The CATESOL Journal

This paper explores the relationship between content-based second language instruction and so-called communicative language teaching and traces the development of syllabus design for second language courses from its emergence as an issue in the mid ’70s to the present day. The paper argues that content, when combined with a concern for communicative function and grammatical structure, provides the missing third dimension in syllabus design for second language courses and generates course designs superior to those based on structure alone or on some combination of structure and function. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of the problems in, and the prospects for, developing this kind of syllabus for such courses.

This article reports on two ethnographic studies that investigated student motivation in content-based ESL classrooms at a major U.S. university. The ESL population studied included immigrant and international students who were enrolled in the advanced level of the university’s ESL service courses. The ESL course materials consisted of videotaped academic lectures from university content courses (i.e., history, communication studies) and excerpts from authentic course texts as part of an academic skillsbased instructional sequence. Students were motivated through attention/ interest, relevance, confidence, and satisfaction, according to a motivational theory of instructional design. Classroom observations and interviews as well as examination of existing documents revealed that relevance of ESL materials and tasks was indeed motivating to a wide variety of students but that the other aspects of motivation were of equal if not greater importance. These findings lead to the belief that skills-based ESL courses in content areas of high general interest, in which instructors emphasize the relevance of materials and tasks, can do much to enhance student motivation and academic achievement in both ESL and content course work.

The problems that language teachers face in developing their classroom tests are especially complex in content-based programs. The eight-stage guidelines for test development presented here outline the steps that test writers should follow to create appropriate, content and context-specific tests. A broader benefit of the guidelines is that student progress in different classes and programs can be compared with reference to how the guideline activities were completed. This allows language educators to address important issues such as the instructional value of various content areas and the overall effectiveness of a particular CBI program in comparison to other CBI programs or different types of language instruction.

ESL instructors at Los Angeles City College have developed a literaturebased curriculum for their intermediate and advanced students. This paper examines this curriculum as well as the theoretical premises which inform it. The theoretical support for teaching literature in the ESL classroom comes from a variety of sources: Stephen Krashen, Frank Smith, George Dillon, Hans-Georg Gadamer, and Augustine. This paper also examines the work of Brinton, Snow, and Wesche as well as Collie and Slater, who have directly addressed the classroom issue of literature as ESL content.Finally, this paper discusses how literary texts like Island of The Blue Dolphins, Rumble Fish, and The Red Pony are incorporated into the community college ESL reading and writing curriculum and ends with some insights derived from this literature focus. Questions which still need to be examined are discussed.