2 Curriculum Processes

2.1 Traditional Approaches to the Curriculum

Why does Teacher A teach functions but not structures? Why does
Teacher B try to encourage learners to discover their own errors rather
than correcting the learners herself? Why does Teacher C try to develop
communication skills through role play, language games and so on,
rather than through drills and controlled practice activities? Why does
Teacher D create all her own materials through authentic sources, while
Teacher E, who has students with similar needs, uses coursebooks written
by someone else?
Some teachers claim that teaching is essentially a practical activity,
and has very little to do with the theoretical deliberations of educational
philosophers, psychologists and curriculum designers. Stern, in fact,
suggests that this is a characteristic of language teachers in general:
Language teachers can be said to regard themselves as practical
people and not as theorists. Some might even say they are opposed
to 'theory', expressing their opposition in such remarks as 'It's all
very well in theory, but it won't work in practice'.
(Stern 1983:23)

However, as Stern goes on to observe, implicit in all the decisions made

by the teacher relating to classroom practice, materials, methodology
and content is a theory about the nature of language and the nature of
language learning. Not all teachers will be able to articulate their theories,
but they will have them just the same, and they lie behind the sorts of
questions posed at the beginning of this chapter.
Curriculum planning can be seen as the systematic attempt by
educationalists and teachers to specify and study planned intervention
into the educational enterprise. In this chapter we shall explore some of
the central concepts behind the study of the curriculum and look at a
number of different models which have been developed to specify and
assist in the planning, presentation and evaluation of learning.
One way of looking at the curriculum is to see it as an attempt to
specify what should happen in the classroom, to describe what actually
does happen, and to attempt to reconcile the differences between what
'should be' and what actually 'is'.

10
 Traditional Approaches to the Curriculum 11

Lawton (1973) sees the gap between theory and practice, that is, the
gap between what should be and what is, as one of the central problems
of the curriculum. He suggests that:
This gap exists at a number of levels; for example, the difference
between what teachers suggest should happen and what can be
observed in the classroom, the gap between educational theory as
taught in colleges and universities and the 'common-sense' practical
approach of teachers in schools. Students leaving college and
entering schools are sometimes advised by practising teachers to
'forget all that theory and get on with the real teaching'. But every
teacher is involved in decisions of a theoretical nature: if he decides
to teach mathematics but forbid playing cards in class, he is basing
his decision on some kind of theory of what is worthwhile; if he
decides that a book is too difficult for a certain class or pupil, he
is making use of psychological theories about intelligence, or ability,
or stages of development.
(Lawton 1973:7-8)

One of the most influential curriculum developers this century is Tyler,

whose best known work, Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction,
was published in 1949. For many, this book is seen as the early bible
of curriculum design. In it, Tyler provides a model for the systematic
development of the curriculum. He asserts that the development of any
curriculum for any subject whatsoever must be based on a consideration
of four fundamental questions. These are as follows:

What educational purposes should the school seek to attain?

What educational experiences can be provided that are likely to attain
these purposes?
How can these educational experiences be effectively organised?
How can we determine whether these purposes are being attained?

The first question forces the curriculum developer to contemplate and

clarify the nature of the educational enterprise in which he or she is
involved. In other words, it requires the specification of aims, goals and
objectives. The second question relates to the content of instruction and
requires the curriculum designer to articulate the subject matter which
will be used as a vehicle for attaining the pre-specified aims, goals and
objectives. The third question, relating to the organisation of the educa-
tional experiences, requires the curriculum designer to articulate the
principles for staging and sequencing input for the curriculum. The final
question, on attainment of pre-specified purposes or objectives, relates
to the area of evaluation.
While the model articulated by Tyler has been extremely influential
in educational circles, it has by no means been free from criticism. One
of the major criticisms is that it is the archetypal 'ballistic' model, suggest-
12 Curriculum Processes

ing as it does that curriculum activity occurs in a series of discrete and

sequential stages. In the first instance aims and objectives are specified;
content is then selected and organised, and finally, after the teaching
has been completed, there is an evaluation phase to determine whether
the aims and objectives have been achieved.
The other major criticism of the model is that it represents an ends-
means view of education. Lawton suggests that:
One objection to the whole curriculum model based on the four-
stage progression from objectives to content to organisation to
evaluation is that this is far too simple. For one reason, it is open
to Bruner's suggestion that leaving evaluation until the final stage
of the curriculum process is rather like doing military intelligence
after the war is over: in other words, evaluation should take place
at every stage. This would make the curriculum model a cyclical
one rather than a linear model.
{op cit.A4)

