3. Choice of Indigenous Content In the Light Of Current Language Acquisition Theory: A Case Study-Anil Kumar Mishra

Abstract

In the ‘Preface’ of the textbook prepared for Utkal University English curriculum the board of editors claim that the collection of the “finest specimen of contemporary English prose” is not just for “skills enhancement, but to quicken the process of absorption of the finer points of English usage and style by the takers of such a course.” They further state that the exercises following each text “go on to weave in the mind an endless tapestry of language and thought.” This claim deserves close scrutiny in so far as the meaning of ‘content’ that extends to include the gamut of the prose pieces in this collection; and to further restate the fact that learning aspects of language are still getting priority over the subject matter in most of these designated textbooks even at the university level.

The present paper attempts to establish the fact that content based instruction is yet to be implemented in the present day curriculum. Content must be chosen for the course after sympathetic evaluation to generate sufficient interest among the students. The paper also theoretically elaborates the above fact supporting the role of CoBI while applying well chosen content for language learning in the light of recent theories of Language Acquisition, especially the acquisition of L2 in the Indian context.

I

It is well accepted fact that fluent communicative competence does not guarantee strong academic proficiency on the part of an English Language Learner. Cummins suggests that two kinds of English proficiency, such as the Basic Interpersonal Conversational Skills (BICS) and the Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP) are needed especially for an L2 learner. Cummins also argues that the efficiency of the ESL learners mastering everyday conversation only is so limited that they fail to acquire cognitive academic language skills that require task-based, experiential learning gained thorough the interactions with complex interdisciplinary contexts. In order to handle content-rich high standard curriculum by means of critical thinking skills the learner needs an altogether different approach other than the traditional ESL approach.

The amount of language that can be acquired in a classroom with one or two years of study is limited. The contextualized and informal language courses focus on different aspects of grammar and style which are varied and innumerable. There are certain elements of language that cannot be taught to the learners. The Content-Based Instruction (CoBI) is an attitude of teaching a content area in the target language wherein students acquire both language and subject-matter knowledge.

Richards and Rodgers (2001, p.204) define Content-Based Instruction (CoBI) as “an approach to Second Language Teaching in which teaching is organized around the content or information that students will acquire, rather than around a linguistic or other type of syllabus”. Crandal and Tucker (1990) define CoBI as “…an approach to language instruction that integrates the presentation of topics or tasks from subject-matter classes … within the context of teaching a second or foreign language.” It involves the learning of language with the learning of content simultaneously. In other words, the objectives of language learning are achieved through the content learning.

It is interesting to note that Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) is also a similar approach of second language learning through the learning of subject content in schools. CLIL is supposed to promote communication, content, culture and cognition. It focuses on developing in an interactive way the knowledge, skills and cognitive abilities involved in subject learning. Language is mainly taught through acquisition, though with some overt support though the use of scaffolding devises such as speaking and writing frames and word glossaries. In one hand it employs language with predominant subject-related vocabulary for exploring, discussing and writing about the subject matter; and in another, it promotes cognitive skills such as defining, reasoning, evaluating, hypothesizing, concluding and exemplifying. It also promotes learning skills such as locating information, interpreting information, and classifying information. Language in CLIL is not graded, and not focused on the teaching of grammar and structural patterns.

Content-Based Instruction also ensures that the curriculum organizing principle is subject-matter, not language. CoBI ensures input of shelter that will be comprehensible to students. They may include speech adjustments, facial expressions, gestures, body language, graphic organizers, etc. it also promotes sharing of responsibilities among the students through group work, team learning, peer editing, etc. that provide students ample opportunity to interact, share ideas, test hypotheses, and construct knowledge together in a low-risk forum. It also promotes extensive reading from alternative sources of information outside the classroom. The students are motivated in this approach as they get interested in the challenges they meet and the valu they add while learning in this environment.

CoBI has no techniques, no specific activities associated with it. However, the prototype program models of CoBI include the Second Language Medium (SLE) courses, Theme-Based (TB) courses, Adjunct/Linked (AL) courses, and the Foreign language Across the Curriculum (FLAC) courses. The AL courses are paired content and language courses. Both subject matter and language are emphasized and students receive credit for both the courses. These courses accompany total immersion courses to help students cope with their language problems in the mainstream courses. Hence, they cannot be considered as independent language courses. The sheltered content instruction is a simplified form of English immersion. Theme-based language instruction is structured around a set of professional topics (themes) that follow each other in a logical consecutive order which corresponds to the order of studying those themes in an academic course or some majoring discipline or in courses on several such disciplines. The TB courses pay attention to integration and equalization of developing all the four language skills. Theorists have found out a sequential order of these courses to be offered to the students exposed to L2: the traditional ESP training shall be followed by the TB instruction, sheltered immersion, partial immersion, and then total immersion. To such theorists, CoBI is mode adapted to the tertiary level of instruction.

CoBI derives from the cognitive learning theory an SLA research. Krashen (1980) states that language structures are most efficiently acquired when presented through comprehensible input that is just beyond the learners’ current proficiency level, thereby forcing them to reach beyond the linguistic input and use previous knowledge and communicative context to gather the meaning of unfamiliar structures for which information is required. Since the students’ attention is focused on the professional content to be learnt through the medium of the target language, the communication skills are mastered implicitly, i.e., without the conscious effort to remember language forms. This unconscious acquisition is the most natural way to gain proficiency over a language (Krashen, 1981). Here the target language is a medium of communication rather than an object of analysis. Hence high level competence is reached in the condition akin to the acquisition of L1 that conform to focus on the meaning, the language input is very close to the competence of the learner, and the student is provided with an anxiety-free environment.

