Language Curriculum Design: An Overview

Parts of the curriculum Design Process

Factors to consider in designing a course:

-  Learners´ present knowledge and lacks.

-  Available resource and time.

-  Teachers’ skills.

-  Curriculum designer’s strengths and limitations.

-  The principles of teaching and learning.

The curriculum design model 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 process of course production. The sub- divided inner circles (environment analysis, needs analysis and the application of principles) is based in analysis is a ranked list of factors and a consideration of the effects of these factors on the design. Also, is based in the development of ideas or skill items, as a result of considering the present proficiency, future needs and wants of the learners. And in the last point to take into consideration is the deciding on the most important principles to apply and monitoring their application through the   process. The result of applying principles is a course where learning is given the greatest support and continues evaluation.

Considering the environment

It is important to consider factors of the situation in which the course will be used and determining how the course should take account of them. Factors that teachers considered the most important in curriculum design:

· 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

Discovering Needs

There is a division of learners´ needs that is:

-     Necessities: what the learner has to know to function effectively.

-     Lacks: what the learner knows and does not know already.

-     Wants: what the learners think they need.

Following Principles:

-   Importance of repetition and thoughtful processing of material.

-    Individual differences.

-   Taking into account individual differences.

-   Learning style.

-   Learners’ attitudes and motivation.

Goals:

Goals can be expressed in general terms and be given more detail when considering the content of the course. Here are some examples of goal that have been set for language courses. Having a clear statement of goals is important for determining the content of the course, for deciding on the focus in presentation, and in guiding assessment.

Content and Sequencing:

Content of language course: language items, ideas, skills and strategies that meet the goals. One way to provide a systematic and well-researched basis for a course is to make use of frequency lists and other lists of language items or skills. These lists should be chosen and adapted as a result of the needs analysis in order to set the language learning content of the course.

Monitoring and assessing:

The aims of curriculum design are to make a course that has useful goals, that achieves its goals, that satisfies its users, and that does all this in an efficient way. An important recurring part of the design process is to assess how well these aims are achieved.

Evaluating a course:

Evaluation tries to answer the question “Is this a good course?”. A “good” course could be one that:

-     attracts a lot of students

-     makes a lot of money

-     satisfies the learners

-     satisfies the teachers

-     satisfies the sponsors

-     helps learners gain high scores in an external test

-     results in a lot of learning

-     applies state-of-the-art knowledge about language teaching and learning

-     is held in high regard by the local or international community

-     follows accepted principles of curriculum design. 

The purpose of the evaluation of the course is to continue or discontinue the course or to bring improvements to the course. 

Environment Analysis

The aim of this part of the curriculum design process is to find the situational factors that will strongly affect the course.

Environment analysis involves looking at the factors that will have a strong effect on decisions about the goals of the course, what to include in the course, and how to teach and assess it.

There are many factors that could affect curriculum design; the curriculum designer should decide which factors are the most important. The importance of a factor depends on:

·         Whether the course will still be useful if the factor is not taken into account.

·         How large and pervasive the effect of the factor is on the course.

Environment Constraints

The environmental constrains is based in aspects related to the students´needs, the teachers´needs, and  the context in which it is develop the course. There are many aspects that a good curriculum must take into acount of research and theory. Some of the major constraints investigated by research and analysis include the time available, cultural background, the effect of the first language on language learning and special purposes.

The constraint of time

Time is an important constraint in the design and development of a course. The

steps followed include:

1.    Examining the local environment: How much class time is available, how much time out of class could be given to learning, and what the goals of the course are.

2.    Looking at previous research: Useful research information would reveal what could be achieved within certain time periods.

3.    Considering the effect of the constraint on the design of the course: An environmental constraint can be approached in two ways – working within the constraint, and overcoming the constraint. To work within the constraint the curriculum designer could limit the goals of the course to fit the available time. Another way of limiting would be to try to cover most of the language items and skills but at a rather superficial level, relying on later experience to make up for the quick coverage.

Steps in Environment Analysis

1.    Brainstorm and then systematically consider the range of environment factors that will affect the course.

2.    Choose the most important factors (no more than five) and rank them, putting the most important first.

3.    Decide what information you need to fully take account of the factor. The information can come from investigation of the environment and from research and theory.

4.     Consider the effects of each factor on the design of the course.

5.    Go through steps 1, 2, 3, and 4 again.

Environment analysis involves looking at the local and wider situation to make sure that the course will fit and will meet local requirements. There is considerable research data on many of the important environment factors, including class size, motivation, learners of mixed proficiency and special purpose goals. Good environment analysis draws on both analysis of the environment and application of previous research and theory.

