Preparing future teachers to implement CBI: Attitudes, beliefs, and practices

Prof. Anna Krulatz, Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, Norway;    Abstract: Content-based instruction (CBI), an approach to language teaching in which students are taught language through academic content, has been implemented in a growing number of contexts worldwide in the last few decades. Despite the many benefits of CBI, many foreign language teachers find it “difficult to conceptualize, design, and implement, be in it traditional foreign language programs or in intensive content-based programs” (Donato 2016, p. 25). This paper reports on a study which examined how EFL teacher trainees’ perspectives on CBI as a teaching approach change as a result of participation in a CBI methods course. 47 teacher trainees took a CBI self-assessment survey (Dale & Tanner, 2012) both at the beginning and at the end of the semester. In addition, 46 participants answered open-ended questions about their attitudes to CBI, and 40 participants submitted teaching philosophies one semester after the completion of the CBI course. The findings suggest that teacher trainees self-report an increased willingness to use CBI- like teaching practices and that their attitudes towards CBI become more positive over time. However, they also perceive some potential difficulties in implementing the approach in the classroom.

Key words: CBI, teacher education, teacher beliefs