Language Teaching Research 2014, Vol 18(1) 118–136 © The Author(s) 2013 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1362168813505381 ltr.sagepub.com LANGUAGE TEACHING RESEARCH The challenges of planning language objectives in content-based ESL instruction Laura Baecher Hunter College, City University of New York, USA Tim Farnsworth Hunter College, City University of New York, USA Anne Ediger Hunter College, City University of New York, USA Abstract The purpose of this research was to investigate the major patterns in content-based instruction (CBI) lesson plans among practicum teachers at the final stage of an MA TESOL program. One hundred and seven lesson plans were coded according to a typology developed to evaluate clarity and identify areas of potential difficulty in the design of content and language objectives by TESOL teacher candidates for use in PreK–12 ESL classrooms. Participants in our study tended to have more difficulty in designing language objectives than content objectives. There was also a tendency to write language objectives that focused heavily on the four language skills and on vocabulary, and considerably less often on grammatical structures, functions, or language learning strategies. Keywords Content-based instruction, language objectives, lesson planning, teacher language awareness I Introduction While integrated content and language instruction has been shown to be a highly effective means of developing second language proficiency, it is also clear that this integration is a complex pedagogical challenge, requiring robust attention to language as well as discipline-specific learning (Dalton-Puffer, 2007; Lyster, 2007; Pica, 2008). ‘Contentbased instruction’ (CBI), as it is referred to in the USA, incorporates a wide spectrum of Corresponding author: Laura Baecher, Department of Curriculum & Teaching, Hunter College, City University of New York, 695 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10065, USA. Email: [email protected] 505381LTR18110.1177/1362168813505381Language Teaching ResearchBaecher et al. 2013 Article Downloaded from ltr.sagepub.com at University of Central Florida Libraries on August 30, 2016 Baecher et al. 119 ‘instructional approaches that make a dual, though not necessarily equal, commitment to language and content-learning objectives’ (Stoller, 2008, p. 59). On one end of the content/language-driven curriculum (Met, 1999), ‘incidental’, rather than intentional language teaching, results in teachers inadvertently prioritizing content over language learning (Lyster, 2007) and, on the other end, foregrounding language goals at the expense of meaningful content learning (Cammarata, 2009). In the US PreK–12 English as a second language (ESL) context, classroom teachers provide the bulk of instruction for English language learners (ELLs) with little to no preparation in second language (L2) teaching (Gándara, Maxwell-Jolly, & Driscoll, 2005; Menken & Antunez, 2001). In these settings, ESL teachers may be called upon to work collaboratively with their content and classroom teacher counterparts in order to co-plan integrated content and language instruction. However, we know that collaboration between mainstream and ESL specialists, which could potentially provide a framework for planning language and content goals, faces tremendous barriers, with the scales tipping consistently towards content-area rather than language learning goals (Arkoudis, 2006; Creese, 2006). How well prepared is the ESL teacher for planning language instruction when this time comes? As teacher educators, we have been troubled by the question of whether, indeed, our teacher candidates were ready to meet the challenge of planning for language instruction in CBI. Our experience has shown us that ESL teachers often still struggle with addressing their students’ language learning needs in content-based environments, as evidenced by their lesson plans and observed instruction. The development of learning objectives as part of lesson planning is one way of identifying what the focus of a lesson should be; by analysing teacher candidates’ stated language learning objectives, we should be able to identify at least part of what they intend their lessons to achieve. While the ability to articulate clear objectives may be a separate skill from actually delivering the instruction and assessment needed to accompany these objectives, still, we consider the organization and articulation of language-focused instruction to be a critical developmental skill for educators of ELLs. If teachers are not intentionally organizing instruction focused on language learning, how, then, are ELLs provided with instruction that actually targets their language development needs? While there has been research on both general and ESL teachers’ lesson planning processes, there are only a few data-based studies of the lesson plans themselves that ask questions about what the tendencies of ESL teachers actually are when designing language learning objectives. The purpose of our research was to investigate the major patterns in CBI lesson plans among practicum teachers at the final stage of an MA TESOL program. We hope, from this research, to contribute to TESOL teacher preparation and the PreK–12 learning of ELLs by using the results of this analysis to identify and present the specific areas in need of greater attention when preparing novice teachers to develop language objectives in content-based instruction. Our research questions were: 1. What are major characteristics of language objectives embedded in content area lesson plans, as written by TESOL teacher candidates? 