Needs Analysis

Needs analysis is directed mainly at the goals and content of a course. It examines what the learners know already and what they need to know. Needs analysis makes sure that the course will contain relevant and useful things to learn. Good needs analysis involves asking the right questions and finding the answers in the most effective way.

The various focuses of needs analysis

Target needs:

-  Necessities: What is necessary in the learners’ use of language?  (Required knowledge).

-  Lacks: What do the learners lack? For example, are there aspects of writing that were not practiced in their previous learning (L1, L2)? (Present knowledge).

-  Wants: What do the learners wish to learn? (Subjective needs).

Another way to look at the needs:

-       Present knowledge:

-       Required knowledge:

-       Objective needs: they can be gathered by questionnaires, personal interviews, data collection, observations, informal consultation with teachers and learners, and tests.

-       Subjective needs: they are discovered through learner self-assessment using lists and scales, and questionnaires and interviews.

Needs Analysis Tools

Necessities: The demands of the target tasks. That is, what will learners have to do when they do university study? Among the things they will have to do is listening to lectures, take part in tutorials, write assignments and tasks, and sit exams. If we take assignments as one example of the things they have to do, we could analyze the kind of language needed to do an assignment as a way of working out what the learners would need to know.

Lacks: Looking at where learners are at present. Learners’ general proficiency contributes to the way they handle any language task. To gather data about the learners’ general proficiency, we can interview them, get them to sit tests such as vocabulary tests, grammar tests, writing tests and comprehension tests, or we can get them to do self-assessment using a specially prepared checklist. Learners’ scores on standardized proficiency tests like the TOEFL test or the IELTS test can be a very useful source of information particularly when they provide information about separate aspects of language proficiency such as writing or speaking.

Wants: Learners have their own views about what they think is useful for them. At the very least, information about this is useful in working out whether the learners’ views and the needs analyst’s views are the same or not. If they are not the same, then the curriculum designer may need to rethink the results of the needs analysis or persuade the learners that there is a more useful view of what they need.

The times of needs analysis can include needs analysis before a course begins, needs analysis in the initial stages of a course, and ongoing needs analysis during the running of the course. If a course is to be repeated with different learners, then needs analysis at the end of a course is useful.

Evaluating Needs Analysis

It is important to consider the reliability, validity and practicality of the needs analysis. Reliable needs analysis involves using well-thought-out, standardized tools that are applied systematically. Rather than just observing people performing tasks that learners will have to do after the course, it is better to systematize the observation by using a checklist, or by recording and apply standardized analysis procedures. Valid needs analysis involves looking at what is relevant and important. Consideration of the type of need that is being looked at and the type of information that is being gathered is important. Practical needs analysis is not expensive, does not occupy too much of the learners’ and teacher’s time, provides clear, easy-to-understand results and can easily be incorporated into the curriculum design process.

Issues in needs analysis

Common core and specialized language:  What are the content selection stages that a special purposes language course should follow? From a vocabulary point of view there is evidence to support the idea that learners should first focus on a common core of 2,000 words, then focus on general academic vocabulary common to a wide range of disciplines if their goal is academic reading and writing, and then focus on the specialized vocabulary of their particular disciplines.

Narrow focus – wide focus: Detailed systems of needs analysis have been set up to determine precisely what language a particular language learner with clear needs should learn. The arguments in favor of a narrow focus include the faster meeting of needs, the reduction of the quantity of learning needed, and the motivation that comes from getting an immediate return from being able to apply learning.

Critical needs analysis: Needs analysis is affected by the ideology of those in control of the analysis. That is, the questions they ask, the areas they investigate, and the conclusions they draw are inevitably influenced by their attitudes to change and the status quo.

Needs analysis makes sure that a course will be relevant and satisfying to the learners.

Principles

The aim of this part of the curriculum design process is to decide how learning can be encouraged.

Methods and Principles

A “method” approach to curriculum design seems to result in some aspects of curriculum design being well thought out and well founded on research but in many aspects being ignored or not well thought out.

The Twenty Principles

They are divided in three major groups:

1.    Content and sequencing: They are concerned with what goes into a language course and the order in which language items appear in the course. The aim of these principles is to make sure that the learners are gaining something useful from the course.

-       Frequency: A language course should provide the best possible coverage of language in use through the inclusion of items that occur frequently in the language, so that learners get the best return for their learning effort.

-       Strategies and autonomy: A language course should train learners in how to learn a language and how to monitor and be aware of their learning, so that they can become effective and independent language learners.

-       Spaced retrieval: Learners should have increasingly spaced, repeated opportunities to retrieve and give attention to wanted items in a variety of contexts.

-       Language system: The language focus of a course needs to be on the generalizable features of the language.

