A Preliminary Study on Teacher’s Voices: Their Problems in ELT and Content-Based Instruction (CBI)

Instructional approaches are essential tools for the learning process. The academic community must confirm that learning models fulfil their purpose of establishing effective teaching-learning processes. The instructional model is one of the main means used in the process of language teaching instruction. It makes the learning experience more meaningful for students (Dewey, 1997). The existence of the instructional model in the teaching process determines the quality of the teaching and learning. Through instructional models applied by the teacher, the students can acquire English abilities, not only to communicate, but also to use as a tool to comprehend the subject matter in school and in college. The instructional model needs to be presented to the students through a valuable activity that will help the classroom learning process. It can also help the teacher in meeting the students’ needs in learning activities. It also improves the teacher’s performance in the classroom. Therefore, in teaching the students how to comprehend fully the content, students should be assisted through the use of good instructional models, a much wider knowledge, valuable study and thinking skills, enhanced critical thinking abilities, and the promotion of the students’ motivation and interest. Indeed, teaching and learning English in EFL contexts such as this particular context is a challenging task for both teachers and learners, since English as a subject is provided parallel with content subjects that use English as a medium of instruction (EMI). This causes an urgent demand for a high level of English proficiency for students. Therefore, not only are communicative skills desired, but also English academic skills are a must. As a result, a teaching approach integrating both content and language teaching and learning as a content-based instruction (CBI) approach was selected to improve the students’ integrated skills in the secondary level classroom. Nadera (2015) expressed that teaching and learning English as a Second or Foreign Language has not been easy either for teachers or learners. Teachers face problems in the teaching process and learners also face difficulties in the learning process, so it is difficult to achieve communicative competence. Many factors cause these problems; some of them deal with the students’ motivation and others the instructional