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Content-based, Task-based, and Participatory Approaches 1

Content-based, Task-based, and Participatory Approaches

No Moiss Ramrez Castillo

Teaching Methods, Second Semester Elmer Jorge Guardado M.A. October 24th 2013

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Content-based, Task-based, and Participatory Approaches 2 Content-based, Task-based, and Participatory Approaches

Imagine a couch teaching a person the rules of how to play soccer, only rules, and they have never go to the field to play soccer and then the game match, that the trainee is going to play, is near, what do you think is going to happen if he never played soccer, he only knows rules? This example, it is exactly what is happening to many second language learners, students are taught to learn structures, rules, and translation, and as the soccer player they never practice what they learn. One of the best way to learn to communicate in the target language, it is to communicate in the target language and that is why these three approaches have in common teaching through

communication rather than for it. There are four questions that are going to be answered in these research paper, in order to have a better understanding of these methods: What is content-based instruction? What is task-based instruction? What is participatory approach? Which techniques are involved within these approaches? What is content-based instruction? As the name suggests, this method is focused in subject matter, in simple words, this method uses the target language as a tool to teach subject matter. In these three approaches rather than learning to use English, students use English to learn it. Due to the special contribution of content based instruction is that it integrates the learning of language with the learning of some other content, often academic subject matter (Larsen-Freeman, 2000). This is very familiar to many teachers, because it is what many teachers think how teaching should be, learning by doing. This means that if a person is supposed to learn something, he or she should do it in order to learn it, sometimes theory is not enough to learn something. No Moiss Ramrez Castillo 2

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According to (Shang, 2013) Content-based instruction (CBI) is "the integration of a particular content (e.g., math, science, social studies) with second language aims. It refers to the concurrent teaching of academic subject matter and second language skills." When you are teaching a specific content in a second language you have to make sure the content is relevant to the students. The fact that English is used as a means to teach the content does not mean that English is not taught, actually it is but with less emphasis then the subject content, this will be illustrated with an example of lesson using the content-based instruction. Now see an example taken from (Larsen-Freeman, 2000, pgs. 138-140): In a classroom, where a sixth grade class in an international school in Taipei is studying both geography and English through content-based instruction. Most of the students are Chinese speakers, but there are several native speakers of Japanese and a few Korean. The teacher asks the students in English what a globe is. A few call out world. Others make a circle with their arms. Others are silent. The teacher then reaches under the desk and takes out a globe. She puts the globe on her desk and asks the students what they know about it. (Notice that this example says studying both geography and English not studying geography through English, this is why above was said that content-based instruction is focused in teaching both, the target language and the subject matter but as you will be reading this example, you will notice how English is taught.) They call out answers enthusiastically as she records their answers on the blackboard. When they have trouble explaining concept, the teacher supplies the missing language. Next, she distributes a handout that she prepared based on a video, understanding Globes. The top section on the handout is entitled Some vocabulary to know. Listen are some key geographical terms used in the video. The teacher asks the students to listen as she reads the ten words: degree, distance, equator, globe, etc. then in the handout there is a cloze passage and the teacher asks the students to read and No Moiss Ramrez Castillo 3

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they should fill in the blanks with the given vocabulary. As they watch the video they fill in the remaining blanks. After the video is over, the students pair up to check their answers. Next, the teacher calls attention to a particular verb pattern in the cloze passage: are located, are called, is used, etc. She tells the students that these are examples of the present passive, which they will be studying in this lesson and ones to come this week. She explains that the passive is used to defocus the agent or doer of the action. In fact, in descriptions of the sort that they have just read, the agent of the action is not mentioned at all. (See how content-based instruction works in this example, the teacher first gave them some information about the class and a short task and then with the information given she called attention to the present passive voice, in these part of the class the teacher switches from teaching geography to teach English) The teacher than explains how latitude and longitude can be used to locate any place in the world. She gives them several examples. Then the students use latitude and longitude co-ordinates to locate cities in other countries. By stating This city is located at latitude 60 north and longitude 11 ea st, the teacher integrates the present passive and the content focus at the same time. Hands go up. She calls on one girl to come to the front of the room to find the city. She correctly points to Oslo, Norway on the globe. The teacher provides a number of other examples. Later, the students play a guessing game. In small groups, they think of the names of five cities. They then locate the city on the globe and write down the latitude and longitude co-ordinates. Later, they read the co-ordinates out loud and see if the other students can guess the name of the city. The first group says: This city is located at latitude 5 north and longitude 74 west. After several misses by their classmates, group 4 gets the correct answer: Bogat. Group 4 then give the others new coordinates.

