Processing and Producing Language through Content

Today, scientists using powerful microscopes are able to observe what makes up cells. They have discovered that every cell is a self-contained unit and that all cells are made up of a substance called protoplasm. Protoplasm is the basic living material. It is always made up of carbon (C), oxygen (02), hydrogen (H), nitrogen (N) and very often sulphur (S) and phosphorus (P). Protoplasm is usually colourless and contains a large amount of water. It feels and looks like jelly. Only living things can make new protoplasm or repair damaged protoplasm.

Cells are made up of two kinds of protoplasm: the nucleus and the cytoplasm. They are separated from their environment by an outer cell membrane, which restricts the passage of materials in and out of the cell.

Most of the cells that make up a plant or an animal body are very small - between 10-30 micrometers in diametre. This is because materials entering and leaving the cell have to move through the surface, and the more active a cell is, the more rapidly these materials must pass through. That is why cells which are active metabolically are likely to be small. In general, cells tend to be spherical in shape but they can also take other shapes because of the pressure of neighbouring cells.

The nucleus is found in the centre of the animal cell and to the side of a plant cell. It is thick and has a round shape. The nucleus has two main functions: 1) it carries the hereditary information for the cell; 2) it controls most of the activities of the cell. It also plays a big part in the reproduction of the cell. Cytoplasm is the protoplasm that is outside the nucleus. It consists of a watery solution of enzymes, amino acids and other substances. Depending on the type of cell it may also contain specialised materials, such as haemoglobin, starch grains, etc. It also includes the cellular organelles: ribosomes, Golgi, lysosomes, etc. The cytoplasm carries out all the life activities of the cell except cell reproduction.

Every cell has a cell membrane. A cell membrane is the outer most living layer of all cells. It is made up of living protoplasm. The membrane is very thin. It allows oxygen, carbon dioxide, water, food materials, and other substances to enter, and wastes to leave the cell. It also keeps out harmful materials.

Plant cells have a large vacuole and some animal cells have smaller vacuoles. A vacuole is a space in the cytoplasm filled with water and other substances and surrounded by a single membrane. It serves many purposes. Some vacuoles hold food. Others hold water and the waste materials that are made by the cell.

Both plant and animal cells have a nucleus, cytoplasm, cell membrane, and vacuoles. Plant cells, however, have parts which animal cells don't. One such part is the cell wall which is the layer outside the cell membrane and gives a cell its shape. The cell wall is not made up of living protoplasm but of cellulose. Cellulose is a nonliving part of the plant cell. The cell wall increases in size as a plant gets older. The wall gives the plant extra support and strength. Other parts found in green plant cells, but not in animal cells, are chloroplasts. A chloroplast is a very small part of the cell that contains green colouring matter called chlorophyll. Chlorophyll allows a green plant to carry out photosynthesis. Photosynthesis is the process by which green plants make their own food. So, the green plant needs chlorophyll to make its own food. Animals cannot make their own food. Most animal food comes from green plants. Some organisms consist of just one cell. For example, the spirogyra, a kind of green freshwater alga, is a one-cell plant-like organism. Usually the cells are joined together to form long strands. Each cell of spirogyra has one or more spiral-shaped chloroplasts. The most complex organism of all, the human being, consists of millions of cells. Large aggregates of cells are specialised to carry out different activities. The cell theory is of tremendous importance to biology because it emphasises the basic sameness of all living systems. It has proved that all organisms on Earth are cells or aggregates of cells, and all of us are descendants of the first cells.

from Maria Georgieva 1999: 44 Biology, Lettera Bulgaria,

The text above is intended for learners of English during an intensive preparatory course in Language Grammar Schools in Bulgaria where children go on to study Biology through the medium of English. There is no help for the reader apart from the fact that certain words are written in Bold, there are paragraphs, and that the text is punctuated.

We could expect an illustration at least to accompany the text for learners to visualise what they are reading. When working through the medium of a foreign language learners of Biology will need structural markers in texts to help them find their way through the content. These structural markers may be either linguistic or diagrammatical, preferably both.

