Do they want the same thing?\" Leaner Perspectives on Two Content-Based Course Designs in the Context of English as a Foreign Language.

Abstract

The notion of content-based instruction (CBI) has been widely applied to English as a secondlanguage (ESL) classrooms with satisfactory learning outcomes in the last two decades.Although it has been intensively explored in the field of applied linguistics the empiricalresearch provides only indirect implications for CBI curriculum development (Stoller 2004). Bydefinition CBI has a dual commitment to both language- and content-learning objectives.Therefore most courses offered at the tertiary level in Taiwan either in English departments orwith English instruction are content-based in nature because content knowledge and languageproficiency are highly required elements in such an academic setting. To add to current CBIliterature perspectives on English as a foreign language (EFL) this research presented twomodels of content-based courses one content-driven and the other language-driven with a questionnaire to elicit English majors’ opinions on the two course designs. The results showed that they preferred the language-driven course and that they aspired for more language-skillstraining. It is therefore argued that there are differences in student beliefs concerning their needsand expectations between the EFL and ESL settings.