Pre-service ESL Teachers’ Constructed Knowledge about Using
Content-Based ESL Instruction and Curriculum

Clara Lee Brown, Ed.D.
Associate Professor
ESL Education
Department of Theory and Practice in Teacher Education
The University of Tennessee, Knoxville
E-mail:  cbrown26@utk.edu

Trena Paulus, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Collaborative Learning and Applied Educational Psychology
Department of Educational Psychology and Counseling
The University of Tennessee, Knoxville
E-mail:  tpaulus@utk.edu

Background of the Study   

The idea for this study emerged from the listed first author’s (Clara Lee Brown) own needs as a second-year faculty teaching a new course for the first time in a Masters of Art in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (MATESOL) program. Brown wanted to investigate to what degree her students internalized course content as pedagogical knowledge. In her first year of teaching, Brown created an English as a Second Language methods course, entitled Content-Based ESL Methods, based on her own beliefs about “how ESL students should best be taught.” Her beliefs about ESL methods, in particular, have been formed based on her own experience as a second language learner, as an ESL public school teacher, and as a teacher educator and ESL classroom observer. Her beliefs have also been informed by research findings and evidence regarding effective ESL methods.

The ESL methods course is one of the foundational courses that all pre-service teachers must take in the MATESOL program. The Content-Based ESL Methods course specifically focuses on how to design and deliver content-based ESL curriculum and instruction through thematic unit lesson plans. Although this is a three-hour credit course like all other courses in the program, it is considered the signature course for the program and functions as a foundation course.

Student achievement is directly affected by the way teachers deliver instruction and curriculum (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1999). Methods instructors, thus, should be encouraged to assess how well pre-service teachers have internalized the theoretical and pedagogical knowledge essential for becoming effective teachers. To sustain the vitality of a MATSOL program, we believe that it is necessary to evaluate whether ESL methods courses adequately equip MATESOL pre-service teachers (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1999; Hill, Rowan, & Ball, 2005; Kaplan & Owings, 2003; Rotherham & Mead, 2003). One of the first steps to ensure such a premise is to investigate whether pre-service teachers have acquired adequate knowledge for practice. The focus of this study is to explore how pre-service teachers in the MATESOL program have internalized pedagogical content knowledge. An underlying assumption is that content-based ESL instruction and curriculum is more effective in preparing ESL students to deal with academic language, which determines their academic career.

Current needs of English Language Learners

The number of English Language Learners’ (ELLs) in the United States has increased sharply in recent years, and accountability for their academic achievement has intensified under the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. Accordingly, there has been a movement in the field of ESL education to integrate language and content teaching because a heavy emphasis on helping ESL students acquire oral fluency is no longer adequate in the era of accountability and academic achievement. Linguistic performance on academic tasks, thus, has been identified as the most pressing need for ELLs (Brown, 2007b). Oral fluency is no longer sufficient for ESL students to be successful at school learning, which requires mastery of particular academic discourse styles in reading and writing (Kasper, 2000; Kidd, 1996). In 1997, Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Language (TESOL) articulated the national ESL standards for pre-K-12, which emphasized ELLs’ ability to use English in the academic context (Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, 1997). In 2006, TESOL added standards in the core content areas (PreK-12 English Language Proficiency Standards). This is an important acknowledgement of ELLs’ academic linguistic needs in the field of ESL education.
 
Based on ELLs’ need to acquire academic language, methods courses in MATESOL programs must reflect this change in preparing pre-service teachers to provide appropriate ESL instruction. An innovative form of instruction is needed, one that supports a shift away from the traditional model of (1) emphasizing language competency through form-focused instruction and corrective feedback, especially through worksheets and drills; and (2) treating language teaching and content teaching as separate entities. Content-based ESL curriculum and instruction (CBEIC) offers an instructional model based on the principle of integrating content and language. Research findings indicate that students in CBEIC classes experience accelerated English acquisition (Allen, 1990; Brown, 2004, , 2007a; Burger & Chretien, 2001; L. Kasper, 2000; L. F. Kasper, 2000; Pica, 2002; Schleppegrell, Archugar, & Teresa, 2004; Wiesen, 2001), providing a rationale for content-based language teaching.

