Content Based Instruction in EFL Contexts

Introduction

Content based instruction (CBI) is a teaching method that emphasizes learning about
something rather than learning about language. Although CBI is not new, there has
been an increased interest in it over the last ten years, particularly in the USA and
Canada where it has proven very effective. This interest has now spread to EFL
classrooms around the world where teachers are discovering that their students like
CBI and are excited to learn English this way. According to the goal that has been set
at CAFAM School which is to improve the communicative skills in the English language
for students K-11, CBI provides an appropriate teaching-learning structure to the
process of including these linguistic elements into the learning guides in subjects
different from English. This process remarks the important role of the English teachers
working as a team with the teachers of other subjects as explained in the Theme
Based Model CBI.

Types of Content Based Instruction

1. The Sheltered Model

Sheltered and adjunct CBI usually occurs in English L1 contexts. The goal of teachers
using sheltered and adjunct CBI is to enable their ESL students to study the same
content material as regular English L1 students. Sheltered CBI is called "sheltered"
because learners are given special assistance to help them understand regular
classes. Two teachers can work together to give instruction in a specific subject. One of
the teachers is a content specialist and the other an ESL specialist. They may teach
the class together or the class time may be divided between the two of them. For
example, the content specialist will give a short lecture and then the English teacher
will check that the students have understood the important words by reviewing them
later. This kind of team teaching requires teachers to work closely together to plan and
evaluate classes.

2. The Adjunct Model

Adjunct classes are usually taught by ESL teachers. The aim of these classes is to
prepare students for "mainstream" classes where they will join English L1 learners.
Adjunct classes may resemble ESP classes where emphasis is placed on acquiring
specific target vocabulary concerning the particular subjects according to the class
curriculum; they may also feature study skills sessions to familiarize the students with
listening, note taking, skimming/scanning texts and other language learning strategies.

3. The Theme Based Model CBI

Theme based CBI is usually found in EFL contexts such as the one we have at Cafam
School. Theme based CBI can be taught by an EFL teacher or team taught with a
content specialist. The specialist teacher(s), can create a course of study designed to
unlock and build on their own students' interests and the content can be chosen from a
number of diverse topics that correspond to the specific subject syllabus.

Theme Based CBI Principles applied to Reading Courses

Theme based CBI is usually taught to students with TEFL low scores. Because of the
lower proficiency level of these students, a standard "mainstream" course will have to
be redesigned if it is to be used in a theme based EFL class. For example,
complicated concepts can be made easier to understand by using posters and charts,
(Mercerize, 2000, p.108).

From a linguistic perspective, the rationale for using academic readings is based on
the principle that successful language development occurs when students are
presented with material in a meaningful, contextualized form in which the primary
focus is on the acquisition of information.

Brinton et al. (1989) state that, as students acquire information through sophisticated
linguistic input, they move to more advanced levels of language processing. When
EFL students read academic material, they are forced to deal with complex ideas
presented in the second language. The academic content-based EFL reading course
facilitates the development of English language skills through activities that help
students acquire background information in the content area and subsequently provide
them with the opportunity to discuss, analyze, extend, and apply concepts presented in
the readings.

To provide optimum linguistic benefits to students, academic content-based EFL

reading courses must utilize a rich array of language items and activities. These
courses should use materials that reflect the types of academic demands placed on
EFL students by the mainstream school curriculum (Smoke, 1988). Thus, students
should read a variety of texts, take notes on the material, and write expository pieces in
which they apply content area principles.

To clarify textual material and maximize comprehension, each lesson should contain
four-stages as outlined by Gajdusek (1998). The four stages of the content-based
reading lesson are:
(1) Pre reading activities
(2) Factual work
(3) Discussion and analysis
(4) Extending activities.

Stage 1: Pre reading

The pre reading stage of the lesson establishes background knowledge for the topic by
introducing topic-related vocabulary and defining topic-related concepts. The pre
reading activities help the EFL readers process content materials by accomodating
their needs as learners. This accomodation results from the use of advance organizers
and analogies. Advance organizers are critical to comprehension because they
activate background knowledge that the students already have so that incoming
information can be integrated into the activated system (Royer, 1986). Analogies also
enhance comprehension of subsequent related material, and in fact may increase it by
as much as 40% (Royer and Cable, 1975).
In the content courses, advance organizers provide students with background
information on theory of the particular subject and with relevant vocabulary. This
background information bridges the gap between the knowledge the student already
has and the knowledge he/she needs to comprehend the reading (Ausubel, Novak, &
Hanieson, 1978). In this pre reading activity, students are shown visual materials such
as flash cards, posters, overhead transparencies, charts illustrating the topic, etc. The
instructor then provides specific examples or analogies to explain concepts. After the
instructor presents the first example or model for the concept, his/her role changes to
that of a facilitator of learning. EFL students now take over the responsibility for their
comprehension as they are asked to provide their own analogies for the various
concepts studied in the lesson.

Stage 2: Factual Work

The factual work presents the students with actual textbook readings or with topical
articles on specific aspects of the content area. The stage of factual work in this lesson
involves the actual reading of the article. At this stage students acquire detailed
information about the concepts and theories that they would use in subsequent stages
of the lesson. Reading Comprehension Strategies must be applied here.

