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Case Analysis for “The teacher as intermediary between national curriculum and

classroom”

Xuwei (Sara) Luo

GSEP – Pepperdine University

EDTE 605 - Language Curriculum and Course Design

Dr. Nooshan Ashtari

Case Analysis for “The teacher as intermediary between national curriculum and

classroom”

Introduction

In South Korea, many teachers have limited experience writing a curriculum design. Education is

governed by the national curriculum (NC), especially for middle and high school education.

Therefore, many teachers that work in middle or high school think it is not essential to have

curriculum design skills. With the rules that NC has set, the author insists that instructors could

have a greater degree of freedom. This case study looks specifically into a government-published

textbook and the middle school that implemented this material. The author concluded that this

material is imbalanced. Besides, there are many limitations and the limited freedom that the

teacher has to resolve to help students build a solid English foundation.

Context

In this case, the supporting institution is a middle school classroom. The school is

situated in Daejeon, the fifth largest city in Korea. The student families are count as lower

middle class. Each English class has about 25 students. Students’ native language is Korean.

Instructors observed are teachers from that middle school. The primary “team teaching” consists

of a Korean woman, 38 years old, who has been teaching for 13 years, and a 26-year-old woman

from the UK who is currently in her second year of teaching in Korea. However, unlike Korean

teachers, who need to pass a qualification test, English native-speaking teachers are not required

to pass the exam or have an educational background (some training may include) or understand

the Korean language. Each teachers’ responsibility may vary from school to school. Teachers do

not have the ability to decide which textbook to use, but they could develop some supplement

activities to assist students’ English learning.

Regarding class size, there are no failures or advanced students regard to class

differences. All students will be put into the same classroom and learning the same material.

However, this situation has changed for some schools. They have recently begun to divide

classes into low, medium, or high levels. Middle school is count as the final level of compulsory

education in South Korea. During the first two years of middle school, students will have three

English classes every week and four English classes per week in the third year of middle school.

This case study is an observation case that happened in a lower secondary Education in South

Korea.

There are many challenges that teachers are facing. Firstly, the NC acts like an agency

that controls and unifies school material and curriculum design. Secondly textbook. The main

text of the first year is a colorful textbook. It contains illustrations, photographs, sheet music, and

a mixture of Korean and English scripts, with the latter dominating. The author also noted that

“Korean is used primarily for task instructions but is also used for glosses or to explain words

such as pancake which do not translate directly.” (Parent, 2011, pg. 189) Pronunciation of the

words is written in IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) format after every third lesson is a

four-page “round-up test,” which is designed as a formative test. “The lessons are organized

along notional-functional lines.” (Parent, 2011, pg. 189) Finally, the new school’s principal

forbids teachers from sitting down or using the microphone and monitors in the classroom. He is

recently more focused on interschool speech contest. He insists their school has to win, and he

demanded the focus of classroom attention should be improving our ability until the contest has a

final result.

Purpose

The author did not mention that this curriculum will have a specific goal or objective.

However, to overcome these challenges, Parent (2011) proposed an implementation. Class time

will be dedicated to the main textbook. Additional time will be doing the activates book. Any

remaining time will be filled with teacher-designed activates that are related to the lesson.

Because all the chapter time is fixed, the total amount of time to teaching time will be fixed as

well. Therefore, the main factor will be the student’s proficiency level. A lower-level proficiency

class will be devoted to completing the primary texts that NC sets. Since advanced level students

can quickly learn the required material, there will be additional time for teacher-designed

activities. Also, the instructor of the class will be assigned differently as well. Korean teachers

will teach the lower-level class in Korean and English. The native-speaking teacher will teach the

advanced-level class, Korean teacher may assist students when needed.

Teacher-designed activities include by not limited to keynotes presentation, games, role-

play, or songs. These activities are the extent of the curriculum. The teacher will create different

scenarios to introduce some additional vocabularies and ask students to do some oral practices.

Parent (20xx) mentioned that since these activities will help keep the students interested in

vocabulary and expressions that they may not know before, this is something that textbooks do

not cover.

Analysis

This curriculum employed both outcome-based approach and standards-based. The

textbook is topic/situation centered, and there are dialogue and pictures included in the book.

Students will learn vocabulary provided by both teacher and the textbook through various

scenarios. There are many assessments throughout the English class. Both formal and informal

assessments are implanted. Formal assessments include "round-up test" (unit test), listening

comprehension activities, pronunciation practice, and writing activities. Informal assessments are

teachers observe student's behavior during classes, pair-work, and ask students to answer some

questions during the lecture.

The NC sets the curriculum. The goal of English teaching is to ensure transparency and

accountability. As a national education system, they have to set a standard for all schools to

follow to ensure that students' education is roughly equal, regardless of which part of their

country.

Evaluation

This standard-based approach has been prevalent in East Asian countries for many

centuries. The writer herself has received this kind of education for nine years. There is a lot of

competition between peers, and countless assessments were waiting around the corner. Not to

mention long school hours and all the tutoring classes that students have to attend. However, it is

a very practical approach for large class sizes or the public educational system.

According to Nation & Macalister (2010), there are five critical elements for designing a

well-balanced course: meaning-focused input, language-focused learning, meaning-focused

output, and fluency activities. This case does not include all five elements. Meaning-focused

input is done by the teacher’s instruction and the textbook assigned by NC. Language-focused

learning was included as well.

Learner learned word pronunciation through IPA. Some grammatical content was

included in the lesson. Meaning-focused output was only done by higher proficiency students

who are in advanced-level classes. They have more chances to do some oral or writing activities.

Lower-level classes only have time to do some writing activities. Fluency is not implemented nor

assessed in this case. This English class aims to improve student’s scores to meet the standards

set by the Korean education system instead of helping students acquire the English language.

Furthermore, there are many issues with putting students into two different level classes.

Firstly, the author did not mention how did teachers separate students into lower-level or

advanced-level classes. If students are divided by test, the result may be inaccurate because of

some biases or poor performance. Secondly, if students know that they have been divided into a

different level, there could cause some bully or discrimination. Thirdly, do parents agree with

this decision? Every parent wants their children to be treated equally. If a kid has been

determined as low proficiency level, imagine how his/her parent will react, not to mention the

decision could be very discouraging for the kid himself/herself.

Materials that are used during school are textbooks assigned by NC and workbooks.

Assessments from this case are all fundamental and classic formative assessments. Not very

creative, but it will help the teacher to assess a large group of students. There are few

descriptions about resources, like tutors, cram school, or after-school programs outside of school

for students to sign up for additional bits of help.

To sum it up, because there are many frameworks or rules that are set by NC or school,

teachers have limited options to figure out an effective way of teaching English in that middle

school class. Separate students into different level class are an option. However, it needs to be

more consideration, such as try to alternate some teacher-designed activities into lower-level

classes so that students can have some meaningful-output. Alternatively, teachers can have some

office-hour to assist students after school.

Resources

Macalister, J., & Nation, I. S. P (2011). Case studies in language curriculum design: Concepts

and approaches in action around the world. New York: Routledge.

Macalister, J., & Nation, I. S. P. (2020). Language curriculum design (2nd ed.). New York, NY:

Routledge.

Nation, I.S.P., & Macalister, J. (2010). Language curriculum design. NewYork, NY: Routledge.

Parent, K. (2011). The teacher as intermediary between national curriculum and classroom. Case

studies in language curriculum design: Concepts and approaches in action around the world,

186-193.