L1, noise and the threat to go back to rows
A Grade 5 CLIL science class of 32 ten-year-olds is seated in eight groups of four. The lesson is a practical: each group tests four materials for absorbency, measures the water left in a beaker and records results in a table. The target language is 'The … absorbed the most/least water because …'. Within five minutes the noise level is high. Two groups are using L1 almost entirely: one to argue about who holds the measuring cylinder, another to work out how to read the scale. In one group a single student does all the measuring while three watch; that group finishes in three minutes with an incomplete table. The teacher spends eight minutes with a group that cannot start, then announces that if the noise continues she will put the desks back in rows and cancel practicals for the rest of the term.
1. The L1 use in the two groups is not the same. Distinguish the two types and say how the teacher should respond to each.
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Group A - L1 for a social/procedural dispute ('who holds the cylinder'). This is a management problem, not a language problem. The group has no assigned roles, so possession of the equipment is being negotiated from scratch. Responding with a language rule would not touch it. The fix is structural: fixed roles, a rotating rota, and one piece of equipment per named person.
Group B - L1 as a cognitive tool (working out how to read the scale). This is learners using the L1 to do the thinking they cannot yet do in the L2 - a legitimate and well-documented CLIL strategy. Banning it would remove the scaffold and produce silence rather than English. The fix is to bound and fade it: L1 permitted in the planning/figuring-out stage, L2 required in the recording and reporting stage, with the needed language supplied ('the water level is between … and …', 'the reading is on the … line').
The general principle: L1 should be planned for, time-limited and attached to a stage, not banned outright. The teacher's question should be 'what is this L1 doing?' before 'how do I stop it?'.
2. Propose two changes to group organisation or room management, and explain how each supports language learning as well as behaviour.
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Change 1 - assign rotating roles with role cards. Roles: measurer, recorder, timekeeper, reporter, rotated each lesson. Each card carries the language for that role ('I predict the sponge will absorb the most because …'; 'The result for the sponge is 30 millilitres'). Language effect: every learner has a reason and a slot to speak, which removes the pattern seen in the group where one student measured while three watched - that is a language problem as much as a fairness problem, because three learners produced no target language at all. Behaviour effect: equipment ownership is settled by the card, not by argument.
Change 2 - stage the task with visible timings and a circulation plan. Board shows: plan and predict 3 min → test 8 min → record 5 min → report 4 min. Teacher visits all eight groups for roughly two minutes each, starting with the group that cannot begin, rather than spending eight minutes in one place. Language effect: a purposeful noise becomes task noise; the reporting stage guarantees the target exponents are used publicly. Behaviour effect: learners know what 'finished' looks like, so the three-minute group has something to do next (a second prediction, a comparison with another group).
A supporting move: a single agreed non-verbal signal for silence (hand up, countdown) used consistently, so the teacher stops competing with the noise.
3. Evaluate the teacher's threat. Why is it likely to be counter-productive in a CLIL classroom specifically?
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It is an understandable response to a real problem, but it targets the wrong thing.
- It removes the interactional context in which the target language lives. The language objective ('The … absorbed the most water because …') can only be produced in a group practical. Rows and no practicals would leave the teacher as the sole source of English, contradicting the principle of language through learning.
- It treats noise as misbehaviour rather than as information. The noise here is a signal that the task lacked roles, staging and a finished-state. The punishment leaves those causes intact and they will recur.
- It withdraws the contextual support that makes the content comprehensible. The apparatus, the materials and the measurement are what allow B1 learners to access the concept. Without them the lesson becomes more language-dependent, not less.
- It is disproportionate and hard to sustain, so it risks becoming a threat the teacher does not carry out - which weakens all later management.
- It does not distinguish the two kinds of L1 use, so it would penalise the group using L1 productively to solve the measurement problem.
A defensible alternative: say what the noise is for and what the limit is ('working noise is fine; I should hear English at the recording and reporting stage'), then change the structure that produced the problem.