How far could we apply Content-Based Instruction?

I. Sumiyoshi High School: natural Content-Based Instructionists
AS I have argued in “How do we read?”, “Super Science High School English Classes and Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL)”, and “Computer-Assisted Language Learning Class and its Content-Based 'Textbook'”, some types of English classes in Sumiyoshi High School have naturally been based on the language teaching/learning method, Content-Based Instruction.


II. Further Intentional Application of Content-Based Instruction
1. Content-Based Writing
We have presentation-oriented English classes already: Writing, English Expression, and the like. The question is whether they are content-based. To have content-based presentation-oriented English classes, we are to conjugate these 2 learning processes.
Sumiyoshi High School' International Course has Paragraph Writing classes in the first grade and English Expression classes in the second grade. They are basically writing classes.
Many writing classes in high schools have been based on either grammar or functions, and have aimed at sentence writing. For example, in Polestar, a writing textbook for Science Course students, Part I (from Lesson1 to 8) is based partly on functions and partly on grammar, and Part II (from Lesson 9 to 15) is based on situations, and only Part III (from Lesson 16 to 20) aims to introduce how to write a paragraph.
PW and EE in Sumiyoshi High School are essentially based on contents. The textbook in PW class, Ready to Write, states in its Introduction: “By providing them with a wide variety of stimulating writing topics and exercises that go beyond sentence manipulation drills, students are encouraged to bring their own ideas and talent to the writing process.” (p. iv)
The textbook is used even in the first quarter of EE class. In the latter 3 quarters of the class, we use another textbook, Discover Debate. Its “To the Teacher:” says: “It is about how we think about, how we talk about, and what we want to do about global issues, human rights, or the environment.” Although the textbook is basically focused on the debate skills, learning to debate itself is a content-based learning process.
The development of PW and EE as Content-based writing classes depends both on deliberate choice of contents, and on contemplated arrangement of them.

2. Content-Based Instruction and Cramming
Theme-Based Language Instruction “refers to a language course in which the syllabus is organized around themes or topics such as 'pollution' or 'women's rights.'”(Richard et al., p.216) As such, this sub-method can be naturally associated with cramming for entrance examinations. All we have to do is to choose right cramming materials such as “Eibun Dokkai Izen” (Furufuji Akira, Kenkyu-sha) and “Lingua-Metallica” (Nakazawa Yukio, Z-KAI).

3. Content-Based Instruction and Study Tour Abroad
Sumiyoshi High School is organizing three types of study tours abroad: Study Tour Abroad to Taiwan (STA Taiwan), Study Tour Abroad to Korea) (STA Korea), and Study Tour Abroad to Australia (SAT Australia). The first is obligatory, and the other two are voluntary.

4. Cooperation with other Studying Subjects
In Adjunct Language Instruction, one of the contemporary models of Content-Based Instruction, “students are enrolled in two linked courses, one a content course and one a language course, with both courses sharing the same content base and complementing each other in terms of mutually coordinated assignments. Such a program requires a large amount of coordination to ensure that the two curricula are interlocking and this may require modifications to both courses.” (Richard et al., p.216/217)
As Richard et al. suggests, we can coordinate all the subjects Sumiyoshi Senior High School has so as to have the Adjunct-Language-Instruction-like effects. We might be able to start from making a Japanese-English academic term list.


