Content Based Lesson Plans inside the English Rural Classrooms

This piece of work gives account of a classroom research project done in a rural state institution in Colombia whose main purpose was to contextualize the foreign languages teaching and learning in line with the current curriculum regulations stated by the National Ministry of Education. Content-based instruction inside a rural English classroom was examined and informed. The results revealed that the content-based instruction approach was useful to integrate environmental issues with the grammar and the communicative uses of the language. Rural high school students get more motivated when they feel a stronger and real connection between the language they learn and their touching and closest reality they perceive. It was also found that applying these environmental issues in a rural scholar context caused awareness in students according to the use and importance the English as a foreign language can be imply in their social development highlighting the real relevance in their current lives. Conclusions highlight some perspectives and implications derived from the application of several lesson plans incorporating the crisis of the planet and its possible solutions as the core content.


The National Context and Educational Policies
Colombia is a Latin American country and Spanish is its mother tongue.Taking into account the impact of the globalization era, the National Ministry of Education has implemented the teaching of foreign languages as a compulsory and essential curriculum subject in all educational institutions (Law 115/1994).On the basis of equity, quality and quantity criteria, Colombian educational system is undergoing a period of change.Politicians, researchers and educators discuss how to address the future from a cultural, social and pedagogical point of view, as well as the impact of national policies on school practices conducted to prepare the new generations of educators.
The Ministry of Education (1999), affirms that education (rural or urban; public or private; distance or virtual) should overcome economic and political barriers emphasizing the cultural and current context for promoting respect, sustainable development, cultural diversity, awareness and personal values.In line with national and international agencies, development partners, government and non-government organizations such as the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations [FAO] and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization [UNESCO], the Colombian policies reiterate inter alia, the commitment to fully implement social changes aimed at diminishing the ranks of poverty, to protect nature, and to reduce underdevelopment fostering scientific competences that empowers future citizens to deal with the challenges of the competitive and diverse world (Delors, 1996;Maringe & Foskett, 2012).
Once the National Constitution enacted 25 years ago-also called Ecological Constitution or Green Constitution because of the emphasis on diversity and the protection of nature-was over, "every person has the right to enjoy a healthy environment" (Article 79).With full reverence for the National Chart, the educational goals were rethinking.Clearly mentioned by the Colombian Political Constitution is the awareness for the preservation, protection and improvement of the environment, the rational use of natural resources, disaster prevention within an ecological culture and the conservation of the cultural heritage of the nation.Thanks to the coordination between the Ministry of National Education and the Ministry of Environment, a Decree was enacted in 1994 for all levels of basic education.The Environmental Education Project (PRAE, hereafter) emerges as one of the most relevant initiative included in the Institutional Educational Project (IEP, hereafter) affecting the curriculum contents, methodologies and purposes.UNESCO (2005) warns about the effects of the economic crisis with the risk of widening the gap between developed and under development regions and countries.The planet deterioration, is a fact that governments have been facing in an active way putting up solutions from every concerning area of the nations (Valencia & Munévar, 2014).In order to attain a just equilibrium among the economic, social and learning needs of individuals, it is compulsory to stimulate harmony with nature.

The Crisis of the Planet
Unfortunately, at the beginning of the third millennium, also called the era of globalization, knowledge society and new technologies, competitiveness, networked, private capital, open markets, and individual choice have increased (Usma, 2009).Economic and educational policies emphasize its interest about such an important matter as the environment crisis is.Noticeable studies carried out by FAO and UNESCO (2003), Moreno (2010), Munévar (2014a), Valencia and Munévar (2015) among others, remark a critical comprehension of the real deterioration of the planet we live in, the planet's global warming, healthy risks, irrational exploitation of ecosystems (Munévar, 2014b), and a progressive depletion on quality of life.UNESCO (2005, p. 9) adds: "Developing adequate teaching contents is, thus, a challenge to take up immediately" because it is imperative to shape a sustainable world for present times and for generations to come.

