Application Of Content-based Instruction Model In English Major Of Sport Colleges And Universities In China

The social development has put more and more requirements on the Englishmajors in China. The English majors should master not only the English languageknowledge and skills but also the knowledge of other subjects and the specific Englishrequired in the study, research and work in the field of the specific subject. The coursesof English language and culture and the courses of other subjects of the English majorof the sport colleges and universities in China are conducted independently and there isno connection among them. Some English majors of sport colleges and universitieshave offered sport English courses and subject courses of sport taught in English, but itis far from satisfaction to cultivate the specific English skills required by other subjectsonly by relying on such a few courses integrating English with other subjects.CBI, the Content-based Instruction, different from the traditional English teachingmethods, is a teaching model that integrates the language instruction with instructionof subject content. CBI has provided the English major of the sport colleges anduniversities in China with a new method to develop students‘basic English skills andthe specific English skills required by other subjects. The CBI researches in China andother countries mainly focus on discussing its function of improving the secondlanguage ability on the basis of implementing CBI in the instruction of one particularsubject course or language course, while this research integrates CBI in the wholecurricular system of the English major of the sport colleges and universities in China.Many empirical CBI researches in other countries have proved its function ofimproving the second language acquisition and a few empirical CBI researches inChina have proved its function of improving students‘college English acquisition, butthere is few empirical researches about the implementation of CBI in the English majorof the sport colleges and universities.The paper aims to design the CBI model integrated in the whole curricular systemof the English major of the sport colleges and universities in China and conductempirical studies to examine its effect of improving the basic interpersonal languageskills (the comprehensive English proficiency) and the cognitive academic language proficiency (the sport English proficiency) of the English major students of the sportcolleges and universities. The paper also analyses the advantages and disadvantages ofthe CBI model based on the empirical studies.As for the CBI model design, the paper designs the CBI models, methods andassessment ways of English skill training courses, English language and cultureinstruction courses, sport English courses and sport and other subject courses whichconsist of the major courses cultivating students‘basic interpersonal language skillsand cognitive academic language proficiency. The paper designs the cooperation waysbetween teachers who have the CBI courses adopting the Sheltered Model and theAdjunct Model. The paper also designs the aims of CBI model integrated in the wholecurricular system of the English major of the sport colleges and universities in ChinaAs for the empirical study, the paper conducts the CBI teaching experiments withEnglish major sophomores in Wuhan Sport University. The teaching experiments areconducted with their Comprehensive English course and Sport English course. Theclassroom teaching investigations are also made during the teaching experiments.On the basis of analyzing the data collected in the teaching experiments and theclassroom teaching investigations, the research finds out that:1. The CBI model can improve students‘comprehensive English proficiency,including listening, reading and writing abilities, while CBI has little help to thegrammar learning. What‘s more, CBI has greater effect on the English acquisition ofthe students who have higher level of English proficiency than those whose English iscomparatively poor.2. The CBI model can improve the sports English proficiency, includinglistening, reading, expression and translation abilities.3. The classroom teaching investigation findings show that the CBI modelprovides students with various understandable second language input and output ways,real circumstances featured with real tasks in the subject content area requiring thesecond language, learning strategies and prior knowledge for fulfillment, and theteaching activities catering for students‘needs and interest, which contribute to theimprovement of students‘comprehensive English proficiency and sport English proficiency. However, the CBI model is not effective in the grammar instruction andhas weak effect on the students with poor English.Thus, it can be concluded that it is feasible and effective to integrate andimplement the CBI model in the curricular system of the English major of the sportcolleges and universities in China. CBI model can improve students‘basicinterpersonal language skills and cognitive academic language proficiency. Therefore,CBI model can be implemented in the English major of the sports colleges anduniversities in China as one of the English teaching models and methods currentlyadopted.