a framework for integrating Figure 1. The relationships between content, literacy and language
content, literacy and language for teaching and assessment (adapted from Cammarata & Cavanagh, 2018).
in CLIL programmes and suggests some future directions for
research.
of the separation of content and language described in the
previous section. The three-circle Venn diagram in Figure 1,
which draws on ideas in Cammarata and Cavanagh (2018),
2. The relationships between content,
is a visual representation of the three types of knowledge
literacy and language and their intersections. Each intersection is discussed below.

T
he first ‘L’ in the CLIL acronym stands for ‘language’, The intersection between content and literacy has been
but it could just as well represent another key element discussed above. It is perhaps the most powerful intersection
of knowledge necessary for academic success: literacy. as it has implications for teachers of all subjects, in any
While traditionally literacy was seen as having a rather language. Teachers need to not only know the subject and get
restricted meaning – the ability to read and write, it now it across to students, but they need to know the typical ways in
has a much more expanded meaning. It now refers broadly which knowledge is ‘packaged’in different genres and make
to the different forms of communication, through writing this clear and visible to students. As CLIL teachers, if we
and speaking and other (e.g. visual) modes which students get an understanding of the typical communication formats
typically encounter and have to master in the study of and genres in our subject and let our students ‘in on the
academic disciplines. In the context of CLIL, where it is secret’, we are already on the way to powering up our CLIL
intended that students will gain literacy skills in more than practice by really integrating content and language. Many of
one language, and indeed different types of literacies, we can these genres, such as narrative, description, explanation and
also refer to this as pluriliteracies (Meyer et al. 2015). argument are general across a wide range of subjects (with
Paying attention to literacy means taking into account that some variations), so it can be argued that learning them is
different school subjects such as science and history have extremely useful as it is knowledge which can potentially
their own specific types of communication, most often seen transfer across the curriculum. That is, once students are ‘in
in the text types (or genres) which are typically used. For on the secret’ of a how a genre works in one subject, they
example, a typical genre in science is the laboratory report may be more able to adapt it and use it another subject.
(the writing up of an experiment) and in history, it could be The second intersection (content and language) is the one
an historical account, which not only relates historical events that has received most attention in discussions about CLIL.
but includes some explanation of them. Learning a school For example, Coyle, Hood & Marsh (2010) describe a
subject, then, means being able to comprehend and produce ‘Language Triptych’ in which language has three roles:
the types of texts or genres (both oral and written) through language of, for, and through learning.
which knowledge in the subject is communicated. For a
thorough discussion and illustrative examples of school Language of learning refers to the words and grammar
genres typically used in CLIL, see Llinares, Morton and which are minimally necessary to talk and write about a
Whittaker, 2012. subject, most often the specific technical terminology, such as
photosynthesis in science or treaty in history. Unfortunately,
Adding the ‘L’ of literacy to the ‘C’ and ‘L’ of content and in too many CLIL and bilingual education programmes, this
language in CLIL enriches our conception of what CLIL is has often been the only conception of ‘language’ used – apart
really about, and of the task facing students and teachers perhaps from some minimal correction of common errors.
in making knowledge accessible in a second or foreign
language. In fact, the ‘C’ and the two ‘Ls’ interact in Language for learning is the language which students need
powerful ways, and in understanding how they interact, we in order to participate in learning activities. For example, if
can approach the task of creating a much fuller integration of we want students to discuss a topic and agree or disagree,
the three types of knowledge, thus addressing the problem we should provide them with the language resources they

CLIL Journal of Innovation and Research in Plurilingual and Pluricultural Education, 3(1), 2020: 7-17 9
 Cognitive Discourse Functions: A Bridge between Content, Literacy and Language
Morton, T. for Teaching and Assessment in CLIL

