Content based instruction and the teaching of english for accounting at cfc

The teaching and learning situation One of the students’ aims of the ESP course is to be able to use the target language well for communication purpose.. appropriate to the grade level

NGUYEÃN THÒ CHAÂU NGAÂN

CONTENT-BASED INSTRUCTION AND THE TEACHING OF ENGLISH FOR ACCOUNTING AT

CFC

A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF

THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF

MASTER OF ARTS IN TESOL

SUPERVISOR: VUÕ THÒ PHÖÔNG ANH, Ph.D

HO CHI MINH CITY, February 2009

I certify my authorship of the thesis submitted today entitled:

CONTENT-BASED INSTRUCTION AND THE TEACHING OF ENGLISH FOR ACCOUNTING AT CFC

This thesis has not previously been submitted for a degree

Ho Chi Minh City, February 2009

NGUYEN THI CHAU NGAN

i

degree of Master of TESOL, accept the requirements of the university relating to the retention and use of master’s theses deposited in the library

In terms of these conditions, I agree that the original of my thesis deposited in the library should be available for any purposes of study or research, accompanying with the normal regulations established by the library for the care, loan or reproduction of theses

Ho Chi Minh City, February 2009

NGUYEN THI CHAU NGAN

ii

I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my thesis supervisor, Dr VU THI PHUONG ANH, who has helped to shape the ideas that have gone into this study and given practical advice, correction, and encouragement for the accomplishment of the study

I am also indebted to my relatives, my friends, my rector and colleagues for the financial support and encouragement they provided during the time of my candidature

Finally, I am also grateful to my students, who have taken part in the survey in a whole-hearted way

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Teaching ESP has been a concerned problem for ESP teachers at the College

of Finance and Customs (CFC) The current ESP syllabus has monotonous reading texts which carry a lot of new terms of the Accounting field Moreover, its contents are too above the teachers and students’ capability of understanding

Faced with this reality, the researcher would like to bring something new to the ESP program In particular, the researcher wishes to replace the current ESP material and its traditional method by materials designed and taught in the Content-Based Instruction (CBI) approach

To do this, firstly the researcher designed a course in the CBI approach Then

it was used in the treatment group in one semester To see its effects when the course finished, the researcher delivered a post-test and administered a survey including the questionnaire and interview

The findings in this research revealed (1) the students’ capability of achieving better scores when they learnt ESP with the CBI approach; (2) the students’ interests and motivation when they were exposed to authentic materials in simplified language as well as in-class interactive activities

All in all, this thesis is considered as an exploratory research which provides the useful collections for concerned ESP syllabus developers to see the effects of the CBI approach and then have successive further research on it to renovate the current learning material

