A Case Study On Application CBI In Middle School English Classroom

With the rapid development of economy in China and the course of globalization, a large number of personnel with qualified English competence are demanded in the society; hence more attention has been paid to English teaching than ever. However, after many years' development of English teaching, the outcome of the teaching is meager compared with its total input. Under such a circumstance, many foreign language educationists set out to look for a more effective teaching approach. Simultaneously, the innovation on foreign language teaching is under way in some western countries, and plentiful research and teaching experiment show that content-based instruction (CBI) is a promising and well performed teaching philosophy. After analyzing the defects of the traditional English teaching methodology and the problems emerging in the bilingual education, the author proposes that CBI can compensate for the weakness of the two patterns and can also build a bridge between them. The present thesis aims to explore the possibility of applying CBI in the Chinese setting and attempts to investigate the possible problems in the actual practice.CBI contends that the teaching of a foreign language should not be the meaningless presentation and practice of vocabularies, grammar and structures, but meaningful content impartment, and that teaching activities should be carried out around the knowledge and information that students are supposed to acquire. Language is viewed as the means of transmitting knowledge. Students can better acquire the language through using it in real context. Owing to the particular EFL teaching setting in our country, CBI used in China is not one of its typical models, but rather introducing contents of other subjects into English class and integrating the teaching of English with the imparting of knowledge. The practice of language is carried out in the process of obtaining knowledge. This practice provides students with real and meaningful communicating environment, and theirEnglish proficiency will increase on a par with their knowledge growth in those subjects.As a case study, the present study has adopted both quantitative and qualitative methods. Concrete researchmethods such as questionnaire, interview, class observation, and test have been employed to ensure a thorough investigation of the research questions. Two intact classes from the Attached Secondary School of Northwest Normal University have been recruited as subjects for the present study. Ms King, the English teacher of the experimental class, has consistently applied CBI in her teaching and integrated content from different subjects into the English class. This provides felicitous conditions for the present research. Findings yielded from a semester's classroom observation and related researches are summarized as follows:1) CBI can be applied in the English class in middle schools. CBI poses great challenge to both students and teachers, especially to the latter. As a new teaching method, it differs completely from the traditional way of teaching and requires the English teachers to possess such qualities as divergent thinking, encyclopedic knowledge, competence in expressing oneself and communicating with others in English, and enthusiasm for teaching.2) CBI could largely improve learners' English proficiency, especially their oral English and competence in using knowledge. Students' overall quality can be effectively improved in CBI setting. However, there also exist many obstacles in applying CBI in China, the biggest of all being the examination-orientated education environment.3) CBI can inspire students' internal learning motivation. Students generally show great interest in this meaningful language teaching method, and they have developed positive attitude towards this way of teaching.This thesis is composed of six parts. The first part introduces the objective of the present study, its significance as well as the structure of this thesis. The second part presents the theoretical framework of the research, including meaningful receptive learning theory, cognitive learning and education theory, and cooperative learning theory. The basic notion of CBI is briefly reviewed in part three. The definition of CBI, its features, the four typical kinds of teaching models within this paradigm, and the application of CBI in China are presented, together with the strengths of CBI in comparison with traditional teaching methods. The fourth part concerns methodological issues such as subjects sampling, research materials, research methods as well as the research procedure. Findings yielded from the present study are summarized and analyzed in part five. Also discussed in this part are the possible reasons underlying these results. The sixth part sums up the major conclusions of the present research, and points the implications of this study, its limitations and suggestions for further research.