278 pages · 2022
Teaching English Through ELA, Mathematics, Science, and Social Studies
A Content-Based Language Teaching Approach
By Long Peng
- Published
- July 21, 2022
- Imprint
- Routledge
- Edition
- 1st Edition
- ISBN
- 9781003081005
Overview
About this book
Accessible and hands-on, this textbook provides a comprehensive introduction to teaching language through content, an approach known as Content-Based Language Teaching (CBLT). A content-based, language-focused approach to teaching in the disciplines is essential to serving the language and disciplinary needs of English learners (ELs) in the classroom. Guided by learning standards and informed by research, this book demonstrates how content materials in the English Language Arts (ELA), Mathematics, Science, and Social Studies can be harnessed to develop the English language proficiency of ELs as well as advance their disciplinary knowledge and skills.
Using content materials in ELA, Mathematics, Science, and Social Studies as a starting point, this textbook illustrates how to teach English as an additional language effectively by integrating language instruction with disciplinary teaching. It showcases numerous learning and instructional activities, complete with targeted language exemplified in sentential and discourse contexts, direct instruction, teacher modeling, guided and individual practices, and assessments, which are further backed up by detailed discussions of their goals, rationales, and implementation. This textbook also features a discussion of differentiation to address the varied needs of students. To further assist readers in determining how to incorporate language instruction, Peng identifies extensive possibilities for language teaching that are based on the same content materials and beyond those targeted by sample learning activities. Each chapter ends with three types of exercises—multiple-choice questions, open-ended discussion questions, and problems of application—to bolster understanding, promote reflection, and encourage application. Complementing the book are additional online resources, including ready-to-use PowerPoints, which are available on the book’s webpage at Routledge.com/9780367521134.
Covering key issues such as characteristics of effective language instruction, differentiation, and the challenges associated with CBLT, this is an essential text in TESOL methods and content-area language teaching, as well as an invaluable resource for pre-service and in-service ESL/EFL teachers and content-area teachers who are interested in furthering their students’ language and literacy development.
Subjects
Education, Language & Literature
Inside the book
Table of contents
Select a chapter to read its abstract.
Chapter 1Content-based language teaching
Pages: 31
Chapter 1 introduces content-based language teaching (CBLT), an approach to language instruction that aims to integrate language teaching with content instruction. This chapter defines CBLT and reviews research on it. But most importantly, it articulates key principles that inform the design of instructional activities discussed in Chapter 2 through Chapter 5. This chapter not only provides the background and the research findings that form the bases for CBLT, but also highlights the principles, assumptions, and relations that underlie the instructional activities.
Chapter 2Teaching English through Social Studies
Pages: 39
Chapter 2 is concerned with teaching language through Social Studies. It takes a Grade-3 Social Studies text as a starting point and examines six learning activities based on and constructed from this text. These activities, which focus on features of English from polysemic words and expressions of reason to the where relative clause and paragraph organization, articulate what language to teach and illustrate how. It discusses how the proposed activities can be implemented and provides research-based and standards-informed rationales and explanations. In addition, this chapter offers suggestions for differentiation and additional ideas for language teaching. Even though Chapter 2 targets language teaching primarily, it demonstrates how content learning can be integrated with language development.
Chapter 3Teaching English through Science
Pages: 30
Chapter 3 considers language instruction in the context of science teaching. Using a text for Grade-8 science instruction, this chapter demonstrates how it can be used to teach not just science but also the English language. The six instructional activities featured in Chapter 3 target academic words, puns, expressions of figures, the language of comparison, timeless present tense, and chapter organization. These activities show not only that science texts can be used to teach language but that language teaching can be meaningfully integrated with science instruction. Apart from describing and explaining how the six activities can be enacted, this chapter offers recommendations for differentiation and ideas for language teaching beyond the six considered.
Chapter 4Teaching English through English Language Arts
Pages: 32
Chapter 4 explores content-based language instruction through materials intended for English Language Arts (ELA). Using a chapter of Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck as the text, this chapter illustrates what it means to teach English through ELA or literature. This chapter features six learning activities. The four language activities focus on colloquial English, expressions of human actions, present participles, and dialog tags, all features characteristic of storytelling narratives. The two content activities target character development and setting, which are designed to highlight how literature instruction differs from language instruction. This chapter concludes with additional ideas for differentiation and for language instruction.
Chapter 5Teaching English through Mathematics
Pages: 33
Chapter 5 examines language teaching in the context of mathematics. Using a selection from The Joy of X: A Guided Tour of Math, from One to Infinity by Professor of Applied Mathematics Steven Strogatz, this chapter showcases six learning activities, which target the English language and integrate it with mathematics instruction. These activities illustrate how math texts can be used to teach language as well as content. Even though some of the activities are concerned with vocabulary, phrasal expressions, and clause structures, this chapter pivots to discourse by discussing three activities that target discourse for instruction. Chapter 5 ends by exploring additional ideas for differentiation and language teaching.
Chapter 6Challenges and limitations of content-based instruction
Pages: 16
Chapter 6, as the final chapter of this textbook, reviews key ideas and principles and underscores important characteristics of the instructional activities in Chapters 2 to 5. More importantly, this chapter addresses the challenges and limitations in implementing content-based language instruction, which are: a) difficulty of content-based instruction; b) language limited by content and context; c) challenges posed by a content-centric curriculum; and d) restricted coverage of language in content materials. This chapter explores ways to address and overcome these challenges and limitations.