iv

Certificate of originality ……….i

Retention of the thesis ………ii

Acknowledgment ……… iii

Abstract ……….iv

Table of contents ……… v

List of abbreviation ……… ix

List of tables and charts ……….x

INTRODUCTION ……… 1

CHAPTER 1: BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY ……….3

1.1 Theoretical considerations ………3

1.2 Practical concerns ………4

1.2.1 The teaching/ learning materials ……….5

1.2.2 The teaching/ learning situation ……….5

1.2.3 The learners ……….6

1.2.4 The teachers ……….7

1.3 Objectives of the study ………8

1.4 The scope and limitations of the study ……….9

1.4.1 The scope……….9

1.4.2 Limitations ……….9

1.4.3 Bias ……… 9

1.5 Organization of the thesis ………10

v

2.1.1 History of ESP ……….13

2.1.2 CBI Approach ………15

2.2 Types of CBI ……… 17

2.2.1 The sheltered model ………18

2.2.2 The adjunct model ………19

2.2.3 The theme-based model ……… 19

2.3 An overview of syllabus ………24

2.3.1 Definition ………24

2.3.2 Types of syllabus ……… 24

2.3.3 Syllabus design ……… 25

2.3.4 Syllabus design in the CBI approach ………30

2.4 The Six-T’s Approach ………34

2.4.1 Methodology ……….34

2.4.2 The Six-T’s Approach ………37

2.5 Students motivation and evaluation ……… 39

2.5.1 Students motivation ………39

2.5.2 Evaluation ……… 40

2.6 Summary ……….42

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY ………43

3.1 Research questions and hypotheses ……….43

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3.2.1.2 ESP teachers ……… 45

3.2.1.3 Teachers of the Accounting Faculty ……… 46

3.2.2 Instruments ……… 46

3.2.2.1 The questionnaire ………46

3.2.2.2 Interviews ……… 48

3.2.2.3 The input used in the treatment group ……….49

3.2.2.4 The post-test ……… 51

3.2.3 Data collection procedures ……….52

3.3 Summary ……… 53

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS ……….54

4.1 Results collected from tests ……… 54

4.1.1 Before the quasi-experimental period ……… 54

4.1.2 After the quasi-experimental period ……….60

4.2 Results collected from interviews and the questionnaire ………70

4.2.1 Data from the questionnaire ……….70

4.2.2 Data from interviews ……….76

4.2.2.1 The graduates ………76

4.2.2.2 The specialist subject teachers ………78

4.2.2.3 ESP teachers ……….79

4.2.2.4 Students of the quasi-experimental ……… 81

vii

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS ………… 85

5.1 Conclusions ………85

5.2 Recommendations ……… 86

5.3 Summary ……….89

BIBLIOGRAPHY ………90

APPENDIX 1: The material input used with the treatment group ……… 96

APPENDIX 2: Questionnaire (for students of Accounting Major) ………107

APPENDIX 3: Interview questions (for ESP teachers) ……….113

APPENDIX 4: Interview questions (for teachers of the Accounting Faculty) 117

APPENDIX 5: Interview questions (for the graduates) ………118

APPENDIX 6: Pre-test ………119

APPENDIX 7: Post-test ……… 123

APPENDIX 8: English test scores (class C6B1b) ……… 128

APPENDIX 9: English test scores (class C6B1d) ……… 131

APPENDIX 10: Sample of week 1 ……….134

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CBI Content-Based Instruction

CFC College of Finance and Customs EFL English as a Foreign Language

ESL English as a Second Language ESP English for Specific Purposes

TACN Tiếng Anh Chuyên Ngành

ix

Table 1: The differences among three models of CBI ……… 22

Table 2: GE test scores ……….58

Table 3: T-Test: paired two samples for means ……… 59

Table 4: Final ESP test scores ……….61

Table 5: T-Test: paired two samples for means ………69

Question 1: English study background ……….54

Question 2: English certificate ……….55

Question 3: Students’ skills weakness ………56

Question 4: Skills necessary for future jobs ………57

Question 5: Reciprocal relation between ESP & specialist subjects ………… 70

Question 6: ESP with future jobs ……….71

Question 7: Students’ learning style ………72

Question 8: Students’ opinion about the material input with CBI ……… 73

Question 9: Students’ motivation ……….74

Question 10: ESP teacher’s method ……….75

Chart 1: ESP vocabulary ……… 61

Chart 2: Reading comprehension ……….63

Chart 3: Grammar ……….64

Chart 4: Translating ……… 66

Chart 5: Listening ……… 67

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INTRODUCTION

The unprecedented spread of English throughout the world in recent years has resulted in its major role and high prestige in the academic, cultural, and political landscape of a growing number of countries Because of its international role in economic relations, and cultural exchange with foreign countries, the need for communication in English is becoming more and more important As Harmer (1991:1) stated, “people want to study English because it offers a chance for advancement in their professional lives”

As in the world, Vietnamese students need to have sound English knowledge

to work well in their job They must be qualified at general English for communication and have the interpretation capability for the specialist content as well Therefore, the English for Specific Purposes (ESP) has been introduced into the training curriculum in institutions Its appearance has served as a “remedy” to help students extricate their barrier of English in the field

With such great needs, choosing an appropriate learning material in harmony with suitable methods is considered as a vital and primary concern for teachers, curriculum designers and language program developers as well The current ESP materials used in language programs at CFC simply equip students with a large amount of vocabulary in the field of accounting In accordance with this material is the Grammar-Translation Method However, students’ needs are to comprehend the specialist content and enhance their competence in using language appropriately in communication

Faced with this reality, the researcher wishes to replace the current ESP material by another designed in the CBI approach and teach it in the treatment group

in one semester This material will be compiled in accordance with CBI’s principles

in which specific themes are authentically selected and the language is simplified to the students’ level as well To measure the students’ performance after the course, the researcher will deliver a post-test and administer a survey including the questionnaire and interview

This study is carried out with the expectation of proving the effects of ESP teaching by the CBI approach rather than traditional methods Its effects are assumed

to be represented in the students’ involvement, interests and motivation during the course as well as their ability to achieve better scores after the course

CHAPTER 1

BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

This chapter provides the background with the aim of having a clearer understanding of the issued investigated It will briefly present theoretical considerations and practical concerns including the current teaching and learning material, ESP teachers and the students as well In addition to these, objectives, scope and limitations of the study are also specified to help have an overall view towards the research

1.1 THEORETICAL CONSIDERATIONS

Since its beginning in the late 1960s, ESP has drawn upon 3 major realms of knowledge: language, pedagogy and the students/ participants’ specialist areas (Hutchinson & Waters, 1987:9) In English Language Teaching (ELT), ESP has become a common expression in the early stages of development for language teaching In the words of Hutchinson & Water (1987:6):

