Content-Based Foreign Language Teaching

Curriculum and Pedagogy for Developing Advanced Thinking and Literacy Skills

Laurent Cammarata, Laurent Cammarata

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781136962745
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Éducation
• Subtopic: Éducation générale

Pushing the field forward in critically important ways, this book offers clear curricular directions and pedagogical guidelines to transform foreign language classrooms into environments where stimulating intellectual curiosity and tapping critical thinking abilities are as important as developing students' linguistic repertoires. The case is made for content-based instruction—an approach to making FL classrooms sites where intellectually stimulating explorations are the norm rather than the exception. The book explicitly describes in detail how teachers could and should use content-based instruction, explains how integration of content and language aims can be accomplished within a program, identifies essential strategies to support this curricular and pedagogical approach, discusses issues of assessment within this context, and more.

Content-Based Foreign Language Teaching provides theoretical perspectives and empirical evidence for reforming curricula and instruction, describes models and curriculum planning strategies that support implementation of well-balanced FL programs, explores the transformative potential of critical pedagogy in the FL classroom, and offers illustrations of secondary and post-secondary language programs that have experimented with alternative approaches. Advancing alternatives to conventional curriculum design, this volume posits meaning-oriented approaches as necessary to create language programs that make a great difference in the overall educational lives of learners

1
Content-Based Instruction and Curricular Reforms

Issues and Goals

Laurent Cammarata, Diane J. Tedick, and Terry A. Osborn

Introduction

For millennia human beings have been compelled to learn languages for political, economic, social, and personal reasons (Genesee, 2008; Jackson & Malone, 2009). In the twenty-first century, however, the need has become critical. A few reasons for the increase in demand for bi- and multilingualism include the rise in globalization of business and commerce, health and security matters that require international cooperation, the proliferation of international migration, and the huge impact that scientific advances and telecommunications have had on modern societies (Genesee, 2008; Stewart, 2007; Tucker, 1998).

In the United States, the need for skilled speakers of languages other than English has been articulated for well over 50 years in governmental reports and documents, testimonies before Congress, published studies, and media reports at both national and local levels (Jackson & Malone, 2009). Yet little change has occurred. Less than half of all high school students in the United States study a foreign language (FL), and few advance beyond the introductory level (Draper & Hicks, 2002; Reagan & Osborn, 2002; Stewart, 2007). Why does this pattern persist when most other countries around the world develop bilingual if not multilingual communities? In this chapter we explore some of these issues in further depth and propose our ideas and rationale for transforming FL education within and outside the United States. We offer these ideas for transformation in hopes of (1) increasing the number of students who study FLs, (2) ensuring that students acquire higher levels of proficiency through persistence in FL study, and (3) reaching the potential of FL study to contribute to students’ development as critical thinkers and responsible citizens. In this chapter, we also make a case for the use of the content-based instruction (CBI) approach to language teaching. We argue that reforms such as the ones we propose in this volume are unlikely to materialize without the implementation of curricular and instructional frameworks like CBI, which is specifically designed to concurrently integrate content and language instruction.

The Crisis of FL Education and the Need for a Philosophical Reflection

This volume begins with the warning that a crisis is about to happen within the field of FL education and that drastic measures will need to be taken to avoid it. In truth, such apocalyptic warnings are common in the literature (for a description of the use of this rhetorical tool, see Gee, 1990). This can be easily explained by the fact that, as Klein (2007) has so meticulously documented in her work, there is no better recipe to promote new agendas—be they political, educational, or other—and provoke rapid change than the use of the fear factor. But our warning is not a scheme to convince readers to rally to our side, although, in all fairness, we hope they will in the end. As the following sections will illustrate, solid evidence demonstrates that most conventional, school-based FL programs currently in place fail to deliver when it comes to achieving what we consider their primary mission: to motivate students to persist in learning a language during and after their formal schooling years.

