A Study of the Effects of Content-Based Instruction for English Majors in the Chinese Context

CHANG Junyue & XIA Yang Dalian University of Foreign Languages

Abstract

This study focused on the effects of the Content-Based Instruction (CBI) for English majors in the Chinese context. A quasi-experiment was conducted in an English teaching institution with tests as data collection instruments. The quantitative study indicates that CBI brings better outcome than Skill-Oriented Instruction (SOI) in developing language knowledge, language skills and disciplinary knowledge, achieving the general objectives of the national curriculum more effectively than the conventional SOI. The findings throw a positive light on the reform of the national curriculum for English as a specialty and the education of English majors in China.

Key words: English as a specialty; CBI (Content-Based Instruction); SOI (Skill-Oriented Instruction); curriculum

1. Introduction

The National Curriculum for English as a Specialty in Chinese Tertiary Institutions(“the National Curriculum” in brief hereafter), issued in 2000, stipulates that English as a specialty is to foster inter-disciplinary talents with “a solid mastery of English language skills, broad range of knowledge, a certain amount of knowledge in relevant disciplines, relatively strong abilities and comparatively high comprehensive qualities”(Advisory Board, 2000: 1). To achieve the objectives of this curriculum, Chinese tertiary institutions have made efforts to adjust their curricula for the upper division (third and fourth years), but little has been done to adjust their curricula for the lower division(first and second years). The National Curriculum is dominated by the idea of Skill-Oriented Instruction (SOI) with skill-oriented English courses accounting for over 92% of the total for the lower division and over 67% during the four years of undergraduate education, leaving hardly any room to expand students’ knowledge in content areas, especially not at the lower division. The curriculum dominated by SOI may help to improve students’ language skills and their communicative competence, however, it has its drawbacks in widening students’ knowledge, expanding their disciplinary knowledge, improving their cognitive ability, fostering their creativity, and enhancing their life skills. Therefore, the curriculum itself makes it hard to achieve the objectives it has stipulated. About a decade’s implementation of this skill-oriented curriculum has made its strengths, flaws and negative effects salient.

In an attempt to address the problems of the current skill-oriented curriculum, this research intended to examine the impacts of the Content-Based Instruction (CBI) on lowerdivision English majors with an emphasis on its effects on the development of students’language skills and acquisition of knowledge in content areas. As an attempt to explore a new curriculum, the research may have important implications for the education of English majors and the development of English as a specialty in China.

2. Previous studies on the national Curriculum and CBI

2.1 skill-Oriented Instruction for english Majors in China

Developing students’ English language skills has long been a principal objective in the education of English majors. The National Curriculum stipulates that such compulsory courses as English listening, English speaking, extensive English reading, English writing, English pronunciation, English grammar and basic English must be offered to first-and second-year English majors in order to help students master the language skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing and lay a solid foundation for their study at the advanced stage (Advisory Board, 2000: 2). To ensure the achievement of these objectives, not only such courses as listening, speaking, reading, and writing are skill-oriented, but also the courses of English pronunciation, English grammar, and basic English with their clear objectives of developing language skills. It is clear that the guiding idea behind selection of the courses is the fostering of language skills through skill-oriented courses. The compulsory courses listed in the National Curriculum for English majors are shown in Table 1 (Advisory Board, 2000: 3).

Table 1. The Curriculum for Lower Division English Majors

Table 1 indicates that A Survey of English-Speaking Countries is the only knowledgeoriented course, or content-based course to put it technically, and that it is offered in the fourth term. Even in many English teaching institutions in China, the only contentbased course is put off till the third academic year. Table 1 also shows that skill-oriented compulsory courses dominate the curriculum with a great emphasis on listening, speaking, reading and writing. The curriculum seems to be greatly influenced by the idea of the Skill-Based Syllabus put forward by Far (2008: para.8):

In this syllabus, the content of the language teaching involves a collection of particular skills that may play a role in using language. Although situational syllabuses combine functions together into specific settings of language use, skill-based syllabi merge linguistic competencies (pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, and discourse) together into generalized types of behavior, such as listening to spoken language for the main idea, writing well-formed paragraphs, delivering effective lectures, and so forth. The chief rationale behind skill-based instruction is to learn the specific language skill. Another less important objective might be to develop more general competence in the language, learning only incidentally any information that may be available while utilizing the language skills.

