An analysis of content-language integrated activities in 3 rd and 4 th grade English textbooks for the 2015 revised national curriculum.

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to analyze the content-language integrated activities of the 3rd and 4th grade English textbooks based on the 2015 revised national curriculum, and to suggest directions for revision and supplementation. This study analyzed content-language integrated activities presented in 5 elementary school English textbooks in the following four aspects: 1) how subject contents are integrated, 2) how language skills are integrated, 3) what levels of learners’ thinking skills are required, 4) which types of group are needed for the target activities. The results of the analysis revealed that the most frequently integrated subject is art, and the level of subject contents generally matched the grade level of the learners. The results also showed that there are many activities that use a single language skill rather than integrated language skills. It was found that more than half of the activities were group or pair activities that could encourage interactions among the learners. The activities requiring the learners’ higher-order thinking skills account for 68.1% of the total number of integrated activities. Finally, this study confirms that there is a need for establishing a consistent framework to develop content-language integrated teaching materials. Additionally, we need to pay more attention to CLIL teacher training courses that are designed to develop teachers’ professional competence. Some implications and suggestions for future research for effective content-language integrated activities in textbooks were made.