Session 1D

L1 research has shown that multi-word units (MWU) are integral building blocks in children's L1 acquisition processes. Findings suggest that children can make generalizations from MWU input, abstract syntactic patterns and employ such schemata productively via slot-filling. L2 research reports similar findings as empirical work employing so-called 'trace-back' methodology has shown that MWUs are key catalysts of children's L2 development (Myles et al., 1999). Congruously, the importance of MWUs in children's L2 learning trajectories is acknowledged in curricula (e.g. KMBW, 2016) and MWUs are considered crucial in the L2 classroom (Kersten, 2015). Indeed, following from findings illustrating that primary school children's L2 learning outcomes lack crucial productive knowledge (i.e. verb and structural knowledge (Engel et al., 2009)), researchers have argued for the implementation of MWUs in the L2 input to optimize teaching, and learning outcomes. Although there have been initial promising scientific efforts in this direction (Kostka, 2020), a selective review of research yielded comparatively little work in this area, indicating that the effectiveness of MWU classroom instruction on children's proficiency development is still under-researched.
To provide an appropriate foundation for further work, it is critical to gain a comprehensive understanding of the extant work. The incentive of the current review, then, is to systematically report the state of the art of research regarding the impact of MWU instruction in early L2 teaching contexts. This pre-registered review (Schulz et al., 2022) covered English, German and French literature on typically developing monolingual children aged 5 to 12 learning a foreign language in instructed teaching settings. As a result of blinded in-/exclusion processes of 1673 papers by two independent researchers, eleven papers conformed to the inclusion criteria. Following blinded quality analysis using the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool (MMAT), the remaining papers will undergo in-depth analysis. Results of this analysis will be presented and discussed with respect to reporting on the state of the art of research in this area, and importantly, on identifying fruitful avenues for further research so as to ameliorate language outcomes of young L2 learners in instructed settings.
References
Engel, G., Groot-Wilken, B., & Thürmann, E. (2009) (Eds.). Englisch in der Primarstufe – Chancen und Herausforderungen. Evaluation und Erfahrungen aus der Praxis. Berlin: Cornelsen.
Kersten, S. (2015). Language Development in Young Learners: The Role of Formulaic Language. In J. Bland (Ed.). Teaching English to Young Learners: Critical Issues in Language Teaching with 3-12 Year Olds, pp. 129-146. London: Bloomsbury. 
(KMBW) Kultusministerium Baden-Württemberg (2016). Bildungsplan der Grundschule. Englisch (ab Klasse 3/4). https://www.bildungsplaene-bw.de/site/bildungsplan/get/documents/lsbw/export-pdf/depot-pdf/ALLG/BP2016BW_ALLG_GS_E34.pdf (access: 21.01.2022).
Kostka, N. (2020). Produktives Sprechen im Englischunterricht der Grundschule: Eine empirische Studie zur Bedeutung formelhafter Sequenzen. Giessen: University Library Publications.
Myles, F., Mitchell, R. & Hooper, J. (1999). Interrogative chunks in French L2. A basis for creative construction? SSLA 21, 49-80.
Schulz, J., Hamilton, C., Wonnacott, E. & Murphy, V. (2022). The impact of multi-word units in early FL learning and teaching contexts. Protocol for a systematic review. International Database of Education Systematic Reviews. https://idesr.org/#searchlibrarydetailspage (access:21.01.2022).

Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) refers to a bilingual teaching approach in which content subjects are taught and learned in a second language (Ball et al. 2015). While researchers agree that the integration of content and language goals is the operative principle behind any successful CLIL programme (Mehisto et al. 2008; Nikula et al. 2016; Coyle & Meyer 2021), there is an ongoing debate over how we can best conceptualise this integration for practical use. A promising way of doing this is to incorporate subject literacy education into CLIL teaching and pedagogical design. An understanding of subject literacy as a social practice embedded in the use of "literacy skills and knowledge, for socially constructed purposes, within specific sociocultural contexts" (Green 2020: 13) integrates both the procedural knowledge that constitutes content matter as well as the discipline-specific academic language that will represent this content. Yet the content teachers that are typically involved in CLIL programmes are hardly ever trained in subject literacy education or foreign language teaching methodology (Hüttner et al. 2013), which makes the task of translating a content and language integrated model into CLIL practice especially demanding. This becomes even more challenging at Austrian colleges of crafts and technology (HTL), where CLIL programmes are typically concentrated on highly-specialised technical content subjects in which the cognitive demand is high in terms of both content and language. To support teachers at this school type in implementing an integrated CLIL model in practice, this dissertation project aims to develop a CLIL lesson planning tool that operationalises subject literacy for the HTL context. Following a design-based research (DBR) approach, the tool is designed in close collaboration with two novice HTL CLIL teachers and tested in their respective subjects recycling technology and control engineering. This offers new insights into CLIL teacher professional development, CLIL lesson planning, and vocational CLIL while the lesson planning tool itself holds the potential to improve CLIL practice in the often neglected context of vocational CLIL, thus effectively bridging the gap between theory and practice.

References:
Ball, Phil; Kelly, Keith; Clegg, John. 2015. Putting CLIL into practice. Oxford: Oxford UP.
Coyle, Do; Meyer, Oliver. 2021. Beyond CLIL: Pluriliteracies teaching for deeper learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Green, Simon. 2020. Scaffolding Academic Literacy with Low-Proficiency Users of English. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. 
Hüttner, Julia; Dalton-Puffer, Christiane; Smit, Ute. 2013. "The power of beliefs: lay theories and their influence on the implementation of CLIL programmes". International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 16(3), 267–284.
Mehisto, Peeter; Marsh, David; Frigols, Maria Jesús. 2008. Uncovering CLIL. Content and language integrated learning in bilingual and multilingual education. Oxford: Macmillan.
Nikula, Tarja; Dafouz, Emma; Moore, Pat; Smit, Ute (eds.). 2016. Conceptualising integration in CLIL and multilingual education. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.