Subject literacies and access to quality education, Council of Europe,
Strasbourg, 27 – 28 September 2012
A framework of language competences across the curriculum:
Example from North Rhine-Westphalia
E. Thürmann
In the presentation I am about to give, the focus is on a recent initiative by the Ministry of Education
in North Rhine-Westphalia to incorporate language
requirements into curricula for content teaching, i.e. for
subjects such as science, history, geography etc. I shall briefly
touch on routine procedures of curriculum development in this
state and the need for cross-curricular coordination. I will then
shed light on a tool (i.e. a framework) which was offered to
groups of subject specialists which were supposed to take
account of subject literacy in their developmental work. Since
the whole developmental set-up had some structural shortcomings I shall also hint at some
procedural “musts” for synchronising subject literacies across the curriculum. Since curriculum
development is not an end in itself, the final part of the presentation will deal with two strategies for
implementation and classroom development.
Although it might be a common place issue for you as
curriculum experts I have to comment briefly on the routine
set-up for curricular projects in North Rhine-Westphalia since
this set-up is crucial for a coordinated approach to subject
literacies. A curriculum development project – let us say for
lower secondary schools – usually is coordinated by a taskgroup at the ministerial level. Before the actual work starts, this
group consisting of experts with general school development
expertise and senior subject specialists, discusses basic principles and strives for consensus on issues
such as
•
underlying basic pedagogical principles (e.g. task-based
learning, student-centred teaching)
• basic curricular principles and „philosophies“ (e.g.
performance specification of outcomes, specification of
competences)
• Curriculum structure (e.g. chapter headings, table of
contents)
• Organisational parameters for working groups (e.g.
recruitment, time-frame, management).
Thus, when the expert groups for a broad range of subjects take up their work, they are initiated to
and familiarized with guiding principles of the project and furnished with a “template” for the
curricular document they are about to draft. Normally, it takes about 18 months for these groups to
arrive at a preliminary version. At two intervals interim results are surveyed by the task group with
the main intention to keep the convoy of individually operating specialist groups on a common track.
Coming back to our main concern of this seminar for subject literacies, the specialist groups were
reminded from the very start to “take language issues seriously” and accommodate language
requirements adequately when defining expected outcome competences. However, at the first
survey of interim results the coordinating task-group was far from being satisfied with the effects of
the initial general and cautious admonition to pay special heed to language issues. Every group chose
its particular avenue to subject literacy with terminological discrepancies, levels of abstractness and
references to diverging language elements (grammar, lexis, Text, genre, discourse etc.) and diverging
linguistic approaches (e.g. systemic, functional, pragmatic).
Thus, the coordinating task-group commissioned a paper specifying common exit criteria for
academic language competences for the end of mandatory schooling with the intention to hand it
over to the expert groups for structural orientation and a resource to draw from for specifying their
content-specific language requirements. Let me now explain how we (Helmut Vollmer and myself)
organised this general grid of academic language competences on the basis of preliminary pilot
studies.
What we needed was a simple clearly structured model
adaptable to cognitive-communicative classroom routines
across the curriculum. Obviously, one dimension of this
model should refer to surface elements and structures of
academic classroom discourse. According to socio-functional
views these surface elements and structures on various levels
(pronunciation, lexis / standing expressions, morpho-syntax,
text) are options which competent language users have when
they are confronted with cognitive-communicative tasks and
activities. Extensive analysis of curriculum documents covering a broad range of subjects lead us to
assume three very elementary fields of activities which are common to all content areas:
•
•
•
General classroom interaction: negotiation of meaning and participation in class
Information retrieval and processing
Documenting, presenting and exchanging of learning results.
Another important finding of these preliminary studies of
curricular documents was that the three activity fields across
all subjects shared a common set of basic cognitivecommunicative strategies and discourse functions:
•
•
•
NAMING, DEFINING, e.g. appropriately labelling living things, objects, processes, events,
topics and viewpoints
DESCRIBING, PORTRAYING, e.g. comparing living things, objects, processes, events, topics or
viewpoints on the basis of predefined characteristics (such as appearance, structure or
function)
REPORTING, NARRATING, e.g. •
giving an account of past events or experiences
•
•
•
EXPLAINING, CLARIFYING, e.g. identifying the causes or reasons behind moderately complex
subject-related processes or events and explaining them with reference to a small number of
influencing factors
ASSESSING, JUDGING, e.g. assessing and judging facts, events and conduct on the basis of
one’s own knowledge of the subject, ethical principles and personal experience
ARGUING, TAKING UP A STANCE, e.g. clarifying the advantages and drawbacks of differing
facts and ways of behaving, weighing up and discussing the pros and cons to arrive at a
personal viewpoint.