2. What are the challenges for TESOL teacher candidates in writing content and language objectives? Downloaded from ltr.sagepub.com at University of Central Florida Libraries on August 30, 2016 120 Language Teaching Research 18(1) II Review of the literature 1 Lesson planning as pedagogical reasoning Lesson planning reflects teachers’ prior experiences as learners and teachers, knowledge of their class of pupils, pedagogical content knowledge, and theories about learning, in a visualization act of an imagined future lesson (Ho, 1995; John, 1991, 1994; Warren, 2000). This entire process may result, of course, in a lesson that differs from the plan, yet it is the planning, and the plan itself, that exposes teachers’ beliefs, understandings, and orientations. Internal factors such as teachers’ beliefs about students’ abilities, interests, and participation, how the subject ought to be taught, and the role they wish to play in the classroom all influence the choices made in lesson planning (Bullough, 1992; Yildirim, 2003). Approaches to the act of planning have been shown to range from a linear, Tylerian style to more iterative processes. Differences have been noted in the manner in which teachers from different content areas, experience levels, or grades conduct their planning, in terms both of process and emphasis (Sardo-Brown, 1996). For instance, Kagan and Tippins (1992) found elementary teachers to focus more on the learning activity than the content goal. Additionally, they noted that elementary teachers wrote progressively briefer and less detailed lesson plans over the course of a semester than secondary teachers, whose plans became more and more detailed. In contrast to experienced teachers, novices often derive their plans from scripted guides, textbooks, or pre-packaged curricula (Westerman, 1991) with a dominant concern for classroom management, and address planning on the daily or ‘survival’ level (Dunn & Shriner, 1999). A particular challenge for those involved in pre-service teacher lesson planning is the difficulty of synthesizing these internal and external factors and making choices about how to organize the lesson plan, with little classroom teaching experience to call upon (John, 2006; Mutton, Hagger, & Burn, 2011). Additionally, as teachers are much more likely to consider the appeal of their activities rather than base their planning around learning objectives (McCutcheon & Milner, 2002; Wiggins & McTighe, 2005), learning how to craft objectives is particularly challenging. 2 Teacher language awareness in instructional planning Lesson planning in the context of PreK–12 TESOL teacher preparation is unique in that candidates are asked to design instruction targeted to develop content-area understandings (mathematics, science, social studies, literature/English language arts), while simultaneously developing English language skills for the non-native speaker. One of the major challenges for English language teachers is that the medium of instruction is also the object of instruction. Therefore, the lesson itself comprises the lesson activities, instructions for carrying out those activities, and the language required to engage in those activities. (Liyanage & Bartlett, 2010, p. 1363) Attention to language instruction, especially academic language, within the content areas is understood to be the desired means to support ELLs, yet is also one of its most sophisticated pedagogical challenges (Met, 1991; Stoller, 2004). Downloaded from ltr.sagepub.com at University of Central Florida Libraries on August 30, 2016 Baecher et al. 121 In CBI, the ESL teacher is expected to be able not only to shelter content, through assessing the linguistic demands of content-area materials and providing necessary textual, structural, and discourse adaptations to make that material accessible to ELLs, but also to set language learning objectives. Many times, content and language goals, however, may seem competitive, rather than complementary, with ‘teachers coming to the conclusion that there is no time to teach language and content because each follows a parallel track’ (Bigelow, 2010, p. 37). Without careful pre-active planning for language instruction, ESL teachers tend to grant preference to content learning goals over language teaching (Mackey, Polio & McDonough, 2004; Short, 2002; Stoller & Grabe, 1997). In order to truly intertwine abilities – to shelter content and to teach language – teachers need a high degree of language awareness, known in the L2 cognition research literature as the construct of teacher language awareness (TLA) (Andrews, 2007). First, TLA encompasses knowledge about language in the form of a teacher’s grasp of language systems and structures (metalinguistic awareness), or their knowledge about language (KAL) (Williamson & Hardman, 1995), referred to by Shulman (1986) as content knowledge. ‘TLA incorporates a procedural as well as a declarative dimension, with knowledge of subject matter (i.e. the language systems knowledge base) at the core of the declarative dimension’ (Andrews, 2007, p. 31). In addition, TLA includes a level of empathy for and understanding of ELLs in order to select appropriate methods and