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| Content-based Instruction (CBI): Why, What & How? |
| Scientific Reasoning in Plain English |
A recent McKinsey study has revealed that 94% of the global CEOs place smartness even above technical or professional skills.
Your language is the correct indication of your smartness. The size of your vocabulary indicates the breadth of your knowledge. In your day to day professional interactions, your language is the most important weapon in your armory. |
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| A. Communicating with an impatient world |
| Look around! No one has the time to stop and listen! They don't read emails which are longer than five sentences! They can't read documents withmore than two pages! |
| They expect information in the shortest, most interesting and most dramatic way - there are hundreds of other better things to do out there!
Lifestyle has turnedmost people into "types" - their minds can absorb things only if you feed them in certain ways.
Want to catch their attention? You'd better customize and package information for them! |
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| "Elevator pitches" have become a daily routine! |
If you can't explain your "revolutionary idea" in just one minute, no senior executive would consider it. Within that one minute, if your opening line is not exciting, he would start thinking about ten
other things!
Wherever you go, when you begin your power point presentation, the first question thrown at you would be “How many slides?”
Your effectiveness in team meetings, motivational talks, negotiations, presentations, emails can make or break you. There was a time when "elevator pitches" were only meant for businessmen and diplomats. These days, even your child would snub you, if you don't effectively package your conversation. |
| It's a matter of life and death |
Many good professionals fail to adjust in industry because they fail to understand how the world '"works". They can't read people or situations for they don't have mastery over language. They end up becoming juniors to their juniors in corporate hierarchy. Psychologists cite raising frustration levels among professionals which lead to mental breakdowns.
If you dream to be a success in any endeavor - personal, professional or social - your language and communication skills decides your level of success - or failure. |
| Surveys reveal them all! |
| According to Ernst & Young, BBC and NASSCOM, 85% of the professional graduates are not employable by global companies due to their poor language and soft skills. Think of their parents who dreamed of them getting employed by the same global companies! |
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The tragedy is that 95% of these graduates classify their English and communication skills as good! This lack of self-awareness lays the career death traps for them.
Another survey has revealed that 86% of the executives never knew the reason behind their career stagnation. No one bothered to tell the real reason in their face. If they can't distinguish an enthusiastic “yes” from a more hesitant or rel No wonder companies are forced to throw out many "pure techie" executives as they fail to ignite other peoples'- even other similar technical peoples' - minds.uctant “yes” or a sarcastic “yes”, what would you tell them? |
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It is imperative to influence and ignite human minds to get an effective work done. Team work, innovation and progress never happen unless team members are excellent communicators.
No wonder companies are forced to throw out many "pure techie" executives as they fail to ignite other peoples'- even other similar technical peoples' - minds. |
| Technocrats have false impression that English gets developed automatically. |
| Most professionals have not read English novels, watched English movies or read management books earlier in their life. For them, English was a "necessary evil" to pass examinations - not a tool to communicate the |
intricacies of business. In social settings, they keep silence by suppressing their logical arguments while someone with superior articulation steal the show. In business meetings, they get often bulldozed by less competent people.
Most professionals live with the guilt of not having an adequate language, but never put a conscious effort to develop one. Some of them even console that “some day, somehow a miracle will happen and my English will improve”. But, miracles seldom happen. |
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| Why professionals fail to enhance their English? |
Espoir Technologies along with a leading market research firm conducted a unique survey among 19283 professionals in seventeen countries to identify the root cause of the above "phenomenon".