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For homework, the students are given a map and a description of Australia. They have to read the description and label the major cities and points of interest on the map. Now, let us see what principles are behind this lesson, as soon as you know the principles, you will see that every single thing the teacher did in her lesson is based on a principle. Principles 1. The subject matter is used for language teaching purpose. As you saw the class was geography and rather than use the native language (Chinese or Japanese) the teacher was using the target language, in this case English. In content-based instruction, the subject matter and content is going to be develop in the target language to build up language competences through the use of the target language. 2. Teaching should build on students previous experience. The teacher must identify what experience and pre-knowledge the students have in order to know what the students already know from the content and then use that experiences and pre-knowledge as a starting point to build up new experiences and knowledge. This is why the teacher in the example started the class with a question what a globe is about the content. 3. When learners pensive the relevance of their language use, they are motivated to learn. They know that it is a means to an end, rather than an end in itself. In the lesson example the teacher wrote down the answers of her students, in order to give them certain value to their answers, as if she said I appreciate your participation and what you said is important and this motivates students because they feel when they used the language that is relevant to the class and therefore to the teacher. No Moiss Ramrez Castillo 5

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4. The teacher scaffolds the linguistic content, i.e. helps learners say what it is they want to say by building together with the students a complete utterance. In the example there were some students who made a circle with their arms and other remained silent when the teacher asked the question, what the teachers have to do when there is missing language is to help students to say the word they are thinking but do not know how to say it, also the teacher can use some students to help other students. 5. Language is learned most effectively when it is used as a medium to convey informational content of interest to the students. As it was said before the language, in the content-based instruction, is the tool to interact with the subject matter and it is learned successfully because students use it not study it, and if there is content of interest to the students, that quickly drives their attention, it will be much better. 6. Vocabulary is easier to acquire when there are contextual clues to help convey meaning. For instance, a teacher shows some words to his students and before doing it, the teacher already told them that todays topic is fruits as they read the vocabulary instantly they will deduce that those words are the names of some fruits. 7. When they work with authentic subject matter, students need language support. For instance, the teacher may provide a number of examples, build in some redundancy, use comprehension, checks, etc. Examples are important for students that are being taught through this approach due to, many students have problem understanding the content in their native language, so think about how difficult if to many of them, the same content but this time in a foreign language. This is why teacher have to give as many examples as possible for the No Moiss Ramrez Castillo 6

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students to have a good understanding of the subject matter. Also the teacher have to explain over again if there is something that is not clear by explaining using different words. 8. Learners work with meaningful, cognitively demanding language and content within the context of authentic material and tasks. The students are given the co-ordinates, and they have to come to the front of the classroom to find the city on the globe. As the students do the task asked by the teacher they realize that they are able to do so, and this is meaningful because it is worthy what the teacher had explained and it helped them to solve the problem. Also, what the teacher explain about the passive voiced, at this point, is helping the students with the task. 9. Communicative competence involves more than using language conversationally. It also includes the ability to read, discuss, and write about content from other fields. In the homework the teacher gave the students a map, which they are to label based on a descriptive reading they have been given. As they do the homework they will do more than just make conversation, actually they are supposed to read, discuss and write about content from other fields. Employing this method, use a foreign language to teach a content matter, is seen as a sort of language immersion that according to (CAL, 2013) is defined as a method of foreign language instruction in which the regular school curriculum is taught through the medium of the language. The foreign language is the vehicle for content instruction; it is not the subject of instruction. Total immersion is one program format among several that range on a continuum in terms of time spent in the foreign language. In total immersion, all schooling in the initial years is conducted in the foreign language, including reading and language arts. No Moiss Ramrez Castillo 7