It was criticism of linear models of curriculum development which led

Wheeler (1967) to develop a more integrated model. This has similar
elements to Tyler's in that it begins with aims, goals and objectives, goes
on to the selection of learning experiences and thence to the selection
of content, takes into consideration the organisation and integration of
learning experiences and then specifies evaluation. However, it differs
from Tyler's model in that it allows for recycling, so that evaluation
feeds back into aims, goals and objectives. In this way the evaluation
stage provides a basis for modifying the aims, goals and objectives the
next time a course or module is taught.
By the end of the 1960s, thinking on the curriculum had become much
more sophisticated. This can be seen in Kerr's (1968) interactive cur-
riculum model, which has four major interactive elements: objectives,
evaluation, knowledge and school learning experiences, each of which
has subsidiary elements. All of these elements interact in the learning-
teaching situation, and a change in one element in the model leads to
changes in all other elements.
An influential figure in the curriculum field was Stenhouse, whose
major publication, An Introduction to Curriculum Research and
Development, was published in 1975. The fact that many of the ideas
he advanced are only now gaining widespread recognition indicates that
he was well in advance of his time. With curriculum specialists such as
Stenhouse, however, it is important to bear in mind the social, political
and educational contexts in which they worked.
Some language specialists have recently adopted Stenhouse's 'process'
curriculum. While process models may represent a paradigm-shift in
language curriculum development, it should be remembered that
Stenhouse's model was developed within the context of his strong com-
 Traditional Approaches to the Curriculum 13

mitment to a subject-centred view of the curriculum, and may not neces-

sarily be as relevant in systems subscribing to other philosophies or
approaches.
Stenhouse defines the curriculum as:
An attempt to communicate the essential principles and features of
an educational proposal in such a form that it is open to critical
scrutiny and capable of effective translation into practice.
(Stenhouse 1975:4)

He suggests that a curriculum should consist of three major parts relating

to planning, empirical study and justification. Each of these consists of
subsidiary parts as set out in the following table.

TABLE 2 . 1 MAJOR ELEMENTS IN A GENERALISED CURRICULUM MODEL

A. Planning consists of:

1 Principles for the selection of content — what is to be learned and
taught
2 Principles for the development of a teaching strategy — how it is to
be learned and taught
3 Principles for the making of decisions about sequence
4 Principles on which to diagnose the strengths and weakness of
individual students and differentiate the general principles 1, 2 and 3
above to meet individual cases

B. In empirical study:
1 Principles on which to study and evaluate the progress of students
2 Principles on which to study and evaluate the progress of teachers
3 Guidance as to the feasibility of implementing the curriculum in
varying school contexts, pupil contexts, environments and peer group
situations
4 Information about the variability of effects in differing contexts and
on different pupils and an understanding of the causes of the variation

C. In relation to justification:
A formulation of the aim or intention of the curriculum which is
accessible to critical scrutiny.

The process model developed by Stenhouse has three particularly useful

things to say about curriculum development in general. In the first place,
it accords a central place in the curriculum process to an analysis of
14 Curriculum Processes

what is actually happening, in contrast with the pious statements that

are often made about what ought to be happening. It is thus centred on
the implemented rather than the planned curriculum (Bartlett and Butler
1985). Secondly, it recognises the central role played by the teacher in
the curriculum development process. Finally, it gives recognition to the
fact that effective curriculum development is largely a matter of effective
teacher development by suggesting that curriculum change will only find
its way into the classroom if teachers themselves become the principal
agents of curriculum change through critical analysis and reflection on
their current performance. Stenhouse's ideas have been taken up and
developed by curriculum theorists such as Kemmis and McTaggart
(1982), who have proposed an action-research orientation to curriculum
development. Their use of action research in the language classroom is
discussed in Chapter 9.
At this point, mention should be made of the distinction between the
terms 'curriculum' and 'syllabus'. In the United States, it is customary
to use the term 'curriculum', rather than 'syllabus', to refer to all aspects
of the planning, implementation and evaluation of curriculum. The term
is also used for a particular course of instruction. In Britain, the term
'syllabus' is used to denote that part of curriculum activity concerned
with the specification and ordering of course content or input. In other
words, it is concerned with the 'what' of the curriculum. In this book,
the term 'curriculum' incorporates those elements designated by the term
'syllabus' along with considerations of methodology and evaluation. In
relation to language teaching, the key elements for consideration within
the curriculum are as follows: initial planning including needs analysis,
grouping learners, goal and objective setting, selection and grading of
content, methodology (which includes materials and learning activities),
learning arrangements (incorporating learning modes and environments),
and finally assessment and evaluation.
In this section we have taken a fairly general look at the concept of
the curriculum. We have looked at the evolution of the curriculum from
the 'ballistic', ends—means model of Tyler, through to the process model
articulated by Stenhouse. We have seen that the aim of curriculum theory
is to provide a more systematic approach to education. Unfortunately,
the systematic consideration of the curriculum has been left to 'experts',
and it has only been in recent years that the central role of the teacher
as curriculum developer has been recognised. In the next section we shall
look at curriculum planning within ESL, and trace the application of
some of the ideas outlined in this section to the field of language teaching.
In the final section we shall consider the implications of the learner-
centred philosophy for systematic curriculum development.
 ESL and Curriculum Planning 15