The text above discusses cells, the differences between plant and animal cells, parts of cells what they do, where they are found, and how they are constructed. This description of the ‘functions’ of the text may sound simple but it is the starting point for teachers working through the medium of a language which is not the mother tongue of the learners. Once we have identified a ‘core knowledge’ in the text, we can begin to consider what its inherent diagrammatical structure may be. Burgess (www.man.ac.uk) calls these structure ‘ideational frameworks’, or simply put ‘diagrams of thinking’. These include tree diagrams for classification, groups, hierarchies, flow diagrams for sequenced thinking such as instructions and historical information, tabular diagrams for characteristic phenomenon such as when we describe peoples and places, and combinations of these three. If we can identify these diagrams for organising text, spoken or written, we’re on the way to facilitating the learning process for the foreign language learner of content. Through exploitation of the ‘structures’ of text we can create activities which both focus on language development and on core content knowledge.

In this case, the text may be represented as a tree diagram which divides between plant and animal cells. It also has tabular diagrammatical organisation in that it offers characteristics of the different parts of cells and their functions, locations, and structures. Ideally, we may offer a mixture of the tree diagram and the table of characteristics which could look something like the following.

Diagram 1: Organising information on cells

A similar organisation can be offered like this:

Diagram 2: Organising information on cells (2)

Part of identifying the core language and knowledge of the text involves asking ourselves what exactly we expect our learners to reproduce. The answer will probably be the core of the text in their own words. In examinations learners are often expected to reproduce the language of the text itself, rather than ‘own words’.

The first stage of identifying the language is straightforward. Biology teachers will probably expect learners to be able to express similarities and differences between plant cells and animal cells. In this case, learners will need to be able to make use of the language of ‘similarity and difference’, or ‘comparing and contrasting’.

There are sections in course books in the market which much of this language, but it is useful for teachers to begin to collect such useful ‘cross-curricular’ language in handouts, or as wall posters for use in their subject teaching.

Such a collection of phrases and structure for talking or writing about similarity and difference may be like this:

Sheet 1: Comparing and contrasting

The core knowledge appears in the diagrams we’ve suggested above (here, characteristics of cells and their parts, the similarities and differences between plant and animal cells). The language of similarity and difference is a straightforward area of language to prepare. In order to identify other language of the core ‘knowledge’ of the text, we can set ourselves a simple task.

Underline all verb phrases which describe type, structure, function and location of cell parts in the text

In some cases, like the one above, the text may be quite complicated and so such tasks will help the teacher help learners to get at the core language and knowledge of the text.

Once the verb phrases have been underlined, we can then set about arranging them so that they are more learner-friendly and the orgnisation will be in lists grouped under our headings: types, structure, function, location.

What follows is such an organisation of the phrases for talking about type, structure, function and location identified in a number of Biology texts similar to the ones above.

Sheet 2: Verb phrases for describing type, structure, function and location

The above sheets can be offered as part of a collection of handouts to be used in the same way learners use glossaries for their learning of the content curriculum, or as wall posters readily available whenever learners are asked to talk about, or write about type, structure, function or location. It is worth pointing out that this is NOT the language of Biology, it is the language of the curriculum. This language may appear in any number of lessons. It is also interesting to consider how the language offered here would fit into the diagrammatical organisation of the knowledge of the text. We can see the language of comparison in the tree diagram as the two branches break off. We can place the verb phrases on the lines between the boxes in the table to make sentences about the cells. This combination of language and diagram is at the heart of CLIL good practice.

Now we’ve got all of the investigation and identification out of the way, we can begin to look at ‘task design’.

‘Task’ will depend entirely on the aims of the lesson in question. If the teacher intends to ask learners to talk about cells, the learners may need help in preparing and then saying ‘sentences’ about cells. If the aim is to ask learners to write about a cell as part of a lesson, learners may need access to the phrases above to help them structure their sentences in writing their text.

Some examples of tasks which may be used for meeting different aims of a lesson using the text above and making use of the ‘language support sheets’:

• Read and fill in a table
• Ask questions about cells
• Listen and label a cell
• Speak about an illustration of a cell
• Information gap for speaking about cells
• Present a cell using a set structure
• Write about a cell using a writing frame

• Read and fill in a table

Read the text and place ticks and crosses in the boxes in the table below according to the characteristics of plant and animal cells:

• Ask questions about cells

20 Questions - You have 20 guesses to find out which word I’m thinking of. If you say ‘is it the pancreas?’ and you are wrong, you lose the rest of your go and the turn moves to the other team. So, be careful!!!

• Listen and label a cell

Cell Division and Multiplication

You are going to listen to a description of the process of mitosis. Fill in the missing information in the gaps provided.

• Speak about an illustration of a cell

• Information gap for speaking about cells

When students have finished they then compare their texts checking the information they have written down and correcting any errors.

• Present a cell using a set structure

• Write about a cell using a writing frame