teachers’ experiences with content-based instruction ...lc--lte2011--new--05.19.11... ·...

Teachers’ Experiences with Content-Based Instruction:

Lessons for Teacher Educators

Diane J. Tedick, University of MinnesotaLaurent Cammarata, University of Alberta

LTE Conference, May19, 2011, Minneapolis

© Diane J. Tedick, University of Minnesota & Laurent Cammarata, University of Alberta

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In this presentation we will 1. summarize and briefly present the results of two

phenomenological studies on teacher experiences with CBI, one with foreign language teachers and one with immersion teachers.

2. discuss implications for CBI-focused language teacher preparation and development

3. invite participants to explore questions about needed reforms

Presentation overview


Content-Based Instruction Content-based instruction (CBI), or content and language integrated

learning (CLIL) as it is called in Europe, is a curricular approach that uses language as the vehicle to teach non-linguistic content.

Lyster (2007) argues that CBI provides not only the cognitive basis for language learning but also the requisite motivational basis for purposeful communication.

It is an approach implemented in varied instructional contexts (e.g., immersion, FL, ESL), supported by SLA theory, and touted as an effective means to operationalize important societal goals such as the development of

plurilingualism (Europe)

translingual and transcultural competence (U.S.)


CBI Challenges CBI, whose primary mission involves balancing

language and content in instruction, is extremely complicated and difficult for teachers to put into practice.

Many studies, especially in the immersion context, have identified challenges to its successful implementation, particularly as they relate to language acquisition.

We know very little about pedagogical challenges teachers face particularly in the U.S. K-12 context where there is a dearth of research.


Presenter

Presentation Notes

Bullet#2: we can verbally list a few of the most important challenges that have been identified

Rationale, Purpose, & Context Rationale & Purpose:

To date, no research has explored teachers’ actual experience of attempting to attend to both content and language in instruction.

It is essential to explore and understand teachers’ actual experience if we are to fully grasp the complexity of balanced content and language instruction.

Thus, two studies were conducted to tap into teachers’ actual experience with CBI.

Context:

A year-long professional development program focused on developing CBI curriculum and designed for foreign language and immersion teachers


Participants

Met’s (1999) continuum of CBI programs provides a backdrop for understanding the contexts in which participant teachers taught.

Cammarata & Tedick (in press) 3 immersion teachers:- one elementary (one-way Spanish), - one middle school (one-way French)- one high school (two-way Spanish)

Cammarata (2010)4 Spanish or French teachers: - 1 middle school, - 2 high school, - 1 college


Research Questions

Cammarata & Tedick(in press)

What is it like for immersion teachers to attempt to balance content and language in instruction?

Cammarata (2010)

What is FL teachers’ experience of learning to integrate language and content within the context of designing CBI curricula?


Presenter

Presentation Notes

(2010) (in press) What is it like for immersion teachers to attempt to balance content and language in instruction?

Phenomenology The studies use a reflective lifeworld research approach to

phenomenological inquiry (Dahlberg et al., 2008).

The principal aim of this form of inquiry is to describe “the world the way it is experienced by humans” (Dahlberg et al., 2008, p. 36). The focus is, thus, on experience—what it is really like to experience something from the

perspective of those who have lived it or are living it;

meaning—what it means to live a particular experience.

It is the exclusive focus on the subject’s experienced meaning that distinguishes phenomenological research from other approaches that focus instead on descriptions of subject’s actions or behaviors (Polkinghorne, 1989).


Phenomenology Phenomenology tries to answer fundamental questions

regarding human experiences such as: What does this experience mean for the principal actors

who live it?

What is a particular experience really like for them?

What are its essential features or characteristics that can distinguish it from other type of experiences?

Because these questions were at the heart of our interests for these studies, phenomenology was deemed the most fitting methodology.


