The CAPA Model

The CAPA Model

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C: contextualization

A: awareness

P: practice

A: autonomy

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It's a challenge integrating content and language in content-based or meaning-oriented classes and activities. Integrating a focus on language in contextualized ways requires systematic and consistent planning by teachers. It may be a challenge because, according to their school background and professional development, these teachers believe that when they focus on content, the language will emerge incidentally. The CAPA model is here to help teachers overcome this challenge by designing  and planning classes that consist of these four phases: contextualization, awareness, practice and autonomy.

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The CAPA model is flexible.

It can have one task or activity per phase or more.

It is not a rigid recipe or formula, but it is a guide that integrates language and content.

The phases are inter-related and overlap.

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Both content and language goals must be clearly set.

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• Contextualization: establishes a meaningful context related to context

• Awareness: encourages students to notice and to reflect on the target features in a way that helps them to discover the patterns governing the way they are used.

• Practice: provides opportunities for students to use the target features in a meaningful way, contextualized and receive feedback.

• Autonomy: enable students to use the features in more open-ended and autonomous ways

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Contextualization

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• it's an essential phase

• it introduces the subject-matter topic

• students at this phase need to be focused on the subject-matter content

• students having a good idea of the content will free up students' cognitive resources during the next phase when the focus is on specific language features

• students need to be exposed to many different examples of the target features in context (language-rich environment, quality and comprehensible input, input for acquisition)

• input for acquisition is "language that learners hear or see in a communicative context that they process for meaning" (VanPatten, 2017)

• input that students receive during this first phase, contextualization, is essential - "it provides the crucial evidence from which learners can form linguistic hypothesis." (Gass & Mackey, 2007)

• students do not need to know how the structures of the language work to engage with the content