A pedagogical framework for content-language integrated teaching at middle school level

This paper reports a case study of how a language-trained teacher followed three principles to integrate content-language teaching to help a Grade 7 class in China to learn both content and language within a content-based language teaching curriculum. The three principles are 1) plan from the content; 2) integrate content and language teaching; and 3) teach the language of the content explicitly (Kong & Hoare, 2010). The teaching can be considered a success as evidenced in the students’ oral and written test results. The study analyzed a unit of learning using data from the lesson transcript, the interview with the teacher, the written and oral test results of the students, and the questionnaire responses from some students. The findings suggest refinements to the three principles leading to a twotier pedagogical framework at the levels of planning and teaching. Possible pedagogical practices are suggested within each level that can support the use of the framework in implementing content-language integrated teaching at the middle school level. Copyright © 2015 Asian Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language.