Understanding Instructor's Challenges of Content Based Instruction : For Pre-service Teachers in Early Childhood Education

Abstract

This study aimed at exploring how an instructor constructs meanings through content-based instruction (CBI) offered to pre-service teachers majoring in early childhood education. The course, early childhood mathematics education, was conducted during the spring semester i n 2011. This study adopted a narrative inquiry, and data were collected through observation s, interviews, and work samples. This study found that during the whole process from the preparation phase to the end-of-program evaluation, the instructor captured diverse challeng ing moments. During the preparation phase, she needed to have careful orchestration in des igning lessons in order to overcome her feeling of pressure as a non-native speaker of Engli sh and design the integration of contents and English language learning to be truly powerfu l. In the phase of implementation, the lack of student motivation and building a good rappo rt between the instructor and the students were certainly challenges. The result of the stude nt evaluations weakened her desire to implement CBI. The instructor incorporated diverse i nstructional strategies to overcome the obstacles. The instructor's experiences in this study w ill positively shape future educators' thinking and learning about meaningful and appropriat e academic English instruction for content-area teaching of college students who were majori ng in early childhood education.