EDF5644 WEEK 1 INTRODUCTION TO LANGUAGE CURRICULUM DESIGN

The origins of language curriculum development and key concepts

1. The idea of curriculum: Some general issues

The word ‘curriculum’ has its origin in the ancient Greek. It derives from the word currere which means the
running/chariot tracks. In Latin ‘curriculum’ means a racing chariot or a course to be run, and from this, a course
of study.

‘Curriculum’ is a term which is used with several meanings and a number of its different definitions have been
offered. Curriculum theorists argue that certain definitions can provide insights about common emphases and
characteristics within the general idea of curriculum and offer the following definitions for consideration:

• Curriculum is the ‘permanent’ subjects (core or foundational subjects) that embody essential
knowledge;
• Curriculum is those subjects that are most useful for contemporary living;
• Curriculum is all planned learning for which the school/educational institution is responsible;
• Curriculum is the totality of learning experiences so that students can attain general skills and
knowledge at a variety of learning sites;
• Curriculum is what the students construct from engaging with various sources of information and
mediated by technology;
• Curriculum is the questioning of authority and the searching for complex views of human situations.

Activity: What definition of curriculum do you support? Justify your choice.

2. Conceptions of curriculum

• Society-oriented curriculum: the purpose of schooling is to serve the society (social-economic

orientation);
• Student-oriented curriculum: the student is a main source of curriculum development (self-
actualisation orientation);
• Knowledge-centred curriculum: knowledge is the heart of curriculum (cognitive-rationalist
orientation);
• Eclectic curriculum: a possibility of various compromises (a combination of orientations).

Activity: Think about reasons for taking a particular orientation towards curriculum. Which orientation have
you experienced? What conception of the curriculum would you like to enact and why?

3. Characteristics of curriculum

Fundamental questions about language curriculum:

• Context – what is the context (e.g., nested, expanding) in which language teaching and learning
occur? Is it a target language (TL) embeded or removed context?
• Purpose – what is the nature of aims and objectives in teaching and how can these be developed?
• Content – what is to be learnt and what procedures can be used to determine the content?
• Needs of learners – who are the leaners and how can their needs be determined?
• Needs/roles of teachers – who are the teachers and what they believe, know or can do?
• Design and organization – what is involved in planning the scope and sequence of a syllabus or a
course?

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• Effectiveness – how can one measure the effectiveness of a language program?

Activity: Try to answer the questions above by drawing on your own teaching/learning experiences.

4. Processes of curriculum design

Designing a language curriculum has several components. Classic models of curriculum design, as well as more
recent models, agree on most of the components, although they may subdivide some of them and give them
slightly different names. These components comprise: setting objectives based on some form of assessment;
determining content, materials, and method; and evaluation. In this unit, we use the Nation and Macalister’s
(2010) model provided in Chapter 1:

Factors to consider in defining environment. Language curriculum design, like teaching, is a grounded process.
This means that when we design a course, we design it for a specific group of people, in a specific setting, for a
specific amount of time – i.e., for a specific context. The more information we have about the environment, the
easier it will be for us to make decisions about what to teach and how. Hence, we need to consider people
(students and other stakeholders), physical settings (location of schools and classroom arrangements), nature
of the progam/course and institution (type and purpose of the course), teaching resources (available and
required materials and equipment), time (how long the course is, how often a class meets and for how long each
time, etc).

Formulating goals and objectives. Goals are a way of putting into words the main purposes and intended
outcomes of the ELT program/course. If we use the analogy of a journey, the destination is the goal; the journey
is the program or course. The objectives are the different points you pass through on the journey to the
destination. In most cases, the destination is composed of multiple goals which the program or course helps to
weave together. For examples, these can be:

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• Language goals - language skills learners are expected to acquire in the classroom;
• Strategic goals - strategies learners use to learn the language;
• Socio-affective goals - changes in learners' attitudes or social behaviors that result from classroom
teaching;
• Philosophical goals - changes in values, attitudes and beliefs of a more general nature;
• Method or process goals - the activities learners will engage in.

Activity. What has been your experience with formulating goals and objectives in teaching/learning or in life,
more broadly?

Understading teacher beliefs, roles, and needs. Teacher views of what language is or what being proficient in a
language means affect what they teach and how they teach it. They also have views of the social context of
language and of learning and learners. An understanding of teacher roles and needs in the curriculum design
and implementation process depends in many ways on whether a curriculum change coincides with or
contradicts their beliefs and the way what and how they teach.

Assessing learner needs. Needs analysis is a systematic and ongoing process of gathering information about
students' needs and preferences, interpreting the information, and then making curriculum decisions based on
the interpretation in order to meet the needs. It is an orientation toward the teaching and learning process
which views it as a dialogue between people (e.g, between the teacher and administrators, parents, other
teachers; between the teacher and learners; among the learners). Needs analysis is based on the belief that
learning is not simply a matter of absorbing pre-selected knowledge by students, but is a process in which
learners and others should participate. It assumes that needs are multi-faceted and changeable.

Designing curriculum: principles, content and sequencing. Designing a course/program is deciding what the
underlying systems will be that pull together the content and material in accordance with the goals and
objectives and that give the course/program a shape and structure. For example, organizing a course occurs on
different levels - the level of the course as a whole; the level of subsets of the whole such as units, modules, or
strands within the course; and then individual lessons. A variety of language curriculum design models - their
principles, content and sequencing - can be undesterstood historically.