Stage 3: Discussion and Analysis

Discussion and analysis activities provide the students with the opportunity to
synthesize and apply knowledge gained from the reading by generating written
responses to it. Writing in the academic content-based EFL reading courses take
several forms, including summaries, written answers to open-ended comprehension
questions, and expository essays. These writing activities play an integral role in
enhancing the comprehension of the academic texts used in the content-based EFL
reading courses. Written discussion of newly acquired information fosters a deeper
level of text processing. This means that as students generate a written response to a
text, they need to focus on its overall meaning, leading them to a more complete
understanding of that text.
Summarizing a reading passage gives students practice in consolidating the main
points and identifying and extracting critical information.
Answering open-ended comprehension questions requires students to analyze and
draw inferences from information presented in the article.
Writing expository pieces gives students the opportunity to extend and apply linguistic
and academic knowledge gained from the reading. The lesson requires students to
write an expository essay in which they use information gained in the article itself and
in other lesson activities to compare the theory presented in the reading text with the
theories of other authors or texts they may find in the study of the subject matter during
the regular classes of the content area. Thus the academic reading stimulates a
challenging writing assignment which encourages EFL students to consider the overall
meaning of the article and in the process to apply what they have learned to draw
comparisons to other theories discussed during the course of the lesson. After
completing each of the writing exercises, students share their responses, and with the
instructor's guidance, they themselves determine what characterizes a complete
answer. Thus, in the academic content-based courses, students are provided with
practice and feedback, enabling them to modify their cognitive processes and regulate
their own learning, an important step to increasing reading proficiency (Weinstein,
1987; Nist & Simpson; 1987).

Stage 4: Extending Activity

The final activity in the academic content-based reading lesson is the extending
activity. The extending activity follows the reading and discussion of the text and is
usually accompanied by topical videos. These videos are critical to the success of the
academic content-based EFL course because they make textual material more
comprehensible to the student by providing a graphic illustration of the concepts
presented in the reading.
The extending activity for the article must be selected from academic or commercial
materials on the reading topic (Hutton, 1988). By watching this video, students can
actually see what they have read about in the article, and this visual aid facilitates
comprehension. At this stage the students must be provided with other different
possibilities to expand and transfer their knowledge to learning situations that are
presented in the subject area school curriculum.
The activities used in the four-stage content-based lesson provide EFL students with
multiple reinforcement of both language and content. These activities give students
both written and oral opportunities to use the English language to express their
thoughts on a wide range of topics. In so doing, this four-stage approach makes
difficult academic material more manageable, thereby avoiding the potential problems
of content overload and student frustration. The same four-stage model is followed for
all lessons in each of the content-based courses.
To sum up, linguistically, academic content-based instruction facilitates comprehension
because it requires EFL students to become familiar with more sophisticated uses of
the language through a variety of printed and audiovisual sources that actively engage
students in the content of the readings. In the process, students increase the overall
scope of their knowledge, and thus experience cognitive as well as linguistic benefits.

Cognitive Benefits to the EFL Reader

From a cognitive point of view, academic content has been shown to be a critical factor
in increasing reading comprehension because such content builds and activates
domain-related knowledge, or schemata, from which the reader may draw to aid in the
comprehension of related text.
In cognitive terms, reading comprehension is a process of checking to confirm that new
information matches what is already in memory, so that gaps in the knowledge base
will cause comprehension to suffer (Anderson & Pearson, 1984). Therefore, increasing
domain-related knowledge is an important prerequisite to enhancing EFL students'
English language reading skill.

Readings of academic content increase EFL students' domain-related knowledge of

both the academic area and the English language itself. As students are exposed to
academic readings in various content areas, they must acquire new topical information
within each area. At the same time, they are exposed to the vocabulary and linguistic
structures necessary to process this information in order to understand the reading.
The students' linguistic and academic knowledge is further increased through the
writing and extending activities in the four-stage content-based lesson. The academic
content-based course develops EFL students' overall English language reading
proficiency, so that although individual readings may be content-specific, benefits to
comprehension skills gained from these academic readings are not (Nelson & Schmidt,
1989).

Increased Metacognition

The activities in the academic content-based EFL course also promote increased meta
cognition of the reading process. The practice and feedback exercises used in the
discussion and analysis stage of the lesson enable EFL students to attain a greater
awareness of how to extract critical information from the text to maximize
comprehension. In order for EFL students to become better readers of English, they
need to become aware of both how they think as they read, and what the specific
learning outcome of the reading process should be.
According to Weinstein (1987), we can teach students to become more aware and
independent learners by providing them with practice and feedback on different types
of material. In this way, students learn how to monitor their own comprehension and
how to select and adjust strategies according to their own ability, the characteristics of
the reading material, and the specific task involved. Moreover, when CB is expanded
to the group work activities in the Cafam Model, it provides the benefits stated by Nist
and Simpson (1987) who maintain that when students work together to provide each
other with feedback, they become involved in monitoring and evaluating, two processes
critical to self-regulated learning. So, as they share and evaluate their own and their
classmates' answers, the EFL students experience increased overall meta cognition of
the reading process.