The survey exposed the hard facts behind the lack of English proficiency among professionals and executives. |
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| "Everybody hates their English lessons." |
93% |
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| "No time for anything after a hard day's work." |
81% |
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| "Most of the English programs are outdated. No mood. No motivation." |
78% |
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| "Too academic. They never teach 'our language'. It is not ready-to-use." |
72% |
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| "Lessons are not accessible when we have time, convenience and mood." |
85% |
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| “I don't want to be seen that I am still learning English." |
86% |
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| "There is no immediate practical application for the topics they teach. No value. So I forget." |
82% |
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"What I need is ideas to talk. These ordinary English lessons can't compensate for my
not reading English books earlier." |
81% |
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| "I can't spend three hours in traffic for a one-hour class." |
93% |
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| "We need exposure to both American and British English. Not American or
British English." |
78% |
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| "All e-learning programs look same, feel same. We feel like e-scaping." |
72% |
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A similar survey has been conducted among the final and pre-final year professional graduate students, which elicited almost similar results. (Sample size: 11,438)
Upon analysis of the survey results, our team of educational psychologists concluded that for any program to be effective, the following features are imperative. |
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1. Should guarantee efficiency and effectiveness - faster skill building, longer retention
and quicker recall of lessons. |
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2. Should sustain interest. Lessons should motivate the learner and ensure that the
learner is returning to the lessons. |
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3. Contemporary. Should find immediate application at the workplace. |
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4. Program should match with learners' lifestyles. |
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5. Lessons should be accessible whenever there is time, convenience and mood. As far
as possible, the program should be independent of Internet. |
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6. Confidentiality. For adults, skill building should be a private affair. |
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7. Should provide ideas to talk. If possible, it should instill the wisdom from all over. |
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8. Should provide both American and British English. |
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9. Should value learners' time. Lessons should be customized. No one is interested to
spend three hours in traffic for a one hour classroom session. |
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After weighing all possible options, our educational psychologists zeroed in on Theme-based (TB) Learning as the ideal delivery method for second language acquisition as it meets all the 'imperatives' mentioned above.
Theme-based (TB) learning is a highly customized version of Content-based Instruction (CBI). |
| Use your passion. Power your future! |
Let's be honest about this. If given a choice, no one is going to learn a second language! (In USA, only 0.04% learns a foreign language.) Learning grammar is extremely boring. Unless there is a killer reason which sustains interest, you wouldn't go back to your lessons.
As per educational psychologists, the only way to master a second language quickly and effectively is through a passionate subject of theirs.
You remain focused. You never feel tired or exhausted. Progress is faster. Retention is longer. You recall your learning quicker. Your sixth sense starts working in your favor - even during your sleep. |
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| B. What is Content-based instruction (CBI) and Theme - based (TB) Learning? |
| Content-based Instruction is a powerful innovation in language teaching across a wide range of instructional contexts. (Brinton, Snow, and Wesche .1989). In its best form, the language lessons are blended with stimulating content. |
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Keeping students motivated and interested are two important factors underlying content-based instruction. Motivation and interest are crucial in supporting student success with challenging, informative activities that support success and which help the student learn complex skills (Grabe & Stoller, 1997).
When students are motivated and interested in the material they are learning, they make greater connections between topics, elaborations with learning material and can recall information better
(Alexander, Kulikowich, & Jetton, 1994: Krapp, Hidi, & Renninger, 1992). |
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With CBI, student achieves more. This in turn leads to a perception of success, of gaining positive attributes which will continue a circular learning pattern of success and interest.
Strong empirical support for CBI can be found in second language acquisition (SLA) research, in training studies and in cognitive psychology, as well as in the outcomes documented by successful programs in a variety of contexts and levels of instruction (Adamson 1993; Dupuy 2000). |
| Grabe and Stoller (1997) perceive seven benefits of CBI as cited below: |
| 1. Learners are exposed to a considerable amount of language while learning content.