There are three phenomena for the emergence of ESP – the enormous expansion in

scientific, technical and economic activities on an international scale; the shift of

attention in linguistics away from the formal features of language structure to the

ways, in which language is actually used for communication in real situations; and

the new development in educational psychology, which emphasizes the central

importance of learners and their attitudes towards learning

ESP’s emergence seems to meet the learners’ need in specialized realm However, after some initial success, ESP was found to be of some limitations to both teachers and learners Hutchinson and Waters (1987:160) affirmed that:

As well as having to cope with the uncertain values of the strange land of ESP, ESP

teachers may also have to struggle to master language and subject matter beyond the

bounds of their previous experience

Moreover, ESP is language-centered and seems to be over the learners’ capability Learners and teachers have to cope with long and monotonous reading texts This forms the habit of rote learning in the learners However, frequent repetition creates boredom: learner’s minds switch off and learning is minimal As in the words of Rivers (1992:41):

It is known that although learners can participate in memorized conversations easily

and effortlessly, hardly any can produce at length fluent variations from the basic

materials, and none could talk on unrehearsed topics without hesitation

Therefore, it is very important to take into consideration the selection of appropriate language to be at the students’ level for conscious learning

1.2 PRACTICAL CONCERNS

Every year, CFC welcomes thousands of students of many majors After passing the entrance examination, students have six semesters to be filled up with the specialized knowledge suitable for their future jobs Unlike the training system of university - there are two distinct stages: general training stage and major training stage, the training program at CFC is somewhat divided into two stages Students

learn fundamental subjects in the first year such as Psychology, Physical Education, Maths, Laws, General English (GE) and specialized subjects in the last two years including ESP However, the ESP course depends on the curriculum of each faculty The time for learning ESP is variable from the third to the fifth semester

English is one of the compulsory subjects in the training system It not only meets the students’ needs in learning, doing research and work but enables learners

to come near to the top of managements also

1.2.1 The teaching and learning materials

Before joining ESP course, students have to attend GE course with the

duration of 75 periods in the first year The book named Business Basics written by David Grant and Robert McLarty is used during the course Students are equipped

with basic words relating to daily activities, trips, food, telephoning etc All skills are developed together with basic grammar and vocabularies After finishing GE, students are required to attend an ESP course with another 75 periods in which the

book of specialized field The Language of Accounting written by Sandra Costnett is

used

1.2.2 The teaching and learning situation

One of the students’ aims of the ESP course is to be able to use the target language well for communication purpose With this goal, language competence, which underlines all language performance or language use, is hence very important

in language teaching and learning Savignon (1983:9) said that “communicative competence is relative, not absolute, and depends on the cooperation of all the participants involved”

With the current ESP material, the content is written for learners who study accounting profession and English is their mother tongue Therefore, this material is inappropriate to the students’ right level of both content and language structure In reality, students are stuffed with a large amount of new words of the field Long and monotonous readings are introduced day after day, so the students’ only duty is to accumulate passively new words

This inappropriate syllabus makes it difficult for ESP teachers to cover all language skills So the ESP teaching and learning looks confusing As Hutchinson & Waters (1987:158) stated “ESP teachers are often reluctant dwellers in a strange and uncharted land” Therefore, both the teachers and students need a sound syllabus that can facilitate the teaching and learning to make it accessible and real

In addition, very big class (from 50 to 80 students) also prevents ESP teachers from applying the communicative approach in teaching Anyway the researcher does not mention a lot other factors except its material In general, choosing an appropriate syllabus, suitable methods and somewhat reducing the number of students are the important things in order to make the ESP teaching better

Coming to the ESP course, students have no chances to enhance their oral skills They are stuffed with lots of new words in the specialized field and practise the only reading comprehension skill This forms the habit of rote learning and there

is no connection between what they have learned with what they activate their own language products This seems to meet the short-term goals as being stated by Harmer (1991:3), “ short-term goals might include such things as wanting to pass an end-of-semester test or wanting to finish a unit in a book”

1.2.4 The teachers

Swales (1985 in Hutchinson & Waters 1987:157) prefers with some justification to use the term “ESP practitioner” rather than “ESP teacher” in order to reflect the teachers’ role of many parts In addition to the normal functions of a classroom teacher, the ESP teacher will have to deal with needs analysis, syllabus design, materials writing or adaptation and evaluation

The English language teachers, who have over three years of experience in ESP teaching, are in charge of teaching ESP of many majors They take many roles

as facilitators to help students with their problems, participants to join group discussions and share ideas relating to ESP content or even students’ language barrier Some senior ESP teachers also take part in the process of compiling or adapting materials suitable for each major

