The Implementation of Content-Based Language Teaching in a Master’s Level Foreign Language Program

This paper discusses the educational value of using Content-Based Language Teaching (CBLT) method in Master’s level foreign language education. The theoretical foundations of using this method lies at the intersection of Vygotsky’s Socio-Cultural theory of learning, Krashen’s Comprehensible Input hypothesis, and Swain’s Comprehensible Output hypothesis. The author argues that CBLT provides an optimal framework for the teaching of foreign languages at higher levels of foreign language proficiency, specifically at the Master’s level of Linguistics departments and shares his extensive experience of utilizing this method in such educational context. The benefits of using CBLT are predicated by its two main principles: people learn a foreign language more successfully when language is used as a means of acquiring new information and not as an end in itself; people learn a language more successfully when the learning content is perceived as relevant, interesting, and useful. In the paper, the author shares a comprehensive list of topics he has been using in CBLT-based Master’s level classrooms, which represent various and numerous content areas, such as literature, biology, anthropology, physics, history, paleontology, linguistics, arts, psychology, geography, and others.