need to do this, for example the language of giving opinions, ways, with the best known being the taxonomy developed
agreeing and disagreeing. In many ‘hard’ CLIL contexts, by Bloom and colleagues in the 1950s, later revised by
teachers are reluctant to support students with language for Anderson and Krathwohl (2001). Bloom’s taxonomy depicts
learning, either because they do not know how to, or because thinking skills in a hierarchical fashion, going from ‘lower-
they feel that doing so takes away precious time for content order’ thinking skills like remembering and understanding
learning. to ‘higher-order’ thinking skills like evaluating and creating.
While useful, it can lead to problematic assumptions such
Language through learning is new language that students as the erroneous idea that knowledge and understanding are
can pick up when applying their thinking skills in learning somehow ‘inferior’ to evaluation and creation.
activities. It is often difficult to predict, as it can happen
when students work independently on their own projects An advantage of these taxonomies is that they provide a set
and chosen topics, and in so doing encounter new language. of verbs with which, in theory, curriculum designers and
teachers should be able to establish more precise learning
The third intersection is the one between literacy and objectives than they would otherwise. They allow teachers to
language. Each of the typical texts or genres that we encounter stipulate what exactly they expect students to be able to do
when studying a subject has its own ‘language rules’. Thus, with the content. They are not normally seen as essentially
knowing a genre is not only about the overall structure of the linguistic in nature, as they are usually described as
texts – their various stages and parts, but it also goes down to ‘thinking’skills. However, it is not difficult to argue that these
the level of specific grammar and vocabulary. For example, objectives are actually verbal in nature, not just because they
a description will begin with a definition or classification of can be expressed as verbs, but because they require quite
the thing described, and this is followed by stages or parts specific language resources in order to be carried out. For
of the text which refer to different dimensions of the thing example, evaluating requires the use of linguistic resources
described. Each of these stages will have their own grammar to judge the qualities of people and appreciate the qualities
and vocabulary. For example, a definition will take the form of things.
of something like: ‘An X is a Y which lives in Z’. To create
a successful definition, the student needs to know that ‘X’ Across the world of education, a wide variety of learning
is the specific thing defined, this is followed usually by objectives expressed as verbs has been used. A resulting
the verb ‘be’, ‘Y’ is a more general class noun, and this is problem is that the use of these verbs can be quite messy, with
followed by a phrase (often a relative clause) which provides sometimes different verbs referring to the same thinking skill,
more information about the thing defined. Definitions will or the same verb being used to describe different thinking
be looked at in more detail later in the article. skills. This can lead to teachers and teaching materials giving
misleading information to students about the tasks they have
Definitions are a clear example of what is meant by Cognitive to do. A common example is when students are asked to
Discourse Function. They are typical educational objectives ‘explain’ a phenomenon when the teacher’s real intention
or thinking operations – students are often asked to define is that they simply describe it. This teaching problem can
phenomena in examinations – and, as we have seen, they very quickly become an assessment problem, where the tasks
have their own typical patterns of linguistic realisations. At students are asked to do in an assessment such as a test or
a larger scale, when we expect students to produce whole exam may not truly represent the original learning objective.
texts, we prefer to refer to genres which are well known Whether or not we use specific verbs such as describe,
text types which occur across different subjects, such as explain, or evaluate, we need to be sure about the nature of
laboratory reports in science. Cognitive Discourse Functions the task we expect the students to do.
are placed at the centre of the three-circle Venn diagram in
Figure 1. They can be seen as a ‘bridge’ linking all three In the context of bilingual education, Gottlieb (2016) calls
dimensions – content, literacy and language. In the next these operations ‘key uses of academic language’. She gives
section, the CDF framework is presented and the argument the example of a unit on ecosystems where students can
about their centrality in CLIL is further developed. show that they have met academic language expectations by:

1. Identifying characteristics of various ecosystems.

2. Describing animal and plant adaptations to various
3. Cognitive Discourse Functions (CDFs) ecosystems.
as a means of connecting content,
3. Comparing animal and plant adaptations in various
literacy and language ecosystems.

W
hen teachers think of ‘content’ they do not only 4. Explaining how animals and plants adapt to various
think of chunks of knowledge that they want ecosystems.
students to learn, but they also need to clarify what
they want them to do with that content, especially in terms 5. Evaluating the consequences of changes in various
of cognitive operations such as remembering, analysing, ecosystems.
applying, creating etc. These cognitive operations, or Gottlieb, 2016: 82 (emphasis added).
‘thinking skills’ have been categorised in many different

10 CLIL Journal of Innovation and Research in Plurilingual and Pluricultural Education, 3(1), 2020: 7-17
Cognitive Discourse Functions: A Bridge between Content, Literacy and Language
for Teaching and Assessment in CLIL Morton, T.