To a certain extent, the current skill-oriented curriculum for English majors exerts a positive influence on the improvement of students’ English language skills, but it undoubtedly has its defects in helping students acquire “a solid mastery of English language skills, broad range of knowledge, a certain amount of knowledge in relevant disciplines, relatively strong abilities and comparatively high comprehensive qualities” (Advisory Board, 2000: 1). It is observed by many teachers and researchers that graduates with a major in English have a narrow range of general knowledge and they are weak in their critical thinking (Huang, 1998: 1; Ma, 2005: 8).

How can English as a specialty effectively achieve the principal objectives of both improving the language skills and fostering the comprehensive qualities stipulated in the National Curriculum? Some researchers believe that it is impossible to achieve the objectives if the focus is merely on the practice of language skills like listening, speaking, reading and writing (Yang, 2004: 16). As an influential approach gaining popularity in Western countries, CBI is enlightening to the reform of the education of English majors, as it has the strengths of broadening knowledge in content areas and enhancing language skills at the same time (Chang, 2007: 37; Chang & Dong, 2008: 37; Chang & Gao, 2009: 22-27; Feng & Li, 1995: 85; Yang, 2005: 18).

2.2 CBI and the CBI for english Majors in China

CBI is “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” (Richards & Rodgers, 2001: 204). Having originated in Canada’s Immersion Programme for teaching English or French, CBI in language teaching has gained popularity and has been widely used in a variety of different settings since the 1980s. From its earliest applications in ESP, EOP, and immersion programs, it is now widely used in K-12 programs for ESL students, in university foreign language programs, and in business and vocational courses in EEL settings (Richards & Rodgers, 2001: 207). It integrates both content learning and language skill practice, in which the focus of teaching is shifted from learning language itself to learning language through learning disciplinary knowledge(Brinton, Snow & Wesche, 1989: ix; Stryker and Leaver, 1997: 5). It has the characteristics of subject matter core, the use of authentic texts, learning of new information, and appropriateness to specific needs (Stryker & Leaver, 1997: 271). Different CBI models have been identified by such scholars as Richards and Rodgers (2001: 205-207) despite different views on the definition of models (Crandall & Tucker, 1990: 187; Kasper, 2000: 10; Feng & Li, 1995: 85; Met, 2006: 13-14).

Since the 1980s, proponents of CBI have managed to find support for it in theories of SLA, instructional strategies, and educational and cognitive psychology (CoBaLTT, 2010: para.12-20; Kasper et al., 2000: 4-6).

The application of CBI has been attractive to practitioners and researchers as well. In first and second language settings, CBI programs were reported of colleges, middle schools and primary schools in countries such as Canada, Britain, America, and Singapore. In foreign language settings, the teaching of English, Italian, Russian, Arabic, French and other languages through CBI programs is illustrated by Stryker and Leaver (1997: 17-19) in countries like Finland, Spain and China. To ensure effective application of CBI, Stoller and Grabe (1997: 4-5) propose a “Six-T” approach to CBI, directing attention to themes, texts, topics, threads, tasks, and transitions, which serve as a guideline to the development of CBI materials and classroom language teaching.

In China, the interest of Chinese scholars in the CBI approach and its application has been increasing since the publication of the first journal article on CBI in 1994. Since then, a number of papers have been published in Chinese academic journals. However, the study of the application of CBI to the education of English majors was a neglected area in China for many years, although the teaching of disciplinary knowledge never ceased to be an issue. In 1995, Feng and Li raised the necessity of applying CBI to the teaching of English majors and of increasing content-based courses to achieve a balance between the content-based courses and skill-based courses (88), but this article failed to arouse much attention. When the new national curriculum for English as a specialty was issued in 2000, some scholars like Liu (2000: 12-17) raised the issue of its inadequate compulsory courses in disciplinary areas, but this voice was overwhelmed by favorable comments on the National Curriculum. It is only the past few years that has witnessed accelerating CBI studies in relation to English majors. Yang (2005: 1-35) reported an empirical study of the application of CBI to the teaching of business with English as a language of instruction, revealing its strengths in improving students’ language proficiency and imparting knowledge in content areas. Chang, Zhao and Li (2008: 24-28) probed the feasibility of applying CBI to the education of English majors in the lower division and elaborated on its feasibility through the study of overseas literature, review of CBI practice in the history of foreign teaching in China, and questionnaire surveys of teachers and students in higher institutions. Chang and Dong (2008: 37-40) and Xia and Chang (2010: 6-12) reported their empirical studies on the problems of English majors and their strategies in CBI. Xia and Chang (2009: 128-133) conducted a case study of teaching a content-based course “Introduction to American History and Culture”and further elaborated on its feasibility, its positive impact on language learning and the existing issues in content-based instruction. In a quantitative study, Chang, Liu and Deng(2009: 40-48) examined the impact on students’ reading comprehension of substituting CBI courses for their independent extensive English reading course, revealing the positive effects of CBI on promoting students’ reading comprehension and expanding their knowledge in content areas. Chang and Gao (2009: 19-28) conducted a qualitative study and illustrated the positive impact of CBI on the development of students’ language learning. In a survey study, Chang and Zhao (2010: 13-17) examined students’ feedback and gained insights into the improvement of English majors taught by a curriculum that integrated content teaching with language teaching.

