The Feasibility And Practicality Of Introducing Science Knowledge Into Secondary English Course

This thesis intends to explore the practicality and feasibility of introducing more science knowledge into secondary English course to integrate language development and subject learning for cultivation of Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP) under the guidance of the two concepts of CALP and Content Based Instruction (CBI) so as to provide a more effective education of interdisciplinary talents.The thesis is divided into five parts. The first part elaborates its theoretical significances and relevant researches with an emphasis on the fact that little attention is on CALP in secondary English teaching, which is not doing any help for education of interdisciplinary talents. The second part tries to explain Basic Interpersonal Communicative Skills (BICS) and Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP) and their distinctions first, which restrains effective transfer from BICS to CALP. And then it describes the model of CBI, which integrates content and language and provides an effective way to cultivate CALP through authentic language use. These two parts mainly discuss the necessity and feasibility to cultivate CALP in secondary English courses in terms of linguistics and language teaching. The third part focuses on the educational practice in our country and acknowledges that science knowledge might work better than that of social science in Content Based Instruction (CBI) classes for Chinese learners of English for many reasons. The fourth part is an analysis of the content of the most popularly practiced English textbooks in secondary schools with the finding that little science knowledge is in these textbooks, which provides no substantial support for cultivation of Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP). The fifth part concludes the practicality and feasibility of introducing more science knowledge into secondary English course together with its pedagogical benefits and theoretical problems.Theoretically, this research tries to go beyond the closed circle of a pure language teaching by exploring new directions of secondary English course through the two perspectives of linguistics and language teaching. It demonstrates the following pedagogical benefits of this kind of practice: 1) More illocutionary act might be involved to learn English through language use; 2) Better reading and learning strategies would be developed. 3) It pedagogically integrates"syllabus of means"and"syllabus of end"to one. 4) It forces more communicative activities and provides more chances to each student as an individual, which then entails a more efficient learning. 5) It would work as a facilitating factor in learning both subject content and English language, and then helps the learners a lot in their later lives. Its significances in cultivation of Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP) and education of interdisciplinary talents are particularly emphasized.