The current ESP material also brings ESP teachers some problems Because all of them are GE teachers, they have to “struggle” by themselves with the new

“land” by self-studying Anyway it is not easy for them to be qualified in such a new field with such a short time Therefore, they lack of their confidence when applying any communicative methods except the grammar translation method As a result, the

teaching process does not bring any interesting activities so as to motivate the students Although the teachers are enthusiastic and trying their best to apply new methods in suitable situations, the outcomes seem less satisfactory

1.3 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

It is argued that foreign language learning process is most successfully acquired when students are engaged in meaningful use CBI is supposed to allow for the integration and combination of language learning and content of subject matter The objective of this study is to prove the effectiveness of the application of CBI approach in the course of teaching English for Accounting The study is based on: (1) a questionnaire administered twice: one before and one after ESP course to ask students of two classes of accounting major (C6B1b and C6B1d) about their attitudes, motivation, ways of learning, and learning needs for the ESP course,

(2) interviews with some students of previous years (class C4B1a of accounting major), who studied with the same traditional ESP, already graduated and have worked, about their motivation, and the application of ESP knowledge

in their real work,

(3) interviews with ESP and specialist teachers about the strengths as well as shortcomings of the current ESP syllabus,

(4) interviews with some students from both two classes after the experimental period,

quasi-(5) and test results collected from the post-test experimented in class (C6B1b) who studied with the CBI approach

The writer hopes that the outcome of this thesis will provide the evidence for advantages of CBI application in ESP teaching

1.4 THE SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY

1.4.1 The scope

Designing an ESP syllabus seems to be beyond the ability of language teachers who are neither native to the language nor majored in the specialized field However, with the encouragement and enthusiastic help of colleagues, the researcher employed CBI approach to design a material for students learning English for accounting Due to the time limit and the researcher’s capability, this approach was applied as a quasi-experimental model for the accounting field only

1.4.2 Limitations

The input selected for the newly-designed material was extracted from foreign books of the field, Internet Websites, and Vietnam Economics News The setting for carrying out this research was at CFC and its students of year 2007-2008 Due to the time limit and the lack of occasion in choosing a variety of ESP classes at CFC, the study would definitely have shortcomings and not be generalized to the teaching of ESP for other majors, and educational institutions

1.4.3 Bias

It was the researcher who both designed the learning material and taught it in the treatment group inevitably Therefore, there would be some bias towards the

groups in the quasi-experimental period The bias came naturally because the new learning material would somewhat suggest its suitable method With all her best efforts, the researcher tried to bring the interesting atmosphere to the control group who learned with the current ESP material by integrating all skills as possible On the other hand, in the treatment group who learned with authentic materials designed

in CBI, the students were taught communicatively and their enhancement of both language and content was attained

1.5 ORGANIZATION OF THE THESIS

Chapter 1 introduces the background and the objectives of the research In addition, the scope and limitations of the study are also mentioned

Chapter 2 concerns the literature review This part consists of discussions of various

viewpoints on traditional ESP teaching, CBI approach: its principles, types of CBI, and procedures for designing the material and its tasks

Chapter 3 mentions a detailed description of methodologies employed in the study

In this part, the research questions and hypotheses direct the study through subject profiles and instruments

Chapter 4 deals with data analysis, figure interpretations and discussions of the

findings

Chapter 5 comes with the conclusions and some recommendations These help sum

up what are studied and its outcome as well

1.6 DEFINITION OF TERMS

In this section, some definitions of terms relating to the research are presented

- Achievement test: In the words of Mc Namara (2000:6):

Achievement test accumulates evidence during, or at the end of, a course of study in

order to see whether and where progress has been made in terms of the goals of

learning Test which aims to establish what has been learned in a course of

instruction

- Approach: Approach refers to theories about the nature of language and language

learning that serve as the source of practices and principles in language teaching (Anthony in Richards & Rodgers, 1986:16)

- Communication competence: Hymes (1967 in Brown 2000:246) referred to

communication competence “as that aspect of our competence that enables us to convey and interpret messages and to negotiate meanings interpersonally within specific contexts”

- Competence: Competence refers to one’s underlying knowledge of a system,

event, or fact It is the non-observable ability to do something, to perform something (Brown, 2000:30)

- Course design: Hutchinson & Waters (1987:65) wrote:

Course design is the process by which the raw data about a learning need is

interpreted in order to produce an integrated series of teaching – learning

experience, whose ultimate aim is to lead the learners to a particular state of

knowledge

- Course evaluation: Course evaluation helps to assess whether the course objectives

are being met – whether the course, in other words, is doing what it was designed to

do (Hutchinson & Waters, 1987:144)