(. . .) In content-based programs, learners explore interesting content and are engaged in appropriate language-dependent activities (. . .). The resultant language learning activities, therefore, are not artificial or meaningless exercises. |
| 2. CBI supports contextualized learning; learners are taught useful language that is embedded
within relevant discourse contexts rather than as isolated language fragments. (. . .). Thus, CBI allows for explicit language instruction, integrated with content instruction, in a relevant and purposeful context. |
| 3. (. . .) The use of coherently developed content sources allows learners to call on their own prior knowledge to learn additional language and content material. |
| 4. (. . .) In content-based classroom, learners are exposed to complex information and are
involved in demanding activities which can lead to intrinsic motivation. |
5. CBI (. . .) lends itself well to strategy instruction and practice, as theme units naturally require and
recycle important strategies across varying content and learning tasks. |
| 6. CBI allows greater flexibility and adaptability to be built into the curriculum and activity sequences. |
(Grabe and Stoller 1997, 19-20) |
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| The Evolution and Scope |
| As an approach to second and foreign language teaching, CBI is a relative newcomer to the field. |
It first appeared on the general language teaching scene in the mid- to late 1980s, and has gained increasing popularity and wider applicability in the last ten years. This prominence can be easily perceived in the wide range of contexts, educational stages and content areas involved.
The integration of language and content teaching is perceived by the European Commission as “an excellent way of making progress in a foreign language”, this institution having contributed to developing the network Euroclic, a forum for projects and proposals in the area of language and content integrated learning.
In terms of content fields, a wide number of courses and programs have been developed |
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| to advance language learning while developing content knowledge in different academic areas. Thorough descriptions can be found in the fields of literature (Holten 1997), history (Strole 1997), art history (Raphan and Moser 1994), film (Chapple and Curtis 2000), mathematics (Cantoni-Harvey 1987), journalism (Vines 1997), sociology (Gaffield-Vile 1996), culture and civilization (Ballman 1997), and national or regional features and issues (Ryding and Stowasser 1997; Klee and Teddick 1997; Stryker 1997; Klahn 1997). References to courses in psychology, economy, geography, political science, etc. have also been reported (Dupuy 2000). |
| Literature Review |
Documentation on the original foundations of the paradigm can be found from the late eighties in the pioneering works by Mohan (1986), Cantoni-Harvey (1987), Crandall (1987), Benesch (1988), and Brinton, Snow and Wesche (1989) among others.
CBI is also termed as one of the most representative contributions to contemporary foreign language pedagogy in the new editions of seminal titles in the field such as Celce-Murcia (2000) "Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language", Larsen-Freeman (2000) "Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching", and Richards and Rodgers (2001) "Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching".
Attention to the approach has been paid as well in relevant reference works in applied linguistics, such as "The Oxford Handbook of Applied Linguistics" (Kaplan 2002), which devotes one of the only three chapters in the part of "The study of second language teaching" to "Communicative, task-based and content-based instruction" (Wesche and Skehan 2002). |
| Theme-based Learning |
| Theme-based Learning (TB) has been described as a new paradigm in language education, centered on fostering student competence in a second or foreign language while advancing in the knowledge of a subject |
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matter, which learners are passionate about.
It is in post-secondary education that TB probably offers the richest variety of proposals in terms of creativity, functionality, and overall usefulness in view of the further applicability of the gained outcomes.
Theme-based courses constitute the most common model in CBI thanks to its effectiveness and relative lack of complexity for implementation. |
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| C. Research on Instructional Strategies that Support CBI and SLA |
| 1. CBI approaches, which promote the importance of learning strategies, provide the curricular
resources for development of the strategic language and content learner (O'Malley & Chamot, 1990). |
| 2. CBI lends itself to the incorporation of a variety of thinking skills, and learning strategies
which lead to rich language development, e.g., information gathering skills, organizing skills,
analyzing skills, identifying relationships, patterns generating skills. (ASCD, Dimensions of
Thinking) (Curtain, 1995; Met, 1991). |
| 3. Research on ESL methodologies shows that reading coherent extended materials leads to improved language abilities, greater content-area learning, and higher motivation (Elley, 1991). |
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| D. Educational and Cognitive Psychology supports CBI |
| According to Schmidt.R.W ("The role of consciousness in second language learning" - Applied Linguistics -
1990) only the "input" that is noticed by the learners becomes available for processing in memory. "Noticed input" enters working memory which then activates and interacts with our declarative
knowledge in our long term memory to produce meaning for "intake". |
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| A cognitive information-processing approach to Second Language Acquisition (SLA) |
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1. "Noticing" and "intake" are influenced by various factors including learner's aptitude, need and
interest, motivation etc. This underlines the fact that only customized, theme-based lessons guaranties
personalized, non-coercive, active, interest-led learning. |
| 2. Content-based instruction provides for cognitive engagement; tasks that are intrinsically
interesting and cognitively engaging will lead to more and better opportunities for second language acquisition; this is particularly important when one considers the inherent complexity of adult learning (Byrnes, 2000). |
| 3. The presentation of coherent and meaningful information leads to deeper processing, which results in better learning (Anderson, 1990) and information that is more elaborated is learned and recalled better. |
| 4. Information that has a greater number of connections to related information promotes better learning (it is more likely that content will have a greater number of connections to other information) (Anderson, 1990). |
| 5. Facts and skills taught in isolation need much more practice and rehearsal before they can be
internalized or put into long term memory; |
coherently presented information (thematically
organized) is easier to remember and leads to improved learning (Singer, 1990); information that has a greater number of connections to related information enhances learning, and content acts as the driving force for the connections to be made.