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There are many countries that employ the immersion programs in their curriculum nowadays but on the other hand third world countries are pretty far to employ this method. It is a good way of learning two contents (subject matter and the foreign language) at the same time and one of the best ways of learning the target language to students practice the language and they, as what said before, use to communicate not to understand it. What is task-based instruction? Making an English environment is one of the aims of these approaches, because of the fact that the learning process of a second language is better when the language is spoken and there is a language environment where the students are exposed to the language all the time. This is what happen when people immigrate to another country where a foreign language is spoken, they are exposed to the new language ad they are forced to use it for communication. This approach, the task-based instruction, is not so different from the from the content-based instruction because they both have the same aim, which is to provide learners with a natural context for language use, in other words use the target language as the tool to communicate not as the object studied. According to (Scribd Inc., 2013) the task-based instruction focuses on a work which students are expected to fulfill by using the target language. It is believed that task is more related to doing something with a language. Because task needs so many language skills and items to be completed. There are three types of tasks for (Prabhu, 1987): An information-gap activity involves the exchange of information among participants in order to complete a task An opinion-gap activity requires that students give their personal preferences, feelings, or attitudes in order to complete a task

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A reasoning-gap activity requires students to derive some new information by inferring it from information they have been given

For instance, an information-gap activity involves the exchanging of information among students when the teacher gives them a specific task like describing a picture or make a timetable about their schedule. An example of the second task, opinion-gap, is make the students give their own opinion about a social problem, as education, security, etc. And they give possible solutions to this issues and other example is make a survey about a topic that is interesting to the students. The final example for the third task, reasoning-gap the teacher asks the students to find out the best way of transport to go to a place or figure out what is the favorite channel of their classmates. Reasoning is involved because students have to analyses and also figure something out. Now, the principles of the task-based instruction (Larsen-Freeman, 2000, pgs. 146147): 1. The class activities have a perceived purpose and a clear outcome. This means for example, the teacher tells the students alright, today we are going to complete a time table The purpose of these class is clearly perceived that students will fill a timetable and what teacher expects is they finish the timetable. This are the instructions that the teacher gives to the student to be clear about what are they going to do. 2. A pre-task, in which students work through a similar task to one that they will later do individually, is a helpful way to have students see logic involved in what they are being asked to do. It will also allow the language necessary to complete the task to come into play. No Moiss Ramrez Castillo 9

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While the teacher is telling the students what are they going to do, the teacher do the pre-task, this means she does an example, so the students will understand what are they supposed to do, and what the teacher want. This pre-task is helpfully to the teacher because the students are clear and students also do not get confused when doing the activity. 3. The teacher breaks down into smaller steps the logical thinking process necessary to complete the task. The demand on thinking made by the activity should be just above the level which learners can meet without help. The teacher goes step by step explaining what they are going to do little by little depending on the complexity of the task and students can have a logical think and good understanding about the task in order to complete it. 4. The teacher needs to seek ways of knowing how involved the students are in the process, so she can make adjustments in light of the le arners perceptions of relevance and their readiness in learn. Such teacher-class negotiation ensures that many students as possible in a mixed-ability class grasp the nature of the activity. The teacher ask the students some question about the task, the example that he is using as pre-task and ask if it is right to see if students are paying attention and are understanding the activity. 5. The teacher does not consciously simplify her language; she uses whatever language is necessary to have students comprehend the current step in the pretask. Here she switched from an abbreviated wh-question question to a yes/no question. This switch is natural strategy that proficient speakers use when interacting with less proficient speakers inside and outside of the classroom In the example of the timetables task, the teacher ask the student about Saturday and she did it in to ways as the principle says, with object that students had No Moiss Ramrez Castillo 10

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understood the instruction and do not get confused in taking into a count Saturday as a day of classes in the timetable. 6. The teacher supplies the correct target form by reformulating or recasting what the students have said. The teacher said again what the students said but I other words and trying supply the answer that they gave. 7. This jigsaw task, where students have to listen to different parts of a total set of information they need to complete a task, gives them plenty of opportunity to engage in authentic speaking and listening and provides opportunities to develop their comprehension and speaking skills.

