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Part I
Planning for Learning
In Part I, we explore how teachers plan instruction, both prior to class and during class in order to create the optimum environment for student learning. We begin in Chapter 1 with the larger plan, that is, curriculum, to which the other plans are tied. Curriculum can be conceived of as the entire instructional process, in other words, planning, instructing, and assessing, and is often used synonymously with course. Program, on the other hand, is used to refer to all courses of study in a particular institution. Curriculum and syllabus are often used interchangeably in the literature, although some writers make a distinction. Syllabus is often used to refer to the instantiation of a curriculum in a particular class or setting. Further, there are differences in use between the United Kingdom and the United States, with the latter preferring curriculum. We will use curriculum to refer to the entirety of the instructional process, including the delineation of the linguistic and subject matter content of the course, and the sequencing of such content.
In this part, we need to present what is essentially an iterative, dynamic system in a linear format. In Volume I, Chapter 4, we discussed the various roles teachers play in the language classroom. In this part, we focus on the two major roles teachers have in the classroom:
- to create the conditions under which learning can take place: the social side of teaching; and
- to impart, by a variety of means, knowledge to their learners: the task-oriented side of teaching (Wright, 1987, pp. 51–2).
We begin with a discussion on planning the overall framework that guides instruction, that is, curriculum. Then, in Chapter 2 we discuss how teachers plan the language and subject content for their specific lessons, using a curriculum framework. Next, we discuss in Chapter 3 how to plan the structure of classroom activities, and finally, we provide a chapter on how to develop and adapt materials, including textbooks and computer-assisted language learning. However, we provide more detail about the use of digital learning in Chapter 15. We end with a brief introduction to materials in low-resourced contexts.
Reference
Wright, T. (1987). Roles of teachers and learners. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
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1
Planning Curriculum
Vignette
I am working with a group of teachers from three different universities in Thailand who are exploring ways to innovate their syllabus. I present my ideas of the process for curriculum design and the group agrees that it wants to embark on that process. They begin with their theoretical framework and come up with a long list of their jointly held beliefs about language and language learning. The discussion around these beliefs is quite intense, but everyone agrees on all but two items on a final list. These are “Language means the ability to analyze the language structure” and “Language is understanding the meaning of vocabulary.” Two of the ones they agree on are “Language varies according to contexts, disciplines, and workplaces” and “Language is a functional tool for communication, academic studies, and professional development.” The teachers are university-based, teaching both university students and English in the workplace, as can be seen by some of their beliefs. Next, they decide to focus on a standard for oral language that is required by their current curriculum, “Students will be able to orally present information in their related field.” They then develop a list of performance indicators through which learners could demonstrate their ability, such as “can introduce the purpose of the presentation,” “can organize the information coherently,” and “can use transitional phrases to link ideas.” They next develop an assessment task for the standard: “Choose a topic of your interest only from the Internet, research into it, and use the information collected to give an oral presentation to your class.” Then, they list exactly what learners are to include in their presentation. Because this is an initial workshop, they have some issues that need to be worked through in the next workshop, such as whether searching for information on the Internet should be a separate standard, taught before this one. They also realize they needed to say how long the presentation should be and also be far more explicit about the Internet search, such as how many websites students should consult.
[Murray, unpublished research notes]
Task: Reflect
- Why do you think some teachers did not agree that analyzing language and knowing the meaning of vocabulary were appropriate in their framework?
- What are your views about the four belief statements we have included here? Are they part of your beliefs about language and language learning? Why? Why not?
- What other performance indicators do you think are needed for this standard?
- How would you make the task more explicit? Rewrite it and share with a colleague.
Introduction
Often teachers work to a curriculum determined by others—by the nation, the state, or even the institution where they work. Sometimes, however, teachers need to develop new curricula or adapt a curriculum for their own particular context. Whether you teach from a mandated curriculum or design one yourself, it is important for teachers to understand the principles of curriculum design and to practice developing and adapting curricula. In this chapter we will discuss the principles around which curricula are organized, the process of designing curricula, how to adapt curricula, and how curricula are implemented in actual classrooms.
