Genres in CLIL Subjects
The Genre of Geography
CLPA Primària – Carme Florit Ballester CLSA Secundària – Joan Alberich Carramiñana Source: Llinares, Morton and Whittaker, The Role of Languages in CLIL, CUP, 2012
Genres of Geography at school Language is used to observe the experiential world through the creation of technical vocabulary: a process of dividing up and naming those parts of the world which are significant to geographers.
Geographers order the experiential world through the setting up of field-specific taxonomies. Wignel et altri, 1993:137
Students come into contact with two text types: Geography REPORTS: Descriptive reports showing the phenomena relevant to the field, with its specific terms, ans often definitions of terms.
Geography EXPLANATIONS: Texts that are parallel of those of Science or Technology. They reflect the same relations between phenomena. Sequential and causal explanations are frequent, expressing how or why something happens.
Geographical REPORTS: Present information about physical features of the environment, or about human groups and their activities in a particular environment. A Written Geographical REPORTS include the following stages: Identification & Description
Example of Geographical Reports: Identification: China is an enormous country with very big contrasts. Description: It has over 9.6 million square kilometers, China is the world's second biggest country. It has an estimated population of 1,350,695,000 people and 22 provinces. China's landscape is vast and diverse, ranging from forest steppes and the Gobi and Taklamakan deserts in the arid north to subtropical forests in the wetter south.
Geographical EXPLANATIONS two types: Sequential Explanations Causal Explanations
A These two written Geographical
EXPLANATIONS include the following stages: Identification & Temporal / Causal Sequence (in phases)
Example of Sequential EXPLANATIONS: Identification The volcanos are opening mountains in the earth crust and expulse lava by its crater. Temporal sequence
The process is like this: Phase 1 Lava rise up through the volcano pipe Phase2 The magma or lava is made of hot materials meltetd because they are very hot. They go down and create rivers of lava. Phase 3 This lava, once is out, gets colder and colder until it becomes cold rocks and land.
Example of Causal EXPLANATIONS: Identification
A delta is a flat, triangular area of land with rich soil lying between branches of the mouth of a river.
Causal sequence
How deltas are formed Deltas form from deposition of sediment carried by a river as the flow leaves its mouth. Phase 1 The river carries out lots of sediments at its beginning because it runs with fast and strong waters. Phase2 The river’s velocity decreases and some deposits are found in its middle part. Phase 3 The river’s velocity is low and allows the sediments to layer. Over long periods, this deposition builds the characteristic geographic pattern of a river delta.
Geographical EXPLANATIONS: Consequential Written consequential EXPLANATIONS include the following stages:
Identification or Output & Factors + Explanations
Example of Consequential EXPLANATIONS: Output
Surviving the desert climate: The fennec fox
Factors
Factor 1 The fennex fox is a mammal and the smallest fox in the world. Factor 2 plus explanation It has enormous ears to help radiate heat to help it stay cool Factor 3 It lives in the ground in long and cool burrows. Factor 4 plus explanation It emerges to hunt on the ground around dusk when the day is less hot. In the desert, the main source of water for animals is dew. Generalisation explaining factor 1 Some animals are small in the desert but have a surface area large so that they can lose heat easily.