L 2 Interaction in Heterogeneous Learner Groups during Content and Language Integrated Learning: The Experience of (removed for peer-review) and beyond (2024)

Abstract: Сontent and language integrated learning is considered a powerful tool to promote inclusion in educational settings of learners for whom the language of instruction is their additional language. Language-related difficulties of those learners have been claimed detrimental for attaining personal educational goals. Academic language places increased cognitive demands on the learning process in general due to 1) its internal complexity; 2) L2 speakers’ lower proficiency; 3) their disadvantage in terms of real-time processing. Facilitators are, therefore, encouraged to integrate interactional CLIL-elements (e.g., scaffolding) during content instruction that provide the necessary pedagogical support for better understanding of disciplinary concepts and their interrelation. In the current contribution, we present the concept and first results of Rail.lexis, a collaborative project of the Department of German Studies and the Department of Railway Engineering at TU Brauschweig. We present and discuss several conversational arrangements (e.g., word guessing games, a differential task matrix) that were designed to engage the learners of heterogeneous linguistic backgrounds in meaningful interactions in subject-specific classes. Subject-specific tasks are gradient regarding their cognitive complexity and the background knowledge required to solve them. Therefore, the linguistic repertoire required to negotiate different task types is also differential to ensure the participation of linguistically diverse students in language-enhanced classroom interactions.

## introduction a standardized language test is an essential requirement to be admitted to foreign-language study programs for learners whose preferred language deviates from the language of instruction. the language requirements for university degree studies remain quite demanding. in german universities, at least a b2 level of cefr (council of europe, 2020) is required for most study programs. a b2-level language learner is described as able to "obtain information, ideas, and opinions from highly specialized sources within their field. s/he can follow the essentials of lectures, talks, and reports and other forms of academic/professional presentation which are propositionally and linguistically complex. s/he can produce clear, detailed text on a variety of subjects related to their field of interest, synthesizing and evaluating information and arguments from a number of sources" (council of europe, 2020). while the number of foreign applicants who fulfil the admission criteria for german-speaking study programs has been continuously increasing since 1980 @xcite , around 20 to 40% of the enrolled foreign applicants fail to attain academic goals and quit prematurely without obtaining a degree @xcite . the construct of academic success is highly subjective and grounded both in individual factors and in cultural, social, and institutional integration. language skills constitute an individual's personal profile and are subject to change over time. wisniewski ## linguistic and psychological preliminaries the dialogue constitutes a core unit of language use. it represents a flexible, yet conversation-sustaining alternation between the speaker and the hearer who are cooperating in a goal-oriented way. engaging in fruitful and highquality peer interactions is positively associated with learning outcomes in various contexts @xcite . several design-based research attempts have emerged to identify the characteristics of effective collaborative behavior in dialogue-based activities. thus, academic productive talk (apt, @xcite operates on the following accountability principles:  the learners should build on and develop one another's ideas to sustain a goaloriented interaction.  the validity of the contributions should be secured via available reference materials or direct evidence.  the learners should logically connect their arguments, evaluate their cohesion, and draw inferences. while the learners' reasoning is prioritized over correctness, those classroom discourse frameworks do not give sufficient attention to studying specific reasoning patterns as a gateway to explicating mental models. in @xcite , we follow the procedures of cognitive task analysis (cta, @xcite . cta is applied to work related tasks (e.g., generating a weather forecast or detecting an infection in a neonate) and represents a collection of methods to research, identify and represent the mental processes that evolve during task performance. cta tasks are grounded in an extensive knowledge base and require complex inferences and judgements in a complex uncertain real-time environment. proficiency-related differences of task performers will be stipulated in the strategies that they adopt to optimize their behaviour. those differences are grounded in subject-related knowledge structures and mental models that underlie decision making and might be more elaborate in experts compared to novices. simultaneously, socio-cultural approaches to language ("five graces group", 2009) stipulate that it is grounded in a specific socio-cultural context. its emergence is concurrent with knowledge accrual. as knowledge is coconstructed, the learners' linguistic repertoire replenishes and becomes more diversified. they acquire disciplinary concepts as basic terms and negotiate the relations between them through academic discourse functions. explicit reasoning in cta-fashioned tasks will provide a window into the mental processes of students and how they employ language as a vehicle to re-organize their knowledge patterns. those processes will be conductive of language growth proper. ## initial findings and future directions the results of the first round of implementation (16 civil engineering students) show that the dtm was appraised by the students due to its practical utility for self-assessment and tracking of one's learning progress. we were interested in how the students navigate through the matrix. the learners had not been preliminarily advised about task-related differences in complexity. we observed that the hierarchy of difficulty implied in the matrix in terms of cognitive complexity and the degree of abstraction is perceived differently. in part, the preferred order in which the problems were solved was determined by their knowledge of the topic as well as subject-related competences and experiences. more expert students followed the reading direction from left to right to pick out the problem that they will be solving next. by contrast, the students with reduced subject-related proficiency were equally challenged by every problem regardless of its implied complexity level. further on, the number of terms utilised by different learner dyads ranged from 23 to 136. the use of terms might be regarded as an approximation of the learners' available knowledge base. thus, the dtm appears to elicit interaction patterns that discriminate between the students at different stages along their learning trajectory. the dtm could benefit from multiple test runs and feedback loops from various learner groups to optimize relational item difficulty and achieve greater comprehensibility regarding the order in which the learners progress through the matrix. though the primary goal of the matrix was to enhance learner interactions in content-enriched environments, particularly l2 learners whose language skills were compromised failed to engage in meaningful interactions. those learners could be supported by additional material scaffolds @xcite in form of task-related prefabricated chunks, linking phrases and expressions to verbalize specific academic discourse functions. linguistic scaffolds can also be integrated as part of the conversational agents' discourse repertoire to enhance l2 learners' linguistic development. thus, the study delivers further compelling evidence on how technology-enhanced collaborative learning should be designed to ensure academically productive talk across different conversational arrangements. since the dtm follows the revised taxonomy which aligns learning and assessment, the interaction patterns can also be used to develop technology-enhanced assessment tools and procedures.