Type Communicative intention Label

1 I tell you how we can cut up the world according to certain ideas CLASSIFY
2 I tell you about the extension of this object of specialist knowledge DEFINE
3 I tell you details of what can be seen (also metaphorically) DESCRIBE
4 I tell you what my position is vis a vis X EVALUATE
5 I give you reasons for and tell you causes of X EXPLAIN
6 I tell you something that is potential EXPLORE
7 I tell you about something that is external to our immediate context on which I have a legitimate REPORT
knowledge claim

Table 1. Seven cognitive discourse functions (Dalton-Puffer, 2013: 234).

Gottlieb suggests that these ‘key uses of academic language’ lexis and grammar, these would involve students using, for
should be apparent in students’ writing and can be organising example, modal verbs (will, may, might) and conditionals
frames for genre development. By this she means that we (present and past). Other CDFs, such as define (as discussed
should draw students’ attention to them, ensure that they are below) constrain much more tightly the language which can
visible in students’ writing and use them as building blocks be used to express them.
to develop their literacy (writing) skills. By identifying what
exactly we want students to do with content (the thinking However, whether a particular CDF requires a more or less
skill) and its verbal analogue, we can achieve three very restricted range of linguistic options, using CDFs as building
important aims: clarify our learning objectives so we can blocks provides a much more focused and principled
support students in achieving them; make sure assessment is integration of content, literacy and language than simply
more valid and fair in that tasks reflect the learning objectives; dealing with language in a random or incidental fashion.
move towards a much deeper integration of content, literacy They also provide a framework for assessing learners’
and language. academic language competence, and this can be used both by
teachers and researchers. The next section looks at a research
In order to impose some order on this messy area in the project which was designed to do just that, in the context
context of CLIL, Dalton-Puffer (2013) developed the of the transition from primary to secondary education in a
construct of Cognitive Discourse Function (CDF). She bilingual programme.
reduced the wide variety found in educational objectives to
seven communicative intentions, each one labelled as seen
in Table 1.

“Using CDFs as building

Tidying up the key uses of academic language in this
way has the advantage that CLIL curriculum developers,
materials designers, teachers and students can have access
to a shared terminology. This will help to remove ambiguity
blocks provides a much
surrounding learning intentions and make any language- more focused and principled
based interventions much more focused on the content-
learning and literacy needs. For example, if we want our
integration of content,
students to explain a phenomenon by giving its causes literacy and language
(content), we may ask them to produce an example of the
explanation genre (literacy), and specific language for
than simply dealing with
causality (language). The CDF explain provides a building language in a random or
block to help us capture all three dimensions. This again
explains why CDFs are paced at the centre of the Venn
incidental fashion. They also
diagram in Figure 1. provide a framework for
Although CDFs are a very useful way of tidying up the messy assessing learners’ academic
area of learning intentions and their verbal representations, language competence, and
they do not stipulate exactly which language (at the levels
of lexis and grammar) students have to use. For example, this can be used both by
the CDF explore, which Dalton-Puffer characterises as ‘I teachers and researchers. ”
tell you something potential’, could refer to predicting the
future, speculating on the past (what could have happened,
but didn’t) or imagining a different reality. In terms of

CLIL Journal of Innovation and Research in Plurilingual and Pluricultural Education, 3(1), 2020: 7-17 11
 Cognitive Discourse Functions: A Bridge between Content, Literacy and Language
Morton, T. for Teaching and Assessment in CLIL

4. The TransCLIL Project: Assessing and to obtain students’, parents’, and teachers’ perceptions
students’ academic language of the pupils’ experiences and performance in both streams.
More detailed information on the project can be found at
competence with CDFs the group’s website: https://uam-clil.org/research-projects/

