Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Integrating English...(Syariful Muttaqin)

INTEGRATING ENGLISH INTO CONTENT SUBJECT TEACHING

IN INDONESIAN UNIVERSITY: TOWARD STRENGTHENING ESP COURSE

Syariful Muttaqin

English Department, University of Brawijaya Malang

syaqueen@yahoo.com

Abstract

In order to promote more effective use of English for non-English students, some efforts have to be made by using English as the means of instruction rather than as a learned subject. Instead of teaching English for specific purposes (ESP), integrating English into the content subject teaching provides a greater chance of fulfilling the need of both content and English language mastery.

This paper reports an observation on content and language integrated learning (CLIL) in Biology Conservation class in the Department of Biology at University of Brawijaya Malang Indonesia. The result shows that in this class English has been promoted to be the medium of instruction through gradual implementation from the first semester until the last semester and is integrated in the class tasks and projects either in the spoken or written forms. The role of the teacher is mostly as the facilitator. From the implementation of the CLIL approach, most students admit that they have developed more positive attitudes toward English which is an important aspect in improving their English ability to help them succeed in learning the content subjects. Instead, more knowledge in both Biology and English has been gained by reading English references, such as English text books, the internet materials, and English interaction with both the lecturers and the other students. The Biology class lecturers also notice some positive impacts from this approach: deeper analysis to the problem solving, more varieties of answers or solutions to different problems, more confidence in English by the students, and more confidence to graduate from the Biology department.

Keywords: content and language integration, language acquisition, problem based learning.

Introduction

A considerable research has shown that the length of time spent on learning a language determines the degree of success in learning a particular language. This suggests that in learning English students should be encouraged to use the learned language not merely as a learned subject, but as a medium of interaction. Furthermore, as stated by Long (1983), a foreign language will be more effectively learned if it emphasizes on content rather than on form.

The teaching of ESP has been implemented for university students in Indonesia for quite a long time. Most students, however, usually take this English subject just because it is compulsory. As long as they have passed, it is done. Meanwhile, language should be meaningfully used; otherwise, it will gradually disappear. Therefore, some efforts have to be done to keep up their learned language and even develop it to be better. Integrating English into the content subject teaching is the answer to this. English should be used in more real-life settings in which the academics feel in need of, not as a burden. Integrating English in the content subject teaching can be one of the steps toward the effective acquisition of English.

This paper aims to describe a practice on how English has been used more as a medium of instruction in teaching a content subject at University of Brawijaya Malang Indonesia.

Theories Revisited

Learning a second or foreign language is best done through being engaged in meaningful situations where the target language is used in a like or real situation (Krashen 1981). In academic settings, the ESL or EFL teaching cannot be separated from content subject teaching. Mohan (1986, cited in Yu Re Dong (2007) states that:

ESL students need to acquire English, as well as, learn difficult subject matter through English ..., their level of academic achievement in English and their level of subject matter knowledge will be judged by comparison with english speaking students.

Some language teaching methods have emerged hand in hand involving both content and language teaching simultaneously. Among them are Bilingual teaching, Content-Based Instruction (CBI), Task-Based Instruction, Content and Language Integrated Learning CLIL), etc. Bilingual teaching is the teaching of content subject using two languages, one native and one or more second or foreign languages as the medium of instruction. Content-based Instruction is the concurrent study of language and subject matter, with the form and sequence of language presentation dictated by content material (Brinton, et all. 1989. in Shah 2003). CLIL is defined by Marsh et al. (2001) as ‘an educational approach in which non-language subjects are taught through a foreign, second or other additional language’. All of those language teaching are designed toward successful second language as well as content subject acquisition. Some studies have shown how these approaches have been successfully implemented in classroom practices (Blanton 1993, Kavaliauskiene, 2004, Shah 2003)

This article briefly describes how content and language were integrated in learning a science subject and evaluates its implementation and also proposes some recommendation at an Indonesian university.

Innovative Teaching

Clegg (1999) states that the opportunity to interact in English can mostly be achieved outside the EFL classroom or in the content subject class which consequently encourages discipline lecturers, instead of EFL teachers, to attribute to the development of students’ foreign language. Therefore, content teachers have to teach content and language at the same time since teachers need to also consider the students’ language proficiceny, so that the students can be equal with the English speaking students. This idea then encouraged the content teachers in the Biology Department of Brawijaya University to play a more significant role in developing students’ English. In addition to teaching English as a compulsory subjet (ESP/EAP) which is considered a failure in Indonesian universities (Sadtono 2005), this department initiated content and language integrated learning (CLIL) in one of the mainstream science subjects. An integration of content and language learning model was designed with regard to student-active learning (SAL) and problem-based learning (PBL).