- Course: A course as an integrated series of teaching-learning experiences, whose

ultimate aim is to lead the learners to a particular state of knowledge (Hutchinson & Waters, 1987:21)

- Created materials: Created materials refer to textbooks and other specially

developed instructional resources (Richards, 2001:252)

- Curriculum development: According to Richards (2001:2):

Curriculum development focuses on determining what knowledge, skills, and values

students learn in schools, what experiences should be provided to bring about

intended learning outcomes, and how teaching and learning in school or educational

systems can be planned, measured and evaluated

- Learner assessment: Hutchinson & Waters (1987:144):

This takes on a greater importance in ESP because ESP is concerned with the ability

to perform particular communication tasks It reflects not just the learners’ performance but to some extent the effectiveness of otherwise of the course too

- Performance: Performance is the overtly observable and concrete manifestation or

realization of competence It is the actual doing of something: walking, singing, dancing, speaking (Brown, 2000:30)

- Placement test: The aim of the placement test is to determine the learners’ state of

knowledge before the ESP course begins (Hutchinson & Waters, 1987:146)

- Syllabus: Harmer (1991:25) affirmed:

We know what students need to know about the language they are learning but

before we start to teach them we will have to decide which parts of this knowledge

we want them to have and when How is the language to be organized and what

skills should we concentrate on?

- A syllabus is a document which says what will (or at least what should) be learnt

(Hutchinson & Waters, 1987:80)

CHAPTER 2

LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter discusses various viewpoints on ESP, which includes: (1) traditional ESP teaching, (2) ESP teaching in the CBI approach, (3) the procedures for designing a content-based syllabus which satisfies (4) students’ motivation and learning needs

2.1 COMPARISON OF ESP AND CBI

2.1.1 History of ESP

“ESP is an approach to language teaching in which all decisions as to content and method are based on the learners’ reason for learning” (Hutchinson & Waters, 1987:19)” This means that much of the work done by ESP teachers is concerned with designing appropriate courses for groups of learners

However, much of emphasis in ESP research and materials has been on the language analysis ESP learners’ aims are to be able to comprehend and use knowledge of the specialized realms together Hutchinson & Water (1987:65) stated that “language-centred course design is the most familiar and prevalent in ESP”

ESP course carries long and monotonous reading sections from which learners analyze the language words and its functions This language-centred process is criticized for being a static and inflexible procedure The language-centred analysis

of target situation data is carried out only at the surface level

In addition to this, Hutchinson & Water (1987:75) claimed that:

ESP learners need English in order to be able to read texts in their subject

specialism Other language skills seem to hold the secondary roles in learning This

might conclude that ESP lessons would concern themselves only with the activity of

reading texts

This implies the fact that learners need to repeat things in order to learn them, but frequent repetition creates boredom: learner’s minds switch off and learning is minimal

Meanwhile, learners’ primary aim of learning a foreign language is to be able

to use it in real communication This requires the authentic input so that learners have a feeling of absorbing something real and interesting Hutchinson & Waters (1987:159) said that “a text can only be truly authentic, in other words, in the context for which it was originally written”

With the material authenticity, it will naturally lead to the interesting teaching methods Appealing methods going in harmony with a sound learning material will boost the students’ interests and motivation Various studies have found that motivation is very strongly related to achievement in language learning (Gardner & Lambert, 1972)

After some initial success, ESP seems to be neglected from people’s attention People think of finding out another approach which satisfies their acquisition in language and content The emergence of CBI in recent years has been supposed to meet the learners’ needs in learning the language of the field The integration of language and content involves the incorporation of content material into language classes In the words of Brewster (1999:84) “content can provide a motivational and cognitive basis for language learning since it is interesting and of some value to the learners”

2.1.2 CBI Approach

The term content-based instruction is commonly used to describe approaches

to integrating language and content instruction, but it is not always used in the same way:

Crandall and Tucker (1990:187) define it as “ an approach to language instruction

that integrates the presentation of topics or tasks from subjects matter classes (e.g

math, social studies) within the context of teaching a second or foreign language”

Curtain and Pesola (1994:35) use the term in a more restricted way, limiting it to only

those “ curriculum concepts being taught through the foreign language appropriate to the grade level of students ”

In the words of Wesche (1993:42), “CBI is aimed at the development of use-oriented

second and foreign language skills and is distinguished by the concurrent learning of

a specific content and related language use skills”

CBI approaches “ view the target language largely as the vehicle through which

subject matter content is learned rather than the immediate object of the study”

(Brinton et al, 1989:5)

There is also a variety of definitions of “content” As can be seen from Crandall & Tucker’s definition, content is clearly “academic subject matter” while Genesee (1994:3) suggests that content “ need not be academic; it can include any topic, theme or non-language issue of interest or importance to the learners”