2.2 ESL and Curriculum Planning

Until recently, there has been a comparative neglect of curriculum theoris-
ing in relation to ESL. This neglect could well be due to the dominance
(and, some would say, the disproportionate influence) of theoretical
linguistics over language teaching. Language learning has been seen as
a linguistic, rather than an educational, matter, and there has been a
tendency to overlook research and development as well as planning
processes related to general educational principles in favour of linguistic
principles and, in recent years, second language acquisition research.
Thus, decisions on selecting and grading input have traditionally been
made on linguistic grounds. Recent empirical research into learnability
and speech processing constraints has demonstrated that there is not
always a direct correlation between linguistic predictions of difficulty
and what learners actually do find difficult, and only recently has atten-
tion focused on the selection and grading of input on the basis of what
is actually learnable at any given stage (Johnston 1985). As mentioned
in Chapter 1, recent researchers have tended to take a broader view.
Clark (1985a), borrowing from a framework developed by Skilbeck,
relates developments in language teaching to a number of dominant
mainstream educational ideologies. These are Classical Humanism,
Reconstructionism and Progressivism. Before looking at Clark's analysis,
it might be worth looking at the way he conceptualises 'curriculum
renewal' (a term he favours over the more widely used curriculum 'de-
velopment').
Clark suggests that:
. . . this takes in the creation of syllabuses in which educational,
subject-specific and learner-orientated objectives (content and
methodology) are reconciled, the creation of resources to provide
learning experiences for the learner, the writing of principles and
guidelines to assist teachers to tailor their classroom practices to
the requirements of their learners, the elaboration of an assessment
scheme to monitor and measure pupil progress, the devising of
strategies to evaluate the curriculum itself, and last but not least,
the working out of strategies for teacher development, so that
teachers are enabled to renew their own curriculum in the light of
their own classroom reality.
(Clark 1985a:3)

Within this broad concept of the curriculum, Clark suggests that the key
elements are objectives, content and methodology. In any curriculum
design, certain ends will have to be reached through the specification of
content and methodology. In Clark's mind, the key problems to be solved
in curriculum design are: first, whether ends should be predetermined,
or whether they should be the result of an open-ended learning process;
16 Curriculum Processes

whether content should be selected to meet predetermined ends or

whether it should be selected on its inherent merits; and finally, how
conflicting views about learning can be translated into effective
methodology.
Clark attributes many of the problems currently besetting language
teaching to a failure on the part of language teachers to take a broader
perspective. He says that:
Much unnecessary confusion has been created by those who have
thought the solution to the language curriculum problem could be
found in one part of the jigsaw to the exclusion of other parts.
Thus, panaceas have been sought in methodology alone, or in catch-
all technological aids ... or in 'graded tests', as if assessment by
itself could improve the teaching-learning process, or in the
production of new teaching materials, or in the elaboration of ever
more complex syllabuses such as the various Threshold documents,
or in studies of acquisition of language development, or in
impressionistic global descriptions of proficiency at different levels.
{op cit.:6)

Classical humanism is the educational philosophy underpinning the sub-

ject-centred view of learning. It is the view which has been most savagely
attacked by the radical sociologists of education. In language teaching,
it can be seen to underpin the views of those who believe that curriculum
planning should start with an analysis of the target language, rather than
with the needs of the learners (see for example Young 1971).
According to Clark, reconstructionism is the philosophy underpinning
the ends-means, or objectives, approach to curriculum design. This is
the model which was first articulated by Tyler, and later sophisticated
by people such as Taba (1962). The ends—means model, according to
Clark, is the philosophical driving force behind much of the work of
the Council of Europe. Clark documents a number of criticisms of this
approach, suggesting, in particular, that it reduces the teacher to the
role of a mere implementor of someone else's curriculum. It has also
been suggested that the formulation of objectives, on which the model
itself rests, is defective in that while certain communicative objectives
relating to skills such as the use of transactional language are easy to
operationalise, it is much more difficult to produce objectives for the
expressive and creative functions of language. In raising this particular
objection, Clark cites Stenhouse, who asserts that it is the unpredictable
rather than the predictable outcomes of student behaviour which make
education worthwhile.
The major objection to the ends-means model seems to be that it
concentrates exclusively on the products rather than the processes of
learning, and assumes that specifying the end points of learning is all
 ESL and Curriculum Planning 17