Failure of a System

How many of us have heard people we encounter (close friends or family, complete strangers) say something along these lines when describing their language learning experience in school? “I took French, but I never really liked it, and I was never good at it. I can say a few words like Bonjour, comment allez-vous? but that’s about it.” When it comes to the U.S. K–12 FL educational context, for instance, general apathy toward language learning and little success in second language (L2) acquisition among the majority of Americans persist despite what the field has learned about the benefits of L2 acquisition and despite the clear need the United States has to develop a bi-, indeed multilingual, citizenry. This situation is not unique to the United States, however, as skill-driven FL programs are still the norm in many countries around the world.

Anyone involved in FL education should feel concerned by the fact that precious few language learners in the United States or other countries around the world exit secondary school or universities with a level of language proficiency that appropriately reflects the time they’ve invested in attempting to learn that language. In the particular case of the United States, a recent, large-scale study by Oregon’s Center for Applied Second Language Studies (CASLS), one of the national Foreign Language Resource Centers in the United States, ¹ provides a sobering account regarding the state of affairs in FL education:

The majority of students studying a foreign language in a traditional high school program reach benchmark level 3 or 4 by the end of the fourth year of study, regardless of the language studied. These levels are similar to the ACTFL [American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages] levels Novice-High and Intermediate-Low. ²

(CASLS, 2010, p. 1)

In other words, after four years of study, students can only communicate with predictable, memorized phrases, and are just beginning to develop the ability to use the language forms they know in a novel fashion (ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines, 2012; Martel, 2013).

These appalling outcomes have little, if anything, to do with people’s capacity to learn languages. Certainly there are individuals who have special aptitudes when it comes to language learning (e.g., more efficient information processing capabilities, keen ability to discriminate sounds). Nevertheless, we know that if an individual has been able to acquire one language, he or she has the ability to develop a sufficient level of control in at least one additional language. Why, then, do apathy and lack of success with language learning persist in the United States? While there are many reasons that contribute to these patterns (see, for example, Reagan & Osborn, 2002), we believe that a major culprit resides in the nature of today’s K–12 and post-secondary FL programs. By and large, their curricular structures are grammar driven and skills based, and fail to connect with learners’ lived experiences. Such structures fail to entice students to learn languages or use them beyond the classroom walls, and prevent the development of advanced literacy skills that foster higher levels of thinking. Indeed, this curricular dilemma is not unique to the United States; in other countries around the world grammar-driven language teaching remains pervasive. It is important to point out, however, that contexts vary greatly, and in the case of Europe, the proximity of and exposure to speakers of some of the most popular languages taught in school (e.g., English, Spanish, French, German) may at times compensate for the lack of effectiveness of conventional school-based foreign language programs. Regardless of the geographical context and possibilities of exposure to the target language, school-based FL programs around the world can play an important role in ensuring that learners continue to pursue language learning beyond their formal school years. Thus, it is essential for us to (re)examine our vision and figure out more effective ways to engage learners in the pursuit of language learning.

Re-envisioning FL Education as a Discipline: Where Should We Begin?

Motivation represents an engine crucial to the learning of second and foreign languages (e.g., Crookes & Schmidt, 1991; Dörnyei, 2001; Gardner, 1985, 2001; Masgoret & Gardner, 2003; Nakata, 2006; Spolsky, 2000; Tremblay & Gardner, 1995), which means that the process of re-envisioning FL education as a discipline should begin with figuring out better ways to entice language learners to participate fully and wholeheartedly in the language learning experience within and beyond the classroom setting. Ideally, we would like to see students who feel compelled to study the materials provided in class, participate in the tasks, and use language for their personal pleasure outside of class (goals articulated as important by both the ACTFL as well as the Council of Europe ³). Such goals imply, among other things, that we need to reconsider what it is we ultimately want students to learn beyond the basic skills, that is, the ability to read, write, speak, and understand. In other words, we must rethink our approaches to instruction as well as the content we utilize to teach languages in order to better connect with students’ lives and interests here and now. But prior to defining what it is we want to do—that is, what goals we should pursue beyond the mastery of discrete language skills, what curricular approaches would be most effective to implement such goals, and what content other than language would be most appropriate to contextualize language instruction in this context—we must first clarify what it is we believe the field can do best. In other words, we must appraise its potential beyond the obvious communicative benefits we are all aware of.