Teacher Preparation Programs
In the context of the educative reform in force, teacher preparation programs offered by Colombian universities correspond to a seminal effort which is understood as an effective transformative action to be harmonized with the national policies.In line with the General Law of Education -Act 115 of 1994-the English Syllabus, the Curricular Guidelines for foreign languages, and the National Bilingual Program all of them attempt to improve students' low levels of proficiency, lack of clear institutional goals, the renovation of language teaching and learning methodologies, the lack of updated textbooks and other didactic materials (Usma, 2009).Besides, according to Ramírez (2008), traditionally, the English class is in the list of uninteresting, demanding, confusing and extremely stressful curriculum subjects.
Bearing in mind that the role of the teacher goes beyond to plan, implement and evaluate classes, preservice teachers are given a clear theoretical foundation of the different methods applicable in the classroom as one of the best ways to identify researchable problems for intervention.One of the most outstanding innovations surrounding teacher preparation programs at the Caldas University is the development of a research project supported for graduation along the teaching practicum during the last academic semester in different urban or rural educational institutions, called hosting schools.As for the teaching and learning of a foreign language, as it is the English one, communicative competence must ensure the relevance of meaningful learning through contextualized classes to be developed in the challenging circumstances that the academic communities face.

The Rural School Setting
There is a close and direct relation between education and rural development (FAO & UNESCO, 2003).Much has been written on rural areas which are defined as the understanding of their geographical, isolated and small population size with a lot of basic needs, difficult access to education services, far from the urban zones, uneven distribution of wealth, welfare, quality of life, and higher levels of poverty.
The hosting school that took part in this project is located in a rural outskirt of Manizales, just in the Coffee Growing Axis, also called the Colombian Coffee Region.Its closest context is based on coffee economy cultivation.This zone, plenty of mountains and hills, bordered by wonderful nature, ecological and cultural landscapes, is one of the most famous tourist destinations known in the country and even in the world.Due to its exceptional and differentiating traditional features, the Coffee Growing Axis was labelled "Coffee Cultural Landscape as Heritage of Humanity" by UNESCO in 2011.
The students from this rural zone show great expectations of learning in order to increase the opportunities that they count on to perform successfully in daily life.They think that what the school has taught them have to contribute with the region and country development.Nonetheless, the social stratum is categorized about 2 and 3. Most of the students' parents have a low economical level derived from different kinds of occupations such as farmers, factory employees, housewives and bricklayers.Others have a higher level of professional jobs as teachers, assistants and secretaries, among others.Some of the students are raised by their parents-father and mother-and they integrate a nuclear family but some others live with relatives such as their grandparents or uncles and a big amount of students live with a single mother.Most of the teachers hold a Bachelor of Arts degree; a smaller group holds educational Masters Degrees, and there are fewer groups of engineers, agronomists and economists.
The institutional dynamic is embodied through the Institutional Educational Project (IEP) which is carried out in short, medium and long terms.Besides, being concerted and participatory, this plan articulates actions, strategies and experiences through which coverage toward social groups, included rural communities, are amplified.The PEI's main goal is to build human and social values that lead its professional development.Education for peace, justice, democracy, tolerance, and the awareness on the environmental caring allow active citizens.
The pedagogical model proposed for this rural school is based on flexible theories focused on active learning that conceives pupils as the center of the learning process, in which they are the ones constructing their own knowledge from their daily experience and particular necessities.Furthermore, as this institution plays an overriding role in a rural zone, certain environmental projects are supported by the Caldas University, regional entities, companies, and civil organizations.One of them is the PRAE (Environmental School Project) and others are Rural University and the maintaining of some orchards by the most advanced students.

The Content-Based Instruction Approach
Explicit world literature review includes a synthesis of the so called Content-Based Instruction (CBI, hereafter) approach, its origins, the underlying principles and methodological strategies in language classroom.It is clear that integrating content and language during the teaching process is becoming an innovated and practical way widely used all over the world in which students have the capacity of reflecting about updated and meaningful academic topics.
Previous studies found during the literature review in Colombia and abroad, such as Ramírez (2008), Usma (2009), Fandiño (2013), McNulty and Usma (2005), Nunan (1997), Jones (2007) and Heidari-Shahreza ( 2014) analyze the real situation of foreign languages and recommend new methodologies.Among others, these studies privilege CBI based on authors such as Grabe and Stoller (1997), Haley and Austin (2004), Kaufman & Crandall (2005), and Stoller (2002) who offer a well-known concept of CBI which is not just centered on the language itself; on the other hand, target language is used to teach something in an interesting, contextualized, interactive, critical and meaningful way.Language and content can be combined to introduce the learning and teaching process in a careful and effective duty.These outstanding authors share the following reasons explaining why CBI works inside the classroom:

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Although this method takes the linguistic skills as a communicative tool, its main purpose is focused on the content.

