Content-Based Foreign Language Teaching

Pushing the field forward in critically important ways, this book offers clear curricular directions and pedagogical guidelines to transform foreign language classrooms into environments where stimulating intellectual curiosity and tapping critical thinking abilities are as important as developing students' linguistic repertoires. The case is made for content-based instruction-an approach to making FL classrooms sites where intellectually stimulating explorations are the norm rather than the exception. The book explicitly describes in detail how teachers could and should use content-based instruction, explains how integration of content and language aims can be accomplished within a program, identifies essential strategies to support this curricular and pedagogical approach, discusses issues of assessment within this context, and more.
Content-Based Foreign Language Teaching provides theoretical perspectives and empirical evidence for reforming curricula and instruction, describes models and curriculum planning strategies that support implementation of well-balanced FL programs, explores the transformative potential of critical pedagogy in the FL classroom, and offers illustrations of secondary and post-secondary language programs that have experimented with alternative approaches. Advancing alternatives to conventional curriculum design, this volume posits meaning-oriented approaches as necessary to create language programs that make a great difference in the overall educational lives of learners

Laurent Cammarata is Associate Professor in Education at the Faculté Saint-Jean, University of Alberta, Canada.

Contents Preface Introduction - Content-based instruction and curricular reforms: Issues and goals LAURENT CAMMARATA, DIANE J. TEDICK, & TERRY A. OSBORN Part 1: Theoretical perspectives and empirical evidence- Sociocultural theory and content-based Foreign Language instruction: Theoretical insights on the challenge of integration RICHARD DONATO - Scaffolding advanced literacy in the foreign language classroom: Implementing a genre-driven content-based approach MARIANNA V. RYSHINA-PANKOVA - Integrating CBI into high school foreign language classrooms JOY CUMMING & ROY LYSTER Part 2: Curriculum development for the thinking-oriented foreign language classroom - Tapping the ACTFL National Standards for a thoughtful approach to content-based instruction JASON MARTEL - Foreign Language education and the development of inquiry-driven language programs: Key challenges and curricular planning strategies LAURENT CAMMARATA - Assessing what matters within content-based foreign language teaching through Integrated Performance Assessment FRANCIS J. TROYAN Part 3: Critical pedagogy and the foreign language classroom- Language teachers in foreign territory: A call for a critical pedagogy-infused curriculum TIMOTHY REAGAN - Critical content-based instruction in the foreign language classroom: Critical issues for implementation RYUKO KUBOTA Part 4: Exemplars of cognitively engaging curriculum planning for the foreign language classroom- 'Le Maine Francophone': An expeditionary unit targeting the development of higher-order thinking skills FRANCIS J. TROYAN - Exploring environmental and sustainability issues in the intermediate-level foreign language curriculum ELIZABETH A. KAUTZ - A look at CBI in action: An exploratory journey into the arts and history in the foreign language classroom NANCY HAGSTROM About the Contributors Index