The process Creation of text: Lived Experience Description (LED) through “free fall writing (one

journal entry prior to the 1st interview) 2 interviews with each participant

Analysis of text: Whole-part-whole reading Identification of key constituents (essential themes) using Giorgi’s

analytical model (1997) & Dahlberg et al.’s approach to Lifeworld research (2008)

Independent and collaborative process between the two researchers (for in press study)

Phenomenological reduction [bracketing, imaginative variation] applied throughout the entire research process


Presenter

Presentation Notes

LED—like an informal journal entry—they reflected on one specific episode of their experience with attempting to balance content and language that still remained vivid in their memory. The LED was collected and analyzed prior to interviews to extract incidental as well as potentially essential constituents (themes) that could be further explored in follow-up interviews.

Constituents: The FL Study Foreign language teachers’ experience of balancing content

and language in instruction is reflected in four key constituents which define this experience as a whole:

Letting it go: Confronting established beliefs about language learning;

Trapped in the content: Losing the sense of curricular freedom;

The taming of content: Identifying and aligning content and language; and

Reinventing one’s practice: Moving away from the instructional safety zone.


Letting it go“…[the curriculum] is structured in a way that you have to do A before you do B and C. That means that, if you wanted to embed a CBI unit into this, you would need to connect it to all of this, the grammatical forms especially because it’s a sequence….You have to know that this is the present tense before you do the past, and so on. If I were to use [a CBI unit] I would have to create the chapter and [write the curriculum]…can you imagine? [P#1 –INT#1]” (Cammarata, 2010, pp. 99-100)


Trapped in the content“Content-based, like I said, is different in a sense that I feel like I’m trapped in the content, really. I feel that the content traps me… Getting back to my unit, I felt like I was trapped in the art of the [target culture] for the week without being able to expand on something else. And I didn’t want to spend that much time on it.[P#1 – INT#2]” (Cammarata, 2010, p. 101)


The taming of content“It’s hard to put language in there for real beginners because certain content like cultural stereotypes is very complex and very abstract… even though I want my students to learn about that content because I think it engages them, I also want them to use the language so I end up doing these sort of weird translations for them…You know there were things that would teach way too much specialized knowledge that was just inappropriate for the kids to learn [P#2 – INT#1]”(Cammarata, 2010, p. 102)


Reinventing one’s practice“…[With CBI] it was really different from what I had done before. I really had to think through what I would be doing. I really had to sort of research and understand what [the content was about] and where to go with it with my students…it was much harder to write. [P#4 – INT#1]” (Cammarata, 2010, p. 103)


Constituents: The Immersion Study Immersion teachers’ experience of balancing content and

language in instruction is reflected in five key constituents which define this experience as a whole:

Identity transformation;

Under pressure: Facing external challenges;

On my own: A growing sense of isolation;

Awakening: An increased awareness of the interdependence of content and language;

A stab in the dark: An ongoing difficulty identifying what language to focus on in the context of content instruction.


Presenter

Presentation Notes

LC Comment: I think that we should change the phrasing of constituent#2 to align it better to the other constituents. I used the term "under pressure" because I feel that it is the most representative of the experience teachers lived, "pressure" is actually a term used by one of the participant (see slide 18 bullet#1) so I feel comfortable using this as a descriptor... see what you think.

Identity Transformation“It was helpful just to see myself more as a language [teacher]…besides an elementary teacher, that we’re teaching language through content, but it still is a type of language teaching. And just being acquainted and having to work with those language standards … it broadened my view of myself as a teacher.” (Tchr A, Int #2, p. 4)

“…I really think…being an immersion teacher is saying: ‘Yeah, I’m a content teacher and I’m a language teacher and I need to integrate those two to be effective’.” (Tchr C, Int #1, p. 57)


Presenter

Presentation Notes

At the core of immersion teachers’ experience of balancing content and language in instruction lies the need for them to revisit and reshape their teaching identity—that is, envisioning themselves not only as content teachers, but as language teachers as well. Research has shown that immersion teachers see themselves as content teachers due to their licensure and to the fact that they and their students are held accountable above all for content (subject matter) achievement. It is seeing one’s role as not only a content teacher but also a language teacher and grasping those two dimensions as two sides of the same coin, one not being able to function without the other. It implies the need to revisit one’s own beliefs regarding immersion teachers’ roles. The transformation of one’s identity that the experience of attempting to balance language and content begins with the realization that being an immersion teacher means standing at the far end of the content-driven side of the content-based instructional continuum (Met, 19998). It means being able to locate oneself on the continuum and acknowledging that this extreme characterizes one’s instructional identity as an immersion teacher. It also means being open to revisiting one’s identity and to envisioning immersion teaching in a different way.

