[Ack: I forget the source. My text, or the book she has on hold.]

CLT is still the dominant approach to L2 teaching. (132). CBI is a descendent.

What strikes me at the moment:

I like the nonthreatening way of learning (with group discussion) and the idea of learning a language through learning another topic: i.e. language as a means, not an end.

I am very, very tired, so I can’t engage either in the process or the metadiscussion of it. My eyes are closing and all I notice are distant voices and my classmate coughing, and thumps in the adjacent classrooms.

But my first reactions are: I like this idea but it seems that as a teacher it will require a huge amount of preparation. Read the book, The Content-Based Classroom, or Diane Larsen-Freeman’s chapter on CBI.

Scaffolding Language, Scaffolding Learning: She recommends this book, particularly if you’re gonna be teaching in public school system.

General After-Teaching Thoughts

I have more questions now than when I began. I am excited about this approach because it gives me a way to pursue topics that interest me and my students, rather than to focus explicitly on language teaching which, frankly, is less inspiring to me. However, I am confused about the approach as well.

How hard is it to squeeze a theme-based lesson (or series of lessons) into a curriculum when one is not in an official CBI setting? That is, how can we gracefully dovetail it on the language development front with what came before and what comes after?

I’m confused about the lines between participatory approach and this. What I thought was CBI for my lesson plan, my peers thought was more PA. My lesson was not student- or code-generated, and my objective wasn’t to move the students toward an action. It did have a potentially political component, but I see it more as social history.

How explicitly/transparently does the class session need to teach language: e.g. do the students necessarily know what grammatical or other form they’re being taught? My CBI lesson plan began with a slideshow interspersed with discussion. The language goals I had, beyond vocabulary, were not met because my format, it ended up, didn’t elicit what I wanted. But I think it might have over time, which was the context I envisioned. If it doesn’t immediately manifest evidence of working toward a goal, does that mean it failed as CBI? Or can the language aspect of CBI unfold more slowly: certainly within the class session, but perhaps not within the first fifteen minutes?

How important is it that the language objectives are always visible or even in action? Or is set-up time a valid part of the plan.

What’s the distinction between content- and theme-based? Last week Bev mentioned that they are essentially the same, but I’ve heard them used in different contexts. Is one referencing an entire course and another classes or content within a course?

Subject matter

• Real-world content
• Integrated skills
• Grammar can be presented through a content-based approach to complement the theme
• Language used for specific purposes
• Content is organizing principle, the point of departure
• Authentic materials, rich variety
• Textbooks go against the concept of CBI and good language teaching in general

The subject matter is an academic or vocational subject, with English (or other target language) being the tool for teaching it. Between curricula there may be some variation in the relative weight English is given in its own right relative to the main subject. It’s always considered. But the main subject (often geography because it’s visual, has realia, etc.) drives the course.

From text: “Derived from the content area…  Only CBI following the theme-based model in which content and instructional sequence is chosen according to language learning goals.” Also, “… organized around the content or information that students will acquire, rather than around a linguistic or other type of syllabus… little or no direct or explicit effort to teach the language itself separately from the content being taught…”

After-Teaching Thoughts

How political or loaded or disturbing can it be? She said it’s valid CBI if you’re teaching new concepts, introducing critical thinking skills, encouraging them to contrast/compare, etc. My peers thought my lesson wasn’t CBI but more advocacy. I think it’s environment, energy, social history.

Language

• Language is secondary, or at most equal to, the subject-matter content of the class. It is a means to an end.
• Language as communication, rather than simply as usage; used for specific purposes
• Types of programs that follow the content-based premise: immersion education, immigrant on-arrival programs, language for specific purposes…
• Language at discourse and text level, rather than word and sentence level

After-Teaching Thoughts

It’s hard for me to know if and when I’m teaching language. How overtly observable (if not explicitly stated) does the language component need to be? Does every second of the class need to be fulfilling the language objective, or is it acceptable for there to be stretches — e.g. introducing the topic — that don’t, e.g. for an introduction. That is, in my mining example, can I do a slideshow first, and then have discussion/writing come from that; the slideshow might not have any overt linguistic value.

Culture

No explicit reference to culture, unless that’s the subject matter. But in theme-based education they use a thread to connect lessons, and some courses will be about cultural topics, depending on where the course is being taught. In the US, e.g., there might be a course on the environment, and it might look at water, air, etc., and in each it might examine how each has affected the Native American population.

Also, teachers do focus on using realia, relevant materials, and materials of particular interest to the student, which probably include cultural items.

After-Teaching Thoughts

I was able to find a topic that has a rich element of culture: Appalachia. How I could fit it into a larger picture I don’t know, and I don’t know if I’ll ever have an opportunity. However, the second I talked about my project to Linhong, she got interested, because coal mining and its affect on the poor is a big deal in China. So there’s not only the native culture of the people whose story I’m telling, but other cultures with histories of mining and similar industrial activity.

Learners

• Willing to tolerate uncertainty
• Active interpreters of input
• Explore alternative learning strategies and seek multiple interpretations of oral and written text
• Become autonomous
• Learn best when material is interesting, useful, and leading to a desired goal

After-Teaching Thoughts

As Bev said, we need first to think about why students are learning English. Often, it’s to succeed academically. We always have to keep their academic needs in mind. Content will be determined by context and students. So back to my class project: a) is there a language need a project like this can serve? Can it (or any lesson) be adapted to pretty much any underlying linguistic goals? If students’ goal is not academic but more functional, is something like this still relevant to meeting their objectives? I think that by engaging them in something interesting, you’re succeeding. That is, as long as language goals are being addressed and student interest is maintained, does it anything else matter? And when can you take a chance on their interest and do something like this WV project? I imagine that you’d first want to ascertain relevance or interest before doing all that work. But how can they know if they’re interested until they start to experience the material? I’m going in circles in my head.