ESL students who are adjusting a new life in a new country have numerous needs emotionally, psychologically, and academically. Of these needs, academic success is one of the most important as it determines their career and quality of life in the future. Academic success is made possible through critical literacy rather than functional literacy (Finn, 1999). Finn, who ascribes to Paulo Freire’s critical pedagogy, denounces the way that students of low socio-economic background are mostly taught with instruction which is filled with functional literacy which emphasizes following directions or getting the right answer without a component of critical thinking skills. Critical pedagogy should be equally applied to ESL teaching. We believe that to achieve equitable education for ESL students, ESL students have to be taught differently. That is, using the language to critically think and make educated decisions to become fully-participating members in a democratic society is the ultimate goal of ESL instruction. That CBEIC aims to incur academic language proficiency acquisition through content learning can lead to development of the literacies that ESL students most need to achieve academic success.

Content-Based ESL Instruction and Curriculum Approach

The concept of academically-based language learning, however, is not new. It has been around for a long time in the form of English for Specific Purposes or English for Academic Purposes (Crandall, 1993). While these models mainly address the needs of adult ELLs in higher educational settings, CBEIC aims to develop ELLs’ proficiency in public school settings. The major goal of CBEIC is to improve the academic discourse of ESL students by integrating subject matter content and English learning (Chamot, 1995; Chamot & O'Malley, 1994). In other words, in CBEIC, English is a means to an ends. ELLs not only learn content-specific concepts, factual information, and technical vocabulary, but their acquisition of academic discourse is accelerated through the comprehensible language input provided through teachers’ explanations, peers’ discussion, and reading (Krashen, 1981, , 1985, , 2003). Advantageous outcomes of offering CBEIC curriculum and instruction to ELLs are numerous.

• ELLs are highly motivated (Pohan & Kelly, 2004)
  The topics are exciting and invigorating to students because the teacher has the flexibility to design lessons based on students’ interests, which is the best way to have students engaged in tasks. Teachers can also choose reading material that is appropriate for students’ English proficiency and age. Students find that CBEIC is meaningful and relevant to their learning (Brown, 2004).

• ELLs are better prepared to handle the regular academic load.
  Since CBEIC emphasizes the expository nature of reading and writing, ELLs are better prepared to cope with the difficulties of content and the fast pace of instruction of the mainstream (Kasper, 2000). ELLs also develop learning strategies, a component of the CBEIC, that will support them in learning more challenging content.

• ELLs increase background knowledge that is essential for school learning.
  One of the characteristics of ELLs is their lack of background knowledge that the school expects them to bring. ELLs’ background knowledge would be quite different from those who come from white English monolingual households because they are ethnically, culturally, and linguistically different (de Jong & Harper, 2005). CBEIC, however, helps ELLs fill the existing gap in their current knowledge and the school expectations.

• ELLs are more likely to be engaged in higher order-thinking and problem-solving learning.
  Since CBEIC deals with more complex content than the traditional ESL class does, ELLs are presented with more opportunities that challenge them to think critically in problem-solving situations. As a result, they grow more intellectually and cognitively, in addition to their linguistic improvement (Crandall, 1993).

An effective MATESOL methods course should teach the design and implementation of CBEIC curriculum and instruction to specifically target enhancing academic language proficiency for ELLs. Our study investigates how preservice teachers, once they have taken such a course, have internalized pedagogical knowledge covered in the course.

Constructing Knowledge for Practice

Among learning theories, constructivism is a paradigm that is of particular interest to teacher educators today. Constructivism is an epistemology that concerns how one learns and acquires knowledge (Perkins, 1999). The major tenet of constructivism is that knowledge is individually constructed based on personal beliefs and experiences (Hennessy, 1993). Constructivism rejects the notion of knowledge being static and unilateral. Rather, constructivists believe that knowledge is negotiated and situated depending on the context, thus, there is room for interpretation. A class of 20 students taught by one teacher could have 20 different interpretations regarding what they have learned; knowledge, in other words, is that which is personalized and internalized by individuals. Personalizing knowledge requires learners’ active engagement in meaning-making based on personal beliefs and values. Through this dynamic process, learners create their own individual knowledge that dictates future behaviors. This process is particularly important because without a deep level of knowledge construction in teaching and learning, pre-service teachers may develop teaching practices based on misconceptions. A lack of deep, meaningful learning would lead pre-service teachers to instructional behaviors that are neither pedagogically sound nor effective.