External challenges The other part of it is there’s a lot of pressure from the district to

make sure that students…are getting good instruction in math….and so you just gotta keep going forward, forward, forward, and you don’t have any extra time (Tchr B, Int. #2, p. 4)

It’s that extra, extra step, sometimes being an immersion teacher figuring all that you have to translate or that there are materials you can use with this [because there are no materials designed for us]. (Tchr A, Int. #1, p. 6)

[US history] content is so demanding and so full of expectations that I felt a lot of pressure to not take off my content hat long enough to pay any attention to language in a meaningful way that I was always kind of out of breath just trying to keep up with the content expectations (Tchr C, Int. #1, p. 63)


Presenter

Presentation Notes

The attempt to balance content and language in instruction is lived by immersion teachers as difficult because of many external challenges—lack of both planning and instructional time, lack of resources, district expectations for content coverage and lack of accountability for language acquisition. Many of these have been identified previously in immersion teacher research (e.g., Fortune et al., 2008; Tedick & Walker, 2000), but the findings of this study enrich our understanding of these issues because they emerge directly from teachers’ actual experiences. Chief among the external challenges is lack of time because it is linked to all other external challenges. Having to attend to language in the context of content instruction and taking the time to do so is perceived as an extra demand that takes a huge toll on teachers. For immersion teachers the issue resides in the difficulty of finding room within an existing curriculum, which requires the coverage of specific subject matter content and associated concepts, to incorporate any other instructional concerns such as a more intent focus on language. the teacher speaks to both a lack of planning time (“I would have to take the time to figure out…”) and a lack of instructional time (“…and the time I have with each class is so short…”). Lack of instructional time becomes much more challenging at the middle and high school levels. External challenges imposed on immersion teachers take the shape of clear expectations in terms of content coverage Having to attend to language in the context of content instruction and taking the planning and instructional time to do so is perceived as an extra demand that impacts the little class time available. The immersion teachers are already struggling to try to make the required content fit in the limited class time available with increasing demands placed on teachers related to content standards. The unspoken expectation from the district, school administrators and parents is that immersion learners will keep pace with their non-immersion peers when it comes to content learning. The absence of resources, again, impacts the time that teachers have. Another external challenge relates to the lack of attention given to immersion language development at the program and district level. In contrast to teacher and student accountability when it comes to content achievement, immersion teachers and students are seldom held accountable for acquisition of the immersion language (IL). In other words, students’ L2 proficiency is rarely assessed at the classroom or program level, particularly in one-way programs, but their content learning and English language development are evaluated with both standardized and classroom-based measures. Each one of these external challenges adds to the difficulties inherent to immersion education and leads immersion teachers to perceive the need to balance content and language instruction as unrealistic or impossible to do well in their educational contexts:

On my own I find lots of times that if I want to get rid of that feeling like

I’m an island, I’m the one who needs to go to my English-speaking math teachers. They’re not gonna come to talk to me about it or anything. And they don’t need to; they just keep turning the pages [of their provided curriculum]. They don’t think … honestly, they are not thinking at all about how I can incorporate language into my lesson. Not at all. (Tchr B, Int. #2, p. 32)

I’m sort of on my own, like a single candle kind of thing that’s blowing in the wind, that might go out… (Tchr C, Int. #2, p. 8)


Presenter

Presentation Notes

Intricately linked to external pressures and challenges from the community (district, schools/programs, parents) to focus on content, is an increased feeling of isolation experienced by immersion teachers. This feeling of isolation is primarily influenced by the absence of collegial support and makes the experience of trying to balance content and language a frustrating one. Lack of respect and/or understanding as well as lack of support from others (colleagues, the program, the district) lead teachers to describe themselves as isolated within their instructional contexts. This is especially the case with secondary immersion teachers.

