DIPLOMARBEIT / DIPLOMA THESIS Titel der Diplomarbeit / Title of the diploma thesis Using Adapted Primary Literature in the Austrian CLIL biology classroom verfasst von / submitted by Christoph Astner angestrebter akademischer Grad / in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Magister der Philosophie (Mag.phil.) Wien, 2019 / Vienna 2019 Studienkennzahl lt. Studienblatt: A 190 445 344 degree programme code as it appears on the student record sheet: Studienrichtung lt. Studienblatt: Lehramtsstudium UF Biologie und Umweltkunde UF Englisch Betreut von / Supervisor: Ao. Univ.-Prof. Mag. Dr. Ute Smit Acknowledgements During my studies as well as in these last stages of writing this thesis I have been very fortunate to rely on the support and encouragement of my supervisor, my family, and my friends. First of all, I would like to thank Univ.-Prof. Mag. Dr. Ute Smit for her guidance while writing this paper. Thank you for the constructive feedback, for sharing your time and your experience with me. I would also like to thank Mag. Dr. Pascher for letting me use her work for my empirical study and for her insightful comments. Furthermore, I thank all the teachers and learners that participated in my study. The last few years at the University of Vienna have not only enriched my life with knowledge and wisdom, but also with great friends. Be it great people I met through university, or many of the lovely people I got to know through music, I want to thank them all for making my life what it is today. Of course, those friends who have walked the road of life with me since early on deserve to be appreciated as well, especially Thomas, with whom I discussed teaching (and life in general) more than in any course. Additionally, I want to thank my cousins for keeping me connected with my home and for raising the meaning of the word family to the next level. Speaking of family, I want to thank my parents for giving me the opportunity to study and for supporting me emotionally (and financially). I am most thankful for my siblings, Eva and Andreas (+ Anna-Maria), who serve me as role models for so many aspects of life. Thank you all. Table of Contents I. Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 1 II. Theoretical framework ........................................................................................................ 2 1. CLIL .................................................................................................................................... 2 2. Combining the CLIL-matrix with goals of APL ................................................................. 5 3. Reading ............................................................................................................................... 9 4. Scientific Literacy ............................................................................................................. 14 5. Primary Scientific Literature – The research article as a genre ........................................ 15 6. Approaches to adapting PSL for pedagogical purposes.................................................... 25 6.1. The science education approach: APL ...................................................................... 25 6.2. The linguistic approach: Theory of input modification ............................................. 33 7. How to adapt Primary Scientific Literature – A Guideline .............................................. 38 7.1. Choose an article ....................................................................................................... 38 7.2. Comprehending the PSL ............................................................................................ 43 7.3. Content modification ................................................................................................. 43 7.4. Structural standardization .......................................................................................... 45 7.4.1. Title .................................................................................................................... 45 7.4.2. Abstract .............................................................................................................. 46 7.4.3. Introduction ........................................................................................................ 46 7.4.4. Methods .............................................................................................................. 47 7.4.5. Results ................................................................................................................ 48 7.4.6. Discussion and conclusion ................................................................................. 48 7.4.7. Other additions ................................................................................................... 49 7.5. Lexical modification .................................................................................................. 50 7.5.1. Identifying keywords and terms ......................................................................... 50 7.5.2. Using glossaries .................................................................................................. 51 7.5.3. Paraphrasing ....................................................................................................... 52 7.6. Syntactic simplification ............................................................................................. 53 7.6.1. T-unit analysis .................................................................................................... 54 7.6.2. Grammatical metaphors ..................................................................................... 56 7.7. Highlighting Scientific Communication .................................................................... 58 7.8. Recurring evaluation .................................................................................................. 60 III. Empirical Study ................................................................................................................ 61 8. Basic description of the study ........................................................................................... 61 9. Study instruments .............................................................................................................. 63 9.1. Creating a text through theories of HAPL and linguistic modification ..................... 63 9.2. Design of the reading comprehension test ................................................................. 71 9.3. Design of the student questionnaire ........................................................................... 75 10. Data analysis and discussion ............................................................................................. 77 10.1. Assessment of the reading comprehension test ..................................................... 77 10.2. Analysis of the questionnaires ............................................................................... 87 10.3. Discussion of the students’ comments ................................................................... 96 IV. Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 97 References .............................................................................................................................. 100 Appendix ................................................................................................................................ 112 I. Introduction Communication among scientists through research papers has become increasingly anglicized throughout the whole world in the last decades. Since one goal of secondary schools is to prepare their students for tertiary education, this linguistic change towards using the English language for all academic purposes also influences the demands for secondary schools. The skill to read scientific literature in English is even present in the curriculum for biology and environmental science for Austrian upper secondary schools (Lehrplan 2004: 2). The teaching of reading scientific texts is also very suitable for Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL), since the content of the article and the genre-specific text features are both important for text comprehension. To scaffold the learning of reading scientific texts, a research field has been developed focusing on adaptations of scientific literature for educational purposes: Adapted Primary Literature (APL). This study sets out to combine the research field around APL, which originated within science education, and the field of linguistic modification and connect the suggestions put forward by the literature with the demands of a quality CLIL classroom in an Austrian setting. The thesis begins with presenting an overall picture of CLIL and its Austrian implementations. Additionally, a matrix for teachers who want to offer quality CLIL education written by the Austrian center for language competence (Österreichisches Sprachen-Kompetenz-Zentrum) is consulted to show the huge amount of overlaps of the goals of APL and CLIL, which supports the use of Adapted Primary Literature in the biology CLIL classroom. Chapter 3 focuses on different approaches to the skill of reading which are important for secondary education. The influences of prior knowledge and interest on reading comprehension are also topic in this section.