On Friday, a colleague and I led a discussion about this article by Angela Creese. Creese defines the two key elements of Content Based Language Teaching (CBLT) as
1) CBLT prioritizes language work in the classroom. It is informed by a knowledge of linguistics and an understanding of language as a complex communicative action analyzable at the phonetic, syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic leve.
2) CBLT recognizes the need for pedagogic and linguistic intervention in content-focused classrooms to improve the context for second language learners.
Going back to teaching, I envision myself practicing CBLT, but I realize that all of the language work that is required will need to come from me. Almost all of the accommodations that text books and curricular materials provide are either visuals or ‘just good teaching’ strategies. Textbooks currently offer teachers no guidance on what kind of actual linguistic demands are in the lesson. This colleague and I have tried to teach a number of classes to teachers that helps them shine light on the linguistic demands. But, so often the required amount of linguistic background knowledge is not there. I believe that I have the necessary linguistic background knowledge, what I wonder is whether I have the commitment to actually planning all or most of my lessons through this framework. It angers me that so many teachers and educational leaders are satisfied with the ‘just good teaching’ myth. Because of this, many English language learners never receive specific language instruction and are left to figure out the English language all on their own.