T
ransCLIL is a Spanish government-funded research current/.
project carried out by the UAM-CLIL Research
Group based at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid In achieving the aim of investigating students’ development
(Spain). The context of the project is the bilingual education of academic language, the construct of CDFs was used.
programme in the Madrid region. One characteristic of this Working with 6th grade primary students, the researchers
programme, which is not generally shared by other bilingual designed tasks with prompts which elicited spoken and
programmes in Spain or elsewhere, is that the students are written CDFs. For example, in one task students were asked
divided into two streams at the secondary school level (grades to speak and write about a field trip in which they learned
7 to 10). One stream has a much more intensive bilingual about ecosystems. The prompts elicited seven CDFs: define,
curriculum (approximately 40% in the foreign language), report, describe, compare (a sub-category of classify),
and the other has much less exposure to instruction in explain, explore and evaluate. The excerpts below show
the foreign language, with often only one or two subjects examples of two students’ texts (student A and B). Before
taught using a CLIL methodology. One aim of the project continuing to read the article, it would be useful to look at the
was to investigate the effects of this streaming on students’ students’ texts and see if you can identify the seven CDFs.
development of academic language competence as they It would also be useful to compare the two texts, in terms of
made the transition from primary to secondary education. how well each shows content knowledge about ecosystems,
The project also aimed to investigate whether there were as well as any language criteria you would use if you were
differences in teachers’ practices across the two streams, grading them.

Student A

An ecosistem is like a foodchange, in an ecosistem we have producers, consumers and decomposers. When I went
to Hervás we did a route in the mountain, everyday we throught the trash to the bin.
The rabbit is a mammal, is herbivore, is small and soft.
We have in bouth places a lot of trees and houses but there we have more cars.
I think is better the rabbit to live in Hervás because there they have less polution.
They would have a lot of rabbits there.
Yes, I think is important to protect the environment. Because is better for the plans, the animals… traveling less
by car.

Student B

Hi, my readers.
I am going to talk about the ecosystems. An ecosystem is a community formed of a habitat, living things, and
interactions between living things themselves and the habitat. In Hervás I have helped a lot to the environment:
I threw the rubish to the trash can, I haven’t killed animals like ants, and i have recycled the rubish. If I wanted to
introduce a new specie, I will choose the dinosaur. It is a strong, savaje and very big. The name of the dinosaur
would be T-rex.
The ecosystem of Boadillia is a calm and clean ecosystem. The ecosystem of Hervás is a mountain ecosystem.
I will introduce the peregrine falcon in Boadilla because of there are a lot of mouses. In Hervás, the monkeys
because there are a lot of trees. And the dinosaur.
It is the best ecosystem to the dinosaur because there are a lot of animals to eat. So there will be less animals.
Yes it is very important because if we do not protect the environment we can die. I won’t pull up plants or use less
our cars.

12 CLIL Journal of Innovation and Research in Plurilingual and Pluricultural Education, 3(1), 2020: 7-17
Cognitive Discourse Functions: A Bridge between Content, Literacy and Language
for Teaching and Assessment in CLIL Morton, T.