strategies for teaching language (Andrews, 2003). This is akin to Shulman’s concept of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). Preservice teachers develop these domains of TLA by first developing their conceptual knowledge through their coursework, and then learning to apply this knowledge to their teaching through the practice teaching/practicum experience provided in the TESOL program of study, and are often assessed through lesson plans as well as classroom observations. Research on L2 teacher cognition has addressed the connection between teachers’ beliefs about language learning and their actual teaching. However, there is less research on the ways TLA begins to manifest itself in the lesson planning stage of ESL teachers. The research that has been conducted shows some indication that even without the extra work of attending to content learning in a language classroom, novice ESL teachers focus more on classroom management issues than language teaching objectives in their planning (Bailey, 1996; Nunan, 1992; Richards & Pennington, 1998; Woods, 1996). Adding to the cognitive challenge of calling upon TLA in the planning process, CBI teachers must also address subject matter content and PCK for teaching this content. Therefore, the CBI teacher must learn to utilize knowledge of language and knowledge of subject matter, alongside PCK for language and subject matter teaching. In TESOL preparation programs, these multiple competencies are developed throughout teacher candidates’ assignments and practicum teaching experiences. TESOL teacher educators’ research into the practices and beliefs of their candidates has noted teachers’ difficulty in making ‘overt connections between declarative and procedural knowledge, between KAL and the classroom’ (Popko, 2005, p. 402). In Popko’s (2005) case studies of TESOL candidates’ planning and teaching, teachers were unable to relate their instructional decisions to their language knowledge, drawing on prior personal experiences as students or as teachers rather than on their TESOL coursework. His recommendations included making more explicit connections to TLA, calling for better Downloaded from ltr.sagepub.com at University of Central Florida Libraries on August 30, 2016 122 Language Teaching Research 18(1) articulation between methodology and linguistics courses in MA TESOL programs, and directly guiding candidates to apply their KAL to their ESL teaching. 3 Planning for language in content-based language instruction Orientations toward planning for content and language instruction in a CBI classroom stem from diverse beliefs about form- versus meaning-focused instruction. For instance, teachers’ comfort level and belief system regarding grammar instruction will bear upon their pedagogical choices and decisions to develop their own grammar foci for lessons, from ‘abdicat[ing] grammar responsibilities to textbooks or materials supplied by others’ (Andrews, 2001, p. 85), to having more form-based instructional approaches. These in turn relate to contextual influences, such as whether the instruction takes place in a single period of language instruction or as part of a total immersion program, and if the target language is learned in a highly scripted grammatical model or a content-based environment. Teachers who are focused on the content learning of students may neglect to attend to language form, letting errors go uncorrected and placing their emphasis on meaning rather than accuracy, while teachers who are oriented towards teaching language may provide much in the way of feedback to error and attention to language instruction, but struggle to situate this language in rich content learning (Cammarata, 2009; Fisher & Frey, 2010; Long, 2007). As Lyster (2007) sums up, ‘content-based instruction that only alludes to language incidentally falls short of full-fledged integration, and decontextualized grammar instruction, by definition, precludes integration’ (p. 26). Lyster (2007), drawing primarily on research from Canadian French immersion classrooms, points out the need for a ‘counterbalanced’ approach. When teachers do not directly attend to language, language learners may not receive sufficient and extended language development necessary to achieve high levels of proficiency. He cautions that: much incidental attention to language is too brief and likely too perfunctory to convey sufficient information about certain grammatical subsystems and this, in those cases, can be considered neither systematic nor apt to make the most of content-based instruction as a means for teaching language. (p. 27) Teachers’ orientation towards form-focused instruction can be observed at the pre-active (lesson planning) stage, as Andrews (2001) states: TLA affects the teacher’s ability to identify the key features of the grammar area for learning and to make them salient within the prepared input. It also affects the teacher’s ability to specify the most appropriate learning objectives, and to select materials and tasks which are most likely to serve those objectives, ensuring that they are appropriate in terms of the learner’s age, previous learning and present stage of interlingual development, and that they serve the desired learning outcomes. (p. 41) 4 Challenges for teachers setting language and content objectives in CBI The ability to set clear student learning goals is widely appreciated as an important