In the methods course the first author teaches, the pre-service teachers engage in numerous activities to generate plenty of opportunities to interpret and personalize what they have learned and to construct their own knowledge accordingly. These activities include: designing thematic unit lesson plans, giving micro-teaching demonstrations, evaluating textbooks, participating in electronic discussion boards, writing reaction papers based on reading assignments, shadowing ESL students, conducting case-studies and writing mini-research papers. In each class, students discuss research findings and implications in ESL settings, challenge existing assumptions and beliefs, learn about different instructional models and language acquisition theories, and come up with new ways to think.

The students are provided with interactional opportunities to negotiate meanings and clarify misconceptions. The professor’s classroom activities and assignments challenge the students to see the whole picture rather than getting lost in a myriad of details. However, even when students write excellent papers, complete assignments, pass courses, and graduate with a degree, it does not ensure effective application of concepts learned to their classroom teaching. Given the importance of CBEIC, the purpose of this study is to determine how pre-service teachers in MATESOL program have internalized the pedagogical knowledge once the methods course has been completed.

Method

Our research focus was to find out to what extent MATESOL pre-service teachers have internalized pedagogical knowledge that is essential in being successful ESL teachers. An underlying assumption of the study was that participants who completed the Content-Based ESL Methods course should be able to articulate knowledge of and beliefs about CBEIC methods in their own words. Their responses to the focus group questions would show the degree to which personalization of discipline-specific theories has taken place.

Focus groups were conducted at the end of the spring 2003 and spring 2004 semesters at the conclusion of the methods course. Participants who volunteered to take part in the study were pre-service teachers in a MATESOL program where the first author teaches. All names have been replaced with pseudonyms. Table 1 shows the time of interviews taken place.

Table 1:  Focus group participants

The primary question asked was of the participants at the start of the focus group was: Based on the identified needs of ELLs’ academic language proficiency, why should ESL teachers try CBEIC?

Each focus group lasted approximately three hours, and the first author moderated, tape recorded and transcribed. The first author also took observational notes while moderating the focus group. Data were analyzed by reading the transcripts multiple times in order to identify emerging themes.
 
There are several limitations to this study. First, the size of the focus group was small due to the limited availability of the participants; group dynamics in a larger focus group would have provided a broader picture regarding the research questions. Second, the findings cannot be used to confirm the efficacy of the CBEIC methods for ELLs; rather, the study is based on the assumption that CBEIC methods are the most effective for meeting ELLs’ needs for improving academic language proficiency. Third, the first author was the participants’ major professor, which undoubtedly affected the focus group conversations.  

Results

Five themes related to how the participant’s internalized pedagogical knowledge related to CBEIC emerged from the data: 1) increased motivation for ELLs; 2) increased support for learning in mainstream classes; 3) increased effectiveness of grammar learning; 4) difficulties of implementing CBEIC; 5) limitations of CBEIC; and 6) change in perception regarding CBEIC.

Increased motivation for ELLs 

During the participants’ practicum experience they were placed in public school teaching ESL. Through this first-hand classroom experience, participants saw how CBEIC motivated their students to learn more and engage more due to lesson content that interested them more. As Lillian described it:

I could see how CBEIC is so much stronger, and I could see it click with the students. One of the students [in my practicum] said, ‘I need this [a lesson developed by the practicum students), I need to know this.’ Wow, I mean, honestly, how many high schoolers would look at a teacher and say I need to know this. Let’s get real. I bought into it from the beginning, I saw the value of it, but it wasn’t really my own until I taught it myself. At that time, it just drove it home. I went like, ‘yes, this is it, this is what ELLs need, this really works.’

It was a revealing moment for Lillian to see how CBEIC can affect ELLs who sincerely wanted to be challenged and make connections between language learning and their content courses.

Nancy also experienced what CBEIC did for a student who was thought to be unmotivated to learn:

At the beginning [of my practicum], I had one particular student who rarely talked. She was just so quiet, and through the process of using content-based lessons, all of a sudden, she started talking. She became more involved. It must’ve started clicking with her, and I was like, ‘yeah, ‘this is the way I need to be teaching because it’s making sense to my students.’

Thus the participants believed that CBEIC increased the motivation of the ELLs in their classes.

Increased Support for Learning in Mainstream Classes

One rationale that participants provided for utilizing CBEIC is that it supports ELLs’ learning in the mainstream. Mary shared:

I think content based has a lot of advantages just because they’re hearing the same content different times. It is good for them to hear it a number of ways. When you learn some science concepts in ESL class, that would support whatever is going on in their science class because everybody teaches in a different way. So if they hear it two different ways, that’d help them, I think, with vocabulary and with learning that particular lesson. Content-based goes beyond grammar. It supports their learning in the mainstream. I don’t see how anyone can look at what happens in the content-based ESL classroom and what it does for the students and not think it’s better, not want to do it.