III. The Application of Content-Based Instruction and the Cooperation with R&D Institutions
1. Demanding Students & Their Demanding Parents
Teachers are to perform various types of educational tasks as well as a teaching task in their own subject. The tasks are carried out with appropriate techniques, which can be derived from the competency the laborers have.
This quarter a century has witnessed the progress of the commodification of education, and the desires and requires (D&R) by students and their parents have toned up. Today's school systems including high schools are not meeting their individualized and toned up D&R. The frustration from the unmet D&R makes some parents even so called “monster parents.”
In the field of English education, needs to the practical English language usage have witnessed significant rise even among high school students and their parents in this quarter a century. Their needs to the English ability for college entrance examinations have been deep-rooted, and now are making its major comeback. School systems are supposed to provide diversified and sophisticated educational services to meet the D&R.
The market principle, meanwhile, has been introduced into school systems. Because of the educational reform in recent years, the education has come to be regarded as a service. An inter-school competition has been promoted. As the result, the influence of the individualization has overwhelmed school cultures. That has effected the way of the labor process and the development process of an individual teacher as well as the way of cooperation and the division of labor in school systems.
The sophistication and diversification of educational services needs the further development of teaching techniques. “The reform” has externalized the cost of their development significantly, and so, under the market principle, teachers are supposed to develop their teaching techniques on their own.

2. The Influence on the Life Course of School Laborers
The desires and requires (D&R) of students and their parents have been individualized and leveled up, and that has caused the educational services provided at school to come to be diversified and sophisticated. That, of course, has forced an individual teacher to develop her/his own workforce to meet the diversification and sophistication. On the other hand, the suppliance of such diversified and sophisticated educational services needs systematic organization of educational labor process. Either the development of individual teacher or the diversification and sophistication of the suppliance of educational services at school are not automatically achieved by thoroughly pursuing one of the two. A solution to one problem would not automatically lead to a solution to the other. A teacher must meet both kinds of the needs at the same time. It is not easy to achieve these two goals at the same time.
The current educational reform seems to have an idea that if teachers are given a proper motivation they will try to improve their teaching techniques in competition with others. The idea surely belongs to the main stream of the society. Isn't it, however, too naive to believe that the diversification and sophistication of teaching techniques can be accomplished only by the competition?
If the considerable amount of working hour were invested, it might be possible for each teacher to voluntarily develop their teaching competencies, from which new teaching techniques might be derived. All the teachers have received the higher education, and, in that sense, they developed certain research ability in a certain academic area. They might be able to do some research on educational problems and develop some teaching techniques. In other words, they might do some education-related research and development on their own. However, the individualization and level-up of the D&R of students and their parents has made teachers ever busier. In addition, the students and their parents monitor more severely and intensely how school laborers carry out their jobs and how their working hour is spent. That makes the teachers hard to allocate their working hour to the development of their teaching competency. Their working hour is thought to be spent directly to supply educational services. The tendency, along with the longer working hour caused by the individualized and leveled up D&R, makes it next to impossible for teachers to develop their educational competency by themselves during their work day fully enough to meet the D&R. How can we solve the contradiction?

3. The Resolution: Cooperation with Research and Development Institutions
An individual teacher should diversify and sophisticate their teaching techniques with their research and development (R&D) competencies. The R&D competencies should be developed and maintained in the long term.
A teacher, having studied in a higher education system, can develop their R&D competencies independently only by productively consuming spin-offs from research and development institutions, such as universities and research laboratories. Consuming the spin-offs can reduce the cost of their OJT radically. If they were to consume training services which are end products, the cost could be sky high or sky rocketing. Their ability to conduct basic R&D enables them to absorb the spin-offs in the form of a semi-finished product. Such production-consumption relation in educational OJT can decrease the relating expenditure, no matter it is provided either publicly or privately.
Teachers productively consume concerned spin-offs from universities and research laboratories, and they can maintain and develop their own competency. They, in turn, trickle-down what they have developed through their productive consumption of spin-offs to wider teachers at school. This kind of “trickle-down” networks would enable school systems to provide diversified and sophisticated educational services.

Refferences
Asano Kyozo, 'Content-Based Instruction no shiten kara kangaeru borantia katsudo mokuteki no tanki kaigai eigo kenshu', “Nanzan Junior College Bulletin” No. 34, p109-122, 2008, http://www.nanzan-tandai.ac.jp/kiyou/No.34/07-Asano-Keizo.pdf
Jack c. Richard and Theodore s. Rodgers, "Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching" (2nd ed.), 2001, Cambridge University Press, New York