Content-Based Instruction

Abstract

Background Content-Based Instruction (CBI) refers to an approach to second language teaching in which teaching is organized around the content or information that students will acquire, rather than around a linguistic or other type of syllabus. Krahnke offers the following definition: It is the teaching of content or information in the language being learned with little or no direct or explicit effort to teach the language itself separately from the content being taught. (Krahnke, 1987: 65) The term content has become a popular one both within language teaching and in the popular media. New York Times columnist and linguistic pundit William Safire addressed it in one of his columns in 1998 and noted: If any word in the English language is hot, buzzworthy and finger-snappingly with it, surpassing even millennium in both general discourse and insiderese, that word is content. Get used to it, because we won't soon get over it. ( New York Times, August 19, 1998, 15) Although content is used with a variety of different meanings in language teaching, it most frequently refers to the substance or subject matter that we learn or communicate through language rather than the language used to convey it. Attempts to give priority to meaning in language teaching are not new. Approaches encouraging demonstration, imitation, miming, those recommending the use of objects, pictures, and audiovisual presentations, and proposals supporting translation, explanation, and definition as aids to understanding meaning have appeared at different times in the history of language teaching. Brinton, Snow, and Wesche (1989) propose that Saint Augustine was an early proponent of Content-Based Language Teaching and quote his recommendations regarding focus on meaningful content in language teaching.