2.3 The Guideline for CBI Reform

The merits, potentials and prospects of CBI make it promising in changing the curriculum dominated by skill-oriented instruction and in incorporating the idea of CBI into the education of English majors so as to achieve an integration of content and language. The current research has formulated the following guidelines for the CBI curriculum reform for English majors in the lower division:

(1) Breaking open the limitations of the conventional curriculum by systematically incorporating content-based courses. Without changing the general objectives or the total teaching hours specified in the National Curriculum, the reform aims to break open the limitations of a curriculum dominated by skill-oriented instruction by eliminating or reducing skill-oriented courses and to incorporate content-based courses systematically into the curriculum for English majors so as to develop their language skills and enrich their knowledge in content areas.

(2) Tapping the potential of content-based courses to develop students’ language skills and knowledge simultaneously. Content-based courses aim to develop students’language skills by imparting content-area knowledge. To develop students’ language skills and enrich their knowledge in content areas requires content teaching and skill training to be treated as an organic whole, with English as the language of instruction, and with disciplinary knowledge and content as the medium of such language skills training.

(3) Embracing all effective teaching methods and techniques that develop students’language skills and comprehensive qualities. With the methodological flexibility of the CBI approach, a variety of teaching methods and techniques can be incorporated into the teaching of content-area knowledge. Such ideas of question-driven and output-driven teaching can be introduced into teaching to enhance students’ initiative in their study. Activities like discussions and presentations through solo work, pair work and team work can be employed to increase students’ participation, boost their interest, and foster their creativity, developing their language skills and general qualities while they are actively involved in the learning of disciplinary knowledge.

Chang, Zhao and Li (2008) put forward an innovative CBI curriculum for English majors supported by core skill-oriented courses as is indicated in Table 2 below. This proposal is in line with the guidelines for the CBI reform and takes account of the general objectives of English as a specialty stipulated in the National Curriculum, and also of students’ needs, interests, cognitive abilities, language proficiency, and their stage of language learning, plus the academic background of the English faculty.

Table 2. Innovative CBI Curriculum Supported by Core Skill-Oriented Courses

Table 2 shows that the new curriculum incorporates a large module of contentbased courses guided by the philosophy of CBI. It has transformed the conventional curriculum as is shown in Table 1, combining the Content-Based Courses Module and the Skill-Oriented Courses Module to expand students’ disciplinary knowledge at the same time of improving their language skills. Moreover, all the content-based courses involve learning of both content-area knowledge and the English language. With attention to both content and language, it addresses the problems of a narrow range of knowledge and poor comprehensive qualities of English majors and offers a new approach to students’ practice of their language skills, an expansion of their disciplinary knowledge, an enhancement of their comprehensive qualities, and an increase of their multi-cultural awareness.

Can the CBI reform perform as well as the SOI among English majors in the Chinese context? To what degree does it influence the development of students’ English language skills and their knowledge development in content areas? To give an overview of the effects of the reform, an experiment in a typical English teaching institution was conducted to answer these questions.

3. Research Design

3.1 Case Description

A quasi-experiment was conducted in the English Department of Dalian University of Foreign Languages (DUFL), which is one of the more than 1,000 English departments in the more than 1000 higher institutions in China. The department may differ from English departments in other institutions in many ways, but it bears a close resemblance to them in terms of the general objectives, faculty, students, and other educational resources. All the departments are under the guidance of the same national curriculum to turn out compositetype English graduates. Their faculties are mainly composed of teachers majoring in language and literature. All of them enroll students from middle schools under the same educational system with improved English language proficiency after China’s reform and opening up to the outside world and the development of English education in China. Therefore, an empirical study in this institution may not only help understand this particular institution, but also help understand Chinese tertiary English teaching institutions in general.