mental process for teachers to clarify their instructional plans (Marzano, Pickering & Pollock, 2001; Reeves, 2011). Underlying this is the belief that by formulating explicit objectives Downloaded from ltr.sagepub.com at University of Central Florida Libraries on August 30, 2016 Baecher et al. 123 for learning, teacher candidates are more likely to develop instructional strategies and practices that will lead their students to what they need them to learn. In addition, since public schools regularly mandate that teachers set out their learning objective(s) for their students in each class, the focus on teacher candidates’ abilities to do this for themselves fits squarely in line with what they will be expected to do in their future teaching. While the initial setting of objectives does not guarantee that teachers can apply in their instruction what they state are their intentions, nevertheless, objective setting is the starting point of this process. In CBI, setting both clear content and language objectives during the planning phase can be seen as one place where teachers must apply their explicit (declarative) TLA skills, and may be a means to ensure each receives focused attention during instruction (Hudson, Miller, & Butler, 2006; Short, Echevarria, & Richards-Tutor, 2011). The value of developing objectives is also supported by the findings of Echevarria, Short, and Powers (2006), who found that analysis of the language demands of the task, together with stated objectives for written and verbal language production, led to higher levels of achievement for ELLs. The nature of these language objectives has been the focus of investigation in a small number of studies, including Bigelow (2010), Bigelow and Ranney (2005), and Fisher and Frey (2010). Fisher and Frey (2010) studied practicing mainstream teachers who had received their certification in California, where all teachers complete state licensing requirements for teaching ELLs through coursework related to English language development and ESL methodologies. Hundreds of language objective statements drawn from more than 300 K–12 participants were organized into three categories: those that focused on vocabulary, language structure, and language function. Teachers who instructed single-subject areas were the most likely to focus on discipline-specific vocabulary as their language objective (60%), and this was the most prevalent language focus (50% overall) in their data, which they found ‘both understandable and problematic’ (p. 330). About 30% were language objectives focusing on structure, such as using past tense verbs, of which about 15% involved the use of sentence frames. The final category of objectives focused on language functions (20%), e.g. justification, persuasion, and description. They also found that many of the language objectives submitted for their study were actually activities rather than learning purpose statements, suggesting that teachers may be unsure how their activities lead to specific language learning outcomes. Bigelow (2010) and Bigelow and Ranney (2005) have enriched our understanding of the challenges for ESL teachers when confronted with the need to incorporate both content and language teaching goals within the already difficult job of lesson design. In her 2010 study, Bigelow investigated K–12 ESL teachers’ choices and reflections on those choices as they planned language objectives within their content-based lesson plans, across a variety of practicum teaching settings. She found that in their planning, teachers mainly targeted vocabulary and grammar (mostly past tense verbs) objectives, and in teaching the skills, speaking and writing appeared more frequently than listening and reading. Elementary teachers also had many more form-focused language objectives than did secondary teachers. In their 2005 study, Bigelow and Ranney found that regardless of where the teacher candidates began their planning (from the content or from the language goals), in the end the overall range of linguistic forms addressed across teachers’ lesson plans was quite Downloaded from ltr.sagepub.com at University of Central Florida Libraries on August 30, 2016 124 Language Teaching Research 18(1) limited, with most attending to verb forms. While at first, as expected, teacher candidates focused on general timing and pacing issues in their planning, as they progressed through the practicum and gained more experience, they began to notice that the balance between content and language teaching objectives constituted a crucial struggle for them. In particular, developing language demands from authentic content material and teaching language objectives other than vocabulary were cited as difficulties. This was true especially when the texts, materials, or cooperating teacher did not make the language teaching point explicit, or when they felt they did not have sufficient metalinguistic knowledge or knowledge of students’ language learning needs to identify language goals. Figuring out how to focus on form, while breaking away from the strictly deductive, grammatical approach through which they had been taught a foreign language was another struggle for teachers, yet they were better able to contextualize a concrete language objective in content than they were able to do the reverse. ‘In other words, beginning with content brought into play the classic struggle of CBI: The content often