The headteacher further describes the benefits:
Well, the benefits are very broad. 1 probably won't remember them all. But the first and most obvious was that [for] those on the bilingual scheme [i.e. the BFC] their level of French was miles higher. About a year ahead of the non-bilingual by the end of that year. So, in their first foreign language there was a big improvement without real costs to English, history and geography according to the tests. Errrm, that's the first one. But the second one, the answer is, I believe that their intelligence improved, errm, because I think that really the bilingual programme was developing thinking skills. And we saw that at the end of the second cohort, when the second cohort was evaluated, we found that the bilingual groups' CAT scores had increased dramatically more than the non-bilingual during the course of that year.
He sums up the benefits for the learners in the BFC referring to two 'big improvements' with the first one for the learners having achieved a higher level of French 'without real costs to English, history and geography according to the tests' and the second one as 'improved' 'intelligence.' He refers here to evidence based on comparing the learners' CAT scores from the beginning and the end of the year. The headteacher speculates about the reasons for this increase as follows:
Cause I think, the youngsters have to concentrate, so there's less idle time in these classrooms. And they have to use their intelligence much more. What we know is that if you use your intelligence it increases. It's like physical exercise. So, I think the focus on thinking - although it wasn't notionally, it wasn't ostensibly a way to improve thinking - but I think you can't really understand what's going on without focusing on thinking. So, that was the second and for me one of the most important gains.
He points out three factors that he considers as relevant in the BFC:
• 'The youngsters have to concentrate.' According to the headteacher, as a result of this ...
• 'There's less idle time in these classrooms.'
• 'And tiiey have to use their intelligence much more.'
He sums up his statements with referring to the 'focus on thinking.' In order to get a better understanding of the headteacher's arguments, I rearrange them: Due to the planning for the BFC, there is 'less idle time' in the BFC classroom. Due to the planning by the teacher and related to that due to the learning of content through French by the learners, the learners 'have to concentrate.' order to follow the lessons, i.e. in order to get to understand the content and in order to be able to do the tasks that they are set during lesson time 'they have to use their intelligence more.' The headteacher compares intelligence to 'physical exercise.' He explains this increase in intelligence with the following example:
was also interesting that the English scores, the reading scores of the bilingual group improved just as much as the non-bilingual. But within that, those who had the lowest reading scores on entry, seemed to increase faster in bilingual than non-bilingual which is paradoxical as you would expect the reverse. This was a group who found reading in English difficult. They spent much less time reading in English, yet, their reading of English improved. We don't know why that is. But my guess would be that it's because these youngsters had had people bashing more and more [...] traditional methods of English teaching, in fact. And this was a completely different approach because it focused on linguistics, and the namre of language, it may be that it focused youngsters much more closely on how you read words because you simply couldn't read these words by putting one letter after the next and making the word up that way, cause these words simply didn't have any similarity to English words.
The headteacher refers here again to the results of CAT scores at the end of the school year. He describes that 'the reading scores of the bilingual group improved just as much as the non-bilingual.' At the same time, he points out that 'within that, those who had the lowest reading scores on entry seemed to increase faster in bilingual than non-bilingual.' He goes on to describe this as 'paradoxical as you would expect the reverse' and speculates that this increase in reading performance by those learners 'with the lowest reading scores' is related to 'a completely
different approach because it focused on linguistics and the of language.' The headteacher's argument is somewhat vague here when describing the focus on 'linguistics and the nature of language.' The improvement in reading may be related to a way of teaching that has to take into account 'linguistics and the nature of language', but it is not sufficient to explain this. Also, the focus on 'linguistics and the nature of language' needs to be considered in relation to the benefits of the BFC pointed out by the headteacher before:
• There is less idle time.
• The learners have to concentrate more. • The learners' intelligence is improved.
I focus on the two previous arguments put forward by the headteacher: less idle time and increase in learner concentration. The headteacher refers again to 'less wasted time' in the interview when he says:
And again, because there's less wasted time. So, that was a very interesting gain.
This can be related to a number of issues in the Time is being planned for in the classroom by the teacher. In order to plan for learning in the BFC, the teacher has to take into account two main factors: the teaching of content and how to make content accessible to the learners in the foreign language. Time in the BFC classroom depends on planning for content and foreign language learning. Of course, time in the classroom is also dependent on other general factors such as time of the day, events that have happened in previous lessons, during breaks, during lesson time, individual teacher and learner motivations for that lesson etc. The factors affecting time spent in the BFC are just as numerous as in any other classroom. However, in the BFC classroom, the teacher has to plan and structure lesson time for both content and foreign language learning. In general terms, the time planning is due to the dual (content and linguistic) demands on both the teacher and the learners.
Summing up the previous arguments, the headteacher not only describes the benefits of the BFC for tiie learners, but he also hints at the teacher actions within BFC lessons: It is the teacher's responsibility to plan time in the BFC lessons. The outcomes for the learners are ideally 'less wasted time,' and as a result of learning in the BFC, an increase in 'intelligence' which seems to show up especially in the reading scores of less able learners. The headteacher also refers to another group of learners that seem to be beneficiaries of learning in the BFC: boys.
Another one was the ... there appeared to be some evidence that boys, boys' language ability was improving faster than girls'. And if that's true and if that's sustained through later years, it's great. I mean I see no reason why boys shouldn't be interested in languages.