Mary did not explicitly say that CBEIC fills in background knowledge that ELLs lack, but it is clear that she realized that CBEIC provides scaffolding that helps ELLs in mainstream classes.

Lillian said:

We can’t just teach BICS [Basic Interpersonal communicative Skills]. We have to teach CALP [Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency], CALP English through content. Teaching BICS or English, I don’t want to say we haven’t succeeded, but we haven’t accomplished what these kids need us to accomplish. Supporting the content that they’re learning in the mainstream class, I feel like that is an equal goal that we should have along with teaching English.

To Lillian, CBEIC is a way of equipping ELLs with the academic English they need for mainstream learning. She believes that ESL classes that do not deal with academic English are not fully meeting ELLs’ needs for developing academic English proficiency.

Anna expressed the view that CBEIC is doubly beneficial because students improve their English while learning content related to mainstream learning:

To me CBEIC is efficient because you’re sort of killing two birds with one stone. You get both the language and content. They’re also getting content that they need for their other classes or they’re getting a support in their other classes like science or social studies.

Participants believed that utilizing CBEIC supported their ELLs’ learning in the mainstream content courses.

Increased Effectiveness of Grammar Learning

Teaching grammar is one of the most discussed and debated topic in the field of ESL education, and it is no different in this methods class. Krashen (2003) has provided evidence showing that the contribution of consciously learned grammar to language competence is extremely limited. Anna’s beliefs were consistent with this view: 

I’d say content’s a lot more efficient way of teaching grammar because they learn grammar within content. Maybe grammar’s not the focus, but you get that, you pick some up and it just comes naturally instead of through a drill.

A strength of CBEIC is that grammar is learned in context, rather than in isolation. Stacey picked up on this as well:

Well I like the fact that students are learning grammar through the content.  You know you’re not just teaching them grammar, grammar, grammar, but they’re still learning what they need to know through something that’s meaningful.

Mary added:

I think the popular ESL methods ESL teachers use focus on grammar. And I think if you were teaching an ESL class with that kind of method, ELLs don’t learn anything else except the grammar, they are not necessarily good at it, though. So if you had content-based, your students would at least learn grammar through the content, I think. It becomes more effective.

Anna, Stacey, and Mary indicated how grammar can be acquired through CBEIC. They also believed that CBEIC is a more effective way to teach grammar because CBEIC teachers do not drill isolated grammar points. They also implied that grammar drives instruction in traditional ESL classes.

Difficulties of Implementing CBEIC

Not all experiences with or understandings of CBEIC were positive. The participants pointed out that, while they believe ESL teachers should adopt CBEIC, there are roadblocks in the way of in-service teachers who may wish to do so. One was the accountability that individual ESL teachers face under the No Child Left Behind Act, as Lillian commented on from her field experience:

I had observed that, especially within the high school, the emphasis is on students to take the standardized tests. Teachers seem unwilling to give up direct grammar instruction, because they feel like it’s the only way to prepare their students to take and pass whatever standardized test. No matter how many times you say to them, “we’re incorporating grammar into the content and there is grammar, it’s not just content,” it doesn’t register that CBEIC will prepare them. They think the only way to prepare them is by teaching direct grammar. That is the only way that they’re going to succeed in the standardized tests. I think there is a lot of the unwillingness to let go of grammar instruction and move toward content-based. So I don’t think unwillingness to come over to the content side is a result from not believing that it’s useful or not believing that it’s the best way to teach language. In fact, they may really believe that that it’s [CBEIC] the best way to teach language, but, they have to fit in the system… and they feel like that only grammar instruction can do that.

Stacey points out that in-service teachers seem to firmly believe that the most important thing they can do for ELLs is to teach grammar:

I think it would be difficult in some circumstances because, being a young new teacher, and you’ve just been hired and let’s say your boss is like, we teach grammar and this is how we do it.  And you know, you’re all pumped and fired up because you’ve just finished your education and you’re ready to go out there teach them some content. And that’s really discouraging….