Organizing Principles
All effective curricula are based on an organizing principle, either agreed upon by its users or determined by its designers. The most common organizing principles in English language teaching are: linguistic, subject matter, learner-centeredness, and learning-centeredness. We shall briefly examine each of these organizing principles because you may find yourself teaching to a curriculum based on any one (or more) of these principles. The curriculum design does not inherently determine the instructional strategies you will use, even though some designs lend themselves more easily to particular strategies.
Task: Reflect
Think about your own language learning. Which organizing principles drove the curriculum design? Respond with “yes” or “no” to each principle. Keep your responses; and after you have completed the chapter, return to this brief set of questions and see whether you agree with your initial reflections now that you know more about each.
____ 1. The curriculum was organized around grammatical structures.
____ 2. The curriculum was organized around texts.
____ 3. The curriculum was organized around themes.
____ 4. The curriculum was organized around the content that I needed to study.
____ 5. The curriculum was organized around competencies that I was expected to master.
____ 6. The curriculum was organized around tasks that I was expected to carry out.
____ 7. The curriculum was organized by the class in negotiation with the teachers.
Linguistic-based
A number of different approaches are based on linguistic information—grammar-based, functional/notional, and text-/genre-based.
Grammar-based design. One of the earliest organizing principles was grammatical structures. This approach is often called a structural syllabus. In such a design, each aspect of the curriculum is a grammatical structure, with progression through the curriculum based on what is considered to be the most easily learned structures to the most difficult structures. Therefore, these designs often begin with present tense and leave structures such as conditional, until later stages. One of the problems with this design is that there is still insufficient research on the language acquisition process to guide curriculum designers in the sequencing of structures. Further, the structure often takes precedence over meaning and other aspects of language, such as functions, text structures, and appropriacy of language use (see Volume I, Part II, for discussion of these aspects of language). However, even if the main principle is not grammatical structures, any curriculum must ensure that learners are exposed to and have opportunities to practice all the grammatical structures they need in order to use English.
One of the problems with a grammar-based approach is that learners may be able to create accurate sentences but not be able to use them appropriately in context.
Notional/functional-based design. Notional/functional approaches began with the Council of Europe in the 1970s and were adopted in response to learners and teachers noticing learners’ difficulty in using language appropriately outside the classroom. The focus in this approach, therefore, is the pragmatic purposes of language use (see Volume I, Chapter 9). Consequently, notional/functional approaches begin with the functions (such as apologizing, asking permission, or refusing/declining an invitation) and include notions (such as time, space, or health) that learners need to perform in order to be communicatively competent. In functional/notional approaches, the grammatical features taught are dictated by the function.
One of the problems with this approach is that there is no one-to-one correspondence between functions and syntax. For example, requests can be expressed in many different ways, often varying because of the relationship between the speakers and the formality of the occasion. Ways to make a request include Can I have . . ., Could you please give me . . ., Would you mind giving me . . ., and Give me . . .
Text- or genre-based design. Genre- or text-based approaches begin with the text types that learners will need for the contexts in which they will use the language. In such an approach, language is seen as a resource for making meaning through whole texts, and language learning involves learning how to choose among the different meanings expressed through linguistic systems to communicate effectively in different contexts (see, for example, Feez, 1998; Halliday, 1985; TAFE NSW, 2018). This curriculum model is based on systemic functional grammar, where text refers to a stretch of language, whether spoken or written, that coheres through meaning and is embedded in the social contexts in which it is used. While a number of teaching methodologies could be used in a text-based approach, most commonly it is used with explicit instruction of the linguistic features of the text and the staging that makes the text coherent. Staging refers to the organizational structure of the text. Texts can be oral or written, monologues, or dialogs (see Volume III, Chapter 11 for a full discussion of text-based approaches).
One of...