Content and Language Integrated Learning Approach

This section discusses briefly the practice of Content and Language Integrated Learning in learning a science subject, Bioconservation in Biology Department of Brawijaya University. Bioconservation as a science subject was taught to provide active and accessible learning for the students with regards to the students’ learning rhythm. It was aimed to introduce students to the real life situation especially how they should cope with and solve their problems in conserving the environment. The class meetings were divided into two terms, each term consisted of eight meetings. In the first four meetings of each term, the class was conducted using Indonesian and English (bilingual teaching) for assuring the content comprehension. Then, in the next remaining meetings, English was used as the medium of instruction (MOI). Most of the activities were in group presentation using English.

1. Promoting reading English references

Since the beginning of the class the teachers already stated that the students had to do a lot of English reference reading. Referring to the PBL, the students were involved in more reading activities to see how the problems formulated were solved. This is a good way to give students more exposures and reinforcement by getting some content as well as linguistic contents. It is in accordance with the idea of CLT supported by the connectionists who believe that language competence is gradually built through exposures to the various language contexts or linguistic features (Spada: 2001). The reading could be done in the reading room of the department, the main university library, and from the internet. Every time they read they had to be able to make a summary of what had been read. By doing so it was expected that they could get comprehensible input for both content and language. According to Deckert (1994), English class must be designed to be active learning, provided with some useful resources and activities, and the teacher allows the students experience the language learning in a maximum basis. To assure that English references were used as their basis for doing class activities such as writing some reports or answering quizzes or tests, they had to state explicitly the references they used.

2. Developing students’ writing ability

Students’ writing using English is developed by integrating English into content subject teaching and learning activities, such as quizzes and tests (midterm test and final test), doing assignments, making report and individual portfolio. The questions in the quizzes were given in two languages, English and Indonesian. The students could answer in either English or Indonesian. However, students preferred to answer in English since they believed that it was a good exercise to use their English for expressing their discipline subject and their score would be higher than when answering in Indonesian.

The teacher then returned their test on the next meeting and discussed the answers to the questions. This is a good practice since the teacher provided a situation in which language is experimented or experienced in the students’ academic life. As stated by Julkenen (2004) a task is something the student has to do; a question asked by the teacher or an exercise to be completed, a problem to be solved, an activity to be performed and so forth.

Students were asked to discuss in groups about their project. After each group discussion, each group had to write a summary of the result on the form provided by the teachers by using English. The teacher then gave some comments on their works. In addition, in writing the individual portfolio, students were given opportunity to write bilingually, in either English or Indonesian. But the students felt that writing in English was much better in terms of language practice and score they would get. They confidently preferred to write in English.

3. Developing Students’ speaking ability

As characterized by the learning model, PBL, group discussions were quite dominant classroom activities. Students were grouped and directed toward finding a solution of the problems formulated earlier. They were expected to bring into class some ideas concerning their problems after doing some lab/field works and reading English references. In this section English was used as a means of communicating their ideas. In academic settings, students are involved in some communication with other students or with teachers (Lightbone & Spada 1994). In line with this, Chien (2003) believes that language is acquired better by using it as the medium of instruction rather than merely as a subject. Furthermore, the innatist and interactionist rely greatly on the interaction of meaning of the class in various activities (Spada 1993, Johnson 2004). Therefore, the communication in the classroom gives more spaces for the students to try some trials and errors without too much worry on some linguistically correct rules. Making errors is natural process of development of every step in learning.

Having done with the group discussion, the groups then brought the result to the classroom presentation on the next meetings. In the classroom presentation, all groups presented their problems and explained how they had worked out to come to the solution. Each group speaker was given ten minutes to present. A question and answer session followed each presentation. The inputs from other students outside each group were used to validate and make the group final work more convincing. The lecturer facilitated the discussion and played a role as a resource person as well. The groups then wrapped up the discussion and then worked out to finalize their works that would be presented in the last meeting.

In the last presentation all the group leaders were invited to come forward to present their last result after the previous presentation. Some questions and answers were dealt with and finally the lecturer gave the final overall comment on the problems and solutions of the groups.

