Year: 1990
Type: article
Abstract: Why is it necessary to talk about "content-based language teaching?"One of the main things people do with language is express propositions about the world.Language is normally used to talk or write about things, and in educational contexts it is often about bodies of knowledge.How is it possible, then, to teach language which is about nothing in particular?Alas, as we all know, "contentless" language teaching is all too common.It has been a long struggle to establish the idea of "meaningful communication" within the major traditions of foreign language teaching; and even within these communicative traditions, what students are asked to talk about is still not as important to teachers and materials writers as why they should communicate and how they should form their utterances.In most foreign language teaching, content is just not a primary determinant of syllabus design in the way that function and structure are.This is not to say that content-based language teaching does not exist.As the authors of Content-Based Second Language Instructionpoint out, it has its vigorous traditions: some communicative general-purpose EFL work-especially at post- intermediate levelhas a content-led syllabus; domain knowledge is also a central component in much of ESP.More interestingly, fromthe educational point of view, second language learning for children in nursery, primary, and secondary education, whose home language is not the medium of instruction, is in the U.K. and many other parts of the world becoming content-led.As the education of ethnolinguistic minority pupils is relocated from withdrawal classes
Source: Issues in Applied Linguistics
DOI: 10.5070/l412004994
Author: John Clegg
Language: English
Subfield: Linguistics and Language
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W2133095754