Awakening I have an advanced math class as well…some of them are just

so struggling, if I go any faster they won’t get the concepts at all. I don’t know how much of the French is getting in the way, I don’t know how much is just…I don’t know. …it’s very frustrating because they don’t keep up with the rhythm that I should be going at. So to even think about language on top of that, you know…I would just be really grateful if they could retain the concepts. (Tchr B, Int. #2, p. 6)

I mean [this content] was something that they were really familiar with, I felt, to get at this higher level questioning idea. Was it conceptual? Was it language? Was it both? I think it was probably both, to be fair. But I think that the language part was holding them back from being able to do it in Spanish conceptually. (Tchr C, Int. #1, p. 17, emphasis added)


Presenter

Presentation Notes

In the midst of undergoing an identity transformation, feeling the pressures of external challenges, and experiencing feelings of isolation, immersion teachers experience a growing sense of “awakening,” an increased awareness of the interdependence of language and content. That is, they begin to see that as the cognitive demands of academic content grow so, too, do the linguistic demands. As revealed below, this awakening—a growing realization of the content and language connection—emerges clearly in the high school teacher but much less so in the others. It may be that the higher the grade, the more heightened the cognitive demand of the content and the linguistic sophistication of the discourse of that content, and perhaps the likelier that teachers will see the interdependence between language and content. This awakening may also be linked to years of experience in immersion teaching; in this study, the high school teacher was the one who had had more than 20 years of experience in immersion and bilingual settings. the middle school teacher appears to be skeptical about the connection between language and content. She experiences inklings that language might be “getting in the way” but remains unconvinced, and believes that if she just focuses more on the math concepts, the students will eventually come around. She sees language as an “extra” that she cannot devote time to, because doing so would take away from the content instruction that her students need to “get” the concepts. She falls short of understanding that, in this case, focusing on language would not be “extra” but instead would help her students to access the concepts she desperately wants them to understand and retain. In contrast to the other two teachers, the high school teacher demonstrated a more sophisticated level of awareness when it came to understanding the interdependence between language and content. In the excerpts shared below, she is recounting a specific classroom event wherein the students were asked to work in pairs to prepare for a “Socratic seminar” in the class. They were to find an article about a controversial topic that all students in the class would have to read, prepare a quick oral presentation on the topic of the article, and create higher-order questions—in the top three categories of Bloom’s (1956) taxonomy—to facilitate a discussion with their classmates. The task of creating higher-order questions challenged the students in ways that the teacher did not anticipate. Instead of creating the kind of questions needed to spark debate, the students created basic factual-level questions about the reading.

Awakening (Cont.)

I see more clearly now … the need for this other kind of melding of content and language for the benefit of the kids…. My awakening was starting to happen before [the PD program], but I really felt I got it at that point professionally. (Tchr C, Int#1, p. 29)

Perhaps my biggest reflection is that it is easy to focus on only content or only language, but it is a real challenge to effectively intertwine the two and do both well at the same time. (Tchr C, LED)


A stab in the dark There seem to be so many loose ends that I am not quite

sure where to begin…. I do not really know what exactly I am supposed to be focusing on in terms of language. (Tchr B, LED)

…focusing in and deciding what aspects to focus on and then also deciding what specific language pieces--how to make the language more central, I think that was hard… I think just because I hadn’t had a lot of experience with pulling out, “Ok, what are the specific language skills that I can teach from this book or with this activity? What would be the language skills that they would need to know? (Tchr A, Int#1, p. 28)


Presenter

Presentation Notes

Despite the levels of awareness that immersion teachers develop when it comes to understanding the critical connection between language and content, they struggle to find the exact language they need to bring students’ attention to as they teach content. In other words, they have difficulty identifying what language to focus on, figuring out how and when to integrate that language in the context of content instruction, and deciding how to follow up on the language in their assessment strategies. The way language and content interconnect appears mysterious and hard to pinpoint and leads teachers to question their own ability to balance the two.

A stab in the dark (Cont.)

