A WORD ABOUT CONTENT-BASED SECOND LANGUAGE INSTRUCTION

A WORD ABOUT CONTENT-BASED SECOND LANGUAGE INSTRUCTION

As future teachers of English as a second or foreign language in the United States, Taiwan, and Korea, we are excited about the opportunities that content-based instruction (CBI) provides for enhancing second language (L2) learning. As you will see in the draft lessons on this website, we have attempted to apply important CBI principles in lessons designed to meet the needs of L2 students----of various ages and language backgrounds-- in our current and future teaching contexts. We hope you will be able to adapt these lessons for your own students. These CBI principles are discussed and exemplified in many of the resources we list below. Our list of resources includes only a handful of the many useful materials on the topic of content-based instruction. As outlined in Grabe & Stoller 1997, Stoller & Grabe 1997, Mohan 2001, Chamot & O’Malley 1994, Echevarria & Graves 2007, Echevarria, Vogt & Short 2008, Mohan 2001, Davison & Williams 2001, among many others, the guiding principles for this CBI website include:

• Integrating interesting, useful, and motivational content (ideally, through authentic materials) with language, including academic content such as mathematics, science, social studies, and literature/language arts, and more general content, such as music, photography, sports, consumer health, and cooking. (See below, for example, Bailey 2000, Holten 1997, Larimer & Schleicher 1999, Lorenzo 2007, Skolnick et al. 2004, Zaslavsky 1996.)


• Scaffolding learning, so that L2 students can undertake challenging tasks successfully. (See, for ex., Echevarria & Graves 2007, Echevarria et al. 2008, Gibbons 2002, Sharpe 2006.)


• Considering a vast array of academic language features that can be meaningfully introduced and practiced through content-related lessons. These features include: aspects of the four macroskills (reading, writing, listening, speaking), as well as aspects of pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, and pragmatics, and word-level to paragraph/discourse-level features. Within the area of vocabulary, we have considered not only the “technical terms” necessary for completing the content aspects of our lessons, but other vocabulary learning needs, as well, including introducing vocabulary learning strategies, more general useful vocabulary with a special content-specific meaning, and review of vocabulary by categories, so that students are always re-activating and using known and new vocabulary items. (See, for example, Bearne 1999, Cummins 2005 [1984], Dornan et al. 2005, Fisher et al. 2007, Jordan 1997, Kim 2005, Kinsella 1997, McKenna & Robinson 1997, Mercer & Sams 2006, Schleppegrell 2004, Spencer & Guillaume 2006, Thier 2002.)


• Where possible, designing a series of lessons on the same topic, so that students both become more expert in the actual content, and also have many opportunities to repeatedly hear/see and use the vocabulary and structures related to that topic. This principle, expanded to a thematic unit or an entire semester-long course, is known as “sustained content teaching.” (For more information on thematic and sustained content teaching, see, for example, Bourke 2006, Gianelli 1997, Hayes et al. 1991, Numrich 2001, Pally 2000.)


• Allowing content needs, topics and projects to inspire language teaching, and language features to inspire content connections. For example, if students are to write an original recipe as part of a cooking unit, the teacher can naturally introduce the imperative and sequencing words. If the curriculum calls for introducing conditional (if….then…), writing and reading rules for various sports can be an excellent content-related context. (See, for example, case studies in Kaufman & Crandall 2005.)


• Drawing from and applying a variety of sources in lesson/task design, including national and state language, content, and ESL/EFL standards and curriculum, including curriculum guidelines from Taiwan and Korea (See, for example, González et al. 2006, TESOL 1997 & 2006).


• Including in lesson and task design, attention to important findings from second language acquisition: That learners need frequent opportunities to practice and to be immersed in comprehensible input, and that they can enhance their learning through interaction with peers (Brown 2000, Ellis 1997, Grabe & Stoller 1997, Lightbown & Spada 2006, Scovel 2001).


• Encouraging “higher-order” thinking and opportunities to practice “higher-order” academic language functions, by including such thought processes as evaluating, synthesizing, and comparing and contrasting (Bailey 2000, Chamot 2005, Chamot & O’Malley 1994, Pally 2000, Unrau 1997).


• Emphasizing strategies for learning how to learn (Chamot 2005, Chamot & O’Malley 1994, Kinsella 1997).

As you will notice in the formats of lessons, we were also informed by lesson planning and teacher self-evaluation procedures introduced in the SIOP (Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol) Model (Echevarria & Graves 2007, Echevarria, Vogt & Short 2008). While we recognize the importance of frequent assessment of learners through a variety of measures, this was not our area of expertise, so while we have included some drafts of possible informal assessments, please consider these only rough drafts. (See, for example, Fichtner et al. 1994, Gottlieb 2006, Hein & Price 1994, and O’Malley & Pierce 1996, for more information on L2 assessment.)