8. Students should receive feedback on their level of success in completing the task. The overall focus is on the meaning.

When the students finish the task the teacher have to give students some feedback, by point out important points about the task. 9. Students have input into the design and the way that they carry out the task. This gives them more opportunity for authentic and meaningful interaction. Students are asked to design a way to survey the other students about their favorite subjects about their favorite subjects. They are to figure out a way to report their findings to the rest of the class. What is the participatory approach? (Nieman, 2013) Defines the participatory approach as is based on solving the

learners problem in real life, using the target language as a tool this purpose. Learners bring their outside problems into class. Later, when you see the principles of this No Moiss Ramrez Castillo 11

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approach and explaining the principles with examples, this approach it is going to be understandable. As found in (Larsen-Freeman, 2000, pgs. 150, 153-154) the goal of the participatory approach is to help students to understand the social, historical, or cultural forces that affects their lives, and then help empower students to take action and make decisions in order to gain control over their lives. Within this approach students are supposed to think about their lives and reflecting, also to discuss and how to give solution to their problems, all this in the target language, because as in the content based and tasked based approach the target language is to communicate. The principles of these approach are: 1. What happens in the classroom should be connected with what happens outside that has relevance to the students, the teacher listens to themes in what students say that will provide the content future lessons. The teacher begins the class greeting everyone and ask about how are them and then ask about a problem of interest for the students and what is happening in the class have to be related with what happens outside, with the students life and problems. 2. The curriculum is not a predetermined product, but the result of an ongoing context-specific problem-posting process. The teacher based what he is going to pose in some of the students previous opinions about specific problems they are facing, as he does it, he uses what the students said and then he makes a class about the opinions of the students rather than use what the curriculum suggest. 3. Education is most effective when it is experience-centered, when it relates to students real needs. Students are motivated by their personal involvement.

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Teachers are co-learners, asking questions of the students, who are the experts on their own lives. The class is more interesting to the students when is relating with their lives, because students are experts in their lives and there is many things to say on the contrary they were talking about something they do not know. 4. When knowledge is jointly constructed, it becomes a tool to help students find voice and by finding their voices, students learn to see themselves as social and political beings. As the teacher and the students are discussing for possible solution to their problems, they are asked if they want to do something. The problem is related with a problem about the illumination in the streets and that causes insecurity at night and what they have to do is to write a letter to the mayor, the teacher by asking them to do this, she is saying that they can actually solved the problems if they want to. 5. Focus on linguistic form occurs within a focus on content. Language skills are taught in service of action for change, rather than in isolation. The students after doing the letter to mayor the students know have to edit the letter for meaning and form and they continue editing the letter for homework. 6. Students can create their own materials, which, in turn, can become texts for other students. The students are to bring their revised versions of the letter to class next time for others to read. And then after the other read what their classmates have dome this will be helpful to students because they will improve their skill and correct their mistakes. 7. A goal of the participatory approach is for students to be evaluating their own learning and to increasingly direct it themselves. No Moiss Ramrez Castillo 13

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The teacher asks the students what they have learn at the end of the class, and then they can reflexing about what they are doing and what they are learning. Moreover, they evaluate how they are doing.

Which techniques are involved within these approaches? Here are some the techniques that support this methods: Listing Ordering and sorting Brainstorming, fact-finding. Sequencing, ranking, categorizing, classifying. Comparing Matching, finding similarities, finding differences Problem solving Analyzing real or hypothetical situations, reasoning, and decision making Sharing personal experiences Creative tasks Narrating, describing, exploring and explaining attitudes, opinions, reactions Brainstorming, fact-finding, ordering and sorting, comparing, problem solving and many others (Willis, 2013) These two more techniques are taken from (Hernndez, 2005): Debate No Moiss Ramrez Castillo 14

