Promoting secondary school EFL learners’ strategic behaviour in text-based history lessons

Abstract

Through the years, changing trends in teaching English as a foreign language have put emphasis on different aspects of language instruction. Recent advances in applied linguistics have given more support to the need and value of incorporating a content learning component into language teaching. Such an approach to language teaching, has been referred to as Content-Based Instruction (CBI), and it has been generally perceived as a means of developing linguistic competence with the aid of subject matter content. Central to this concept is a belief in a naturally co-occurring language and content interrelationship. Consequently, the core constituent of a CBI lesson is the content matter that serves as a foundation for both learning the language and constructing knowledge within a particular domain. The choice of the subject that would serve the purpose should be carefully decided on by the instructor.