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This language teaching method suggests an immersion on what is learned in other areas advocating contextualization of learning and activities.Integrating different academic subjects allows the design of flexible classes that can adapt contents and sequences from other curriculum themes.
• Beyond the morphological and syntactic structure of language, new content is delivered to the student through the target language.It could be only used for communicative purposes in which the grammar is unconsciously acquired.Both communicative and linguistic competencies (listening, speaking reading, and writing) are promoted in natural classroom activities.

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The activities carried out in a CBI class are neither artificial nor empty of meaning.Students' prior knowledge, previous experiences, real needs and expectations are taken into account facilitating the comprehension of new content.
• CBI shares similar meanings and principles with other successful methods or approaches oriented to develop a significant knowledge making learners the centre of the process, such as: cooperative learning, experiential learning, active learning, project work, problem solving, constructivism, learning based on experience, interactive and communication approach, zone of proximal development (ZPD), and so on.

Research Question
How can the Content-Based Instruction (CBI) approach be integrated with the foreign language teaching-learning process in a rural institution taking the planet crisis and its possible solutions as the core content?

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To incorporate the crisis of the planet and its possible solutions as the core content to learn a foreign language, following the patterns advised by the CBI approach.

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To explore the possible effects of CBI on foreign language teaching and learning process in a rural institution.
• -To design and evaluate CBLP as an innovated and practical way aimed at meaningful and contextualized English classes, establishing a stronger and real connection between the language and students' real environment.

Classroom Research Approach
This piece of work followed the principles and method of the classroom research approach (Kemmis & McTaggart, 1995;Elliot, 1991;Nunan, 1997;Cohen, Manion, & Morrison, 1994;Chamot, Barnhardt, & Dirstine, 1998;Wallace, 1998) because participants were aware of the teaching practice inside the classroom by taking into account the needs and factors that affect the daily, real problems experienced in schools settings.Consequently, pre-service English teachers became empowered to act sagaciously and judiciously in a mutable and complex real setting which is a rural school.
Classroom-based research, as well as its name implies, is a collaborative activity conducted by teachers looking for practical solutions in order to enhance understanding of everyday real problems, and also to improve the quality of academic achievements.Classroom research simply tries to deeply describe and understand what actually happens inside and outside a particular classroom (Allwright, 1991;Brown & Rodgers, 2006).There is a widespread vision, conviction, and expectation that it would generate a scientifically informed basis for educational practice (Weinert, 1997).That way, through contextualized teaching methodologies, such as CBI, the language subjects provide elements helping the educational community to face the local, national and global environmental care issues connected with the PEI.

Participants
This classroom research project was developed in a public institution located in a rural zone of Manizales-Colombia by a trainee teacher and her advisor of the Modern Languages Program of the Caldas University.The chosen groups included 9th, 10th and 11th graders, girls and boys.The average of students in these three groups is sixty-three, ages ranging between 15 and 18 years old and their social stratum is in general between middle and low.