4. Roles of the teachers

In PBL, the teacher acts more as a facilitator. The teachers encouraged the students to be independent and responsible learners. Therefore, most of the activities were independently done by the students. The lecturers also invited the students to come and see them outside the classroom for some problem consultation. It was expected that the consultation would assure that the students were on the right track and some theoretical difficulties did not happen so that it could not hamper their works toward the problem solution.

Program Evaluation

The evaluation of the program was based on the distributed questionnaires, interviews, classroom observation, and video recording conducted after the implementation of the program. Sixteen questionnaires out of forty were returned and were then analyzed. In terms of using English references all of them (16 respondents) used English references in their study. In the frequency of using references, fifty percent of them (8 student) stated that they used English references in a very high frequency.

From the opinion of the students it was shown that the students found it better to read English references than to read Indonesian references as stated from the result of the questionnaires. They believed that by using English references their English competence and content competence could advance simultaneously. In general, the majority of the students favored the implementation of the program. As students stated:

  1. The relevant materials are certainly found in mostly English references, and it is very valuable for the improvement of understanding scientific English
  2. Using English references because it is rare in Indonesian, hopefully the language centre can be a translator.
  3. The available references are more in English, besides it is easier to understand English ones
  4. English references, now they are certainly used in some courses

The students were given freedom to answer quizzes or tests bilingually. However, students preferred to answer in English since they believed that it was a good exercise to use their English and their score would be better than using Indonesian. It is supported by the comments of the teacher who stated that the students could express ideas or answer better in English in term of content. It was believed to be the outcome that resulted from students’ use of English references. In doing the midterm test, the teachers did the same thing, that was giving test bilingually The sstudents confidently preferred to answer in English since they felt that writing in English was much better in terms of language practice and score. Their comments are as follows:

  1. The English competence is getting more perfect if directly implemented because ‘practice does make perfect’
  2. Wow, it can increase my English competence.

The teachers were very satisfied looking at their English writing because what they expected that was using English in doing some works was done by the students. The teachers did not comment a lot on the language aspects. What they looked was there was an increasing courage and confidence in using English in their academic life. And this was a high achievement for them.

The final class evaluation was based on those that had been done by the class using all the aspects: quizzes, lab/field works, presentation, midterm test, and final test. And it showed quite surprising result. The average final score of the students was much better than that of the previous year students using different teaching method.

However, in terms of the effectiveness of the program, most of them (10 students) stated that the program was in the average level of effectiveness and efficiency. None of them stated that it was very effective and very efficient. This was due to the lack of collaboration between subject teachers and language specialists since in implementing this program they needed a good collaboration between the content and subject teachers. Besides, the implementation of the innovation was not well socialized earlier. From the evaluation it was found that the teachers had not explained in brief the essence of the program. As a student stated in the questionnaire:

‘It is better to explain a little about the purpose of the bilingual here. Does it mean that the teacher explains in English with slides in Indonesian or the opposite and the discussion is mixed in Indonesian and English? But If the teacher explains in English using English slides and the discussion is conducted fully in English, I still cannot not agree yet’.

During the classroom observation it was found that the classroom discussion was dominated more by certain students who are good in English. Those who were not good preferred to stay quiet in class discussion. They said that they were shy or hesitated to express their ideas in front of the class. This was shown by the students who asked questions and answered questions who were the only ‘short listed’ students. . However, in group discussions, they were more eager to express ideas in English.

Conclusion

The nature of language is as a means of communication. It is useless if the language is just formally learned as a subject without applying it in the real context. English should be integrated into the content subject teaching. Students should be encouraged to attend classes with the maximum use of English because of some academic and professional advantages.

By getting engaged in content subject teaching using English as the medium of instruction, the students’ English will be more developed. Some technical and practical English in the students’ area can strengthen the acquisition English. It is not anymore merely learned, but acquired since the students are experiencing and experimenting themselves in their specific field of study. In addition, students will use English in more meaningful settings. The English skills - speaking, listening, writing, and reading - will certainly progress, as they are more involved in communicating with the people in the same discipline and in completing their academic tasks. Their social relationship among those of the same academic background can be strengthened as they work collaboratively in experimenting some related linguistics entries.

At last, the use of English as a medium of instruction in teaching content can motivate students and increase their interest. Possessing English competence can widen their horizon and help them get more knowledge about their field. Sciences are developing progressively and the medium of communication is English. Here, the teachers should be able to develop the students’ positive attitude and awareness toward English. It is undeniable that prestigious jobs require English. By being competent in English, the students will face the graduation day more confidently.

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