In student A’s response, we can see that in spite of a range Below is an example of what a well-formed definition in this
of spelling errors (some of which affect key vocabulary topic area would look like:
such as ecosystem, food chain, pollution), this student was
able to produce, at least partly, the relevant CDFs, and
An ecosystem (1) is a community (2) formed by a habitat, living
some accurate information and reasonable ideas. However,
things and the interactions between living things themselves
the student doesn’t provide a formally complete definition
and the habitat (3)
(preferring to compare an ecosystem rather than define it,
and list what it contains) and the other CDFs are rather brief
and have language inaccuracies. The example shows that a good (formal) definition should
include (1) the thing being defined (ecosystem), (2) a general
Student B’s response seems to show more control of the class word (community), and (3) an expansion, which can
blog genre, for example in the way in which the reader is consist of exemplification or further classification (formed
addressed at the beginning. The student has responded to all by a habitat, living things and the interactions between living
the prompts and has produced attempts at the relevant CDFs. things themselves and the habitat). Examples of definitions
These attempts appear to be fuller and more elaborated than written and spoken in English and Spanish by around 80 6th
student A’s. For example, the definition is much more well- grade primary students were collected and analysed using
formed and accurate (it identifies the class to which the corpus linguistics software.
defined entity belongs – a community – and provides further
information). However, the comparison just describes The results showed that there were significantly more
features of the two ecosystems without explicitly comparing formal definitions in their written texts, and significantly
them (which student A attempts to do). In terms of content more semi-formal definitions (i.e. definitions which had
knowledge, Student B’s choice of an extinct animal - a some, but not all, of the expected components) in their
dinosaur – is of somewhat dubious relevance to the task! spoken performance. The students used more general class
words in their written than in their spoken production, but
For both students, or for the whole class if answers share significantly more expansions in their spoken performance.
similar features, it would be possible for the teacher to In terms of the comparison between English and Spanish,
provide feedback indicating areas for improvement, and there were very similar definitions across both languages
these could be built around CDFs. For example, some in both modes (spoken and written). As for the relationship
(anonymous) examples of definitions could be shown, and between production of definitions and students’ general
the whole class asked to comment on them. This could form academic level as seen in the end of stage test, the results
part of a formative approach to assessment in which students showed that those who achieved more on this test used more
are supported in producing formally complete and accurate formal definitions when writing in English.
CDFs as part of a genuine CLIL approach which focused on
content, language and literacy. These are preliminary results which looked only at the
students’ work at primary level. A further study (Nashaat
As part of the TRansCLIL project, the research team carried & Llinares forthcoming) compares the same students’
out studies on students’ performance of particular CDFs, productions of definitions at the beginning of the second
especially those which have been highlighted in the CLIL year of secondary education. Together, these studies are
literature as important for expressing subject knowledge and producing useful findings which can offer researchers and
being teachable, as is the case of definitions (Dalton-Puffer, teachers vital clues about the effect of mode (spoken or
2007). One study on definitions focused on grade 6 primary written), code (Spanish or English) and general academic
students’ production of this CDF in the context of the achievement on the production of academic language as
curricular topic of ecosystems (Nashaat & Llinares 2017). seen in CDFs. Further studies can also compare students’
This study was guided by the following research questions: success in producing CDFs with their results in general
English tests such as Cambridge KET and PET. It may be
RQ1: that measures of general English proficiency do not capture
the specific academic language competences students need
Are there differences between the definitions produced
to be successful in bilingual programmes.
by 6th grade primary CLIL students on the same topic
(ecosystems) in English and in Spanish?

RQ2: 5. Guidelines for using CDFs to integrate

Are there differences in the production of definitions content, literacy and language in CLIL
across modes (spoken and written)? teaching and assessment

T
he conceptual framework of the connections between
RQ3:
content, literacy and language, the construct of CDFs
Are there any relationships between the production of as proposed by Dalton-Puffer (2013), and the emerging
definitions and students’ results in a general academic results from research such as the TransCLIL project together
test at the end of primary education?

CLIL Journal of Innovation and Research in Plurilingual and Pluricultural Education, 3(1), 2020: 7-17 13
 Cognitive Discourse Functions: A Bridge between Content, Literacy and Language
Morton, T. for Teaching and Assessment in CLIL

show promise in offering CLIL teachers guidelines for a can be given explicit support by being shown how they work
genuinely integrated approach to teaching and assessment in terms of words and grammar. Some CDFs are wider in
in bilingual education. However, these frameworks and scope, such as explanations which can be seen as genres (an
research findings need to be translated into practical tools and explanation text) or CDFs (e.g. a sentence giving the cause of
blueprints for action that will assist in curriculum planning, some phenomenon). However, whether they are seen at text
materials design, classroom instruction and assessment or sentence level, they provide, as Gottlieb (2016) suggests,
in these programmes. In this section of the article, some building blocks for a real integration of content, cognition,
practical guidelines are proposed for each of the three literacy and language.
levels of curriculum and materials design, instruction and
assessment. In terms of classroom instruction, teachers need to be very
clear about the objectives they are working towards both at
As far as curriculum and materials design are concerned, the level of teaching units, and in individual lessons. Subject
as argued above, there is often a lack of a truly integrated literacy in the form of key genres and CDFs should be an
approach in current CLIL practice. Subject knowledge is explicit focus in all content units. This of course will be
presented either as it would be if it were being taught in the helped if the materials are designed in the way set out above.
first language, or in a more ‘watered down’ version, with One way to ensure that objectives are clearer, more explicit,
less content covered and perhaps with more visual support. and more likely to be achieved, is to reduce the number of
The aim is to facilitate or ‘scaffold’ access to the material objectives addressed in any unit or lesson. Fletcher-Wood
without overburdening the students with dense linguistic (2018) gives an example of how a content teacher can have
material. There may be some kind of language focus, but too many objectives in one lesson. The example below
this is often limited to glossaries of key terms, which means comes from a lesson on ecosystems:
that ‘language’ is reduced to one aspect of language of
learning, with the subject literacies in terms of key genres
and their grammar and lexis being ignored. In this sense, a. Evaluate the dangers of toxic material in the food web.
the literacy and language skills that students really need to
express subject knowledge and skills are rendered ‘invisible’ b. Locate organisms on a food web.
(see Llinares, Morton and Whittaker 2012 for more on the
‘invisibility’ of language in CLIL). c. Apply these ideas to a new ecosystem.