Diagnostic Stage
The starting point was to observe the institutional context as well as the review of the PEI to get acquainted with the way teachers teach and students learn.One of the most relevant aspects found in the diagnostic stage was the difficulty in the structure of the English syllabus that makes students feel far away from the context forgetting the links between the students' reality with the environmental aspects, according to the Education Ministry guidelines.Academic achievements are also lower than it should be from the international parameters established by the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment (CEFR, 2014).The following concerns were complemented by students' comments during and after the classes: 1) lessons are always centered in transcription of repetitive grammar issues; 2) transcribing long lists of vocabulary from the textbook; 3) memorizing short groups of regular and irregular verbs in present and past tense to make sentences without any specific context; 4) almost all the content of the English program is directed to traditional linguistic goals which, do not deal with either learners environment or useful knowledge for them to get by real situations.
It was at this point where the environmental content was carefully chosen as the vehicle that leads to communicative purposes in a rural English classroom.Thus, "Saving the planet since rural English classrooms" arose from the awareness of making students conscious of the real value of the foreign language to communicate their ideas about meaningful contents, because of their rural institution conditions.

Action Stage
Some content based lesson plans (CBLP) were designed and developed aimed at enhancing the English program through the arrangement of activities about the school environment project (PRAE), in which students got up their critical thinking using the English grammar structures and communicative competences at the same time.It was possible to materialize the learning objectives, which were to involve the crisis of the planet as much as possible, following the patterns advised by the CBI approach.Activities related with topics such as: global warming, ecotourism, the three Rs (Recycle, Reuse, Reduce), tips to save water, among others, were a creative way to implement a contextualized curriculum in the English program.
The samples presented give an account of the CBLP and show the activities of students done in class.Task 2: Students answered some questions concerning the vocabulary taught.Some of them asked for the students' writing composition and others were about multiple selection and true or false.

Lesson
Task 3: Students wrote in every chart an example of reduce, reuse and recycle with their corresponding drawing.

Lesson Plan Number 5: Expressing Your Opinion
Communicative goal: To answer some questions asked by their partners about environmental problems and facts.
Linguistic goal: To recognize the different words used to express opinions.
Warm-up activity: The preservice teacher wrote on the board some words that are used to express the opinion and students guessed the topic.E.g. personally, in my opinion, in my experience, I consider, for me, I think, etc.

Development:
Task 1: Student chose an environmental problem and then made some questions about it to ask to their partners.
Task 2: Students designed a Vox-Pop.They asked their question to their partners and they answered them.Then they created a poster that contains all their partners' answers.

Lesson Plan Number 6: Saving the Water
Communicative goal: To talk about anthropic risks as bullying and the caring of water.
Linguistic goal: To recognize the different grammatical structures used in the text.
Warm-up activity: All the class socialized some concepts such as bullying as an anthropic risk, its prevention and causes.It was also discussed the importance of water and some tips to take care of it.
Development: Students read the Noti-Prae that is a monthly journal developed by the environmental committee of the institution that this time was designed by the English preservice teacher.Students looked up unknown vocabulary Practice: Students developed a word search included in the journal and then they found a hidden message related to the caring of water as an essential resource.Development: In the class students designed a poster with the quote they chose and made a drawing that represented the sentence.They also used time to prepare their speeches to present in the other classrooms of the institution.Student chose an environmental problem that interests them and designed a brochure explaining it and making some recommendations to avoid it.
Practice: Students went to the other classrooms and spread the message of taking care of the environment.They presented their sentence and the other students wrote them on their notebooks to remember them every time they see them.

Data Collection and Analysis
Observation, pedagogical diary, documents, chats, debates, interviews, notebooks, and workshops from classwork or extra assignments were the main instruments and techniques used to collect classroom research data.Both, advisor and the pre-service teacher went over qualitative data collected through the instruments and began to reflect on the most relevant aspects found.Following the process to generate categories, the researchers started to group the information by creating patterns and tendencies so that they could create the categories emerging from these data.At this stage of the project, they could establish specific intervention points to propose changes that could benefit their CBLP.Meaningful extracts from the instruments were selected and taken verbatim to illustrate the process students followed when developing the lesson plans.
English vocabulary and structures to define some words by their own through drawings, posters, videos, flashcards, images, realia, magazines, and graphic organizers among other didactic materials created by students themselves were also a relevant source of data.Language productions as well as the effectiveness of the CBLP were analyzed and verified at the end of each class.In the meantime, both the advisor and the head teacher observed the trainee's classes, describing in detail the process and including field notes, comments, perceptions and suggestions about strengths and weaknesses concerning the implementation of the CBI methodology.
Besides, illustrations, drawings, multimedia, realia, and photos, concerning the planet' crisis were also useful.Students could design varied and diverse materials and techniques, such as small-groups, discussions, debates, brainstorming, role plays and images with messages created by them through which colleges interacted face to face.At this point was when common terms like planet, cultivation, water sources, natural phenomena, vegetation, forests, harvest, water, extinction, garbage, trees, air, birds, erosion, diseases, and the three R (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) gave them clues to start interpreting contents which were directly related with their previous experiences.

