Teachers blend disciplines to boost language and art learning
A study of Finnish classrooms reveals how effective language instruction in visual arts happens not by focusing narrowly on art alone, but by drawing connections to history, science, and other fields. The finding challenges education policy and curriculum design that siloes subjects, suggesting interdisciplinary teaching improves both language acquisition and creative thinking.
Originaltitel: Drawing on other fields of knowledge (FoK) in visual arts: a case study of a Finnish CLIL classroom
<p>Subject-specific knowledge has increasingly been foregrounded in Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) research, particularly in subjects such as history and chemistry. However, the focus on subject-specificity may render invisible the potential impact of interdisciplinary knowledge resources in shaping, scaffolding, or extending knowledge-building in CLIL classrooms. Against this background, the present study investigates how a teacher refers to other disciplinary fields of knowledge (FoK) while constructing legitimate arts knowledge in a Finnish CLIL visual arts classroom, an under-explored subject area in CLIL. Methodologically, we combine multimodal Conversation Analysis (CA) with the Autonomy dimension of Legitimation Code Theory to analyse video-recorded lessons from both micro- and macro-sociological perspectives. The analysis focuses on two interactional environments: (1) teacher explanations and (2) teacher-initiated question-answer sequences. We demonstrate how the teacher mobilises references to other disciplinary fields to scaffold understanding of visual arts-specific knowledge, and how these multimodal practices involve movement across autonomy codes. In doing so, we illustrate the underlying principles governing the transition between disciplinary domains during knowledge-building. The study offers pedagogical implications for CLIL classroom discourse and teacher education, particularly concerning how teachers strategically draw upon other disciplinary fields to support students' learning of visual arts concepts.</p>