The history of curriculum development in language education starts with the method concept of teaching and
is related to this syllabus design. NOTE: syllabus design is an aspect of curriculum development and is narrower
in its scope. A syllabus is a specification of the content of a course, while curriculum refers to the process of
designing an education framework that ideally responds to students’ needs and determines aims or objectives
of language education in a particular context, teaching methods, materials, assessment regimes, as well as an
appropriate syllabus design.

The history of language teaching demonstrates preferences for particular methods – systemic sets of teaching
practices based on a particular theory of language and learning – in determining what to teach and in what
sequence.

Below is a summary table from Mickan’s (2012) book (chapter 2):

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The table captures some key points which can be used either in designing or analyzing syllabi. In particular,
understanding any syllabus design involves five overlapping processes: 1) determining the organizing principles
that drive the course; 2) identifying units, modules, or strands based on the organizing principles; 3) sequencing
the units; 4) determining the language and skills content of the units; 5) organizing the content within each unit.

Activity. Choose a language course you have taught recently or one in which you were a learner. Drawing on
the table, write a few descriptive comments about the course syllabus: what it focused on, how it was
organized and sequenced, and why it was organized that way.

Format and presentation. Materials development is the planning process by which language teachers create
units and lessons within those units to carry out the goals and objectives of the course. In a sense, it is the
process of making a syllabus more and more specific. Materials development takes place on a continuum of
decision-making and creativity which ranges from being given a textbook and a timetable in which to ‘cover it’
to developing all the materials to be used in class ‘from scratch’. Neither extreme is desirable. When teachers
are required to strictly adhere to a textbook and timetable there is little room for them to make decisions and
to put to use what they have learned from experience, which leads to the ‘deskilling’ of teachers. The teacher is
viewed as simply a technician and not a professional. On the other hand, the majority of teachers are not paid
or do not have the time in their schedules to develop all the materials for every course they teach.

The middle ground is when materials development involves creating as well as choosing or adapting materials
and activities so that students can achieve the objectives that will help them reach the goals of the course. The
process of formatting and presenting materials should be informed by the following considerations: 1) relevant
to leaners’ experiences, backgrounds, and learning and affective needs; 2) engaging and contributing to the
development of specific skills and strategies; 3) target relevant aspects of language (grammar, functions,
vocabulary), integrate macro-skills (speaking, listening, reading and writing), use authentic texts; 4) provide
intercultural focus and develop critical social awareness; 5) aim for authentic tasks and vary learner roles and
learning activities and their purposes; 6) provide authentic texts and realia and multimodal resources (print
and digital).

Monitoring and assessing. There are four major purposes for assessing learning in curriculum design – assessing
proficiency (e.g., pre-course to place students and post-course to assess achievement), diagnosing ability and
needs (pre- and during course), assessing progress (during course) and assessing achievement (what has been
learned and assign a grade). Proficiency is assessed in order to find out in a broad sense what the learner or
learners are able to do in the language with respect to speaking, listening, reading, and writing. Diagnostic
assessment is designed to find out what learners can and can't do with respect to a skill, task, or content area.
The skill or task is derived from the content and objectives of the course. Assessing progress means finding out
what the learner has learned with respect to what has been taught at different points in the course. Assessing
achievement is a summative form of assessment, since it is designed to find out what the students have mastered
with respect to the knowledge and skills that have been taught in the course or unit.

Evaluation of the curriculum. Evaluation can be formatiove or summative, depending on who evaluates the
course. In formative evaluation of the course, it is usually the teacher and the students who evaluate its
effectiveness. In summative evaluation, in addition to the teacher and students, the institution may have an
official means of evaluating the effectiveness of a course. Each aspect of the course design can be assessed and
evaluated: 1) the goals and objectives: are/were they realistic? appropriate? achievable? How should they be
changed? 2) the needs assessment: did it provide the needed information? the right amount of information? in
a timely way? did the students understand it? was it appropriately and effectively responded to? 3) the course

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content: is/was it what the students need/ed? at the right level? comprehensive enough? focused enough? 4)
the way the course is organized and sequenced: does it flow from unit to unit and within units? do students
perceive a sensible progression? is the course content woven together in a balanced way? is material recycled
throughout the course? 4) formatting and presenting the materials and methods: are they at the right level? is
the material engaging? do the students have enough opportunities to learn what they need to? is the material
relevant? are the students comfortable with their roles? the teacher's role? 5) the learning assessment plan: do
students understand how they will be assessed and why? do assessment activities assess what has been learned?
do they help students diagnose needs? measure progress or achievement? are they timely?

Activity: What were the ways in which you evaluated the effectiveness of the last course/unit you were taught?
Was the evaluation formative or summative? How did the information or process suppose to help its design?

After class activity.

Expore sample pages from Natural English (see pdfs of the table of contents and one unit from the course
book below). Drawing on the week 1 readings and classroom discussions, provide brief comments on:

1. The design of this course book:

• What was/were the organizing principle(s) for content of the course book? (see Mickan’s table)
• Within a unit, what are the language learning components? For example, vocabulary, grammar, four
macroskills, communicative skills, cultural skills, etc.
• Within a unit, how are the language learning components organized?

2. What do you like about the way the designers organized this course book? Why? What don't you like? Why
not?

You will have an opportunity to share comments with your peers in Week 2, in class or on-line.

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