A Study On Content Knowledge Acquisition In Content-based Instruction: A Case Study Of Legal English Course

Over the last decades, content-based instruction (CBI) , as an approach of teaching second / foreign languages that integrates language instruction with instruction in the content areas, has become more widespread in western university-level settings. CBI is accepted as one of the most representative contributions to contemporary second / foreign language pedagogy, and approaches to CBI differ from one another in large part because of diverse contents for instruction, contrasting on the integration of content and language learning, and varying expectation with regard to student accountability for content learning.CBI possesses a solid theoretical foundation. According to Grabe and Stoller (1997: 5),"the research which supports CBI spans the range from studies in second language acquisition, to controlled training studies, to various strands of research in educational and cognitive psychology". Thus, a number of theoretical underpinnings for content-based teaching and learning are exposed: constructivism, the input hypothesis, the interactive hypothesis, the output hypothesis, the knowledge framework, the task-based approach, and the six -Ts approach, which all contribute to learners'acquisition of CBI.Numerous empirical studies exist to demonstrate the efficacy of CBI, especially in ESL context. However, there have been few reports on empirical studies on CBI in Chinese EFL context, especially in Chinese college ESP context. In order to survey the situation and development of content-based instruction in Chinese higher education settings, we do a research in which Legal English curriculum, one of the ESP curricula investigated is chosen as the case study in the English department of Mudanjiang Normal University. For exploring an effective approach to Legal English instruction and solve problems in it, we decide to employ an action research to develop content-based Legal English instruction by promoting the acquisition of content knowledge.As a compulsory course, Legal English is opened in the second academic year for the students of English major in Mudanjiang Normal University. The purpose of the course is to enlarge students'law knowledge and improve their academic English skills for law, so both content and language are necessary in the teaching process. Legal English course is chosen to do the research because it is one of the most common and most efficient ways to implement content-based language teaching. The curriculum of Legal English course is characterized as content-based, learner-centered, and task-based. The course design is driven by selection and adaptation of content materials but not linguistic forms and grammatical rules. The learners needs become the first step for the whole program development, and classroom tasks and activities run through the process of teaching and learning of legal English and content knowledge.The nature of the whole study is to explore a new field of language teaching approach in legal English instruction, therefore, the action research will be the best choice. In conducting action research, we structure routines for continuous confrontation with data on CBI. These routines are loosely guided by movement through five phases of inquiry: problem identification, action planning, implementation, evaluation, and reflection. In order to provide an understanding into the teaching and learning process under CBI, both classroom-based and process-oriented research will be done on the subjects for the whole academic year, such as: test, self-assessment questionnaire, classroom observation, and interview.The research results demonstrate that learners'legal English proficiency can be improved by promotion of the content knowledge acquisition. Findings can be summarized as follows:1. Relevant and interesting content is central to content-based instruction, but helping foreign language students acquire and learn to acquire content is a rather complex endeavor. It requires that learners (a) be exposed to authentic and meaningful material, (b) master the content knowledge from different perspectives on related subject matter, (c) receive the input from a variety of content sources, and (d) employ favorable and manageable textbook or materials. These features allow for the gradual accumulation of knowledge and provide opportunities to connect information that stems from different content sources. We have found it useful to view material selection and adaptation from a broad perspective and recognize the value of many different types of content, including student background knowledge that is tapped in classroom activities and student-generated information that results from classroom tasks. 2. It is proved that collaboration of content and language specialists have made great contribution to the acquisition of content knowledge in the action research for Legal English course. In CBI, language and content are taught in tandem, and thus the approach brings professionals together from two fields, namely foreign language and content area teachers. As the spotlight on CBI grows, attention is being given to the best way to implement CBI in the classroom. The key point in particular is the difficulty in finding teachers who are experts in both language and content. One viable solution to this problem is collaboration between content area and EFL teachers, so a strong collaborative foundation between teachers becomes important to the implementation of content-based Legal English instruction. The Legal English curriculum highlights a common set of collaboration including the identification and development of appropriate content, the selection and sequencing of language items dictated by content sources rather than a predetermined syllabus, the alignment of content with structures and functions that emerge from the subject matter, the choice of appropriate materials and the decision to use (or not to use) textbooks, faculty development that assists language instructors in handling unfamiliar subject matter and content-area instructors in handling language issues, and systematic assessment to demonstrate students'language and content learning and program effectiveness.3. As a result of the Legal English course, we adopt the formative evaluation which includes some task-based assignments and a final examination that seems to be more consistent with the CBI approach. Our experience over the past few semesters seems to show that this new type of examination can provide fitting closure to the content-based Legal English course. To carry out these tasks, students need to implement the higher level reading skills at text comparison, integration of information from a number of sources, and synthesis of new knowledge. The writing tasks, ranging from e-mail messages to short papers, aid reading and meet the students'written communication needs in the information age. The oral presentations, given with an outline or slides, offer students the opportunity to learn how to organize information for effective presentation.4. The Legal English program is the framework within which we give ourselves the freedom to be creative. Students have no time to be bored because as soon as one activity is completed, a new one begins. Each class is an adventure for students and teachers, with the greatest adventure being the planning of the class. Taking this commitment to the acquisition of content knowledge one step further, teachers can help student develop some degree of expertise in the subject area being explored. Making a commitment to promote the acquisition of knowledge and the development of expertise– within the context of a coherent curriculum that links tasks, lessons, and thematic units– moves teachers one step closer to meeting the language- and content-learning needs of legal English major.In the course of the past semesters, the students in Legal English class have improved dramatically, as action research has allowed me to address their needs and to document their progress. The CBI case study of Legal English course offers an innovative and effective example of practice from the point of view of the practitioner who has portrayed real experience by providing detailed descriptions of legal English teaching practice. The research also represents multiple views and offers immediate solutions, thus providing perspectives on the issues and examples of useful CBI approaches.