Language Curriculum Design

John Macalister, I.S.P. Nation

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780429515606
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Now in its second edition, Language Curriculum Design describes the steps involved in the curriculum design process, elaborates and justifies these steps, and provides opportunities for practising and applying them. Crystal-clear and comprehensive yet concise, the steps are laid out at a general level so that they can be applied in a wide range of particular circumstances.

Updated throughout with cutting-edge research and theory, the second edition contains new examples on curriculum design and development and expanded attention on environment analysis, needs analysis, and programme evaluation. The process comes to life through plentiful examples of actual applications from the authors' experience and from published research. Each chapter also includes tasks that encourage readers to relate the steps to their own experience, and case studies and suggestions for further reading.

Combining sound research/theory with state-of-the-art practice, Language Curriculum Design is widely applicable for ESL/EFL language education courses around the world.

1 Language Curriculum Design

An Overview

The aim of this chapter is to provide a quick overview of parts of the curriculum design process and to present the model of the process.

Parts of the Curriculum Design Process

Curriculum design can be seen as a kind of writing activity and as such it can usefully be studied as a process. The typical sub-processes of the writing process (gathering ideas, ordering ideas, ideas to text, reviewing, editing) can be applied to curriculum design, but it makes it easier to draw on current curriculum design theory and practice if a different set of parts is used. The curriculum design model in Figure 1.1 consists of three outside circles and a subdivided inner circle. The outer circles (principles, environment, needs) involve practical and theoretical considerations that will have a major effect in guiding the actual process of course production. There is a wide range of factors to consider when designing a course. These include the learners’ present knowledge and lacks, the resources available including time, the skill of the teachers, the curriculum designer’s strengths and limitations, and principles of teaching and learning. If factors such as these are not considered then the course may be unsuited to the situation and learners for which it is used, and may be ineffective and inefficient as a means of encouraging learning. In the curriculum design process these factors are considered in three sub-­processes; environment analysis, needs analysis, and the application of principles. The result of environment analysis is a ranked list of factors and a consideration of the effects of these factors on the design. The ­result of needs analysis is a realistic list of language, ideas, or skill items, as a result of considering the present proficiency, future needs, and wants of the learners. The application of principles involves first of all deciding on the most important principles to apply and monitoring their application through the whole design process. The result of applying principles is a course where learning is given the greatest support.

Figure 1.1 A model of the parts of the curriculum design process.

Some curriculum designers distinguish curriculum from syllabus. In the model, both the outer circles and the inner circle make up the curriculum. The inner circle represents the syllabus.

The inner circle has goals as its centre. This is meant to reflect the ­importance of having clear general goals for a course. The content and sequencing part of the inner circle represents the items to learn in a course, and the order in which they occur, plus the ideas content if this is used as a vehicle for the items and not as a goal in itself. Language courses must give consideration to the language content of a course even if this is not presented in the course as a discrete item. Consideration of content makes sure that there is something useful for the learners to learn to advance their control of the language, that they are getting the best return for learning effort in terms of the usefulness of what they will meet in the course, and that they are covering all the things they need to cover for a balanced knowledge of the language.

The format and presentation part of the inner circle represents the format of the lessons or units of the course, including the techniques and types of activities that will be used to help learning. This is the part of the course that the learners are most aware of. It is important that it is guided by the best available principles of teaching and learning.

The monitoring and assessment part of the inner circle represents the need to give attention to observing learning, testing the results of learning, and providing feedback to the learners about their progress. It is often not a part of commercially designed courses. It provides information that can lead to changes at most of the other parts of the curriculum design process.

There is a large circle drawn completely around the whole model. This large outer circle represents evaluation. Evaluation can involve looking at every aspect of a course to judge if the course is adequate and where it needs improvement. It is generally a neglected aspect of curriculum design.

Chapters 2 to 8 of this book examine each of the parts of the curriculum design process in detail, drawing on relevant theory and research. It is possible to design courses without drawing on relevant research, ­theory, and experience. In all but a few fortunate cases this results in common faults in curriculum design being made yet again.

The shape of the model in Figure 1.1 is designed to make it easy to remember. The three-part shape that occurs in each of the outer circles (the “Mercedes” symbol) also occurs in the large inner circle, and also occurs in the way the three outer circles connect to the inner circle. It is worthwhile getting learners to memorise the diagram of the curriculum design model, and it is worth testing that they have memorised it.

In this first chapter, we will look briefly at an overview of the parts of the curriculum design process that will be looked at in more detail in the following chapters of the book, with each of the early chapters focusing on a different part of the model.