The headteacher has referred to the benefits for boys' learning in the BFC previously:
Boys were gaining more benefit from being in the Bilingual Foundation Course in comparison to the non-bilingual than you found with girls which is a bit paradoxical really as you might have expected the opposite. Errm, and yes, 1 think it is, I mean ... you also need to think in terms of explaining it, guessing at what we're looking at ... what's the explanation for this. 1 think in this way: What is it that appeals to boys? Problem solving appeals to boys, we know that. Repetitive coursework, extended writing appeals to girls. There was an element of this [the BFC] which was boy-friendly which we hadn't realised. But looking back, I think there was an element that was boy-friendly and was a completely different way of learning languages.
He raises an important element of learning in the BFC: problem-solving. He qualifies problem-solving as appealing to boys and furtiier explains the benefits for boys by giving an example from a conversation tiiat he had witii a boy following the BFC curriculum in its first year:
Well, I'll give an example from a conversation I had with one of the students in that first year. 1 was covering a Year 7, Technology or something, and during the course of the lesson ... and chatted to the kids which is what I did as a head anyway, I took the opportunity to talk to the kids. 1 remember stopping off with one and saying: 'What class are you in?' And this boy, a very average boy, said in so and so's class. I said: 'Well, that's a bilingual class, isn't it?' He said; 'Yeah.' And I said; 'How are you finding that?' And he said; 'It's hard. It's very hard.' And I said; 'Would you rather be in a non-bilingual class?' He said: 'Oh, no.' I said: 'Well, why is that then?' He said: 'It makes you think.' So, 1 think there's that element of challenge which isn't always there for Year 7s whereas at Key Stage 2 it usually is. They go through a lot of pressure and a lot of fast moving, fast pace lessons in Year 5 and Year 6 because of the SATs. Then they get to Year 7 where teachers
don't feel that sense of urgency. And I think, he was a youngster ... no, the interesting thing is this was a boy, cause languages of course appeal to girls. And here we had a boy who was saying he didn't want to move out of a bilingual class because the work was hard, but that was interesting. And by that I took it to mean that it was challenging and making him think. And that was something he appreciated. So, 1 think that has got a lot to do with motivation. It's not motivation because it's easy, quite the contrary, it's motivation because it's challenging. You know you have to imagine what's it like to be a youngster who doesn't know any French going into a lesson in which the teacher is doing nothing but speaking in French to them. They have to concentrate. And they have to problem-solve, they have to work out what is that person saying, because they won't just gesmre, the teacher won't just gesmre, say, point to a pencil and say what the word is, they speak the sentence.
The headteacher raises in this example of a conversation with a learner a series of issues that 1 discuss in more detail through my data in the next sections. He mentions that ...
• ... the learner finds learning in the BFC 'hard.' At the same time, ...
• ... the learner wants to remain in one of the BFC classes, because 'it makes you think.'
The headteacher relates the learners' statements to his own theories about the BFC by paraphrasing the learner's statements in terms of 'challenges' in the BFC. He theorises about the learners' interest in learning as a challenge by relating it to the issue of motivation:
It's not motivation because it's easy, quite the contrary, it's motivation because it's challenging.
At the same time, he again relates the issue of challenging learning to learner concentration and problem-solving. He does not explain in detail what the 'challenges' for the learners consist of apart from stressing that the learners are made to tiiink and to problem-solve. However, he points out a key feature of the BFC: learning as a challenge.
2.3 Challenges
It has become clear that the headteacher has some theories about learning in the BFC: As a (former) headteacher, he does not focus in detail on the BFC classroom, but looks at the BFC as a means of school improvement both in terms of staff and learners. Based on his theories and observations, he raises one of the key issues that I discuss in the sections: He describes learning in the BFC as a 'challenge.'
Of course, my perceptions of the BFC differ from the headteacher's. 1 view the BFC from my position as a practising teacher in the BFC. I also consider some learners' views about their learning in the BFC. Again, their views differ from both mine and the headteacher's, as they consider the BFC as learners from their perspective. All of these descriptions of the BFC are quite different. At the same time, they share some key features. One of these key features is to consider learning
as a challenge (raised previously by the headteacher). In order to be achievable
challenges need to be supported. I explore the relationship between challenges and support specifically in Part 4. In the following parts, I focus on my diary entries and teacher-learner interview data in order to examine the different challenges that the headteacher, myself as a BFC teacher and my learners seem to refer to.
So far, I have illustrated key features of CLIL classrooms by arguing based on the literature that learning content in a foreign language is motivating, because it promotes meaningfiil classroom interaction.
Referring specifically to the BFC, the headteacher supports this argument by describing the benefits both in terms of outcomes and processes:
• The status of foreign languages is raised.
• Exam results, especially those of less able learners, have increased.
• The BFC is 'boy-friendly' because it promotes problem-solving which in turn increases its 'relevance' for boys.
• Learner motivation increases because of the 'challenging' nature of the BFC.
The headteacher's arguments contribute to a more specific description of the BFC within CLIL. However, as he was responsible for the creation and implementation of the BFC his arguments have to be considered carefully. He describes the BFC from his position as a sympathetic outsider, therefore, he can only refer to test results in terms of learning outcomes and anecdotal evidence and his related theories in terms of learning processes in the BFC. In order to identify more specific features of the BFC in relation to the previous arguments, I discuss in the following section my own and my interviewees' descriptions of the BFC.