Content-Based Instruction and Grammar (1st draft)

I have made 3 types of lists, which relate English authorized textbooks with Grammar & Sentence Structures.
Understanding Grammar (= syntax in the terminology of linguistics) needs a competency to process abstract symbols. Every human being is good at some things and bad at others. We have varieties of students, and some of them are, as the matter of course, not good at handling abstract knowledge. Having the competency or not is a matter of nature, and it is we teachers who are to show its solution.
Handling abstract or academic knowledge needs a corresponding schema. Let me describe the schema something like a map in our mind. Those students are not good at drawing the mental map (=cognitive map) of academic knowledge, and their knowledge tends either to be that of sticking to pieces of concrete, yet incidental, realities or to be isolated pieces of abstract one. They should be provided with opportunities to weave the pieces into a web of knowledge, to make all the dots they have into a map. The chances are, of course, educational school activities, including classes themselves.
It is clear that a mental map is drawn with the activities of brain cells, but it is yet to be seen how it relates with the neural networks of the cells. Here I would like to propose a procedure of the solution on the hypothesis that showing an explicit mapping of English-related knowledge can help their brain draw an English-related mental map.
In the traditional idea of English education, students are supposed to need the knowledge of Grammar, words, idioms, and sentence structures to generate English language and to pass entrance examinations. If you are good at abstract understanding, you can implicitly fabricate those types of knowledge into one web of English language competency. If not, you should be shown how each items are related each other, and the knowledge itself can facilitate the acquisition of each items.
To help students draw the Mental Map of English Usage (MMEU), English classes and materials provided should explicitly and clearly form one network. Considering the English classes in Sumiyoshi Senior High School have been naturally organized around the idea of Content-Based Instruction, the best way to provide whole parts of them in an explicit form of networks might be to organize them under the principle of CBI.
The lists I have made help Grammar and Sentence Structures networked around the contents of authorized textbooks.
Idiom could be networked around the contents, as idiom cards to remember them are made from the textbooks instead of having students buy a ready-made phrase book off the shelf. The form of “cards” is preferable, because idioms should be remembered not only in the relation with contents or, worse, in alphabetical order, but also by categorizing them from the view point of the certain key word of their constitutive parts to have students ready for entrance examinations. Accordingly, idioms should be able to be regrouped under different categories from time to time. That is why card type is preferable.
Here I provide prototype of mapping only for the first and second graders, in the hope that the students, once learned, will form their favorite type of networks of knowledge when they become the third graders.

References:
Gillian Cohen, ‘schemata’, "The Blackwell Dictionary of Cognitive Psychology", 1990, Blackwell Publishers, Oxford, UK
Levia DelQuadro, "Content Based Grammar Instruction in the Basic Writing Classroom", Community College of Southern Nevada
Peter Morris, ‘cognitive maps’, "The Blackwell Dictionary of Cognitive Psychology", 1990, Blackwell Publishers, Oxford, UK
Eiji Leland Suenaga, 'A Content-Based Approach to the Learning of Vocabulary Through Composition and Schematic Mapping', "Studies in Culture" No.1, November 1993, Hokkai-Gakuen University


Eiji Leland Suenaga, 'A Content-Based Approach to the Learning of Vocabulary Through Composition and Schematic Mapping', "STudies in Culture" No.1, November 1993, Hkkai-Gakuen University:
"by encouraging the students to personalize the theme" (p.133)
"It is hoped that this personalization of thematic unit will heighten the students' involvement with the content and, thus, increase their motivation." (p.133)
"One way that writers can directly access vocabulary schemata appropriate to a theme is through schematic mapping, a simple technique that enables the user to graphically encode information in an organized manner" (p.136)
"Through this technique, users learn to identify not only main ideas, subcategories, and supporting details but also associated vocabulary --- the same skill that is necessary when constructing coherent paragraphs and essays." (p.137)


Levia DelQuadro, "Content Based Grammar Instruction in the Basic Writing Classroom", Community College of Southern Nevada:
"It was not until I delved into the mysteries of teaching ESL that I realized that grammar had a subtle, yet vital, role to play."
"Content-based grammar instruction involves showing students how grammar works within texts. This can involve using either the student’s own papers or using published texts. What makes this very different from the old drill and practice ideology is that the student is never looking at grammar at only the sentence level. This type of instruction entails using at least paragraphs to contextualize how grammar works."