In this chapter, we will examine two current methodologies that can be described
as extensions of the CLT movement but which take different routes to achieve
the goal of communicative language teaching – to develop learners’ communicative
competence. We refer to them as process-based methodologies since
they share as a common starting point a focus on creating classroom processes
that are believed to best facilitate language learning. These methodologies are
content-based instruction (CBI) and task-based instruction (TBI).
Content-Based Instruction
We noted above that contemporary views of language learning argue that communication
is seen as resulting from processes such as:
J Interaction between the learner and users of the language
J Collaborative creation of meaning
J Creating meaningful and purposeful interaction through language
J Negotiation of meaning as the learner and his or her interlocutor
arrive at understanding
J Learning through attending to the feedback learners get when they
use the language
J Paying attention to the language one hears (the input) and trying
to incorporate new forms into one’s developing communicative
competence
J Trying out and experimenting with different ways of saying things
But how can these processes best be created in the classroom?
Advocates of CBI believe that 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, to content.
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.”
Task 14
How important is content in a language lesson? What kinds
of content do you think are of greatest interest to your
learners?
28 Communicative Language Teaching Today
Content refers to the information or subject matter that we learn or
communicate through language rather than the language used to convey it. Of
course, any language lesson involves content, whether it be a grammar lesson,
a reading lesson, or any other kind of lesson. Content of some sort has to be
the vehicle which holds the lesson or the exercise together, but in traditional
approaches to language teaching, content is selected after other decisions have
been made. In other words grammar, texts, skills, functions, etc., are the starting
point in planning the lesson or the course book and after these decisions
have been made, content is selected. For example, a lesson may be planned
around the present perfect tense. Once this decision has been made, decisions
about the context or content for practicing the form will be decided. Contentbased
teaching starts from a different starting point. Decisions about content
are made first, and other kinds of decisions concerning grammar, skills, functions,
etc., are made later.
Content-based instruction is based on the following assumptions
about language learning:
J People learn a language more successfully when they use the
language as a means of acquiring information, rather than as an
end in itself.
J CBI better reflects learners’ needs for learning a second language.
J Content provides a coherent framework that can be used to link
and develop all of the language skills.
Content-based instruction can be used as the framework for a unit
of work, as the guiding principle for an entire course, as a course that prepares
students for mainstreaming, as the rationale for the use of English as a medium
for teaching some school subjects in an EFL setting, and as the framework for
commercial EFL/ESL materials.
As the framework for a unit of work: Content-based instruction need not be
the framework for an entire curriculum but can be used in conjunction with any
type of curriculum. For example, in a business communication course a teacher
may prepare a unit of work on the theme of sales and marketing. The teacher,
in conjunction with a sales and marketing specialist, first identifies key topics
and issues in the area of sales and marketing to provide the framework for the
course. A variety of lessons are then developed focusing on reading, oral presentation
skills, group discussion, grammar, and report writing, all of which are
developed out of the themes and topics which form the basis of the course.
As the guiding principle for an entire course: Many university students in an
EFL context are required to take one or two semesters of English in their first
year at a university. Typically, a mainstream, multiskilled course book is chosen
as the basis for such a course and the course covers the topics that occur in
the book. Any topics that occur are simply incidental to practicing the four
Communicative Language Teaching Today 29
skills, etc., of the course book. Such courses, however, are sometimes organized
around content. At one European university, for example, the first-year English
course consists of a sequence of modules spread over the academic year. The
topics covered are:
1. drugs 8. microchip technology
2. religious persuasion 9. ecology
3. advertising 10. alternative energy
4. AIDS 11. nuclear energy
5. immigration 12. Dracula in novels and films
6. Native Americans 13. professional ethics
7. modern architecture
The topics are chosen so that they provide a framework around which
language skills, vocabulary, and grammar can be developed in parallel.
As a course that prepares students for mainstreaming: Many courses for
immigrant children in English-speaking countries are organized around a
CBI framework. For example, non-English-background children in schools
in Australia and New Zealand are usually offered an intensive language course
to prepare them to follow the regular school curriculum with other children.
Such a course might be organized around a CBI approach. An example of this
approach is described by Wu (1996) in a program prepared for ESL students
in an Australian high school. Topics from a range of mainstream subjects were
chosen as the basis for the course and to provide a transition to mainstream
classes. Topics were chosen primarily to cater to the widest variety of students’
needs and interests. Linguistic appropriateness was another factor taken into
account. Topics that fulfilled these criteria include multiculturalism, the nuclear
age, sports, the Green movement, street kids, and teenage smoking.
As the rationale for the use of English as a medium for teaching some school subjects:
A logical extension of the CBI philosophy is to teach some school subjects
entirely in English. For example, in Malaysia, where the medium of instruction
is Bahasa Malaysia (i.e., Malay), a decision was recently taken to use English as
the medium of instruction for math and science in primary school and also for
some courses at the university level. When the entire school curriculum is taught
through a foreign language, this is sometimes known as immersion education, an
approach that has been used for many years in part of English-speaking Canada.
Parents from English-speaking families in some parts of Canada can thus opt to
send their children to schools where French is the medium of instruction. This
approach seeks to produce children who are bilingual in French and English,
since they acquire English both at home and in the community.
30 Communicative Language Teaching Today
As the framework for commercial EFL/ESL materials: The series Cambridge
English for Schools (Littlejohn and Hicks 1996), is the first EFL series in which
content from across the curriculum provides the framework for the course. My
own conversation course Springboard (Richards 1998) is also a content-based
course with themes and topics serving as the framework. The topical syllabus
was chosen through surveys of the interests of Asian college students.