eclipses the language objectives of the lesson’ (Bigelow & Ranney, 2005, p. 195). III Method Building upon the findings from these three most relevant studies, we employed a qualitative analysis of content and language objectives designed by TESOL teacher candidates, which were then reviewed through descriptive statistics. At our institution of higher education, candidates from five sections (n = 75) of the Student Teaching/ Practicum course taken in Spring 2011 were invited to share four lesson plans submitted as part of routine classroom assignments. Each plan was actually utilized in the teacher candidate’s classroom, and in all cases candidates were observed teaching from these plans. These plans were examined qualitatively by the authors to draft and then to validate a typology of issues in language objective writing. Results were analysed to determine salient patterns of clear and problematic objectives among different subject areas, grade levels, and language foci. 1 Participants Participants for the study were students enrolled in the spring 2011 TESOL supervised teaching course in our Master’s program leading to PreK–12 New York state teaching certification in TESOL, located in New York City. Students consisted of ‘student teachers’ (pre-service) and ‘practicum teachers’ (in-service). All candidates in these courses were invited to participate; none were excluded based on performance in coursework or for any other reasons. Student teachers were teaching for a 15-week semester in an elementary or secondary classroom under the guidance of a cooperating teacher. Practicum teachers were full-time teachers working under alternative licensing internship agreements. Approximately 65% of participants were practicum and 35% were student teachers. This participant pool was used as we were best able to access the lesson plans and subsequent teaching observations from teacher candidates in our own institution. They also shared important characteristics. Practicum and student teachers take all of their Downloaded from ltr.sagepub.com at University of Central Florida Libraries on August 30, 2016 Baecher et al. 125 classes together and were mixed together in each section of practicum. They also are equally represented in prior years of teaching experience: about one to three years. Because of alternative licensing routes to certification in our state, many true novices are employed while still studying and become ‘in-service’ teachers, while many student teachers have previously taught overseas or in private language schools, but are labeled ‘pre-service’. We also have student teachers who have previous teaching certification in other subject areas, but in our state permanent teaching certification requires a masters degree, so they too are enrolled in our program. Finally, teacher candidates in the program are predominantly female (about 90%), ethnically diverse, most in their 20s or early 30s, and hold undergraduate degrees in various disciplines, but primarily in the humanities and social sciences. For these reasons, we included both student and practicum teachers in their final semester of supervised teaching as participants, but would point out that in this sample, the majority of the lesson plans were submitted from inservice teachers (65%). One limitation to the sample used is that we were not able to track the submitted lesson plans back to the individual; thus, we were not able to run inferential statistics linking their background variables to their plans. We wanted to assure participants anonymity as we are faculty in their TESOL program and as part of the Institutional Review Board process, protection and avoidance of coercion was paramount. 2 Materials Materials consisted of teacher candidates’ lesson plans from the programs’ practicum courses. Lesson plans from 43 candidates were used for the final analyses, with 15 other candidates’ plans utilized in the exploratory phases of the project. The lesson plans followed a standard template required by all instructors in the program. This template had been developed with input from faculty within TESOL and across content disciplines in the college as an instructional support, to be used through out the MA TESOL program from initial lesson plan exercises to subsequent use in their practicum teaching. In length and complexity this lesson plan template was conceived of as a guide to develop candidates’ pedagogical reasoning while in their MA course. We used 15 plans initially in an exploratory phase of the study (Baecher & Farnsworth, 2011). For the validation of and final adjustments to the taxonomy, a total of 107 plans were analysed from 43 teacher candidates, of which 69 plans were for elementary and 38 for secondary grades. In terms of content area, 73 plans, or 68% of the total, were for English Language Arts (ELA) content, nine were for mathematics, seven for science, and 18 for social studies. Table 1 presents the number of plans by subject area and grade level. 