Students need to transfer their ESL skills to their academic subjects or careers. Unfortunately, this process does not always occur. Students who do well in the controlled environment of a high-level ESL class may not be able to make the final leap to a regular class:
"It appears that being involved as a student in an L2 classroom does not automatically lead to motivation to transfer L2 beyond that classroom," Mark Andrew James wrote.
By teaching ESL through content-area materials, the instructor can help students make this transfer. In a content ESL class, the teacher uses a non-ESL book or curriculum for the class — civics, literature or science, for example.
Rather than writing all new material, the instructor may choose to modify what is already available by reworking the textbook lessons into a format that stimulates language acquisition and provides incentive in the classroom. The instructor needs to provide plenty of language material at a high interest level to enhance language acquisition.
Rather than just learning about grammar or words, a class will actually use the language to learn new material. They learn how to apply their language skills in a real academic context. This approach will help the learners bridge the gap to the improved linguistic competence and communication that are prerequisites to further study in regular school or college subjects.
Note the ACTFL Standards on Communication:
Interpersonal communication: Learners interact and negotiate meaning in spoken, signed or written conversations to share information, reactions, feelings and opinions.
Interpretive communication: Learners understand, interpret and analyze what is heard, read or viewed on a variety of topics.
Presentational communication: Learners present information, concepts and ideas to inform, explain, persuade and narrate on a variety of topics using appropriate media and adapting to various audiences of listeners, readers or viewers.
The content-area course material should be authentic taken from the subject matter. Students use English as a tool to learn new information they are interested in, and that fits the goals of the academic program while providing a positive language learning experience.
Content
Also content-based ESL programs connect the learners to relevant real material, which allows students to relate their language learning to the academic subjects they are studying or will be studying. In this case, the academic subject — history, for example — becomes the core of the ESL course.
Here is a quotation from an ESL learner who first learned English in isolation from real applications, according to teacher Gloria Park: "First, although learning in a one-pupil classroom gave me exposure to English language learning, English was not contextualized in that I never knew how to make connections between what I was learning in the ESL pullout program and what was happening in my mainstream content classes."
Programs providing content ESL often require that students understand a specific subject and perform specific tasks related to the subject, be it academic or job-related, such as business ESL: "Although ESL instruction has changed greatly in a short period of time, one thing that has remained the same is the need for effective lessons that help students develop skills they can use outside the classroom."
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For minority language students, regular courses have additional language demands beyond the traditional
In short, students need to transfer their skills from one set of materials to another set, which can be academic, professional or real-life.
"Learning transfer is a fundamental goal of L2 education, reflecting a basic assumption that classroom learning should translate into real-world performance," James writes.
Do students make an effort to use what they have learned outside the classroom? Do they want to do so?
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