In this chapter, we will examine two current methodologies that can be described
as extensions of the CLT movement but which take different routes to achieve
the goal of communicative language teaching – to develop learners’ communicative
competence. We refer to them as process-based methodologies since
they share as a common starting point a focus on creating classroom processes
that are believed to best facilitate language learning. These methodologies are
content-based instruction (CBI) and task-based instruction (TBI).
Content-Based Instruction
We noted above that contemporary views of language learning argue that communication
is seen as resulting from processes such as:
J Interaction between the learner and users of the language
J Collaborative creation of meaning
J Creating meaningful and purposeful interaction through language
J Negotiation of meaning as the learner and his or her interlocutor
arrive at understanding
J Learning through attending to the feedback learners get when they
use the language
J Paying attention to the language one hears (the input) and trying
to incorporate new forms into one’s developing communicative
competence
J Trying out and experimenting with different ways of saying things
But how can these processes best be created in the classroom?
Advocates of CBI believe that 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, to content.
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.”
Task 14
How important is content in a language lesson? What kinds
of content do you think are of greatest interest to your
learners?
28 Communicative Language Teaching Today
Content refers to the information or subject matter that we learn or
communicate through language rather than the language used to convey it. Of
course, any language lesson involves content, whether it be a grammar lesson,
a reading lesson, or any other kind of lesson. Content of some sort has to be
the vehicle which holds the lesson or the exercise together, but in traditional
approaches to language teaching, content is selected after other decisions have
been made. In other words grammar, texts, skills, functions, etc., are the starting
point in planning the lesson or the course book and after these decisions
have been made, content is selected. For example, a lesson may be planned
around the present perfect tense. Once this decision has been made, decisions
about the context or content for practicing the form will be decided. Contentbased
teaching starts from a different starting point. Decisions about content
are made first, and other kinds of decisions concerning grammar, skills, functions,
etc., are made later.
Content-based instruction is based on the following assumptions
about language learning:
J People learn a language more successfully when they use the
language as a means of acquiring information, rather than as an
end in itself.
J CBI better reflects learners’ needs for learning a second language.
J Content provides a coherent framework that can be used to link
and develop all of the language skills.
Content-based instruction can be used as the framework for a unit
of work, as the guiding principle for an entire course, as a course that prepares
students for mainstreaming, as the rationale for the use of English as a medium
for teaching some school subjects in an EFL setting, and as the framework for
commercial EFL/ESL materials.
As the framework for a unit of work: Content-based instruction need not be
the framework for an entire curriculum but can be used in conjunction with any
type of curriculum. For example, in a business communication course a teacher
may prepare a unit of work on the theme of sales and marketing. The teacher,
in conjunction with a sales and marketing specialist, first identifies key topics
and issues in the area of sales and marketing to provide the framework for the
course. A variety of lessons are then developed focusing on reading, oral presentation
skills, group discussion, grammar, and report writing, all of which are
developed out of the themes and topics which form the basis of the course.
As the guiding principle for an entire course: Many university students in an
EFL context are required to take one or two semesters of English in their first
year at a university. Typically, a mainstream, multiskilled course book is chosen
as the basis for such a course and the course covers the topics that occur in
the book. Any topics that occur are simply incidental to practicing the four
Communicative Language Teaching Today 29
skills, etc., of the course book. Such courses, however, are sometimes organized
around content. At one European university, for example, the first-year English
course consists of a sequence of modules spread over the academic year. The
topics covered are:
1. drugs 8. microchip technology
2. religious persuasion 9. ecology
3. advertising 10. alternative energy
4. AIDS 11. nuclear energy
5. immigration 12. Dracula in novels and films
6. Native Americans 13. professional ethics
7. modern architecture
The topics are chosen so that they provide a framework around which
language skills, vocabulary, and grammar can be developed in parallel.
As a course that prepares students for mainstreaming: Many courses for
immigrant children in English-speaking countries are organized around a
CBI framework. For example, non-English-background children in schools
in Australia and New Zealand are usually offered an intensive language course
to prepare them to follow the regular school curriculum with other children.
Such a course might be organized around a CBI approach. An example of this
approach is described by Wu (1996) in a program prepared for ESL students
in an Australian high school. Topics from a range of mainstream subjects were
chosen as the basis for the course and to provide a transition to mainstream
classes. Topics were chosen primarily to cater to the widest variety of students’
needs and interests. Linguistic appropriateness was another factor taken into
account. Topics that fulfilled these criteria include multiculturalism, the nuclear
age, sports, the Green movement, street kids, and teenage smoking.
As the rationale for the use of English as a medium for teaching some school subjects:
A logical extension of the CBI philosophy is to teach some school subjects
entirely in English. For example, in Malaysia, where the medium of instruction
is Bahasa Malaysia (i.e., Malay), a decision was recently taken to use English as
the medium of instruction for math and science in primary school and also for
some courses at the university level. When the entire school curriculum is taught
through a foreign language, this is sometimes known as immersion education, an
approach that has been used for many years in part of English-speaking Canada.
Parents from English-speaking families in some parts of Canada can thus opt to
send their children to schools where French is the medium of instruction. This
approach seeks to produce children who are bilingual in French and English,
since they acquire English both at home and in the community.
30 Communicative Language Teaching Today
As the framework for commercial EFL/ESL materials: The series Cambridge
English for Schools (Littlejohn and Hicks 1996), is the first EFL series in which
content from across the curriculum provides the framework for the course. My
own conversation course Springboard (Richards 1998) is also a content-based
course with themes and topics serving as the framework. The topical syllabus
was chosen through surveys of the interests of Asian college students.
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