What is CBTEFL?

PROPOSING A NEW ACRONYM TO DESCRIBE THE KIND OF CONTENT-BASED APPROACH USED BY SYSTEMIC IN BRAZIL

Using content – school subjects - to teach a foreign language or using a foreign language to teach content? At first glance, the order of the factors may seem not to influence the meaning of the phrase. Actually it might indicate the main aim of a content-based program. Depending on the institution that adopts the program, the main aim is one and the other is an additional gain. In a primary school where science, for example, is only taught in English by the content teacher, it seems reasonable to say that the main aim of the program is the content. The language is an additional gain.

In the case of Systemic, content is used to teach English as a Foreign Language. Thus, because the main aim of the program is having students learn the language; the content is the additional gain since it reinforces what children learn in their L1 classes at school. Moreover, it is the use of content that makes the learning of English more effective, purposeful, and meaningful. Despite the number of acronyms to describe a content-based approach, CBI, CLIL, EMI, to name a few, we feel the need to propose a new one which we believe would describe the particular way we integrate content and language:

CBTEFL – Content-Based Teaching of English as a Foreign Language.