Pedagogical+Challenges+of+LC+Integration

"Content teaching is not necessarily good second language teaching due to its lack of attention to functionally appropriate form-meaning connections." (Huang & Morgan, 2000, p. 235 - see also Swain, 1988 for a specific study)

Teachers have to gain an understanding of the relationships between content and language and how to integrate L & C in their instruction. "Teachers' more sophisticated views were characterized by the following components: (a) an emergent recognition of the relationship between science and language, (b) use of instructional strategies such as writing and questioning to link science and language, and (c) reflection on practice and motivation to enhance the understanding of science-language integration. This progression was observed in both novice and experienced teachers. Their years of experience in teaching had little relationship to teachers' conception level of science-language integration." (Stoddart, et al, 2002, p. 683)

Earlier CBI literature mostly describes ways to make content comprehensible, but doesn't give much understanding of how teachers can actually focus on language. (Schleppegrell, 2004, p. 69)

"Work with the textbook is crucially important in learning history, and McKeown et al. (1992) have shown that just background knowledge is not enough to make sense of textbooks. nor can history textbooks be translated into everyday language, because if they are translated into more concrete language to make them easier, they can become reduced to insignificant facts or content that does not encompass the complexity of grade-level subject matter. Instead, students need to learn the differences between everyday language and academic language (Bernstein, 1990). In doing so, students are also developing a more general reflective capacity that may be applicable to other subject areas as well." (Schleppegrell, 2004, p. 89)

"Learning history requires much more than just reading the textbook. Students need to engage in a variety of activities, using both everyday language and academic language, if they are to gain control of the discourse through which history is told. Grammatical analysis is not sufficient for students to learn to use these discourse features in their own writing or to master the disciplinary content." (Schleppegrell, 2004, p. 89)

"Students at middle school and above are interested in engaging with complex concepts and subject matter; we need to help them develop the linguistic repertoire that will make reading and writing this subject matter possible." (Schleppegrell, 2004, p. 90)

"Advanced literacy development for learners requires that teachers understand the specific textual demands of a discipline so that they can help students gain control of the language through which the discipline presents information and argues about interpretations." (Schleppegrell, 2004, p.88)