Chaput (1993) defines content as “ any topic of intellectual substance which contributes to the students’ understanding of language in general and the target language in particular” Met (1991:150) has proposed that “ ‘content’ in content-based programs represents material that is cognitively engaging and demanding for the learner, and is material that extends beyond the target language or target culture”

Although CBI appearance can help learners gain their interests and motivation for the course, it still has some concerned limitations It two facets will be presented

as follows:

Advantages

Despite the differences in how terms are defined, the diverse characteristics

of programs that integrate content and language can be used to determine their position on a continuum that illustrates the relative role of content and language Peachey mentions some advantages of CBI as follows:

- 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

- Students can also develop a much wider knowledge of the world through CBI which can feedback into improving and supporting their general educational needs

- CBI is very popular among English for Academic Purposes (EAP) teachers as

it helps students to develop valuable study skills such as note taking, summarizing and extracting key information from texts

- 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

- 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

Disadvantages

CBI is in the “learning by doing” school of pedagogy So, there may be a challenge for learners to participate in CBI courses In the views of Stryker & Leaver (1993):

- Learners are expected to be active in different roles and cooperative with each other -> this is an issue for students who are accustomed to whole-class, independent, and traditional learning and teaching models

- Additionally, learners need to possess a minimum level of language proficiency so that they can understand the quantity of new information in CBI courses

Richards & Rodgers (2001:220) claimed that:

Another issue is that language teachers have been trained to teach linguistic

knowledge rather than a content subject Hence, language teachers “may be

insufficiently grounded to teach subject matters

Another problem associated with CBI is that language teachers are too concerned with content area teaching and neglect teaching related language skills Anyway, the main purpose of CBI is to enhance language development through content areas rather than content learning per se So the language learning aspect should have equal priority with the content learning facet in CBI (Christopher, 1996)

2.2 TYPES OF CBI

In adult basic education, including the teaching of English for speakers of other languages, content-based instruction is instruction that focuses upon the

substance or meaning of the content that is being taught This is in contrast to

“general literacy” or “general language” instruction, which uses topics or subject matter simply as a vehicle for teaching reading and writing, or the grammar or other

“mechanics” of English language, as general processes (Brinton, Snow & Wesche, 1989) There are three common types of CBI as follows:

2.2.1 The sheltered model

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 (Brinton, 1989) Sheltered courses are content-driven: the goal is for students to master content; students are evaluated in terms of content learning, and language learning is secondary

Sheltered CBI is called “sheltered” because learners are given special assistance to help them understand regular classes This sheltered arrangement places all second language learners in “the same linguistic boat”, thereby from the adjustments and simplifications made by native speakers in communicating with L2 learners and from a low-anxiety situation (Krashen, 1981)

Typically, the instructors will select texts of a suitable difficulty level for L2 learners and adjust course requirements to accommodate L2 learners’ language capacities (Brinton et al., 1989)

This model was originally developed for elementary foreign language immersion programs in order to allow some portion of the curriculum to be taught through the foreign language (Kasper, 2000)

2.2.2 The adjunct model

This model rather emphasizes the importance of concurrently teaching the academic subject matter and foreign language skills (Brinton et al, 1989) In this model, students are enrolled in two linked courses, one a content course and one a language course Both courses share the same content base but differ in their focus

of instruction Language and content are goals for this model

The language teachers emphasize language skills, while content teachers focus on academic concepts Such a program requires a large amount of coordination between the language and content teachers, and usually language teachers make extra efforts to become familiar with the content

EFL teachers have to design various teaching activities that combine four modes (speaking, listening, reading, and writing) in order to enhance students’ literary, oral development, and thinking skills positively This course emphasizes five areas of study: reading, writing, study skills, grammar, and discussion of the content material

Finally, an adjunct program is usually limited to cases where students have language skills that are sufficiently advanced to enable them to participate in content instruction with native speakers

2.2.3 The theme-based model

Theme-based course constitutes the most common model in CBI thanks to its relative lack of complexity for implementation In theme-based model, selected

topics or themes provide the content for students to learn (Brinton et al, 1989)

In this model, it is the language teacher who will teach L2 learners who are evaluated in terms of their language growth Theme-based is language-driven, its

goal is to develop learners’ communicative proficiency as well as general academic language skills through interesting and relevant content

Themes are the central ideas that organize major curricular units Thus they have to be chosen to be appropriate to students’ academic and cognitive interests and needs Materials in theme-based language instruction are usually teacher-generated

or adapted from outside sources

Authentic materials with simplified language are of great choice with an attempt to integrate the topic into the teaching of all language skills (Brinton et al., 1989) Therefore, teachers make all possible efforts to keep language and content exploration in balance, not to lose sight of content and language learning objectives

