1.1 Background of the study
With the rapid development in modern science and technology, people are encouraged to masterabundant information in the era of knowledge explosion. English, as a global and international language, isbecoming more and more useful and important for accessing to subject matters all over the world.Obviously, English has impacted human life in various aspects, so it can be conceived that a combinationof both linguistic knowledge and subject or cultural content in college English learning is possible.Therefore, many scholars attempt to find an effective and efficient approach to language teaching.Widdowson (1978) firstly put forward Content Based Instruction (CBI) as an approach that integratinglanguage learning with subject matter. The approach revealed that language was used as a medium forsubject knowledge learning. Integration of language with subject matters is a good condition for foreignlanguage learning.All CBI models are students-centered, and pay attention to the experience in learning process,especially the development of autonomous learning and independent thinking ability with the backgroundof subject knowledge or cultural matters. While autonomous learning is a kind of personalized learning,which also emphasizes the dominant status of the learners’ self-regulated learning process. Bothautonomous learning and Content Based Instruction stress students on the center roles, and encouragestudents to study initiatively.
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1.2 Significance of the study
It has been acknowledged the necessity and importance of students’ autonomous learning and self-efficacy in college English class. Language teachers attempt to propose creative teaching approaches tosolve some problems appeared in current teaching situation. Content Based Instruction combines languagelearning and subject knowledge learning, which meets the demands of students with lower autonomouslearning ability and negative self-efficacy in learning English. Since CBI was recommended in China,researchers tried to apply it into English language teaching, but only limited in a theoretical exploration andlack of enough practices. New syllabus for college English teaching made instructors confront withdifficulties they have never encountered which aims to cultivate compound English talents who haspossessed not only a consolidate English language basis but also a wide range of culture knowledge,fluently applying English to other regions like education, economy, technology and military.CBI may be an effective approach to help students achieve the goal of self-regulated and lifelonglearning. This teaching concept is aimed to improve learner’s language skills while they are learningcontent matters conveyed by the language. The language teaching approach integrates target language andsubject knowledge learning at the same time. Students not only improve their language proficiency, butalso master different subject matters. It is a new kind of teaching idea rather than a specific teachingmethod. However, the regular college English teachers still focus on linguistic points while few of themteach practical ability through content based instruction. CBI approach aims to intrigue students’autonomous English learning through content learning, and promote students’ Self-efficacy of Englishlearning by employing the appropri，英语论文题目，英语论文
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