English Classes and UNESCO Associated School

As one of associated schools of UNESCO, S Senior High School is supposed to conduct pilot projects on four main themes such as: 1. World concerns and the role of the United Nations system; 2. Human rights, democracy and tolerance; 3. lntercultural learning; and 4. Environmental concern.
English classes can make a contribution to one or more of the four main themes. For example, English Reading classes can enhance students’ understanding what world concerns and environment concern we have in the world today. I believe that the method called Content-Based Instruction is the most effective way to make the contribution.
Each text has its contents, and belongs to a wider or more universal context. Understanding the text or its contents has been said to require both bottom-up reading and top-down reading. The latter reading implies that the knowledge on the context the text belongs to is important to understand the text itself. The context each text belongs to has been called as a theme. Having more knowledge on more themes has been believed to help top-down reading. The truth it may be, but learners need certain know-how to connect the knowledge of certain theme to the understanding of the contexts of a text which belongs to the theme.
Talking about content-based English classes reminds us that many English classes are still based on grammars and idioms. The knowledge on grammars and idioms is certainly one of the best tools to do bottom-up reading. Here, again, learners need certain know-how to connect the knowledge of certain grammars and idioms to the understanding of the contents of a text which contains them.
How can learners connect contents with a theme? How can they connect contents with grammars and idioms? How can we teachers design our teaching procedures to help them develop such abilities? Employing Content-Based Instruction does not necessarily means that we don't have to research and develop our teaching techniques and procedures any more. Rather, this is the start of our R&D.