Justification of a Multidisciplinary Approach to Teaching Language in Botswana Junior Secondary Schools

Abstract

It is often the case that teachers grapple with approaches to classroom instruction at all levels of education. Generally, educators and students are used to the delivery of instruction through the subject or the disciplinary approach. Teachers and researchers are today arguing for the use of more than one discipline to teach or clarify a concept or an issue by bringing forth the relationship and the contribution of various disciplines for a better understanding of the topic, theme or the content under study. This paper attempts to clarify the concepts of the disciplinary, interdisciplinary and the multidisciplinary/integrated approaches to instructional delivery. It also builds a rationale for the use of the interdisciplinary and the multidisciplinary approaches to instruction in Botswana schools.  Finally, the paper provides a brief illustration of the teaching of a concept with the use of the multidisciplinary approaches with the attendant implications for pedagogy. 

Key Words: Rationale, Subject, Interdisciplinary, Multidisciplinary, Integration, Curriculum, Language.