-       Keep moving forward: A language course should progressively cover useful language items, skills and strategies.

-       Teachability: The teaching of language items should take account of the most favorable sequencing of these items and should take account of when the learners are most ready to learn them.

-       Learning burden: The course should help learners make the most effective use of previous knowledge.

-        Interference: The items in a language course should be sequenced so that items which are learned together have a positive effect on each other for learning and so that interference effects are avoided.

2.    Format and presentation: They are concerned with what actually happens in the classroom and during the learning. Most practically, they relate to the kinds of activities used in the course and the ways in which learners’ process the course material. It is in this aspect of curriculum design that teachers may have their greatest influence on the course.

-       Motivation: As much as possible, the learners should be interested and excited about learning the language and they should come to value this learning.

-       Four strands: A course should include a roughly even balance of meaning-focused input, language-focused learning, meaning-focused output and fluency activities.

-       Comprehensible input: There should be substantial quantities of interesting comprehensible receptive activity in both listening and reading.

-       Fluency: A language course should provide activities aimed at increasing the fluency with which learners can use the language they already know, both receptively and productively.

-        Output: The learners should be pushed to produce the language in both speaking and writing over a range of discourse types.

-       Deliberate learning: The course should include language-focused learning on the sound system, spelling, vocabulary, grammar and discourse areas.

-       Time on task: As much time as possible should be spent using and focusing on the second language.

-        Depth of processing: Learners should process the items to be learned as deeply and as thoughtfully as possible.

-        Integrative motivation: A course should be presented so that the learners have the most favorable attitudes to the language, to users of the language, to the teacher’s skill in teaching the language, and to their chance of success in learning the language.

-       Learning style: There should be opportunity for learners to work with the learning material in ways that most suit their individual learning style.

3.    Monitoring and Assessment:

-       Ongoing needs and environment analysis: The selection, ordering, presentation, and assessment of the material in a language course should be based on a continuing careful consideration of the learners and their needs, the teaching conditions, and the time and resources available.

-       Feedback: Learners should receive helpful feedback which will allow them to improve the quality of their language use.

Using the list of principles

1.    It can be used to guide the design of language teaching courses and lessons.

2.    It can be used to evaluate existing courses and lessons.

3.    It can be used to help teachers integrate and contextualize information gained from keeping up with developments in their field. For example, when reading articles from journals such as TESOL Quarterly, Language Learning, Applied Linguistics or RELC Journal, teachers can try to decide what principle is being addressed by the article and how the article helps in the application of a principle.

4.     It can provide a basis for teachers to use to reflect on their practice and professional development. It may provide a basis for action research within their classrooms. It can help them answer questions like “Is this a good technique?”, “Should I use group work?”, and “Do my learners need to speak a lot in class?”

5.    It can act as one of many possible reference points in teacher training courses.

Goals, Content and Sequencing

Goals, Content and Sequencing

The aim of this part of the curriculum design process is to make a list of the items to teach in the order in which they will be taught.

Content and sequencing must take account of the environment in which the course will be used, the needs of the learners, and principles of teaching and learning.

Goals and content

The goals of a language lesson can focus on one or more of the following: Language, Ideas, Skills or Text (Discourse). It is possible to plan or evaluate the content of courses by looking at each of these four areas. Within each of these four areas, choices have to be made regarding the units for planning and checking the course. Even if the selection of content for a course is based on topics, themes or situations, it is useful to check to see that the language items that are covered are the most useful ones. Making sensible, well-justified decisions about content is one of the most important parts of curriculum design. If poor content is chosen, then excellent teaching and learning result in a poor return for learning effort.

Units of progression in the course

They are the items that are used to grade the progress of the course. If the starting point of a course was topics, then the units of progression would also be topics with progress through the course being marked by an increasing number of topics covered. The units of progression can be classified into two types – those that progress in a definite series, such as vocabulary levels, and those that represent a field of knowledge that could be covered in any order, such as topics. Although certain units of progression may be used to select and sequence the material in a course, it is useful to check that other units are covered in the course and that other units are at an appropriate level.

What will the progression be used for?

The units of progression can be used for a variety of purposes:

1.    Units of progression can be used to set targets and paths to those targets.

2.    Units of progression can be used to check the adequacy of selection and ordering in a course.

3.    Units of progression can be used to monitor and report on learners’ progress and achievement in the course.

Vocabulary:

There is considerable frequency-based research that provides clear indications of what vocabulary learners would gain most benefit from knowing. The low-frequency vocabulary of the language (vocabulary not in the most frequent 2,000 words or in the academic wordlist) does not deserve teaching effort. Rather, strategies for dealing with and learning this vocabulary should receive the teacher’s attention.