3 Procedures Data analysis was conducted in two phases. First, in an exploratory phase, 15 lesson plans were examined and discussed in order to arrive at a taxonomy of issues and descriptors of clear lesson objectives. Second, in a validation phase, 107 plans were examined using the taxonomy to further test and refine the instrument and to analyse the frequency of various problematic issues in the plans. Downloaded from ltr.sagepub.com at University of Central Florida Libraries on August 30, 2016 126 Language Teaching Research 18(1) The first 15 plans were examined by all three authors in multiple meetings. The purpose of these meetings was, first, to agree upon what constituted clear and high quality content and language objectives. We agreed on definitions and chose model plans that exemplified our definitions. These definitions, along with example objectives, constituted our typology. Our definition of clear content area objectives was as follows: 1. The objective specifies the content area (e.g. science, social studies, ELA, math) understanding that students will achieve by the end of the lesson. 2. Lesson plans with focused content objectives have the following characteristics: (a) one or more specific conceptual, cognitive, or topical understandings that learners could arrive at in a period of instruction; (b) specific activities to either expose, introduce, and/or provide guided or freer practice to develop this understanding. Next we examined plans we determined to be problematic, in that they did not meet the definition above in some noteworthy respect. This was a qualitative judgment, driven by the three authors’ experiences and multiple consensus-building meetings held over the course of 8 months. We further examined the problematic plans and constructed a typology of common problem areas we saw within these plans. We created descriptors for each type of problem, with some problems common to both content and language objectives and some unique to language objectives. The descriptors included examples drawn from the lesson plans. The following categories were established to describe problematic content area objectives: • Vaguely/broadly worded: These objectives were unclear due to vagueness or overly broad descriptions of the understandings they described. For example, one content objective stated: ‘Students will use the scientific method.’ • Undigested standard: Some objectives merely quoted verbatim a portion of the state content area learning standards, which while useful do not in general describe understandings at the lesson level of achievement. For example, one ELA content objective stated, ‘Students will be able to read, write, listen, and speak for information and understanding, literary response and expression, critical analysis and evaluation, and social interaction.’ Table 1. Number of plans by grade and subject area. Subject Number of elementary lesson plans Percentage total Number of secondary lesson plans Percentage total Combined totals Combined percentages ELA 43 40 30 28 73 68 Mathematics 8 811 9 9 Science 7 700 7 7 Social Studies 11 10 7 6 18 16 Totals 69 65 38 35 107 100 Downloaded from ltr.sagepub.com at University of Central Florida Libraries on August 30, 2016 Baecher et al. 127 • Not feasible in a single period of instruction: Some objectives were clearly not feasible within a single period of instruction, which was at the core of our definition. For example, one objective stated, ‘Students will understand the themes present in the novel The Lovely Bones.’ • Describes an activity rather than a learning goal: The objectives described what students would do during the lesson instead of what they would learn. For example, one objective stated, ‘Students will create their own graphic organizer, after reading a short biography, about the early years of their inventors’ lives.’ The lesson plans were then examined to determine a definition for clear language objectives within the content lesson, namely: 1. The objective specifies the language knowledge, specific to the L2 learner, and the ability to use it that students will achieve by the end of the lesson. 2. Lesson plans with focused language objectives have the following characteristics: (a) one or more specific language functions, grammatical structures, microskills, learning strategies, or vocabulary that learners will learn about and be able to use in a period of instruction; (b) specific activities to either expose, introduce, and/or provide guided or freer practice to develop this understanding or skill. The following categories were established for problematic language objectives. The first four categories mirrored those for the content objectives: • Vaguely/broadly worded: These objectives were unclear due to vagueness or overly broad descriptions of the understandings they described. For example, one language objective stated: ‘Students will develop listening skills.’ • Undigested standard: Some objectives quoted verbatim a portion of the state ESL standards, which do not in general describe understandings at the lesson level of achievement, nor does this approach demonstrate pedagogical reasoning. For example, ‘Students will read, write, listen and speak for communication.’ This sentence is a descriptor from the New York State ESL standards. • Not feasible in a single period of instruction: Some objectives were clearly not feasible within a single unit of instruction. For example, one lesson had as its language objective, ‘Students will make and support inferences about information and ideas with reference to features in oral and written text. Such features include vocabulary, format, facts, sequence, register, and relevance of details.’ • Describes an activity rather than a learning goal: The objectives described what students would do during the lesson instead of what they would learn.