Looking at a lesson and saying “what is the language…that they have to know here, the content obligatory language? And based on how I am going to conduct my lesson, what is the kind of language that they are going to need to use that would be compatible? and oh, and then what’s my objective for the content?”….[is] the language that I am picking out …the same as my colleagues’ down the hall?...That was a big struggle and so I would just arbitrarily say “…I think they should practice this particular structure” but that was a stab in the dark… (Tchr B, Int#1, p. 25)


Presenter

Presentation Notes

This struggle should not come as a surprise given that immersion teachers are expected to be and prepared to be, first and foremost, content teachers. As content teachers, they are typically unaware of the “content” of language teaching—grammatical structures, morphological rules, etc.—with some having experienced limited formal study of the language they use for instruction. Furthermore, rarely are immersion teachers exposed to specific strategies for balancing language and content in their teacher preparation programs or district-mandated PD workshops.

Synthesis of the findings

Cammarata & Tedick (in press) Important issues highlighted:- Identity issues;- External challenges issues;- Isolation issues;- Ongoing difficulty identifying what language to focus on in the context of content instruction.Major impact identified:- Increased awareness of the interdependence of content and language.

Cammarata (2010)Important issues highlighted:- Feeling of a loss of a sense of curricular freedom;- Difficulties in identifying and aligning content and language; - Issues related to the need for Ts to reinvent their practice to accommodate CBI principles.Major impact identified:- Confrontation with established beliefs about language learning.


Presenter

Presentation Notes

I created this slide as I think it is important to present the findings side to side so that the attendees can get a sense of what it all entails before moving forward into the implications. I think that this is a good way to transition, but feel free to disagree. As a side note, I think we should capitalize on this and write a piece following this outline (this is what I wanted to do originally in my disseration)

Generic teacher education programs (elementary education, secondary subject matter content) for immersion teaches are inadequate (Fortune, Tedick, & Walker, 2008; Snow, 1990). They reinforce immersion teachers’ view of themselves as content teachers alone.

Traditional teacher education programs for FL teachers are inadequate (Tedick & Walker, 1994). They reinforce FL teachers’ view of themselves as language teachers alone.

Current teacher education programs are inadequate


Presenter

Presentation Notes

Utah is to be commended for being the first state in the nation to require a special endorsement for its immersion teachers.

acknowledges the complexity of CBI;

helps FL teachers see themselves as content teachers (as well as language teachers);

helps immersion teachers see themselves as language teachers (as well as content teachers).

Teacher educators should adopt a stance that…


A web-based repository of well-designed units/lessons; Video clips of effective immersion teachers in action; Published materials that can prepare teachers to implement the approach

within their specific instructional contexts, and textbook series that balance language and content.

Curricular frameworks that provide language scope/sequence linked to content outcomes; high language benchmarks; assessments (e.g., Oregon Chinese Flagship)

More resources are needed


Presenter

Presentation Notes

Curricular frameworks, such as the one being developed by the Oregon Chinese Flagship Program (Bacon, Hakam & Yin, 2008), which provides a language scope and sequence connected to content outcomes as well as clear and high-challenge language benchmarks and well developed assessments, are also critically needed. These levels and types of support will help teachers to combat feelings of isolation as they attempt to bring a stronger focus on language to their content teaching and should aid in meeting some of the external challenges that make balancing language and content so elusive.

provide ongoing PD support to meet the complex task of concurrently addressing content and language development (Fortune, Tedick, & Walker, 2008; Met & Lorenz, 1997; Walker & Tedick, 2000).

provide awareness-raising activities that guide teachers to develop an awareness and understanding of the interdependence of language and content (Hoare, in press; Kong, 2009).

focus on strategies to help teachers to find the language, know when and how to focus in on it during instruction and how to follow-up on it in assessment.

