Enhancing integrated English course teaching: A strategy for achieving international standards

Abstract

Myriad of studies have shown that Content-Based Instruction (CBI) has become a widespread approach in EFL settings, particularly in developing students ‘writing and speaking skills since these productive skills need more efforts and persistence. Some considerable strategies have been applied in adopting Content-Based Instruction (CBI) in today's language classrooms. Teachers may apply this approach by asking students to work in groups and ask them to discuss text on selected topics, activate their prior knowledge, and then report the results by restating what they have read in both written and oral performance. These activities could be extended by providing tasks demonstrating students ‘lexical, syntactic, morphological and grammatical knowledge as well. In the workshop, presenters are going to demonstrate how content-based approaches may increase students' motivation, content-knowledge, and independent thinking as well. It is hoped that by applying these approaches, students may develop strategies for collecting, synthesizing, and interpreting new information as this promote students' autonomy as one of the significant principles to meet international standards of language learning.