One way to improve this situation would be for CLIL d. Explain energy transfer within a food web.
curriculum guidelines and materials to be more explicit about
the literacy and language objectives which accompany, and e. Remember the meaning of producers, consumers,
make possible, the content objectives. Reading and writing predators and prey.
tasks could clearly identify the genre being used and provide
explicit support for students in seeing the ‘nuts and bolts’ of f. Analyse interdependence in a food web.
how the genre works. From here, it is a relatively easy step
to drill down to the specific CDFs which link the content Fletcher-Wood (2018: 39-40).
and cognition objectives with their verbal representations.
For example, if students have to produce definitions, they
As Fletcher-Wood points out, these are too many objectives
to be adequately covered in one lesson, and he also notes
that one of them (locate organisms on a food web) is not
a learning objective, but an activity. Indeed, as teachers we
“Teachers need to be very can often have difficulty in distinguishing between our real,
underlying learning objectives, and the specific tasks and
clear about the objectives activities which are intended to support students in achieving
they are working towards them. We need to remember that our true objective is not for
the students to complete the task successfully, but to reach
both at the level of teaching the learning objective that the task is designed to facilitate.
units, and in individual Indeed, not completing the task successfully may be more of
a learning experience.
lessons. Subject literacy in
the form of key genres and Fletcher-Wood recommends reducing the number of
objectives in one lesson. For example, in the lesson on
CDFs should be an explicit ecosystems above, two or three objectives would be enough.
focus in all content units. ” Often only one is sufficient in one lesson (or even a sequence
of lessons). This is because, as Fletcher-Wood argues, “If
something is an objective, we need to offer students models,
practice, feedback and time; we can only do so by choosing
fewer, more focused objectives” (2018: 40). This is especially

14 CLIL Journal of Innovation and Research in Plurilingual and Pluricultural Education, 3(1), 2020: 7-17
Cognitive Discourse Functions: A Bridge between Content, Literacy and Language
for Teaching and Assessment in CLIL Morton, T.