Learning

• Collaborative
• Learn by doing
• Types of activities: vocabulary building, discourse organization, communicative interaction, study skills, synthesis of content materials and grammar

After-Teaching Thoughts

In my exercise segment, I did have vocabulary building. The others kept saying I didn’t have the other elements and I kept trying to explain that they were seeing just a bit of what a larger week’s worth of classes would consist of. They’re right that I didn’t have the “learn by doing” and grammar stuff during this lesson, though I did try to have it present underneath what I was doing (e.g. by working with past forms of verbs in their telling me what happened in the pictures). So I’m back to that same question: if every second is not reflecting the goals, is it missing the CBI point?

Teacher

Sometimes use “foreigner talk” — simplification of speech e.g. nonreduced pronunciation, redundancy, regular word order — for easier student comprehension

• Creates appropriate and sometimes alternative ways for providing input
• Uses techniques to make subject matter comprehensible
• Uses grouping strategies
• Develops and/or assembles original classroom materials

Needs to

• Vary the format of instruction
• Use  group work and team building techniques
• Organize jigsaw reading arrangements
• Define background knowledge and language skills required for student success
• Help students develop coping strategies
• Use process approaches to writing
• Use appropriate error correction techniques
• Develop and maintain high levels of student self-esteem

After-Teaching Thoughts

As I’ve written elsewhere, to what extent is it appropriate for the teacher to allow his/her views to be seen. I’m thinking of this in the context of an adult classroom, because I think opinion is less appropriate with kids. And I know adult classrooms differ. So this is a general question. It’s logical that we can’t a) go in with a political stance that we advocate, or b) teaching something from a subjective position without identifying it as such. I know, as a journalist, how to be objective. Is teaching different? It’s easier to hide one’s feelings behind writing or radio than in front of a classroom. Is emotion and belief a good thing for students to see, controlled, on occasion?

Teaching

Requires teacher to be proficient in teaching two distinct subjects: ESL and the subject area; thus, it is extremely demanding on the teacher — at least, as Bev pointed out, on the first go ’round when developing materials/curriculum initially. After that, you can recycle.

Comprehensibility is as critical as authenticity

After-Teaching Thoughts

I found it impossible to predict what effect my materials would have on my students, or to what extent they would respond to the linguistic cues I gave them so that they were practicing what I wanted them to practice in conversation.

Educational Outcomes

Principles

• People learn a second language more successfully when they use the language as a means of acquiring information, rather than as an end in itself
• Better reflects learners’ needs for learning a second language

Objectives

• Achievement of content course objectives is necessary and sufficient evidence that language-learning objectives have been achieved as well

After-Teaching Thoughts

Of course I wasn’t able to measure anything because my lesson, unlike that of my two peers, was rooted in the idea that it was part of a larger unit. Which brings me to yet another question: in content-based instruction, at what point(s) do we measure outcomes. Unlike individual lesson plans in which outcomes are measured at the end of class, a week long unit, for example, can’t be measured fully until it’s over. Certainly it can be observed with dialog and in-class exercises. So I think that the outcomes are measurable, but not from a global level until further into the unit.

Context

• Learner-centered classroom

After-Teaching Thoughts

Well, now I’m wondering what a learner-centered classroom means? Isn’t everything we’ve done learner-centered? Does the class need to consist of constant interaction with the material, or can the teacher present stuff for a while as a springboard for discussion? Bev’s sample lesson had no presentation element. Is that a defining facet of CBI? If so, where is there a place for teachers in content-classrooms to present materials unilaterally — not for the whole lesson, but for as long as it takes to provide foundation or instruction or detail or whatever? Or does everything need to be guided discovery learning?

Some contemporary models of CBI

University: Theme-based instruction (materials are teacher generated and topic will cross all skills); Sheltered instruction (taught in second language by content area specialist to ESL learners assembled for this purpose; teacher adjusts level of difficulty according to students’ readiness); Adjunct language instruction (two linked courses, one a content course and one a language course, with interlocking curricula); Team-teach approach (variation on adjunct, in which two instructions teach in same classroom); Skills-based approach (focus on specific academic area, e.g. academic writing).

Elementary and secondary: Same as above. Theme-based is common, to facilitate students’ entry into a subject area and focus on learning strategies, concepts, tasks and skills needed for subject areas in mainstream curriculum.

Summary from Richards & Rogers Chapter

CBI is an approach, not a method, in that no specific techniques or activities are associated with it. It is a leading curricular approach, despite the amount of work required for the teacher.

Here’s an example of how a class might look, with a lesson in Spanish built around the viewing of El Norte. For prep, students read materials regarding US immigration laws and an extract from Octavio Paz’ El Laberinto de la Soledad.

• Linguistic analysis: discussion of grammar and vocabulary based on students’ analysis of oral presentations done the day before.
• Preparation for film: Activities previewing vocabulary in film, including a vocabulary worksheet.
• Viewing a segment of the movie.
• Discussion of the film: teacher leads it.
• Discussion of the reading.
• Videotaped interview: Students see a short interview in which immigration matters are discussed.
• Discussion of immigration reform.
• Preparation of articles: Students make presentations, which may be taped so that they can listen later for self-correction.
• Wrap up discussion.