Stephen van Vlack

Sookmyung Women`s University

Graduate School of TESOL

English for Specific Purposes (ESP)

Spring 2006

Week 10 - Straight. (1997), pp. 239-260 & Stryker and Leaver. (1997), pp. 2-28 - Questions

1. What is the basic layout of the LxC program? (Str)

The basic layout of the LxC program is quite unique and for that reason alone quite interesting. Rather than having the language teacher give them content in the TL the participants get assignments to be done in the TL from content delivered in the L1. It should be clear as well that this program is designed not for non-native speakers of English in the US help need help developing English skills in order to deal with the TL in the TL environment. Rather, it is designed for native English speakers who need to get some real practice with the foreign languages they have learned prior to coming to the university.

In this model the content teacher is asked to design some special tasks (assignments) that the students can do out side fo the class and is small groups. The LxC organizational team will then visit each class and try to build groups of students around their proficiency is a common foreign language. These students will then meet on a weekly basis with a language and content expert in the TL in order to complete the assignment given by the content teacher. In order to do the assignments the students are going to need to work together cooperatively and to go out and get information in the TL.

2. What are some possible advantages of LxC over standard CBI programs? (Str)

Some of the advantages of LxC are that it is practical. It is something that we can do quite easily here in Korea because the model actually shows the directionality of the ways that we could probably best use content here. Rather than being content-based language instruction the LxC program is language-based content instruction in that all the students do in LxC program is do assignments, based on content they received in their L1, in a TL. LxC is all about using the TL to complete assignments. I like this idea because it is efficient. There is no need for the Language teacher to try to teach new content or old content over again in the TL. They simply sue what the students already know regardless of the language in which this knowledge was first acquired. The assumption is, and rightfully so, that the knowledge will be assessable for use regardless of the language if the students have to deal with it. Practice is more important than the initial language of delivery. This creates a healthy symbiosis between, in our case, Korean and English. The languages like the students are no longer in competition by rather are cooperating with each other. They need each other.

3. How easily could an LxC program be implemented in Korea?? (Str)

Yikes, this is loaded question because it really depends on the level and type of cooperation received from content teachers. In theory LxC should be easier to implement than a standard CBI course because the English teacher does not need to teach content directly. The involvement of the content teacher is minimal, especially here in that we would set this up not as an adjunct course with the content class but as a totally separate class which uses the content learned in the Korean content classes. In should be noted that the content instructor might not be able to make the kind of tasks that you as a language teacher want the students to do, so you might have to alter their assignment or make your own, and these assignment probably will not go back to the content teacher because she or he might not be able to grade them accordingly. So there are some issues in setting up a program like this and by combining this type of LxC program with a FLAC dimension (different content is taken from a wide range of different content classes) then things could work out very well.

4. What is CBI and what is it based on? (SL)

CBI is similar to and has been developed in parallel with immersion programs. It is hard to disassociate the two and as such it is easy to describe them together, bearing in mind that they also need to be different, especially as CBI is often touted as a better verison of immersion. CBI believes that the best way to increase the proficiency of the learner is to expose them to authentic content in the TL in the highest volume which is manageable by the learners. The idea is simple - If you want your students to get better at English than they have to do something with it and that doesn`t mean stupid things like counting duck pictures on the wall, but get them to extend their knowledge in a subject area at the same time they increase their knowledge of and proficiency in English.

      CBI is based on the very simple idea that information that is maximally linked in the brain is information that is most useful and less easily forgotten. CBI is also a reaction, to a large extent, to the observation that most of the data in traditional language teaching is not at all connected with anything else in the brain, well at least not anything useful. CBI, then, uses the content in accordance with the language teaching to fuse them together and make a cohesive whole which is of use to the student. Of course this idea only works when the students are interested in the subject matter (content) or need it for some reason, like, for example, it is their major in school and the need to take the course, or they need the credits. So, the whole CBI approach is designed based on coordinating information.