For Eskey (1997), theme-based instruction adds a missing dimension to traditional approaches to language syllabus design Where both form-based and notional/ functional syllabi focus on rules, rather than on real communication, theme-based language courses give learners an interesting subject to learn or communicate about Language is used to explore content, and language growth emerges as students need to comprehend or produce language related to content

In conclusion, this part describes characteristics of three types of CBI Each type has its own specific things For the sheltered and adjunct model, learners are evaluated in content learning These two models gain less approval from learners because English is their foreign language Moreover, language is taught by or with the cooperation of content teachers Meanwhile theme-based model is considered as the most common model in CBI To this type, there is the interrelation between content and language Language is used to explore content and simultaneously language growth will emerge

The following table summarizes the differences of the three models in terms

of the goal of instruction, the language instruction and the teaching strategies

Model Sheltered model Adjunct model Theme-based model

- Learners are evaluated in terms of content learning (Brinton, Snow, and Wesche, 1989)

- Learners are enrolled in two linked courses – content and language courses -> language and content are emphasized equally (Brinton, Snow, and Wesche, 1989)

- Learners are evaluated in terms of language and content (Brinton, Snow, and Wesche, 1989)

- Assist learners in developing general language skills through interesting and relevant content (Brinton, Snow, and Wesche, 1989)

- Learners are evaluated in terms of their language growth (Brinton, Snow, and Wesche, 1989)

- L2 taught by EFL teachers (Brinton, Snow, and Wesche,

academic concepts (Brinton, Snow, and Wesche, 1989)

Teaching

techniques

- Teachers give special assistance to these “sheltered learners” to accommodate students’ limited proficiency

- Suitable texts are selected ->

teachers do all the teaching with learners in a low-anxiety situation -> teacher-centred approach (Brinton et al., 1989)

- Language teachers and content instructors coordinate together to make the curricula interlocking

- Develop five areas of study:

reading, writing, grammar, discussion, study skills of content material -> learner-centred approach (Brinton, Snow, and Wesche, 1989)

- Teachers make all possible efforts to keep language and content exploration in balance

- Integrated skills: listening, reading, grammar, productive skills (presentation, oral report, discussion, writing summaries) -> learner-centred approach (Brinton, Snow, and Wesche, 1989)

1 http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/The_Practice_of_Learning_Theories/CBI

2 http://www.publications.ub.es/revistes/bells12/PDF/art04.pdf

Sources:

2.3 AN OVERVIEW OF SYLLABUS

2.3.1 Definition

We know what students need to know about the language they are learning but before we start to teach them we will have to decide which parts of this knowledge we want them to have and when (Harmer, 1991:25)

In the words of Yalden (1984:75),

The syllabus is now seen as an instrument by which the teacher, with the help of the

syllabus designer, can achieve a degree of ‘fit’ between the needs and aims of the

learners (as social being and individual) and the activities which will take place in

the classroom

Renandya (1998:94) wrote,

A syllabus describes the major units that will be used for planning the program and

provides the basis for its instructional focus and content It also reflects the planners’

assumptions about the nature of language and language use, what the most essential

elements of language are and how these can be organized as an efficient basis for

second language learning

Basically, a syllabus can be seen as “a plan of what is to be achieved through our teaching and our students’ learning” (Breen, 1984) while its function is “to specify what is to be taught and in what order” (Prabhu, 1984)

2.3.2 Types of syllabus

One of the main purposes of a syllabus is to break down the mass of knowledge

to be learnt into manageable units This breakdown has to be based on certain criteria Hutchinson & Waters (1987:85) stated some kinds of syllabi as follows:

• Topic syllabus

• Structural/ situational syllabus

• Functional/ notional syllabus

• Skills syllabus

• Situational syllabus

• Functional/ task-based syllabus

• Discourse/ skills syllabus

• Skills and strategies

2.3.3 Syllabus design

The process of designing an ESP syllabus contains need analysis, and syllabus development including selection of content

Needs analysis

Hutchinson & Waters, (1987:53-54):

Different types of students have different language needs and what they are taught

should be restricted to what they need These needs are fairly specific; they can be

identified and they should determine the content of any course”

Strevens (1977 in Richards 2001:33) pointed out that several levels of restriction are involved

The content of ESP courses are thereby determined, in some or all of the following

ways: (i) restriction: only those “basic skills” (understanding speech, speaking,

reading, writing) are included which are required by the learners’ purposes; (ii)

selection: only those items of vocabulary, patterns of grammar, functions of language

are included which are required by learners’ purposes; (iii) themes and topics: only

those themes, topics, situations, universe of discourse, etc are included which are

required by the learners’ purposes; (iv) communicative needs: only those

communicative needs are included which are required for the learners’ purposes

Hutchinson & Waters (1987:54) explained the definition of needs in their research as

