Saturday 1:30 - 2:20 PM
Rose, Olympic ParkTel
Increasing the Chances for Language Use in EFL Classrooms

In foreign language education one of the biggest problems is the gap between language learning and language use. Even though students learn many language forms in the English classroom, they hardly ever have a chance to use that language. This decreases students' motivation to study foreign languages in EFL contexts. Omaggio, Oxford, and Goodman have shown how to reduce this gap through the use of content-based language learning in ESL contexts.

However, it is difficult to apply content-based language learning to EFL contexts because the language level of materials in other subject areas is usually much higher than the level of the students' proficiency. The presenter will describe how to begin to solve this
problem by describing and illlustrating how elementary school EFL teachers may integrate the language of other subject areas with the teaching of English. This provides greater chances
for language use inside the classroom as it gives students a chance to use knowledge learned in their other subjects in their learning of English.

In particular, the integration of the teaching of English and mathematics, science, social studies, music, and art will be illustrated. A handout with practical teaching materials will be distributed to participants.