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Some American and Canadian teachers use dual language bilingual education (DLBE) to teach content in two languages, which helps students develop bilingual knowledge and skills, fosters academic achievement and encourages social and cultural competencies.

This is one example of content-based instruction (CBI), where K-12 teachers simultaneously teach subject-area content and language.

Associate Professor Lisa Domke and doctoral student María Cerrato are both Spanish-English bilingual educators who are interested in how CBI is used in classrooms—not just in the U.S. and Canada, but in other countries.

They conducted a systematic review of 199 peer-reviewed journal articles published from 2012–2022 to answer two key questions: 1.) What do teachers understand about integrating content and language in instruction? and 2.) How do teachers integrate content and language in instruction?

"Simultaneously teaching language and content is difficult. Competencies and principles for content and language integrated learning (CLIL) and DBLE instruction just say to 'integrate,' but integration must be purposefully planned," Domke and Cerrato wrote.

"This planning and subsequent instruction is complex, regardless of CBI context. Researchers have called for more attention to content-language integration, especially how language is taught in content-area contexts."

Question 1: What teachers understand about CBI

Of the 199 articles included in this review, 85 addressed teachers' understanding of CBI and showed that teachers "somewhat understood how content and language relate or that they should integrate both," according to the authors.

For example, 24 studies indicated that teachers incorporating language instruction into their lessons predominantly covered vocabulary, rather than also including grammar, syntax and other elements of language. In 29 studies, teachers believed that CBI should focus primarily on content.

There are several challenges to ensuring educators integrate language and content into their instruction, according to several studies. These include limited time to develop CBI curriculum, the pressure to ensure students are prepared for standardized tests, teachers' language proficiency and guidance in creating lessons that effectively incorporate CBI.

Some articles also indicated specific ways to address teachers' mixed understanding of CBI. "Interventions tried to address the aforementioned issue through professional learning about CLIL/DLBE principles, since many teachers are hired without training in this pedagogy," Domke and Cerrato wrote.

"Other interventions provided new curricula or program models to support content-language integration, supported collaborations between content and language teachers or taught teachers strategies to integrate content and language. Many interventions presented positive results of teachers having and/or developing an understanding of the content-language relationship."

Question 2: How teachers integrate content, language in instruction

The authors identified 183 articles that tackled teachers' specific practices in integrating content and language into their instruction.

Most teachers used images, objects and other visuals as a key strategy for teaching content and language together. The next most popular strategy was a process called translanguaging, which encourages students to move between their native language and new language(s) to make sense of what they're learning in class.

As with the first research question, teachers in these 183 studies overwhelmingly focused on vocabulary instruction and often didn't engage in other linguistic practices, such as developing arguments using evidence or helping students build sentences.

"Some of the lack of targeted linguistic focus could be related to how 20 studies claimed that teachers instead focused on students making or understanding meaning rather than providing explicit language instruction," Domke and Cerrato wrote. "Relatedly, 32 studies had at least some teachers who prioritized content instruction over language instruction, thus not fully integrating language and content."

Recommendations

With these conclusions in mind, the authors recommend that researchers look at teacher preparation program faculty and coursework, which was an area few studies mentioned. They also suggest developing curriculum for teachers to use that supports content-based instruction and encouraging professional development for educators and school leaders.

"Studies indicated that teachers still need support in understanding how content and language relate, which requires ensuring adequate teacher (and administrator) preparation and professional learning for CBI contexts," Domke and Cerrato wrote. "It would help teachers focus on language within disciplinary literacy instruction beyond teaching vocabulary to help students look at syntax, discourse and specific linguistic forms."

The findings are in the journal Review of Educational Research.