6. Content-based instruction develops a wider range of discourse skills than does traditional
language instruction (because of the incorporation of higher cognitive skills); (Byrnes 2000) |
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| 7. Anderson (1990; 1993) has proposed
a cognitive learning
theory for instruction
that integrates attention
to content and language.
In this theory skills
(including language) and
knowledge follow a
general sequence of
states of learning from
the cognitive stage to the
associative stage to the
autonomous stage. |
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| References & further Reading: |
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Adamson, H.D. (1993) Academic Competence: Theory and Classroom Practice.
Anderson, J. R. (1990). Cognitive psychology and its implications (3rd ed.). New York: W. H. Freeman.
Brinton, D., M. Snow and M. Wesche (1989) Content-based Second Language Instruction. Newbury House.
Cantoni-Harvey, G. (1987) Content-Area Language Instruction: Approaches and Strategies. Addison-Wesley.
Crandall, J. (ed.) (1987) ESL through Content-Area Instruction. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Dupuy, B. C. (2000) “Content-based instruction: Can it help ease the transition from beginning to advanced
foreign language classes?” Foreign Language Annals 33, 2: 205-222.
Gaffield-Vile, N. (1996) “Content-based second language instruction at the tertiary level”.ELT Journal.
Haley, M.H. (2002) An Interactive Approach to Content-Based Second Language Learning. Allyn & Bacon.
Kasper, L. (1995): Theory and practice in content-based ESL reading instruction. English for Specific Purposes.
Krueger, M. and F. Ryan (1993) Language and Content: Discipline and Content-Based Approaches to Language Study.
Kaplan, R. (2002) The Oxford Handbook of Applied Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kasper, L. et al. (2000) Content-Based College ESL Instruction. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Earlbaum.
Larsen-Freeman, D. (2000) Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching. 2nd ed. Oxford University Press.
Marsh and G. Langé (eds.) Implementing Content and Language Integrated Learning.
Mohan, B. (1986) Language and Content. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
Pally, M. and N. Bailey (eds.) (1999) Sustained Content Teaching in AcademicESL/EFL: A Practical Approach.Richards, J.C. and T. S. Rodgers (2001) Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching. 2nd ed. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Shmidt, R.W (1990) The role of consciousness in second language learning. Applied Linguistics.
S.B. Stryker and B.L. Leaver (eds.) Content-based Instruction in Foreign Language Education: Models and Methods.
Washington DC: Georgetown University Press.
Stoller, F. and W. Grabe (1997) “A Six T's approach to Content-based instruction”.
M. Snow and M. Wesche (1989) Content-based Second Language Instruction. New York: Newbury House.
Short, D. (1991)How to Integrate Language and Content Instruction. Center for Applied Linguistics.
Wesche, M. and P. Skehan (2002) “Communicative, task-based and content-based language instruction.” |
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