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B. Content-Based Instruction
1. The Nature of Content-based Instruction
Content-Based Instruction CBI is a significant approach in second language acquisition Brinton, Snow, Wesche, 1989 in
http:en.wikipedia.orgwikiContent-based_instruction . According to Richard and Roger
2001: 204, CBI refers to an approach to second language teaching in which teaching is organized around the content or information that students will acquire, rather than around
a linguistic or other type of syllabus. Furthermore, Krahnke 1987: 65 defines CBI as the teaching of content or
information in the language being learned with little or no direct or explicit effort to teaching the language itself separately from the content being taught.
Moreover, Brinton, Snow, and Wesche 1989: 2 offered the definition of CBI as “the integration of particular content with language-teaching aims”. The activities in CBI
class are centered around the content being taught and students are expected to learn the content by using the target language.
Stewart 2008: 12 states that the proponents of content-based instruction argue that language is most effectively learned in the context of relevant and meaningful
content. According to Richard 2006: 28, content refers to the information or subject
matter that we learn or communicate through language rather than the language used to convey it. In addition, Da Silva in Hale 2008: 3 identifies content as a crucial part of
language learning and the separation of language from content as both arbitrary and artificial. Historically, the word content has changed its meaning in language teaching.
Content used to refer to the methods of grammar-translation, audio-lingual methodology and vocabulary or sound patterns in dialog form. Recently, content is interpreted as the
use of subject matter as a vehicle for second or foreign language teachinglearning http:en.wikipedia.org
. CBI is developed under the framework of communicative language teaching
CLT, it is grounded on the following two central principles Richard and Roger, 2001: 207:
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a. 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. b.
CBI better reflects learners’ needs for learning a second language. Vyas and Patel 2009: 120 state that CBI is important to produce students who
comprehend English without translating into their native language, choosing meaningful content is essential. Through communication-based instruction focused on content,
students are able to pick up not only the communicative skills that are necessary for effective language, but also learning new subject matter.
Based on the definitions and descriptions above, it can be concluded that CBI is an approach to second language teaching in which teaching is organized around the
content or information, and students learn the second language with little or no direct or explicate effort as the content or information is interpreted as the use of meaningful
authentic materials including text, pictures, newspapers, etc., as the vehicle to motivate the students to get involved in the language teaching and learning process.
2. Theoretical Support
According to Richard 2006: 28 the contemporary views of language learning is seen as resulting from processes such as following, and the best way to do so is by using
content as the driving force of classroom activities and to link all the different dimensions of communicative competence, including grammatical competence, with content.
a. Interaction between the learner and users of the language.
b. Collaborative creation of meaning
c. Creating meaningful and purposeful interaction through language
d. Negotiation of meaning as the learner and his or her interlocutor arrive at
understanding e.
Learning through attending to the feedback learners get when they use the language f.
Paying attention to the language one hears the input and try to incorporate new forms into one’s developing communicative competence
g. Trying out and experimenting with different ways of saying things.
Eskey 1997: 133 states that the rationale for employing CBI is that “people do not learn language and then use it; rather people learn language by using them.” He
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argues that content is “not merely something to practice language with: rather, language is something to explore content with”.
Furthermore, Richard 2006: 25 states that CBI is based on the following assumptions about language learning:
a People learn a language more successfully when they use the language as a means of
acquiring information, rather than as an end in itself. b
CBI better reflects learners’ needs for learning a second language. According to Krashe in Huifang, 2006 in
http:iteslj.orgTechniquesShang-CBI.html, in content-based instruction, students can acquire the content area of the subject matter with comprehensible input, and
simultaneously increase their language skills. To achieve the goal of language skills improvement, Huifang states that the focus of the teaching is on the authentic and
meaningful input, not on the grammatical form. Keeping students motivated and interested are two important factors underlying
content-based instruction. When the students are interested with the contentmaterials, they will be motivated to learn the second language successfully. There are many theories
supporting this: O’ Dowd in Hale 2008: 4 reported that students in content course exhibited greater
interest than usual in the courses and engaged in the classes with enthusiasm. Johnson and Higgins in Hale’ work 2008: 4 also found that students performed at a higher level
when they believed the content they were learning was relevant to their present andor future needs.
CBI material is believed to motivate students to acquire not only a target language but also content. Brinton in Vyas and Patel, 2009: 130 mentions: “The use of
information content which is perceived as relevant by learner is assumed by many to increase motivation in the language course and, thus, to promote effective learning.”