5. What does a CBI instructor need to do to use authentic texts effectively? (SL))

One of the biggest critiques of CBI is that the authentic texts that are the backbone of the approach are often deemed as being too difficult for most foreign language students. It is hard enough, some argue, for the students to get the content, much less learn language at the same time. Well, the simple answer to all these complaints is simple. Teachers working in the CBI approach need to shelter the texts they use. That is shelter the content. This sounds simple and it is, but it is often misunderstood. Sheltering a text does not mean simplifying the text for the students. What is the point of using authentic texts if we are going to simply them, then they are no longer authentic. Not simplifying texts means that we as teachers need to design controlled and doable tasks around the texts. Remember, every task we have our students do must guarantee a degree of success and must bring them up a notch in skills and knowledge. For this reason it is good to arrange tasks dealing with a specific text in a chain. So, the students in CBI class will get the same text as the native speakers in a standard content course, but they will go though the same text more slowly and/or cover less of the text. They will need to take smaller steps as they move through the content. Use the success idea as a guide to the tasks you create for your students. They need to all be able to succeed on some level with each of the tasks and each task needs to build on the previous one.

6. Why does a CBI program need to be dynamic and constantly changing? (SL)

The very nature of CBI means that the teacher really doesn`t know what will be easy for the students and what will not be so easy. We can never predict their reactions to the content as the content is always new and changing and we cannot move on until we have has a measure of success. Based on this, CBI is a very student-centered approach. The teacher needs to carefully watch the students and keep close tabs on them, constantly sheltering more or less the texts that they give and the content which is linked with it. Again, in CBI we are not just worrying about the language skills, although that is our focus. We need to give the students the content as well and that gives the teacher very concrete goals in the class in general but, more specifically, in each individual class. We have already discussed that general English programs can be criticized because they lack clear goals and, thus, the teacher can set the pace of the class, and often does, regardless of the success or failure of the students. This is impossible in a CBI approach because everything is related and it all fits in together. Thus, the teacher has do whatever she needs to do to ensure success and this means knowing when success has been met and when the students are ready to move on.

7. Looking at the idea of communicative competence, what is the advantage of CBI over bottom-up approaches? (SL)

CBI uses a top-down approach. The reason for this, and the perceived advantage comes from the fact that in a top-down approach the students are using a preexisting schema to figure out the new information, structures etc, which are coming to them. It is only by using this schema that the new information can be integrated and connected with the old information. As mentioned above, this belief is one of the central underpinnings of CBI.

8. What are some of the more successful models of CBI that have been used in schools? (SL)

The models of CBI are remarkably similar to the models we find in immersion programs, such as full, partial, delayed full and others. The difference here is based not on integration of the two languages in relation to subject matter, but on the integration of the two sides of the learning the content side and the language side. The big divisible in CBI is whether the content component and the language component will be run together, separately but linked, totally separately, or if the language component will handle everything, integrating the content into the language by the language teacher. All of these seem to be successful, at least according to the chapter we read. Of course there are many things we need to consider when setting up a CBI program. Organization, planning, and cooperation are all a must in making a program work. Also, the language teacher, no matter what the level and type of integration, will need some knowledge of the content area.

9. How do you think we can best design FLAC programs for Korean universities? (SL)

FLAC is an acronym for Foreign Languages Across the Curriculum and it is something which is being experimented with, to a limited extent, by many Korean universities. It entails teaching a wide range of content courses in a foreign language, even to classes entirely made up of Korean speakers. Of course, we can easily envision this taking place in courses focusing on foreign languages and literature, such as an English lit. taught entirely in English or a Japanese linguistics class taught in Japanese. How about Chinese history or politics taught in Chinese, this may be happening, but more often than not English is the foreign language of instruction, regardless of the subject matter.

      To set up a good FLAC program integration in the initial stages of exposure is the key. The problem is that the content teacher will probably not know and moreover won`t care about the language development of the students. Her focus will be on the content alone. This means that the burden for understanding will and must fall upon the shoulders of the language teacher. Therefore, there should be language courses which mirror the content courses. So for a history of music course for music majors, for example, there should be an English course which follows the content course and the teacher tries to get the students to work with the content to improve understanding and English level at the same time. This type of approach calls for a strong integration of the content and language: the two teachers will probably need to meet regularly to talk about what is going on, but the content will probably set the pace and the language teacher will have to try to deal with the content goals as best they can.

10. What do the authors believe is the best way to assess success in CBI? Why? (SL)

The authors believe that the best way to assess the students` progress in the CBI approach is through a holistic measurement of the students overall proficiency or communicative competence. Testing discrete points will not work here because language is not taught in the CBI approach in small discrete points but rather as a whole entire mass, linked to the real world through the content and what they need to do with it.