5. Choos e content for its relevance to students’ lives, interests, andor aca-
demic goals. Content is closely related to the students’ needs and their background
knowledge in schools or environment. For instance, in vocational high school the content can be linke
d to the subject taught in students’ major.However, content is seen in different way since the language is the
main focus of language teaching. 6. Select authentic texts and tasks
Authenticity becomesmajor feature of CBI. Texts and tasks used in CBI are taken from various real sources with some modification if it is
needed. It is expected that the use of authentic material can promote the students’ interest to learn language.
b. Theory of Language
Richards and Rodgers 2001:207-209 state that there are a number of assumptions about the nature of language underlie CBI. The theory of language in
relation to CBI is shown as follows. 1 Language is text and discourse-based
CBI is not merely about the order of sentences, but it focuses on how meaning andinformation are communicated and constructed through texts and
discourse.
2 Language use draws on integrated skills CBI views language use as integrating several skills together.
Thestudents are involved inactivities with integrated skills such as reading- writing or listening-speaking. Grammar is seen as a component of
otherskillsand is presented through content. Therefore, teacher has to include the relevant grammatical and other linguisticfocuses in the topic or theme of
the activities.
3 Language is purposeful Language is used for specific purposes, it can be for academic,
vocational, social, or recreational purposes. Learners only focus on the purpose they manage to obtainso that the exposure of language is also around the
content they are learning.
c. CBI Models
CBI offers various numbers of models as what Brinton, Snowand Wesche 1989: 14-16 propose. There are several different models from one to another:
adjunctlinked courses AL, sheltered subject matter instruction SSM, and theme-based courses TB. Each of the models has their own characteristics and
has different focus based on the goal of language teaching and learning.
The first model is adjunctlinked courses. This model is usually applied in a regular school and for second language learners. AL instructions integrate
language and content in the course but they are not developed from the language
elements alone. In this model, the materials and teaching and learning process use other certain subject matter to be involved in the discussion. The AL model aims
to connect a language course which includes a regular academic course. This especially is taught to students who join the regular content course, but lack of the
language competence. Content in AL model is used to help them in mastering language. Although the source of language learning comes from a certain
discipline, the focus of this instruction is not on the content from academic concept, but it emphasizes thelanguage skills using the academic content as a
background for contextualizing the language learning process.
The next model in CBI is sheltered content matter instruction SSM.
“A sheltered content-based course is taught in a second language by a content
specialist to a group of learners who have been segregated or ‘sheltered’ from native speakers” Brinton, Snow and Wesche 1989:15. In sheltered subject-
matter instruction, the class is taught by a teacher who is familiar with the content from a certain discipline, not the one who is expert in the language
teaching.However, the teacher still has to befamiliar to the students’ language
needs and abilities, and language acquisition process. The main purpose of SSMcourses is content learning rather than language learning. The language
aspects are involved in order to facilitate second language students’ performance
in the course as well as to help them develop academic language skills. The third model is theme-based instruction which can be the most
common model used in CBI. The description of theme-based instruction will be illustrated on the next section since this model is used in this research.
d. Theme-based Instruction
As one of the third models offered in CBI, the nature of theme-based instruction comes from communicative language teaching CLT Brinton: 2003.
CLT as the root of theme-based offers communicative competence as the goal of teaching and learning process.
The researcher uses theme-based TB in this research as the guide to develop materials since the model is the most appropriate approach to be applied
for vocational schools that need certain themes in each of the units of the materials. The students will understand better to learn English if they are provided
materials which connect to their expertise. The result of teaching and learning also will be different since they will concern more on the language that fits to their
major as vocational high school students. Theme-based instruction itself is an approach to language teaching in
which the whole course is structured around certain themes or topics Brinton, 2001; Brinton, Snow, Wesche, 2003. Theme-based instruction concerns on
language teaching and learning process that can meet students’ needs that have
special demand. In TB, the language teacher is the one who is responsible for teaching content although probably it contains the knowledge taken from other
subject matter Duenas, 2003. The expert states that themes are the central ideas that organize the units, so that they have to be chosen with some considerations,
such as student s’ interests and needs, content resources, educational aims, and
institutional demands. TB course consists of several subunits focusing on different topics which explore more specific aspects of the general theme. Topics then