In the meantime we have added another function, which is quite commonly founts: modelling,
simulating.
When the curriculum groups received the grid of general academic language criteria (= > 90
descriptors parcelled according to the five dimensions mentioned above) they showed spit reactions.
On the one hand, they found this pool of resources helpful, on
the other hand they were far advanced in their developmental
work. Indeed, it would have been more effective if the grid had
been at hand from the very start. Nevertheless, they attempted
to – what I call – nostrify the general descriptors: selecting
relevant descriptors from the grid and adapted them to the
specific content area they were dealing with as this example for
history (REPORTING, NARRATING) and biology clearly show.
Time does not allow me to go into further details, so I shall sum up the experiences, the gains and
partial losses.
•
The grid of general academic language features
effectively influenced developmental work across the
curriculum. The majority of descriptors selected by subject
groups remained unchanged or were only slightly modified.
•
Reference to subject-specific content leads to
enrichment below the level of descriptors in the shape of
subject-specific indicators
• The need to add descriptors is confined to
cognitive/language functions and genres
The gains: Since 2011 a chapter of subject literacy has become an integral part of core curricula in
North Rhine-Westphalia and curriculum development groups have adopted the general list of exit
criteria as a point of departure and a resource tool for their endeavours to specify subject-specific
descriptors and indicators.
The partial losses: However, in the process of appropriating the
list of general criteria of subject-literacy the inventory of
relevant descriptors had been reduced and simplified to such an
extent
that
it
does
not
serve
practical
planning/evaluation/assessment purposes on an operational
level.
Educational authorities seem to have become aware of
linguistic issues in subject teaching; however decision-makers
are still reluctant to go into specifics on a national level.
There seems to be a fair chance that literacy frameworks and rubrics become operative on the mesoand micro-levels (= individual school – classroom) for change-ready schools if stake-holders
experience a need for such tools – especially when they want to keep up academic standards for
learners from a migration background or from low SES families .
To wind up my presentation on the initiatives in North Rhine-Westphalia concerning academic
language education and subject literacy I shall point out the importance of literacy coaches as
general and subject-specific change agents who are capable of making state curricula become alive.
Elizabeth Sturtevant claims that literacy coaching “as …
effective, continuing, and supportive staff development—for
teachers, administrators, and key district-level personnel—is
critical to success. Key players in the change process are
literacy coaches—master teachers who provide essential
leadership for the school’s overall literacy program. This
leadership includes helping to create and supervising a longterm staff development … their major role is to work with
content teachers across the curriculum to help them
implement and utilize strategies designed to improve their students’ ability to read, write, and
succeed in content courses.”
In the US, literacy coaches are very high on the agenda with a clear focus on teaching adolescents
who are at risk to drop out of school for not being able to follow what is going on in the classroom or
for fear of failing final examinations. Also universities across the country carry serious complaints
concerning frrechmen´s low levels of academic literacy and asked school authorities to step up
programmes with literacy coaches. They are supposed to
•
•
•
•
Encourage ESL teachers to serve as resources for
content-area teachers and help them understand how
ELLs learn language.
Serve as the experts for their schools on research and
practice for adolescent ELL language development, and
share new findings with colleagues.
Help teachers design instruction that helps improve
language learners´ ability to read and understand
content area information
identify teaching strategies that take into account ELLs’ different proficiency levels while
moving them toward grade-level literacy.
A couple of years ago, North Rhine-Westphalia – without initially being aware of existing literacy
coaching programmes in the US – has started qualifying 60 senior teachers as literacy coaches. The
training comprised practical coaching experience parallel to compact input by university language
experts (= 8 modules, 1.5 days). These modules focused on
•
•
•
•
•
Many kinds of German – the particular language of
schooling
• How children and young people acquire language(s)
• Educational standards and the empirical basis for
language-sensitive classroom development
• School- and classroom-development strategies and
models focusing on language support
German as a subject and its specific contribution to a whole-school language support
programme
Social studies and its specific contribution to a whole-school language support programme
Mathematics and science and their specific contribution to a whole-school language support
programme
The special language support needs of “late comers” (immigrant learners arriving at an
advanced age).
The evaluation of this ambitious project showed positive results. So, the training modules have just
been finalised in print and digital format and are offered to regional and local authorities to initiate
their own projects of literacy coaching.