3.2 Participants

The participants of the experiment were eight intact classes of English majors in Grade 2007 in the English department of DUFL, where four classes were assigned to the experimental group and the other four to the control group. The students were similar in many ways: all of them were English majors; they were from different provinces of China with the majority of them from Liaoning Province; they shared the same educational background in that all of them finished their high school education under the guidance of the same national education standards and were admitted into the university through the national university entrance examination; all classes had the same general teaching objectives stipulated in the National Curriculum; all classes had the same number of teaching hours; all the teachers were qualified English teachers majoring in English language and literature; there was hardly any difference in respect of the facilities available on campus.

The differences between these classes were as follows. Of the four experimental classes, three were admitted into the university as part of the secondary rating group. They received lower scores in the comprehensive national entrance examinations in Chinese, English, social sciences or natural sciences and they were relatively poor in their English language as well. The other experimental class boasted relatively high English language proficiency, indicated by the fact that they were admitted into the university as part of the first rating group. However, all the four classes in the control group were admitted into the university as part of the first rating group. It was safe to assume that the 107 students in the control group were superior to the 130 students in the experimental group in their English language proficiency and academic foundation.

3.3 Teachers

Both the experimental group and the control group were taught by teachers who majored in English language and literature. Both groups of teachers had at least four years’experience of teaching the English language to English majors before they taught the experimental and control groups. The two groups shared teachers for skill-oriented courses such as the oral English course and the English listening course. Eight teachers participated in the teaching of CBI courses. They were younger than the teachers of the control group, so they had a relatively shorter experience in language teaching. They held MA degrees with academic interests in English language study, Chinese-English translation, and English literature just like the other teachers. The two groups of teachers were comparable in general, and other differences could be ignored as in most educational experimental studies.

3.4 Treatment

The experimental and control groups shared four skill-based courses in English pronunciation, English listening, English speaking, and English writing. However, they differed in other courses offered. Eleven content-based introductory courses were offered to the experimental group, as is indicated in Table 2. Each week, the experimental group had four teaching hours of a comprehensive English course, the objectives and content of which were similar to the basic English course which was offered to the control group for six to eight hours per week. Altogether 16 courses were offered to the students in the experimental group. With the same teaching hours, all the classes in the control group were offered six conventional skill-oriented compulsory courses of Basic English, Extensive English Reading, English Listening, and English Speaking, all running through four terms, and English Pronunciation and English Grammar running through one term during the two academic years required by the national curriculum as is indicated in Table 1.

All the courses were conducted in classes with their teachers employing interactive techniques. Content-based courses were not taught as lectures but organized with interactions like the skill-oriented language classes of the control group. Besides teachers’ presentations, there were also students’ presentations, questions and answers, group work, pair work, etc.

3.5 Instruments and Data Collection

In the research, a pre-test and a post-test were employed as instruments of data collection. The language proficiency part of the tests was in the form of TEM-4, whose reliability and validity are recognized in China.

The pre-test was conducted among all the eight intact classes in September 2007, including dictation, listening comprehension, cloze, grammar-vocabulary, reading comprehension, and writing. In addition, it also included multiple-choice questions related to American geography, history, and society and culture. The difficulty level of the English pre-test was equivalent to that of high school graduates in China.

After two years of instruction following the two different curricula, the post-test was carried out in July 2009, including listening comprehension, cloze, vocabulary, grammar, reading comprehension, and writing. In addition, it also included general knowledge about the geography, history, culture and literature of the U.S., the U.K., Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. The difficulty level of the language proficiency part in the post-test was basically the same as that of TEM-4, a national English proficiency test for English majors finishing their second year of university education. The questions on general knowledge were taken from the original Grade 8 tests for English majors, which is organized for English majors at the exit of the four-year English program and boasts of acknowledged reliability and validity in China. The questions on general knowledge concerned the geography, history and culture of English-speaking countries, but they did not cover the knowledge acquired by the experimental group in such content-based courses as inter-cultural communication, Chinese culture, European culture, and the Bible and Culture.

In the pre-test and the post-test, all the question items were in the form of objective multiple-choice questions except for dictation and writing. To guarantee the reliability of the test scores, dictation and writing were graded by four and three experienced teachers respectively. The total score of the pre-test and the post-test were both 175 points.

4. Results and Discussion

4.1 Performance of the CBI experimental Group and the sOI Control Group

4.1.1 Pre-Test Data of the Experimental and Control Groups

Table 3. Pre-Test Data of the Experimental and Control Groups (September 2007)

Table 3 indicates that, in the pre-test, the experimental group did not perform as well as the control group in English language proficiency. There was a significant difference between the total score of the experimental group and that of the control group (t=-3.359; p=.001