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The students were given information from a variety of sources about the issues to be debated, for example, Should drugs be legalized? Smoking or nonsmoking? They performed different tasks and had the opportunity to listen to the readings at home before the oral activity took place. I organized the debate in groups of 4. First the students worked in pairs, one pair for and the other against the issue to be debated in order to come up with as many ideas as possible. When they were ready, they got in groups of four and the debate started. Group discussions The students were given questions about a topic to discuss in small groups. This type of activity was appropriate as a pre-reading task to find out how much the students knew about a topic, to introduce topic-related vocabulary, and to get the students interested in the topic. As a post-reading task, students had the opportunity to express their opinions about the topics studied or relate readings with our national context or their lives. In addition, they had a chance to use the language learned in different contexts and situations.

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Concluding, Content, tasks and real life problems is what this methods use as the thematic that is going to be the focus of the communication in the classroom. Also, the content-based, tasked based, and participatory approach are focus in learning to communicate by communicating, this means use the language rather than study it. In order to learn the target language the student have to use the language, in other words, learning by doing. The aim of learning a new language is to communicate in that language but what people have to do is not just study the language but use it as every language is use. Target language is not just a subject matter is communication.

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References
CAL. (2013). Center for Aplied Linguistics. Recovered October 22nd, 2013, Center for Aplied Linguistics: http://www.cal.org/resources/digest/met00001.html Hernndez, A. (2005). Recovered October 22nd, 2013, http://revista.inie.ucr.ac.cr/uploads/tx_magazine/oral.pdf Larsen-Freeman, D. (2000). Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching. En D. Larsen-Freeman, Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching (pag. 37). NY: Oxford University Press. Nieman, S. (2013). Slideshare. Recovered October 22nd, 2013, Slideshare: http://es.slideshare.net/sarynieman/participatory-approach Prabhu, N. S. (1987). Second Language Pedagogy. En N. S. Prabhu, Second Language Pedagogy (pag. 148). Oxford University Press. Scribd Inc. (2013). Scribd. Recovered October 22nd, 2013, Scribd: http://es.scribd.com/doc/34747004/Content-based-Task-based-and-Participatory-Approaches Shang, H.-f. (2013). The Internet TESL Journal. Recovered October 22nd, 2013, The Internet TESL Journal: http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Shang-CBI.html Willis, J. (2013). Slideshare. Recovered October 22nd, 2013, Slideshare: http://es.slideshare.net/mortdida/task-based-instruction-method

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UNIVERSIDAD CAPITAN GENERAL GERARDO BARRIOS. Km. 113 Carretera del Litoral, Desvo a Santa Mara Usulutn, El Salvador. PBX. (503) 2662-0846 Teachers name: Noe Moises Ramirez Castillo Date: Oct. 24th, 2013 Time: 15 min. Subject: English Section: A Unit: 3 Career: Bachelor Degree in English Level: I 2

LESSON PLAN

Activities Students
Respond questions Share their experience with the class Give possible solutions to the problem Asks their classmates about the problem Make a graphic about their findings Tell what they learnt 5 min. 5 min.

Topics:
Graphing information and passive voiced

Teaching Methods
Contentbased, taskbased, and participator y approach

Principles of the Method

-The subject matter is used for language teaching purpose. -Teaching should build on students previous experience. -When learners perceive the relevance of their language use -The class activities have a perceived purpose and a clear outcome. -A pre-task -The teacher needs to seek ways of knowing how involved the students are in the process -What happens in the classroom should be connected with what happens outside -Education is most effective when it is experience-centered, when it relates to students real needs. Students are motivated by their personal involvement. -Students evaluating their learning

Techniques
Question and answers Presentation Problem solving Sharing personal experiences Group discussion

Teacher
-Greeting -Asks question to identify pre-knowledge -Takes notes of students answers -Develops the topics -Ask students about personal life -Ask students for possible solutions -Explains the task with examples -Gives indications of the task -Makes sure students have understood -Asks the students about what they learnt

Timing

Teaching Resources
Marker Projector Computer Whiteboard

5 min.

Notebooks Calculator

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