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The Language Teacher | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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edited by Daniel J. McIntyre Learning language through content is a natural phenomenon and not a new idea. In recent times, the Writing Across the Curriculum approach has been seen to be effective for teaching language skills to native speakers through the medium of courses in other content areas. The encouraging results have added impetus to the contemporary application of the concept of learning through content to ES/FL. Here, Tim Murphey discusses the rationale, implementational concerns, and beneficial outcomes in regard to a particular program in the context of higher education in Japan.
Content Based Instruction (CBI) is simply teaching language through teaching a
subject matter, like psychology, history, or music, with the focus on the subject,
not on the language. CBI is gaining in popularity and research support in the EFL
world as more and more teachers slowly realize Krashen's oft cited adage that "subject
matter teaching, when it is made comprehensible, is language teaching"
(my italics, his stress, BBC Video: A Child's Guide to Language Learning ,
1983).
In designing the workshop courses, one of the goals was to give students as much variety in content as possible to complement their more form-focused language courses. Thus, it was decided to have students rotate through many different classes, with different teachers, for short 6 to 7 week content courses. Thus, students are also exposed to four different teachers with different teaching styles, different accents, and different topics. The short length of the courses and their interactive lecture style keeps motivation and interest high, and allows the approximately 44 students per class to concentrate on meaning. Because of the popularity of the workshops, we expanded the program into the second year in 1996. All the first-year workshops are scheduled at the same time, on the same day; as are all second-year workshops. Thus, each time students rotate, they simply change classrooms. In their first class at the beginning of the school year, students are given a schedule of the classes and teachers they will have during the year and what dates they will be changing classes. Issues and Strategies For Implementing CBI There are at least five important issues that warrant attention by those wishing to implement CBI. They include: (1) choosing an approach and methodology (which will guide other decisions); (b) selecting and orienting teachers; (c) selecting courses; (d) convincing students, staff, and administrators of the value of CBI; and (e) encouraging the continuation of CBI in upper level courses to provide continuity. These issues are closely interrelated, but here I will treat them separately and describe the strategies we have applied at Nanzan. These strategies are simply examples of how we have responded to the challenges rather than a prescription for how things should be done. Issue 1: What approach and methodology? Users of CBI can use an action research cycle at the program level to allow the program administrator and others involved to clarify what they want, make their plan, and then implement it. Periodically thereafter, administrators and teachers need to allow enough time for reflection on what is happening, restate their goals, plan, and implement again. As you see the consequences of the approach over time and clarify your rationale, you can flexibly adjust their teaching over several years. Our goals were to appeal to the students' interests through program diversity and get them to interact meaningfully with subject matter. Realizing that for most of the students, this would be the first time they would be exposed to a subject in English over an extended period of time, we wanted to give them more than just one chance to do this successfully. Thus, by having four short courses in a year, we increased the likelihood that they would get excited about being able to learn content through English and see its usefulness. The unity of the courses was sought through certain common procedures. Workshop teachers are all given a brief orientation handout which outlines the program and suggests a variety of instructional strategies which enhance student learning. These include using fun and interactive activities (e.g., pair work, questionnaires), rotating partners by numbering off students in the class each week, and lecturing for only 10 to 15 minute segments at most and then allowing students to reformulate (i.e., tell partners what they have understood or not understood and ask for clarification). Assigning a minimum amount of homework reading (approximately 1000 words a week) and using action logs (explained below) are also suggested. The repetition of six week courses allows teachers to test small amounts of material and adjust them for later groups. So that teachers can adjust even more during each course, students write action logs describing the content and activities in each class (Murphey, 1992, 1993). These are turned in to teachers either weekly or biweekly. This regular feedback given by students to teachers gives insights into students' comprehension and interest in the material. It allows teachers to adjust their instructional goals in an ongoing fashion, while also getting students more involved as they perceive their impact on the courses. Since each student uses the same action log notebook for all four courses, students may feel the courses are somewhat connected, in form if not in content, and teachers can also see what previous teachers did in class, as well as get an idea of the student's past work. On the front inside cover of each action log is also an information form that students fill out about themselves and to which they attach a photo. This helps the teachers to get to know the students' names and faces more quickly when they read the logs. Issue 2: Which teachers? How can they adjust? In other words, we might ask these two questions: (a) To what extent can language teachers adapt to content teaching?, and (b) To what extent can content teachers adapt their language and teaching to make it comprehensible? Teacher and content selection has basically been left up to the coordinator, with recommendations offered by the faculty and approval received through private discussion and consensus. In recent years, I have tended to look for enthusiastic teachers first and then ask what topic areas they are knowledgeable about and are willing to share with their students. Students are also regularly asked what kind of courses they would like and which ones they appreciate. Most of the English teachers have jumped at the opportunity to do what they have been doing covertly in their language classes for a