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 The process is like this:

sequence 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 How deltas are formed

sequence 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.