Grammar:

Many courses use grammar as the major unit of progression. Unfortunately the selection and sequencing of the items is at the best opportunistic and gives no consideration of the value of learning particular items. Courses thus include a strange mixture of very useful items and items that occur relatively infrequently in normal language use. Infrequent items can be usefully introduced in courses where they are needed to be learned as memorized phrases (lexicalized sentence stems) rather than as structures to focus on.

Functions:

There is no standard list of language functions that is accompanied by frequency data. The most widely available list of functions can be found in Van Ek and Alexander (1980) and is organized under the six headings of:

1.    Imparting and seeking factual information

2.    Expressing and finding out intellectual attitudes

3.    Expressing and finding out emotional attitudes

4.    Expressing and finding out moral attitudes

5.     Getting things done (suasion)

6.    Socializing.

Discourse:

Attention to elements of spoken discourse, such as ellipsis between speakers and negotiation of discourse, may occur early in language courses but is rarely the unit of progression for a course.

Skills, subskills, and strategies:

Some courses use skills and subskills as their units of progression. Reading courses for example may focus on skills such as finding the main idea, reading for detail, notetaking, skimming, reading faster, and reading for inferences. There are three major ways of defining subskills. One is to look at the range of activities covered by a skill such as speaking and to use these as a starting point for defining subskills. Another way is to look at the skill as a process and to divide it into the parts of the process. This is a typical way of approaching writing, dividing the writing process into parts. One possible division of the process is: (1) having a model of the reader, (2) having writing goals, (3) gathering ideas, (4) organizing ideas, (5) turning ideas into written text, (6) reviewing what has just been written, and (7) editing the written text. Process divisions can be applied in other skills.

A third way of dividing up a skill is to use levels of cognitive activity. The most well-known approach of this kind can be found in what is popularly known as Bloom’s taxonomy (Bloom, 1956). Bloom divides cognitive activity into six levels of increasing complexity: (1) knowledge, (2) comprehension, (3) application, (4) analysis, (5) synthesis, (6) evaluation.

These levels have often been applied to the construction of reading comprehension activities.

Ideas

A good language course not only develops the learners’ control of the language but also puts the learners in contact with ideas that help the learning of language and are useful to the learners. The choice of the ideas content of a course will have a major effect on the marketability and acceptability of the course. It needs very careful consideration and application of the findings of needs analysis and environment analysis.

Task - based syllabuses

With the shift to communicative language teaching in the 1970s there was an increasing emphasis on using language to convey a message, and as a result increasing attention was given to the use of tasks in the classroom. The realization that many so-called communicative language courses were still largely based upon a sequence of language forms in turn generated interest in task-based, rather than task-supported, syllabuses. task-based syllabus, particularly Long and Crookes (1992), argue that pedagogic tasks provide a vehicle for presentation of appropriate language samples to learners and allow negotiation of difficulty. They suggest that the most appropriate tasks are those that a needs analysis determines are most useful for the learners.

Sequencing the content in a course

The lessons or units of a course can fit together in a variety of ways. The two major divisions are whether the material in one lesson depends on the learning that has occurred in previous lessons (a linear development) or whether each lesson is separate from the others so that the lessons can be done in any order and need not all be done (a modular arrangement).

Linear approaches to sequencing

Most language courses involve linear development, beginning with simple frequent items that prepare for later more complex items. Such a development has the disadvantages of not easily taking account of absenteeism, learners with different styles and speeds of learning, and the need for recycling material. The worst kind of linear development assumes that once an item has been presented in a lesson, it has been learned and does not need focused revision. This view does not agree with the findings of research on memory (Baddeley, 1990) and there are variations of linear progressions which try to take account of the need for repetition.

Developing a spiral curriculum involves deciding on the major items to cover, and then covering them several times over a period of time at increasing levels of detail.

A modular approach to sequencing

We have been looking at linear approaches to sequencing and ways of ensuring repetition within a linear approach. The second major type of approach, a modular approach, breaks a course into independent non-linear units.

These units may be parts of lessons, lessons or groups of lessons. Each unit or module is complete in it and does not usually assume knowledge of previous modules. It is not unusual for a modular approach to be accompanied by criterion-referenced testing with a high level of mastery set as the criterion.

In language courses the language could be divided into modules in several ways. The modules could be skill-based with different modules for listening, speaking, reading and writing, and sub-skills of these larger skills. The modules could be based on language functions, or more broadly situations, dealing with the language needed for shopping, emergency services, travel, the post office and the bank.

Modular courses often have some kind of division into obligatory or core modules, and optional or elective modules, or a division into level 1 modules and level 2 modules and so on.