Using cognitive discourse functions and comparative judgement to build teachers’ knowledge of content and language integration for assessment in a bilingual education program

Abstract

This paper reports a study carried out in the context of a seminar designed to build teachers’ knowledge of content and language integration for assessment in a bilingual education program in Madrid, Spain. The participants were seven teachers (two primary, five secondary) of English and science (primary), and art, history, Spanish language arts and English (secondary). The teachers were introduced to the concept of cognitive discourse function (CDF) and assessed samples of students’ work expressing the functions define, evaluate, and explore, using comparative judgement. In sharing and justifying their assessments, they articulated the criteria they used to take their decisions. The findings show that participants emphasized content quality over quantity and language form over function. There was also evidence that the concept of CDFs enabled them to express new understandings of the content-language relationship in assessment. The study has implications for building the knowledge base for content and language integrated assessment across CBLE programs.