The CATESOL Journal

This paper defines and illustrates content-based language teaching in the ESL context. Some good programs are cited as examples, and the reader is given an introduction to the theoretical and practical motivations of content-based ESL, along with some notion of who the principle innovators are. Three content-based models (theme-based, adjunct, and sheltered) are presented in some detail. Since content-based ESL fits so well with current principles of communicative second language teaching, the author argues that content-based ESL, tempered with judicious use of humanistically motivated experiential activities, will be the major approach to formal ESL instruction at all levels in the near future.

This paper is an examination of expectations which ESL students bring with them to a university setting. International, or foreign, students arrive in this country with certain expectations which may or may not be realistic. As students learn to adapt to their new surroundings (physically, emotionally, and academically), these expectations and the degree to which they are met can play an important role in the students’ academic success. Teachers should be able to recognize the various types of student expectations and be sensitive to their effects on students. This paper draws an analogy to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs while identifying and illustrating five hierarchical levels of student expectations. In addition, it offers suggestions to teachers for dealing with problems that can arise when these expectations are not met.

While teachers always try to do what is best for their students, some teachers of bilingual students base instruction on assumptions that actually make learning harder and limit student potential. Such assumptions are: (a) Learning involves the transfer of knowledge from the teacher to the student; (b) oral language skills must be developed before literacy skills are introduced; and (c) learning proceeds from part to whole. This article examines each of these assumptions and shows the kind of classroom practices that follow from them. Then a second set of assumptions is introduced: (a) Learning is an active process of meaning construction that occurs during social interaction; (b) reading, writing, speaking, and listening develop interdependently; and (c) learning proceeds from whole to part. Extended examples of learning activities taken from classes in which the teachers ascribe to these assumptions are provided. The examples come from middle and high school classes with both Hispanic and Southeast Asian students. In classes based on this second set of assumptions, all students, but especially bilingual students, find learning easier.

In a variety of fashions, ESL student writers can learn to work along the lines of a practical-theoretical continuum in the ethnographic model of writing. They can (a) draw on what they know or what is accessible to them; (b) expand upon their knowledge by reading, observation, and discussion;(c) describe a set of concrete facts in the practical text component of their work that captures or shows the salient issues they want to write about; and (d) extend their discourse into new areas of analysis in the theoretical text component through reflection and by interpretation of the meaning of the actions, events, stories, or cases presented in the practical text. The end result for students is greater knowledge, of not only language, but themselves and the world.

Each term teachers of academic writing, either for native speakers of English or nonnative speakers, must determine what topics to assign and how best to help students acquire the skills needed for college writing. In making these determinations, instructors often overlook or underestimate student preferences. This paper reports the results of a survey of student preferences regarding the type of topic assigned and the amount of freedom allowed in choosing a topic. The survey was administered to 168 ESL students enrolled in composition classes at the University of San Francisco in 1984, 1985, and 1987. The results suggest that students prefer controlled assignments based on previous classwork.

This paper discusses the impact of an intensive, hands-on, research-based approach to staff development. It focuses on the experiences of teachers of language minority students (grades K-12) who took part in a 4-day literacy development institute. The paper challenges traditional, teacher-centered and teacher-dominated teaching practices. In particular, it challenges teaching practices that ignore or deny the knowledge that learners bring with them. It also confirms the need to personally experience instructional practices that are advocated for other learners and the value of reflection as a means to learn.