Case Studies in Language Curriculum Design

Concepts and Approaches in Action Around the World

John Macalister, I.S.P. Nation

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781136944192
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Case studies are a powerful pedagogical tool for illuminating constructs and models in real-life contexts. Covering a wide range of teaching-learning contexts and offering in-depth analyses of ESL/ELT language curriculum design issues, this casebook is distinctive and unique in that each case draws on and is clearly linked to a single model presented in Nation and Macalister's Language Curriculum Design (www.routledge.com/9780415806060), giving the book a high degree of coherence. A short commentary by the editors after each case highlights features of note and/or issues arising from it. This is a versatile text, designed to work as a companion to Language Curriculum Design (adding meaning and depth to the model presented there by relating it to a range of applications), as a stand-alone text, or as a resource for language teacher trainees, teacher educators, practicing teachers, program administrators, and materials writers in the field.

1 INTRODUCTION

Paul Nation and John Macalister

DOI: 10.4324/9780203847855-1

Curriculum, or course, design is essentially a practical activity. The result is going to be experienced by teachers and learners in the classroom. In order to arrive at that result, however, the course designer is integrating knowledge from many areas in the field of applied linguistics and this was described in our earlier book, Language Curriculum Design (LCD). Not everyone reading this book, however, will have read that book and so we begin with an overview of our language curriculum design model (Figure 1.1).

The model consists of three outer circles and a subdivided inner circle, all enclosed within one wider circle. 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 center. 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 discrete items. 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.

FIGURE 1.1 A model of the parts of the curriculum design process

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.

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.

Each of the inner circles can be segmented into three. For environment analysis (Figure 1.2) the segments provide information about the learners, the teachers, and the teaching–learning situation. The result of environment analysis is a ranked list of factors and a consideration of the effects of these factors on the design.

In needs analysis, the course designer considers the present proficiency, future needs and wants of the learners (Figure 1.3). The result of needs analysis is a realistic list of language, ideas or skill items that will be covered in the course.

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 principles are supported by research and theory in the field. In the model, the three segments of the principles circle correspond with the three divisions of the inner circle (Figure 1.4). The result of applying principles is a course where learning is given the greatest support.

FIGURE 1.2 Factors in environment analysis

FIGURE 1.3 Three types of need

FIGURE 1.4 The subdivisions of principles

As well as the inner circle and the three outer circles, it is possible to imagine 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.

This, then, was the model that we introduced in our earlier book. The purpose of this book is to bring the curriculum design model to life through a collection of case studies drawn from different language learning contexts around the world. The different case studies are summarized in Table 1.1. We have matched the case study chapters to the chapters in LCD – aware, however, that many of the chapters draw on the whole design model – and provided suggestions for discussion or further work after each chapter.

The collection begins with a classic case study to provide an overview of the curriculum design model, Paul Nation and David Crabbe's survival language learning syllabus for foreign language learning.

The following three chapters focus on the outer circles. Environment and needs analyses provide important information for decisions about the inner circle; Katie Julian and Derek Foster describe considerable challenges in the design of a general English course for Burma and significant challenges also needed to be accommodated by Angela Joe in her design of language courses for tertiary level students in Oman. Paul Nation draws on principles to provide an answer to a question that many have hoped he would address – what his ideal vocabulary learning course would look like.

The focus of the next four chapters, chapters 6 to 9, is on the segments of the inner circle and on goals. Susan Smith found that the goals for Peruvian officials...