Considering the Environment

Environment analysis involves considering the factors of the situation in which the course will be used and determining how the course should take account of them. One way of approaching environment analysis is to work from a list of questions which focus on the nature of the learners, the teachers, and the teaching situation (see Chapter 2).

There is value in spending some time on these questions, particularly if the answers are ranked according to something like the following ­instructions and criterion.

Choose three factors which will have the strongest effect on the ­design of your course. Rank these three from the factor which will most determine what you should do to the one which has the least influence of the three.

To show the value of doing this, here are some of the top factors decided on by several teachers designing different courses for different learners.

1. One teacher decided that the learners’ lack of interest in learning English should be the major factor influencing curriculum design. The learners were obliged to do an English course as part of their degree but received no credit for it. This meant that the teacher’s goal of making the course as interesting and motivating as possible guided the ­design of the course, particularly the format and presentation of lessons.
2. One teacher decided that the learners’ plan to move on to academic study in university or technical institute courses should have the greatest effect on design of the English course. This had a far-reaching effect on the language items and the language skills focused on, and the type of learning activity.
3. One teacher decided that the externally designed and administered test at the end of the course should be the major factor. This meant that the course book always had to make it obvious to the learners that the work they were doing was directly related to the test.

Here is a short list of some of the other factors that teachers considered most important.

• the small amount of time available for the course
• the large size of the classes
• the wide range of proficiency in the class
• the immediate survival needs of the learners
• the lack of appropriate reading materials
• the teachers’ lack of experience and training
• the learners’ use of the first language in the classroom
• the need for the learners to be more autonomous.

There are many examples of unsuccessful curriculum design where the background questions were not considered. Here are some examples.

1. The communicatively based course which was deserted by its Vietnamese learners because they were not getting the grammar teaching that they expected. They set up their own grammar-based course.
2. The course for agricultural students which had a simplified version of The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins as its main reading text. Some of the learners produced their own translation of it which they copied and sold to other learners. They saw no value in coming to grips with its content through English.
3. The adult conversation course which began with the game “Simon Says”. Half the students stopped attending after the first lesson. There is no conversation in “Simon Says”.

Each important factor needs to be accompanied by one or more effects. For example, the factor “the large size of the class” could have the following effects on the curriculum design.

1. A large amount of group work.
2. Use of special large class techniques like oral reproduction, blackboard reproduction, the pyramid procedure involving the individual– pair–group–class sequence (Nation and Newton, 2009).
3. Independent work or individualised tasks.

The importance of environment analysis is that it makes sure that the course will really be suitable, practical, and realistic.

Discovering Needs

Hutchinson and Waters (1987) make a useful division of learners’ needs into necessities (what the learner has to know to function effectively), lacks (what the learner knows and does not know already), and wants (what the learners think they need). These are discovered by a variety of means: by testing, by questioning and interviewing, by recalling previous performance, by consulting employers, teachers, and others involved, by collecting data such as textbooks and manuals that the learners will have to read and analysing them, and by investigating the situations where the learners will need to use the language. Ways of doing needs analysis can be evaluated by the same general criteria used to evaluate tests – ­reliability, validity, and practicality.

Necessities, lacks, and wants may all involve some kind of comparison or reference to lists of items which can act as the learning goals of the course. An exception to this is to base the course on what the learners request. In this case the lists are created by the learners. This is effective if the learners have very clear purposes for learning English which they are aware of. For example, a course for immigrants who have been in the country a few months could very effectively be based on a list of things that they suggest they want to be able to do in English. We will look more closely at this in the chapter on negotiated syllabuses.

Following Principles

Research on language teaching and learning should be used to guide decisions on curriculum design. There is considerable research on the nature of language and language acquisition which can guide the choice of what to teach and how to sequence it. There is also a lot of research on how to encourage learning in general and language learning in particular which can be used to guide the presentation of items to be learned. The principles derived from this research include principles on the importance of repetition and thoughtful processing of material, on the importance of taking account of individual differences and learning preferences, and on learner attitudes and motivation.

It is very important that curriculum design makes the connection ­between the research and theory of language learning and the practice of designing lessons and courses. There is a tendency for this connection not to be made, with the result that curriculum design and therefore learners do not benefit from developments in knowledge gained from ­research. A striking example of this is the failure of courses to take ­account of the findings regarding the interference that occurs when semantically and formally related items, such as opposites, near synonyms, and lexical set...