Results
The implementation of CBLP concerning the project titled "saving the planet" reported significant findings on the acquisition of communicative competencies on the part of rural students since they used the functions of the language.
Rural high school students, advisors, trainee teachers and the head teacher in this study expressed strong concerns about the effect of CBI in the English classroom and their attitudes towards it.They usually felt good and proud when they could interpret at least one line of a text by themselves with accurate language.It was evident that this was the part of the project that students enjoyed the most, because they experienced the opportunity to participate in more creative and dynamic classes.Students felt very enthusiastic to know such an interesting but at the same time worrying issue about the crisis of the planet and its consequences on human life, animals and vegetation.It was a new way to know the place where they live in order to contribute with effective solutions and they wanted to learn more.
Students demonstrated so much to be engaged to a learning process by using the elements they know the best as the crisis of environment is and how they can contribute to solve it.
Students could relate learning with their social and cultural context by means of CB activities in order to deep, to enlarge, to enrich and to reinforce the new knowledge.They gave sense to the learning practices because they were able to connect concrete situations of their daily life inside and outside the classroom with their families and communities.
A significant improvement, volunteer participation and interest were also observed.Most of the students started working on and did their best to get a good grade.
As an additional gain, concerning language use, through the implementation of CB activities, students could share their own ideas, opinions, and productions in the foreign language for real communication connected to a contextualized background.
Self-awareness of the teacher trainee's role, and mastery of research procedures through CBLP was another main finding.It was noticeable the gradual growth of the pre-service teacher commitment because she defined herself as having motivation in how to change learning and teaching methodologies.She realized that classroom research is within her interests and capacities; the successful results encouraged her to improve her daily action as young teacher.She made big efforts to design CB lesson plans according to the schools' English Syllabus, making so treasured contributions to the curriculum guidelines and goals.
For achieving the expected integration between language and content, the teacher trainee was able to: -Be focused on incorporating content from students' daily life.The content being taught was adapted at the level of the rural learners and was related with their prior knowledge.
-Privilege topics and activities that the students should develop individually or in interaction with their partners arranging small working groups.
-Change the use of the language making it more accessible to students whenever possible, using appropriate syntactic structures and vocabulary level, better explanations and management of different kinds of questions and instructions.
-Monitor understanding and effective learning thanks to a good use of didactic materials.
-Design CB lesson plans considering the purpose for the activities which were focused on student's environment.In this way students reinforced what they already knew about their own regional context and explored further information about it.

Discussion
Under the light of the latest days, the days of outstanding reforms, innovations, scientific communities, cross-cultural studies, internationalization and global knowledge agendas (Maringe & Foskett, 2012), integrating English and contents is an extremely essential element of all teacher preparation programs.As a matter of fact, CBI and classroom research approaches are the most enriching contribution to the preparation of new language teachers since they need to get equipped for the complex challenges that the educational settings are full of.This is the best reference to consider CBI as a crucial component (approach) of an English program design for Colombian rural institutions.
Saving the planet was one of the most enjoyable and meaningful learning activities containing diverse topics which rural high school students easily feel identified with.Results confirm the theory that students are not empty vessels (Rodríguez, 2012); rather, they come to class with a full variety of personal, cultural, social and academic experiences that they are expecting to connect with the new knowledge.Rural high school students require clear aims to learn a language, related to their own previous knowledge, interests and context.Moreover, they have the possibility of proposing solutions from the classroom to problems the surrounding community is involved in.
Arguably, on the verge of Third Millennium, universities in the country face the educational challenges to contribute to regional development through teacher preparation programs.In this line of action, classroom research approach has called the attention among language teachers and educational theorists all over the world who are interested in immediate and practical solutions.
Considering its importance, the teaching-learning process of a foreign language plays a crucial role in the current rural development debate.In this commitment, some methodologies can be used into the classroom as the ones based on CBI to propitiate the acquisition of the language.This methodology became successful because the students understood the content concerning the crisis of the planet and were able to discuss it in a meaningful way.CBLP was focused on that purpose by extracting the meaning from certain content; in this specific case, the environmental content related to the crisis of the planet such as natural resources in danger of extinction, using a foreign language.
English lessons conducted through CBI around the environmental topics can play a decisive role on the school curriculum.It is indicated that applying these environmental issues in a rural scholar context cause awareness in students according to the use and importance the English language can be imply in their social development highlighting the real relevance in their current lives.The impact will be also noticed on the strategies to improve motivation and interest in the learning process and it has to deal with the way teachers introduce the English language topics to students what give account of an effective possibility to contextualize curriculum referring the rural education.

