Thamrin 1

Part 1: 2 marks
Identification and description of two contrasting contexts.
It has been a decade since the Ministry of Education and Culture in Indonesia

chooses particular schools to implement bilingual education. I am one of the teachers who

conduct classrooms taught in English language. It is 50:50 English Instruction with code

switching in L1 (first language). My context teaching is ESP (English for Specific Purposes)

because the course designs aim to achieve distinct needs of the students, which is biology

achievement. ESP is a teaching context that emphasizes more to English for particular fields

such as, engineering, law, business, medical or biology. The domain of ESP is to fulfill specific

requirements of English language learners (ELLs) that need higher levels of English

proficiency (Mayo,200O; Orr, 2002; Grabbe & Stoller, 2009).

In contrast, my friend is a teacher for foundation program in a tertiary education in

New Zealand. Thus, her context is teaching an ESL class. ESL is an acronym for English as a

Second Language. The ESP learners come from non-English speaking background countries

and living in the country where English is its first language (Shore & Sabatini, 2009;

Marianne & Joybrato, 2011).

Part 2 : 8 marks

1. Clear identification and definition of approach to integrating content and English in each

context.

2. discussion of relevance of approach in each context

3. Reference to relevant course reading.

In terms of approach, I and my friend employ different approaches. I apply CBI

(Content-Based Instruction), an approach that focuses to teach particular content in an

English-medium class (Grabe & Stoller, 1999; Snow, 2011, Crandall, 2012; Eschevarria, Short
Thamrin 2

& Vogt, 2013). Grabe & Stoller points out that in CBI "most classrooms involve the teaching

of some type of content information, and, in those classrooms, language learning also

occurs--at least incidentally" (p. 20). Amiri & Fatemi (2014) agree that "CBI tries to develop

both the students' language and their content knowledge through providing them with

authentic, meaningful academic contexts" (p. 2158). They note that there are two types of

CBI, in terms of the focus: focus on the language or on the content. In my case, the

emphasis is on the content rather than the language.

2. 2. discussion of relevance of approach in each context

Even though it is relevant to apply CBI in my context, however, I find that it is not

effective. The reason is that in each class session, I divide my teaching hours in two parts.

The first part is for the content and the second one is for the language. As a result, the

students need time to achieve biology knowledge as same as to be proficient in English,

which is time-consuming. Time constrains are always the issues in each of my teaching

sessions. Therefore, after reading, learning and being taught about approaches in this

paper, apparently the CLIL approach is more relevant to my context and can also reduce the

time-constraint.

CLIL is an approach that integrates content and language teaching (Mehisto, Marsh &

Frigols, 2008; Catlan & de Zarobe, 2009; Naves, 2009). In CLIL, there is a balance between

learning the content and the language. Mehisto, Mars & Frigols (2008) state that

CLIL is a dual-focused educational approach in which an additional language is used

for the learning and teaching of both content and language. It is a modern form of
educational delivery designed to even better equip the learner with knowledge and
skills suitable for the global age (p. 9-11).
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2. 3. Reference to relevant course reading

In addition, there are some reasons to integrate teaching and content in the classroom.

According to Gibbons (2002), "concurrent teaching and learning of both subject matter and

language is a way of speeding up...and helping to ensure that children's classroom time is

spent as usefully as possible" (Gibbons, 2002, p. 119).

2.1 Clear identification and definition of approach to integrating content and English in each

context.

In comparison, my friend's teaching method is immersion. Immersion is an approach

where EELs learn in a class that a second language or foreign language used as a medium of

instruction (Swain & Johnson, 1997; Baker, 2005). According to Swain & Johnson, "The use

of the L2 as a medium is a means for maximizing the quantity of comprehensible input and

purposeful use of the target language in a classroom" (p. 6).

2.2 discussion of relevance of approach in each context

2.3. Reference to relevant course reading.

It is relevant to teach ESL in an immersion class because students can become fluent

in the language and meet their "international center needs" (Swain & Johnson, 1997, p. 6).

For example, ELLs in the foundation program learn English to enter tertiary education. In

immersion class, the students will expose higher confidence in their English skill when they

start their tertiary studies. An example is given in a research by Evans (2000) at Hong Kong

EMI (English medium Instruction) and CMI (Cantonese Medium Instruction) programs in

schools; he examines that, "the subjects from the EMI stream expressed greater confidence

in their English ability than their counterparts from the CMI streams" (p, 303).
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3. 1. Analysis of linguistic, interactional, instructional and cognitive challenges for ELLs in your

own context

3.2. In-depth reflection on practice in your context, with reference to relevant reading and current

practice.

The following is a brief explanation about my challenges teaching in ESP context and

implying CBI. There are linguistic difficulties my students experienced when learning biology

taught in English language. Most of the students lack the vocabulary both for general English

and particular biology words. In short, their English proficiency is limited. This reality is a

problematic because an ESP class requires learners with high proficiencies in English. "ESP is

taught as a tailor-made language package to specific communities of learners with highly

specialized language needs" (Orr, 2002, p. 2).

However, the students in the classroom are diverse in their English proficiency. Some

students have been learning English when they were in elementary schools, so their English

skills are good at conversation level. On the other hand, some others are not able to talk

and struggle to use the dictionary.