Moreover, according to Stoller in Vyas and Patel, 2009: 130: “There is a relationship between student motivation and student interest—common outcomes of
content-based class and student ability to process challenging materials, recall information, and elaborate.”
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CBI has a strong correlation with student motivation which is a vital element in English education. Motivation allows students to pursue learning English, not to be afraid
of making errors and to use it as a means of communication with a number of people. Motivation makes students understand the actual purpose of saying English. In other
words motivated students realize that English is not just or a way to pass an entrance examination.
Pamenter in Hale 2008: 3 also links affective aspects to content-based learning such as enjoyment, confidence and increased motivation. In terms of content, she
exposed her students to a wide range of topics, including international business, foreign travel, and the environment. She found that the focus on content rather than language
helped her students began to form opinions about society and express their opinions confidently. Research has showed that content-based course increased student motivation
for studying English and raised students’ confidence when using English.
3. The Advantages of Content-based Instruction
CBI is believed to have many advantages. These advantages are listed as follows; a.
It can make learning a language more interesting and motivating. Students can use the language to fulfill a real purpose, which can make students both more
independent and confident. b.
Students can also develop a much wider knowledge of the world through CBI which can feed back into improving and supporting their general educational needs.
c. CBI is very popular among EAP English for Academic Purposes teachers as it
helps students to develop valuable study skills such as note taking, summarizing and extracting key information from texts.
d. Taking information from different sources, re-evaluating and restructuring that
information can help students to develop very valuable thinking skills that can then be transferred to other subjects.
e. The inclusion of a group work element within the framework given above can also
help students to develop their collaborative skills, which can have great social value Peachey
, 2003. In http:www.teachingenglish.org.ukthinkarticles.
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Moreover, Chamot and O’Malley 1994: 26 said that there are at least four reasons for incorporating content into the English as a Second Language ESL class as
follows: a.
Content provides students with an opportunity to develop important knowledge in different subject areas.
b. Students are able to practice the language functions and skills needed to understand,
discuss, read about, and write about the concepts developed. c.
Students exhibit greater motivation when they are learning content than when they are learning language only.
d. Content
provides a
context for
teaching students
learning strategies
http:revista.inie.ucr.ac.crarticulos2-2005archivosoral.pdf .
4. ContentMaterial Selection
According to Krashen 1982 the principal feature of CBI is that content is the point of departure or organizing principle of the course. To this end, content plays the central
role. In content selection, Vyas and Patel 2009: 131-132 cited many suggestions for content selection in CBI as follows:
Met asserts, “Careful planning for language development can be useful in ensuring that students gain language competence that will be useful in settings beyond the school
itself.” It is necessary that students can employ what they learn in real life. Snow 2001 suggests:
“In order to develop communicative competence, learners must have extended opportunities to use the second foreign language
productivity. Thus, in addition to receiving comprehensible input, they must produce comprehensible output; in other words, explicit
attention must be paid to the productive language skills of speaking and writing.”
According to Heo 2006 “the students must go through a real-world process instead of using independent, creative, or unrealistic thoughts”. Brinton asserts: “First
and most important, the materials chosen should be a range of language functions and structures available, and these should map neatly onto the language syllabus.”
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Valuable and realistic lessons foster students’ language development. For students to effectively communicate with others, materials used in class need to train them to
become successful communicators. Furthermore, materials need to motivate students to pursue the target language, as
Vyas and Patel cited from Brinton 2009: 131-132: “Every attempt should be made to select materials which reflect
the needs and interests of the students and to choose content areas in which the language teacher has some interest or expertise.”
According to Met: “Materials also should be enhancing language learning by
providing motivating topics to communicate about, and enhancing language learning by providing meaningful, purposeful language
practice opportunities drawn from a variety of topics”.
Varying the choice of topics and themes is essential in order to engage students in learning the content through English; appealing topics and themes encourage them to
actively participate in class. Active participation in class, moreover, enhances students’ relationships with one another, creating a positive influence on classroom atmosphere.
There are several key points required in material-making, Short 1991 state: “In order to make English language input as comprehensible as
possible, the teachers should present information through diverse media: realia, graphs, demonstrations, pre-reading, and pre-wring
strategies. The focus of the instruction should be motivated by the content to be learned which will help identify the language skills
required to learn that content and the reasoning abilities needed to manipulate it”.