the case in CLIL and bilingual education, where we need to CDFs help teachers in CLIL and bilingual programmes
go a bit more slowly, as students are coping not only with the answer the first question by allowing them to clarify, and
content, but with the additional language. Both in CLIL and unify, the specific content, literacy and language objectives.
non-CLIL contexts, there is a tendency to rush through the This will make it easier to design assessment activities
curriculum, ticking off one objective after another as if they which clearly focus on these objectives, and to assess more
had really been learned by the students. This is extremely fairly the students’ achievement of them. For example,
ineffective, as students need time to see the same content in if a short-answer exam question asks students to explain
different ways, revisit it, and get more practice if they are to a phenomenon, we can identify the genre (an explanation
have a chance to really learn it. This is even more important text), the CDF (explain) and specific language they need
when the content is taught in a foreign language. to use (e.g. language of causes and/or consequences).
These can then be stated as assessment criteria, and can be
However, going a bit more slowly does not mean sacrificing shared with the students using appropriate, student-friendly
deep learning of specific content and literacy objectives. language. It will be even more useful if students get the
This is especially the case if we integrate literacy and chance to use the criteria to assess samples of work written
language objectives with our content objectives. If we look by other students (e.g. in previous years). This allows them
at Fletcher-Wood’s objectives for the ecosystems lesson, we to develop expertise in what makes a piece of work more
can see that two of them (a and d) are expressed as CDFs. If or less effective in terms of both content knowledge and
we did decide to focus on these objectives, we could identify language/literacy.
the language students need to express the relevant CDFs, in
this case the language of evaluation and explanation. Where CDFs can help teachers when they answer the second
the objectives do not stipulate a specific CDF, such as in c, e, question (what will I do with the information gained?) by
and f which relate more clearly to thinking skills taxonomies providing a focus for the two main uses of assessment:
such as Bloom’s, it is also necessary to break them down formative and summative. When assessment has a formative
into what exactly we expect the students to produce in terms function, evidence about student achievement is used to
of language. Often, we will also find genre and CDFs useful make decisions to improve the students’ learning or to make
for this, for example recalling facts may be expressed in the the instruction more effective (Black & Wiliam 2009). Thus,
form of report (either as a whole text – genre, or at sentence assessment is formative when it is used to support, rather than
level - CDF). just measure, learning. This support is often provided in the
form of feedback that helps the student to see what needs to
Taking CDFs seriously when we formulate our learning be done to improve. Often, in CLIL programmes, formative
objectives means that they will need to be addressed in feedback on students’ language performance is quite random
the lessons we teach. This means that some time will be and unconnected to the content learning objectives or the
dedicated to clarifying for students what exactly they have to aspects of literacy needed to express them. For example,
do in terms of producing language (an explanation, a report, teachers may correct or point out random spelling errors,
a set of definitions, a description) and to providing clear or grammatical problems that are not in any way linked to
models and opportunities for practice (see Morton 2010 for the content learning objectives. CDFs can help language
an example of how this can happen in a secondary history feedback as part of formative assessment to be much more
CLIL context). It needs to be pointed out here that this is focused. For example, if students have problems with the
not adding foreign language teaching to content instruction. language of explanations or definitions, this can be pointed
Indeed, as argued above, there are compelling reasons for
all teachers to do this, irrespective of the language used as
medium of instruction. If that is the case, there is even more
reason for CLIL/bilingual teachers to do it, as it means that
the language focus is genuinely integrated with the content,
“All feedback should
cognition and literacy objectives, and not ‘bolted on’ in a be action-oriented, which
random fashion. means that we shouldn’t give
Turning to the thorny topic of assessment, CDFs are also feedback unless it is clear to
a useful tool for bringing into line our content, cognition,
literacy and language objectives, the tasks and activities we the student what they have
employ to help students achieve them, and the purposes and to do to improve. CDFs are a
methods we use to assess their learning. Their usefulness
can be seen in terms of what Mahoney (2017) considers the way of making language and
first two key questions teachers need to ask when they assess literacy formative feedback
their students:
much more relevant and
focused. ”
(1) What is the purpose or focus of this assessment?
(2) What use will I make of the information I obtain
about the students’ abilities in relation to the focus of
the assessment?

CLIL Journal of Innovation and Research in Plurilingual and Pluricultural Education, 3(1), 2020: 7-17 15
 Cognitive Discourse Functions: A Bridge between Content, Literacy and Language
Morton, T. for Teaching and Assessment in CLIL

out to them, and they can take specific action to improve helping teachers with this task, and it is now up to teacher
in this area. They will know what they need to do. This educators, curriculum developers, materials designers, and
will be much more effective than simply asking students to indeed teachers themselves to ‘translate’ what we know
“write more clearly” or “check spelling errors”. All feedback about CDFs into effective and practical instructional and
should be action-oriented, which means that we shouldn’t assessment strategies.
give feedback unless it is clear to the student what they have
to do to improve. CDFs are a way of making language and
literacy formative feedback much more relevant and focused.
Acknowledgement
When assessment has a summative function, we use it
to measure the extent to which students have achieved The research project described in this article is TRANS-
outcomes at the end of a period of instruction, and the CLIL: Integrating and assessing content and language
information gained is converted into a final mark or grade. in the transition from primary to secondary bilingual
Summative assessment is high-stakes, as it often has serious education, funded by the Spanish Ministry of the Economy
consequences for the student (they pass or fail a course, for and Competitiveness (MINECO, FFI2014-55590-R). The
example). Often, teachers in CLIL or bilingual programmes principal investigator was Dr Ana Llinares of the Universidad
ask whether they should take language errors into account in Autónoma de Madrid.
summative assessments. Some teachers do indeed penalise
students for random language errors, taking away a number
of marks from the total. However, as seen above, if these
errors are somewhat random, and not directly linked to the References
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