It appears to be the case that pre-service teachers understand the validity and value of indirect grammar instruction, but in-service teachers are not willing to try these methods out. This might have to do with the current accountability requirements mandated by No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, a reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. This federal law mandates that all ELLs participate in statewide accountability testing in reading and math. In addition, it also mandates that ELLs as a separate group be included in an adequate yearly progress (AYP) calculation. Needless to say, ELLs teachers are forced to teach-to-test. This would mean that they have to teach more discrete language skills based on grammar.

Limitations of CBEIC

Contrary to the way most of the participants interpreted CBEIC in terms of what it can do for ELLs, Ilene stated that CBEIC is useful only when the same content is concurrently taught in ESL and the mainstream classes:

If the topic is American Indians in social studies and you’re discussing American Indians in your ESL class, it reinforces their learning as they’re going along, gives them a review time if nothing else.  Even if they know it already well it’s an additional review.  So it inherently, as long as you can keep track with what’s going on in their other, but the problem is that, okay, you’ve got a group of however many, what if they’re not all in that other class.  I mean, what if they’re not all taking American History or something, and you’re trying to teach that, that could be a problem. 

In other words, if ELL students cannot immediately apply what they learn in their ESL class, Ilene assumes that CBEIC will not be useful. She did not note that CBEIC can build ELLs background knowledge. She goes on to say:

when you’re looking at teaching adults, there’s probably more of an emphasis or
importance or something, to be dealing with grammar, but with, if we’re looking at teaching kids, kindergarten, K-8 or something like that, then content based is much more important versus learning grammar per se. But in adults, they want the grammar, because that is what they realize they need and so learning grammar for its own sake in adult education has merit and less merit in teaching K-8.    

Ilene felt that CBEIC is appropriate for younger ELLs, but not for older ELLs whose ESL classes are more likely traditional in that such classes heavily emphasize grammar. To Ilene who foresees resistance from older ELLs, CBEIC’s pedagogical benefits, thus, are limited.

Change in Perception Regarding CBEIC

One of the valuable findings from this study is that some of the participants explicitly discussed how their perceptions regarding ESL teaching had been changed. Mary thought that ESL instruction was about developing conversational English only, but later realized how such instruction could short-change ELLs.

I thought ESL, especially for the public schools, was about communication activities as in how to say things, phrases, things like that. I thought it should have, but I see now that it’s doing the students a disservice when you keep it on the BICS level.

Lillian also stated that she had thought that ESL teaching was like foreign language teaching, which focuses on drilling grammar points.

I thought ESL teaching was like foreign language teaching. I really did. But now I see how much more I would have learned in my foreign language study if I had been taught the way I want to teach my ESL students, because, I, to this day, am confused about the preterit or the imperfect, which one do I use?

These participants’ views had changed as a result of their experience with the CBEIC method.

Discussion and Conclusion

This study highlighted how pre-service teachers in MATESOL program demonstrated their constructed knowledge after taking a methods course. This specific methods course focuses on CBEIC, which concerns with enabling ELLs to achieving academic language proficiency. The participants articulated the efficacy of the CBEIC in their personalized pedagogical perspective. As evidenced by findings, their constructed knowledge seems consistent with what research has shown about CBEIC so far. They stated that CBEIC motivates ELLs, supports ELLs’ learning in the mainstream classes, and actually CBEIC accelerates grammar learning. As shown in Anna’s statement in particular, the excitement was obvious regarding what CBEIC can do for ELLs:

CBEIC is like ‘killing two birds with one stone.’ Nevertheless, they did not let their enthusiasm bias their perception regarding CBEIC. They also expressed their personalized knowledge concerning difficulties of implementing CBEIC in public school. In other words, they were fully aware of the challenges and resistance they could face when using CBEIC when they become teachers. Whether these pre-service teachers can carry their beliefs about CBEIC to their own classroom has to be answered by future studies.

Most importantly, however, the study findings show how these participants revealed their changing perceptions, as shown in Mary’s and Liliana’s comments. This is the kind of moment all teacher educators cherish: They exhibit new knowledge by linking theory, practice, personal experience, and critical thinking with what they learned in the course. This is the kind of moment that tells the teacher educators ‘they clicked, finally they connected the dots.’ Research suggests that pre-service teachers do not necessarily change their perceptions and beliefs as a result of their course work. When it occurs, however, it indicates that students constructed own knowledge (Hill, Rowan, & Ball, 2005).

As a final note, the participant’s beliefs and comments in the focus groups were likely influenced by their current field experiences. In future studies, investigating the relationship between field experience and pre-service teacher perception change will contribute to the literature regarding teacher changes in perception.

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