Hernandez mentions, “It is essential to familiarize English language learners with clear content vocabulary related to the unit of study.” He also suggests:
“Students should be guided to see that these thinking processes are common in everyday life situation; lessons can then be adapted to
demonstrate how critical thinking used in their personal lives can be transferred to academic thought”.
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The instructors need to carefully choose the way they present the planned content in their materials. It is particularly important to structure activities in an appropriate
order. In addition, visual aids are instrumental in supplementing students’ understanding. Vocabulary-building is strongly believed to be one of the key elements in English
education. Thus, materials must include relevant vocabulary exercises at the right time. Most importantly, materials need to be built with the goal of fostering critical thinking,
and forcing students to utilize a combination of prior knowledge and skills.
5. The Implementation of Content-based Instruction
Stryker and Leaver in Herrero, 2005: 4-5 state that in order to successfully implement a CBI curriculum, the following characteristics must be presented
http:revista.inie.ucr.ac.crarticulos2-2005archivosoral.pdf :
a. Subject Matter Core
In CBI, content is the point of departure or organizing principle of the course – a feature that grows out of the common underlying assumption that successful language
learning occurs when students are presented with target language materials in a meaningful, contextualized form with the primary focus on acquiring information.
b. The use of authentic language and texts
The learning activities in CBI should focus on understanding and conveying meaningful messages and accomplishing realistic tasks using authentic language. The
content can be fun, academic, local, or school-based. It may include texts, videotapes, audio recordings, mini-lectures, field trips, community resources, student knowledge,
web resources and visual aids posters, maps, bulletin boards selected mostly from those produced for native speakers of the language Stoller 2004, Stryker and Leaver 1997: 8.
c. Appropriate to the needs of specific students
In CBI, the content and learning activities correspond to the linguistic, cognitive, and affective needs of the students and are appropriate to their professional needs and
personal interests. Since students have different learning styles, teachers should provide a variety of task types, develop a wide range of learning strategies, and use different
grouping techniques to make the materials accessible to all the students in the classroom. Students should also be given participation in choosing topics and activities to better
meet their needs and interests. “Student-generated themes and activities create an
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atmosphere in which the students take responsibility for their own learning and the teacher becomes more of a ‘manager of student learning’” Maly, 1993: 41 in Stryker and
Leaver, 1997: 11 Moreover, Richard and Rodger 2001: 219 said:
“Since Content-Based Instruction refers to an approach rather than a method, no specific techniques or activities are associated with it. At
the level of procedure, teaching materials and activities are selected according to the extent to which they match the type of program it is.”
Richard and Rodger 2001: 28 suggest that CBI is the extension of Communicative Language Teaching CLT, theoretically, the techniques or activities used in CLT can
also be applied in the CBI as they share the same goals that are to develop learners’ communicative competence.
According to Richard and Rodger 2001: 13-19, there are many different types of activity used in CLT:
a. Activities focusing on fluency
1 Reflect natural use of language
2 Focus on achieving communication
3 Require meaningful use of language
4 Require the use of communication strategies
5 Produce language that may not be predictable
6 Seek to link language use to context
b. Activities focusing on accuracy
1 Reflect classroom use of language
2 Focus on the formation of correct examples of language
3 Practice language out of context
4 Practice small samples of language
5 Do not require meaningful communication
6 Choice of language is controlled
c. Information-gap activities
This refers to the fact that in real communication people normally communicate in order to get information they do not possess. This is known as an information-gap. More
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authentic communication is likely to occur in the classroom if students go beyond practice of language forms for their own sake and use their linguistic and communicative
resources in order to obtain information. d.
Jig-saw activities These are also based on the information-gap principle. Typically the class is
divided into groups and each group has part of the information needed to complete an activity. The class must fit the pieces together to complete the whole. In so doing they
must use their language resources to communicate meaningfully and so take part in meaningful communication practice.
e. Other activity types in CLT
Many other activity types have been used in CLT, among which are the following: 1
Task-completion activities: puzzles, games, map-reading and other kinds of classroom tasks in which the focus was on using one’s language resources to
complete a task. 2
Information gathering activities: student conducted surveys, interviews and searches in which students were required to use their linguistic resources to collect
information. 3
Opinion-sharing activities: activities where students compare values, opinions, beliefs.
4 Information-transfer activities: these require learners to take information that is
presented in one form, and represent it in a different form. 5
Reasoning gap-activities: these involve deriving some new information from given information through the process of inference, practical reasoning etc.
6 Role-plays: activities in which students are assigned roles and improvise a scene or
exchange based on given information or clues.
C. Rationale
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