Teacher education & PD programs must be re-thought/designed to…


Presenter

Presentation Notes

Although the focus on form research in traditional foreign/second langauge teaching contexts has yielded mixed results. Most immersion studies report significant improvement in students’ language as a result of form-focused treatments (see Lyster, 2007 for review)

embed strategies for form-focused instruction in the context of the meaning-driven CBI classroom.

attend to both “proactive” and “reactive” approaches to form-focused instruction in CBI classrooms (Lyster, 2007).

aid teachers in understanding how to provide explicit instruction (involving rule explanation) within the context of meaning-based instruction when students are developmentally ready for it.

engage teachers/interns in confronting their beliefs regarding the teaching and learning of foreign languages or regarding immersion teaching.

Teacher education & PD programs must be re-thought/designed to…


Presenter

Presentation Notes

Proactive approaches involve planning for and carrying out language-focused content instruction, whereas reactive approaches are unplanned, spontaneous ways that teachers bring learners’ attention to language forms, such as through the use of corrective feedback strategies.

What does the FL field really want? Does the immersion field really want to maximize language learning?

If CBI is ever to be implemented in a serious way within traditional FL contexts, what policy changes need to occur and what curricular resources need to be made available?

How do assessment and policy need to change for FL contexts if content and language integration is to be achieved?

How do assessment and policy need to change for immersion contexts if the language learning potential is to be realized?

Concluding Questions


Presenter

Presentation Notes

Proactive approaches involve planning for and carrying out language-focused content instruction, whereas reactive approaches are unplanned, spontaneous ways that teachers bring learners’ attention to language forms, such as through the use of corrective feedback strategies.

Thank you for having joined us today!

Send questions & comments to:

Diane J. Tedick: [email protected] Cammarata: [email protected]


PPT/Handout available at:http://el-c.wikispaces.com

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References

Cammarata, L. (2010). Foreign Language Teachers’ Struggle to Learn Content-Based Instruction. L2 Journal, 2(1). Retrieved from: http://escholarship.org/uc/item/8g91w2r7

Cammarata, L. & Tedick, D. J. (in press). Balancing Content and Language in Instruction: The Experience of Immersion Teachers. Modern Language Journal.

Dahlberg, K., Dahberg, N., & Nyström, M. (2008). Reflective lifeworldresearch. Sweden: Studentlitteratur.

Fortune, T. W., Tedick, D. J. & Walker, C. (2008). Integrated language and content teaching: Insights from immersion teachers. In T. W. Fortune & D. J. Tedick (Eds.), Pathways to multilingualism: Evolving perspectives on immersion education (pp. 71-96). Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters, Ltd.

Giorgi, A. (1997). The theory, practice, and evaluation of the phenomenological method as a qualitative research procedure. Journal of Phenomenological Psychology, 28(2), 235-260.


References Hoare, P. (in press). Context and constraints: Immersion in Hong Kong

and Mainland China. In D.J. Tedick, D. Christian & T.W. Fortune (Eds.), Immersion education: Practices, Policies, Possibilities. Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters.

Lyster, R. (2007). Learning and teaching languages through content: A counterbalanced approach. Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

Met, M. (1999). Content-based instruction: Defining terms, making decisions. The National Foreign Language Center, Washington, D.C. Retrieved Mar. 16, 2009 at: http://www.carla.umn.edu/cobaltt/modules/index.html?principles/main.html

Met, M. & Lorenz, E. (1997). Lessons from U.S. immersion programs: Two decades of experience. In R. Johnson & M. Swain (Eds.), Immersion education: International perspectives (pp. 243-264). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.


http://www.carla.umn.edu/cobaltt/modules/index.html?principles/main.html�

References Polkinghorne, D. E. (1989). Phenomenological research methods. In R. S.

Valle & S. Halling (Eds.), Existential-phenomenological perspectives in psychology (pp. 3-16). New York, NY: Plenum Press.

Snow, M. (1990). Instructional methodology in immersion foreign language education. In A. Padilla, H. Fairchild, & C. Valadez (Eds.), Foreign language education: Issues and strategies (pp. 156-171). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Tedick, D.J. & Walker, C.L. (1994). Second language teacher education: The problems that plague us. Modern Language Journal, 78(3), 300-312.

Walker, C.L. & Tedick, D.J. (2000). The complexity of immersion education: Teachers address the issues. Modern Language Journal, 84(1), 5-27.


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