long time: teaching through their favorite content. Still, some teachers may occasionally drift into traditional language teaching simply from habit. It's crucial for the effectiveness of CBI to persuade teachers to stay away from too much straight language teaching and to concentrate more on simply making the content understandable. Most of them find CBI exciting when they see that content teaching, when it is comprehensible to the students, is effective language teaching at the same time. They also often realize that a lot of their most effective language teaching in their regular (non-CBI) classes is actually CBI-oriented, that is, highly meaningful interaction about topics they are passionate about. The action logs have been very helpful in getting the content teachers to adjust to the students' language levels and content desires. In a way, the open and regular communication between students and teachers in the action logs allows the students to train the teachers. The task for most teachers seems to be in making their area comprehensible and avoiding the two extremes of either (a) thinking students cannot understand the content until they understand the language (and then teaching too much decontextualized language) or thinking the content is "almighty" and "if students can't understand, then too bad," which turns them into non-adjusting, noncommunicative subject specialists. However, if they really want their students to understand what they themselves are fascinated about, they need to adjust their messages so that students grasp the concepts. When this occurs, students realize that the language is actually being used, and understood, and that they are learning something really important. This is the "ah-ha!" experience that often escapes description and for which I feel CBI is striving. It is this experience that gives meaning to language and allows acquisition to really flow. Issue 3: Which content courses? What courses should be chosen? Which course mix provides a good variety? Which courses would be acceptable to your administration and exciting to your students? What is available? What can be created? Of course it is clear that any course in practice can be more or less form or content-focused and that the title often has little to do with the actual teaching. Most administrators, however, only see titles and course descriptions and CBI titles in a "language program" might raise some eyebrows (as some of those in Figure 2 might). Figure 2: Grouping of Workshop courses according to the degree of language focus.
Teachers seeking acceptance of CBI might have more success convincing administrators initially to give CBI a try if they choose courses like those in categories 1 and 2 above. In fact it might be advisable to not even call it CBI; just keep the old titles, do CBI, monitor and document its success, and then provide the administration with new ways to view what you have already done post hoc. In the first three years that the workshops operated at Nanzan, they officially retained the name of "Yakudoku" or "reading/translation" even though the content was obviously very different. Issue 4: How do we convince students, teachers, and administrators of the value of CBI? When the students, teachers and administrators see the value in CBI, it can be much more effective and run more smoothly. More importantly, when students embrace the method it enhances their own learning. As in any self-fulfilling prophecy, when students believe in the method, they invest more of themselves in the course and that produces even better results. The official student feedback surveys (Appendix 1) done the first, fourth, and fifth years of the program provide a way to evaluate the program statistically. Furthermore, they provide a method of program evaluation which is more acceptable to administrators and other staff members. The surveys revealed that students were very positive about the workshop courses and were glad when the classes were extended to the second year. It was also clear from the surveys that some students could have benefited more from a clearer understanding of the rationale behind CBI. Periodically, a memo explaining the program to students in simple terms can help a lot to calm doubts and generate enthusiasm (see Why Workshops?). Their positive reaction in their action logs following such memos show that students do care and want to know the rationale. Issue 5: How do we keep the ball rolling? CBI in the Upper Levels and with JTEs We need to be aware of the enormous potential for CBI in upper level courses that are often conducted in the students' L1. When courses such as advanced English literature and linguistics continue to be taught in universities in the L1, teachers are not only failing to teach further meaningful language use during their courses; they are discouraging it in the lower levels as well by not providing an incentive, a goal, for language use later on in a student's academic development. For a fuller discussion of the reasons why JTEs use the L1, readers are referred to Murphey (1996). Suffice to say here that classroom-based research reveals a variety of ways in which teachers can incrementally increase the amount of English they use and be excellent role models for their students (Murphey, 1995). We have succeeded in convincing the administration to hire a Japanese willing to teach in English for one Workshop course for 1997. We hope to be able to hire another the following year and show that JTEs can teach in English and satisfy and inspire students. In recent years we have also gotten the Japanese language laboratory staff to switch to English, and the feedback has been superb. For more upper level teachers to begin teaching more in English, they need to be shown the reasons why teaching in English can be effective and non-threatening ways to use English comfortably and incrementally.
Conclusion Aside from the inherent value of CBI courses, I think this program has been successful by obtaining regular student feedback in action logs and surveys, frequently communicating with administration and staff, selecting enthusiastic teachers excited about their courses, and providing students with a lot of variety in a short course format. The five issues raised here will, no doubt, remain a challenge as we continue to implement CBI. The details in each situation will be different as will the variety of ways to address them. For now, we are convinced from this experience that CBI in the EFL context is an exciting endeavor well worth the doing, and well worth improving. I hope this brief sketch has provided you with ways to think about your own CBI options. References Brinton, D., Snow, M., & Wesche, M. (1989). Content-based
second language instruction. New York: Newbury House. Course Evaluation
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