“the ability to comprehend and/ or produce the linguistic features of the target situation”

According to Brown (1994:21),

Needs analysis is “the systematic collection and analysis of all relevant information

necessary to satisfy the language learning requirements of the students within the

context of the particular institution involved in the learning situation

In the words of Richards, (1984:5):

Needs analysis serves three main purposes: providing a means of obtaining wider

input into the content, design and implementation of a language syllabus; developing

goals and objectives and content for the syllabus; and providing data for reviewing

and evaluating an existing syllabus

Discussing about need analysis, there are two relating terms: Target Situation Analysis (TSA), and Present Situation Analysis (PSA)

TSA is a needs analysis, which focuses on students’ needs at the end of a language course (Chamber, 1990) TSA seeking may relate to different stages in the students’ lives: the stage in which the language is being studied and the stage in which the language will be used in the students’ future job The requirements of English language of the training course and of the later job may be different but both need to be considered

A PSA seeks to establish what the students are like at the start of their language course, investigate their strengths and weaknesses (Robinson, 1991) Richterich & Chancerel (1980) gave the most extensive range of devices for establishing the PSA In their view, there are three basic sources of information: the students themselves, the language teaching establishment and the “user-institution”

The needs analysis can be seen as the combination of TSA and PSA In fact, the relationship between TSA and PSA is very important to consider in designing the syllabus

Concerning about need analysis, Hutchinson & Waters (1987:55-61) made a distinction between “target needs” (i.e what the learner needs to do in the target situation) and “learning needs” (i.e what the learner needs to do in order to learn)

Target needs consist of necessities (what the learner has to know to function effectively), lacks (what the learner knows and does not know already), and wants (what the learners thinks they need) In order words, lacks are the starting point, necessities are the destination and wants are in some dispute as to what that destination should be However, how to get from the staring point to the destination indicates another kind of needs: learning needs

Also, Hutchinson & Waters (1987:55-62) mentioned the way to gather information about target needs is through questionnaires, interviews, observations etc To analyze learning needs, we can use a similar checklist to that used for target situation analysis (Hutchinson & Waters, 1987:62):

Why are the learners taking the course?

How do the learners learn?

What resources are available?

Who are the learners?

Where will the ESP course take place?

When will the ESP course take place?

Finally, analyzing the learning needs will provide useful information for the syllabus development process

Syllabus development

Richards (2001:147) affirmed that “the question of course content is probably the most basic issue in course design The course has to be developed to address a specific set of needs and to cover a given set of objectives”

Decisions about course content reflect the planners’ assumptions about the nature of language, language use, and language learning, what the most essential elements or units of language are, and how these can be organized as an efficient basis for second language learning

Selection of content

There is a distinction between roughly-tuned input and finely-tuned input

(Harmer, 1991:40) The former is language which the students can more or less understand even though it is above their own productive level Finely-tuned input, on the other hand, is language which has been very precisely selected to be at exactly the students’ level

Content selected should be derived from the students’ needs when attending ESP course and in accordance with their existing knowledge of the specialist So, in learner-centred approach, it is necessary to have a negotiation with learners about the selection of authentic materials with simplified language and appropriate classroom activities, and the principal consideration for the communicative needs of learners

The first step in the process is to examine and extract authentic materials with

simplified language relating to the purposes for which the students are attending and

in accordance with the school curriculum Authentic materials will bring interesting

texts, enjoyable activities which engage the students’ thinking capacities and create opportunities for students to use their existing knowledge and skills

In the words of Richards (2001:252):

Authentic materials are preferred over created materials because they contain

authentic language and reflect real-world uses of language compared with the

contrived content of much created material

Advantages raised for authentic materials are as follows:

• They have a positive effect on learner motivation because they are intrinsically

more interesting and motivating than created materials

• They provide exposure to real language rather than the artificial texts found in

created materials

• They relate more closely to learners’ needs and hence provide a link between

the classroom and the students’ needs in the real world

• They support a more creative approach to teaching In using authentic

materials as a source for teaching activities, teachers can develop their full potential as teachers, developing activities and tasks that better match their teaching styles and the learning styles of their students (Philips and Shettlesworth, 1978, Clarke, 1989, Peacock, 1997 in Richards 2001:252)

The second step in the process is to specify the communicative tasks to enable

students to perform in order to achieve their language goals For a given proficiency level, each task may have similar subordinate task and skill specifications This involves both productive and receptive skills with authentic contextualization