Appraising the “True” Potential of FL Education

Beyond Language as a Tool for Communication

No one can argue with the fact that a language is a tool for communication and that its use involves the development of specific skills. Nevertheless, acquisition of an additional language affords many more benefits than the mere ability to communicate with others. The implications of the impact of language on thinking are too many to explore in such a short space, but the work of many renown scholars throughout the twentieth century, such as Sapir (see Sapir & Mandelbaum, 1985), Whorf (1956), Halliday (1993), and Vygotsky (1986), only to name a few, has made clear the important relationships existing between and among language, culture, and thinking processes. Today, language can no longer be viewed simply as a means to an end, a tool with which to communicate, but as an historically and socioculturally bound complex semiotic system that has a tremendous impact in shaping one’s overall consciousness and social identity.

Furthermore, learning to master a language is a process that cannot be defined by the simple acquisition of its form and structures, a minimalist view that fails to reflect the complex nature of language. Rather, as Habermas (1992) explains, “learning to master a language or learning how expressions in a language should be understood requires socialization into a form of life” (p. 63). Habermas’s thoughts regarding the nature of the language learning experience underscore the fact that learning another language encompasses more than the simple mastery of linguistic patterns. Rather, it implies the acquisition of sufficient knowledge to become sensitive to the way reality is perceived through the particular cultural lens associated with the language being studied. In the sections that follow, we unpack this notion and briefly summarize some of the benefits rarely taken into consideration when K–16 FL programs are designed. We argue that these benefits should drive future reforms in the field.

The Potential of FL Education to Support Learners’ Intellectual Empowerment

No better field than FL education can provide the opportunity to empower learners, that is, help them become “active questioners of the social reality around them” (Gee, 1990, p. 41), because the study of an additional language cannot be dissociated from the exploration of how identity is formed (Pennycook, 2004). The study of additional languages also allows for immersion into alternative ways of perceiving and conceptualizing reality (Reagan & Osborn, 2002), a type of exploration associated with a high degree of cognitive dissonance essential to increasing awareness of the self and other members of the communities to which one belongs. It is this intrinsic quality that pertains to the field of FL education that, when combined with appropriate pedagogies, makes this discipline an essential component of any educational program that is dedicated to ensuring the well-being of increasingly more culturally and linguistically diverse democratic societies. Furthermore, FL education has the potential to play a key role in stimulating interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary explorations, which represent an important step toward helping learners develop advanced cognitive academic thinking skills essential to autonomous thinking. Reagan and Osborn (2002) remind us that the FL field,

[u]nlike any other, is by its very nature concerned with bridging disciplines. [For instance the] category culture, in common use, has included strong components of studies of history, political science, food science, literature, economics, media studies, and so forth.

(p. 80)

The Potential of Foreign Language Learning for the Development of Self-Consciousness

The field of FL education has, over the last three decades, focused most of its instructional energy on developing learners’ communicative abilities. This trend, we contend, is based on a minimalist and limited understanding of the nature of language and the role it plays in the shaping of human consciousness.

The findings of Vygotsky’s research and theoretical perspectives focused on the intricate relationship existing between and among language, culture, and thought provide support to the argument that there is more to the study of an additional language than the acquisition and mastery of linguistic knowledge and the development of communicative skills. According to Vygotsky (1986), it is language, and more particularly meaning, that is in fact at the center of the way human consciousness is dynamically organized (Roebuck, 2000). Vygotsky’s legacy underscores the central role language plays when it comes to thinking, creating, solving problems, and moving beyond the ephemeral nature of our biological life through the perpetuation of useful knowledge over time; it provides compelling evidence that supports the claim positing language as a determinant factor in the shaping of our conceptualization of the world and what we consider reality.

Thus, learning a new language means much more than acquiring the means to communicate with others; as importantly, if not more, learning a new language affords the ability to acquire new possibilities of perception. The careful unwrapping and deciphering of the prejudices embedded in language and discourse makes possible the questioning...