The most important aspect of CoBI is the content chosen for the learner in order to gain proficiency in the target language. Content is defined as any subject matter which “need not be academic; it can include any topic, them or non-language issue of interest or importance to the learner” (Genesee). Chaput conceives the idea of content as “any topic of intellectual substance which contributes to the students’ understanding of language in general, and the target language in particular.” “Content is the material which is cognitively engaging and demanding for the learner, and is material that extends beyond the target language or the target culture.” The content should be authentic, i.e., they should be similar to those used in native language. Content of this kind can generate interest among the students.

II

The Utkal University has prescribed a prose collection for L2 learners of the undergraduate classes of its constituent colleges named Endless Adventures: A Collection of English Prose, compiled by a group of editors and published by Orient Black Swan. On the blurb of the book the publisher has a declaration that reads: “Undergraduate classrooms in India have long felt the need for a textbook of English prose that combines a rich repertoire of content with a strong communicative focus. Endless Adventures is that book” containing “diverse themes and forms…” replete with “(I)nteractive discussions and questions relating to the texts, as well as well-orchestrated exercises in grammar and writing…” In the ‘Preface’ the board of editors claim that the collection of the “finest specimen of contemporary English prose” is not just for “skills enhancement, but to quicken the process of absorption of the finer points of English usage and style by the takers of such a course.” They further state that the exercises following each text “go on to weave in the mind an endless tapestry of language and thought.”

These are highly ambitious claims made by the editors and the publisher of the book. However, the book is close to the approach of Content-Based Instruction too. The themes of the book range from autobiography of famous persons to newspaper columns, from speeches by celebrities to popular literature, from scientific articles to memoirs and hobbies. Each lesson precedes a pre-reading questionnaire and intertwined with points of discussion between each reading units. There are comprehension checks at intervals too. There are discussion of grammar points with exercises and a lot of writing tasks with ample hints for the learners to practice. There are elaborate writing courses like writing of memos, creative writing, letters to the editor, writing of CVs, emails, report writing, expanding ideas, etc.

This design of the book is supposed to ensure a varied panorama of themes with proper provision of scaffolding for learning communicative English. For example, the book contains passages like:

1. A crucial factor for success has always been excellence—whether it is business, sports or arts. We have not paid enough attention to excellence. Perhaps an important reason for this was the command and control economy that existed till recently. In those times, there was no incentive for improvement as the License Raj ensured protection for incumbents.

2. In actual fact there is little danger from a wild elephant unless it happens to be a rogue or a female with a small calf. However, it is bad diplomacy in close-up situations, especially with the wind in the wrong direction, to wait for this to become apparent before taking the only discreet action. For it may well be that in tall grass country, in even the most innocent stampede of a frightened herd, the ornithologist may become an unscheduled casualty. Discretion and not valour is what such situations demand.

These themes are also tested with the following questions:

1. How did the ‘command-and-control economy’ hinder the pursuit of excellence?

2. How did the License Raj prevent the pursuit of liberty, and thereby, excellence earlier?

3. What could be some hazards of bird-watching?

Such questions are demanding. They need not only the comprehension of the passage to be read, but some outside knowledge of the themes. There are also enough attempts to teach the students analysis and discussion of the themes. Every attempt has been made by the editors of the book to formulate a selection of theme-based content for the L2 learners at the tertiary level. This is meant for the students of graduation level who have minimum ten years of exposure of the target language.

Still the designated course does not qualify itself as a CoBI course. The reasons are many. This is not a course that contains contents from subjects like history, political science, economics, etc. This is a traditional reader of themes having varied interest. These themes are not chosen after careful choice from the point of view of the students that would create interest in them. Most of the themes have no relevance with the content courses taught to the students in the university curriculum. Most of the themes are set outside the purview of the students’ cultural and native boundaries, e.g.:

· Fifty yards away are my barbers: Giuseppe, Franco, and Salvatore, all from Sicily—their English echoing Chico Marx. They have been in Greenwich Village forever but never really settled: how should they? They shout at one another all day in Sicilian dialect, drowning out their main source of entertainment and information: a 24-hour Italian-language radio station. On my way home, I enjoy a mille-feuille from a surly Breton pâtissier, who has put his daughter through the London School of Economics, an exquisite éclair at a time.

The themes are so widely arranged that they have little proximity with each other. Hence, it is more a traditional SLE course than a CoBI course, as claimed by the editors, though not explicitly.

In order to be a truly CoBI course the themes in the book need to be selected taking care of the interest of the students. The themes must weave around the content of the course for which the learners are graduating. They should rather be selected from the indigenous contents like the previously quoted passages. They students should be asked about the de-contextualized subject matter. The subject matter of the course must be presented in the target language, and not in the vernacular, as it is being promoted in most of the universities. Then only the full benefit of the learning of a foreign language be achieved at the tertiary level.

Content must be chosen for the course after sympathetic evaluation to generate sufficient interest among the students. While applying well chosen content for language learning in the light of recent theories of Language Acquisition, especially the acquisition of L2 in the Indian context, the role of CoBI is not to be disregarded.

References:

· Dupuy, Beatrice C. (2000). Content-Based Instruction: Can it Help Ease the Transition from Beginning to Advanced Foreign Language Classes? Foreign Language Annals, 33.2. (Web)

· Mohapatra, Himanshu S. et al (2011). Endless Adventures: A Collection of English Prose. Hyderabad, Orient Blackswan. (Print)

· Tarnopolsky, Oleg (2013). Content-Based Instruction, CLIL, and Immersion in Teaching ESP at Tertiary Schools in Non-English-Speaking Countries. Journal of ELT and Applied Linguistics, 1.1. (Web)

· Wikiversity. Content Based Instruction in Language Learning. Learning Theories in practice. (Web)