Conclusions
The parameters taken to develop a project aimed at planet crisis solution, and its introduction in foreign languages curriculum were clearly supported in the results which are to be useful in the context of the rural curriculum reform in force around the country.
After analyzing the results obtained, on the whole, it is concluded that one method called content-based instruction offers effective principles, aimed to bring the learners to the appropriation of a particular subject.The contribution of content-based instruction and classroom research inside the teacher preparation curriculum are stated.
The contextualization of the English learning process is a clear way that demonstrates how the new generation of teachers can design and develop curricular proposals that aid to problem solving in the rural educational communities.This specific project proved how the English language can be introduced through a real context to motivate and promote the students critical thinking from their own experience concerning interesting problems such as the crisis of the planet.This also showed that the content-based instruction methodology is a great tool to teach a variety of topics using the foreign language as the principal communicative feature.Therefore, each activity developed in the English classroom was regarded as a successful base of general knowledge and departure point of discussion not only for students but also for all the members of the rural educational community.
As for the students' learning process, it was noticeable an advance in the acquisition of the foreign language and also they seem to be more motivated through the integrated activities because they involved topics of their interest, so that they developed a successful performance in the subject and accomplished almost all the objectives proposed in the content lesson plans.In this way, their learning process becomes more meaningful because students usually compare and link their previous knowledge and real experiences with the activities applied in the English classroom.This type of classroom research contributes to the development of the awareness taking care of the environment and the importance it had in nowadays life.Thus, rural students not only learn grammatical topics and accomplish linguistic and communicative goals, they also acquire the conscience to conserve natural resources and take care of the planet as a rural institution that develops a contextualized comprehensive education that will remain for the future.
On the other hand, it is important for rural schools to recognize the value and the resources they have to develop their classes.The contextualization of a foreign language as English makes students to feel closer and useful during their learning and in that way their motivation arises to express their meaningful and changing ideas to the world.So that, it is important to change the mechanical methodology that most of the rural teachers carry out in their classes and start from the rich tools they have as a real educational community that aimed at acquiring not only academic knowledge but real transformations and proactive actions inside and outside the classroom.
Finally, this research project touched and changed the way English language is taught in a rural institution and it brought a different methodology to implement that contributes to the accomplishment of linguistic, communicative and critical purposes.It also renovates the activities teacher used to apply in the classroom and it gives account of a variety of contextualized tasks to develop according to the PEI.Therefore, CBI gains relevance because this approach provides institutions in charge of teacher education with several insights about how to integrate interesting environment issues with the teaching of English not only in rural institutions but in all the educational community that must be concerned with the caring of a planet in danger of extinction.Besides, the school wants to give the pupils an education for the regional development, aimed at the real conditions recovering the participation in communitarian projects which make them be critic and reflexive individuals, ale to make decisions that improve their environment for a better lifestyle.
Figure 1.Exercise about pollution presented by students in class 2.4.7 Lesson Plan Number 7: Spreading the Message Communicative goal: To express the message of taking care of the planet around the institution.Linguistic goal: To identify the quotation structure Warm-up activity: Students made groups and then looked for a quote about the environment.