Adjunct Model of Language Instruction for collaboration between language and content with the onset of English medium instruction

Abstract

Knowledge of English is indispensable to present day undergraduates since English has become the medium of instruction in many disciplines. The undergraduates need support to cope with the requirements of English medium instruction. It has been frequently observed that though there are many English language proficiency courses available for the undergraduates most of the time they are not up to the expectations of the learner community. Smoke (1988, as cited in Kinsey, 2008) says that “ESL6 students … did not feel that their ESL classes had adequately prepared them for their academic content courses” (pp 5-6). According to research one of the main reasons for this dissatisfaction is the “artificial separation between language instruction and subject matter classes which exists in most educational settings” (Brinton, Snow& Wesche,1989 : 2). This study was conducted with the objective of bridging the gap between the language classroom and the content classroom through collaboration among English teachers and subject teachers. This collaboration was established through Adjunct Model of Language Instruction, a prototype form of Content Based Language Instruction. This study was conducted in relation to the first year under graduates in the Faculty of Management and Finance, University of Colombo. A group of first year undergraduates with the lowest proficiency level of English was selected as the sample of the study. During this study questionnaires were administered among students, English teachers, and subject teachers to get their opinion on how to finetune the proficiency courses in English. An achievement test was administered to judge what students had achieved at the end of the course. A course evaluation was also conducted through questionnaires. The findings revealed that multi-disciplinary collaboration benefits the learner community and the facilitators.