From words to text – academic writing in EFL classrooms

Abstract

This article will take its point of departure in the following questions: 

- Why work with academic writing and CLIL in EFL classrooms? 

- How to support the development of EFL students’ academic writing skills through a focus on a CLIL approach, subject-specific vocabulary, meaningful text production and authentic audiences? 

Today’s children are both learners of language and users of language in the learning process (Scarino & Liddicoat, 2009). Theory on modern language teaching revolves around how to make academic writing authentic, meaningful, and motivating for schoolchildren to help them become competent text producers (Hyland & Tse, 2007; Gibbons, 2009; Nagy & Townsend, 2012, Thise & Vilien, 2019) 

The article will be organised around a discussion of the potentials of working with CLIL (Coyle, Hood & Marsh, 2010), vocabulary development and authentic academic communication (Henriksen, 2019) where language teaching functions as a means of developing children’s academic writing skills across subject-specific content areas. The focus will be put on how to bridge the gap between vocabulary learning and text production and how to communicate effectively with peers in authentic academic contexts. 

After this theoretically founded introduction to the above key issues, findings deriving from the NCFF project “Building More Vocabulary – Building More Communicative Competence” will be unfolded. Emphasis will be put on vocabulary learning in relation to the increasing requirements of a larger and more nuanced vocabulary outside everyday colloquial language in today’s societies. This to support children’s ability to become future partakers of the international dialogue about important global challenges.