that the curriculum designer needs to do. However, there is growing

recognition within the profession that specification of the end products
(the syllabus design component of the curriculum) must also be accom-
panied by specifications of methodology (that is indications on how to
reach that end point).
Progressivism, the third educational ideology, finds expression in the
process syllabus. Proponents of the process approach are Breen and
Candlin (1980), Prabhu (1983), Long (1985) and Long and Crookes
(1986). Process curricula are less concerned with specifying content or
output than with the sorts of learning activities in which learners should
engage. They therefore align themselves more with methodology than
with syllabus design. In such curricula, specification is more in terms of
tasks and problems for the learner to grapple with than in terms of
linguistic items (whether these be structures, notions or functions).
One of the most widely-reported experiments in the use of process
curricula, is Prabhu's Bangalore project. The language program in this
project is described in the following terms:
The program is constructed around a series of problems, requiring
the use of English, which have to be solved by the learner. The
problems are introduced as specific tasks in which the students have
to interpret the language data — for example the timetable or set
of rules or a map with its rubric - and use the data for particular
purposes. Tasks are usually preceded by pre-tasks, in which the
teacher performs a task similar to the one the students will be asked
to perform themselves, in interaction with the class, using whatever
language that seems appropriate for this purpose. Thus the level of
language used by the teacher is determined by the demands of the
problem, and by the teacher's natural powers of simplification,
unplanned and spontaneously structured.
(Brumfit 1984:104)

Clark's analysis shows that while language teaching may have escaped
the educational mainstream it has been inevitably influenced by trends,
developments and philosophies within that mainstream. Recent writings
by Richards (1984), and Nunan (1985a), indicate that applied linguists
are beginning to recognise the need to set language teaching within a
broader educational context. It is to the models developed by these two
writers that we now turn.
Richards (1984) begins his survey of the field by pointing to the narrow
conception of curriculum development that exists within language teach-
ing, where the focus has been almost exclusively on language syllabuses,
that is, on the specification of content and input, to the exclusion of
other crucially important aspects of the curriculum development process
such as needs analysis, methodology and evaluation. He attempts to
18 Curriculum Processes

redress this by presenting a curriculum model in which language teaching

is seen as a set of processes and procedures which are both systematic
and interrelated.
The essential elements in the model are needs analysis, objective setting,
content and methodology, and evaluation. The raw material from which
the curriculum developer creates language courses includes information
about the target language, information about learners, information about
the delivery system, a learning theory, a teaching theory, assessment and
evaluation procedures. Underlying the model is Taba's (1962) model of
curriculum processes, and it can therefore be seen to reside within the
ends—means tradition. This is not to say that the model is necessarily
dated. In fact, Richards incorporates into his model a proficiency-
oriented view of language and language use, a view which is consistent
with an ends—means approach.
By suggesting that the starting point for curriculum development be
an analysis of learner needs rather than a linguistic analysis, Richards
has distanced himself from the linguistic tradition in language teaching
course design. He suggests that needs analysis allows for greater numbers
of people to be involved in curriculum development, it also enables goals
and objectives to be identified, and provides data for evaluation and
accountability.
Richards sees the specification of objectives as crucial in curriculum
processes predicated on a proficiency-oriented view of language. He
states that:
Proficiency, however described, refers to a product or result of
successful language acquisition, and since it represents a very general
concept, needs to be operationalised in making decisions about
content and procedure in teaching. This is done through the
development of program goals or objectives. In language teaching
a number of different ways of stating objectives are commonly
employed, variations in practice reflecting different perceptions of
the nature of second- or foreign-language proficiency. Current
approaches include behavioural, process, content and proficiency
based objectives.
(Richards 1984:10)

In considering content and methodology, Richards suggests that there

are two different orientations that the curriculum designer can take. The
first of these is to look at language input specification as the fundamental
basis for methodology. The other is to focus on instructional processes
and not bother with an explicit specification of language content. The
content-oriented approach has dominated language syllabus design for
many years, first in the guise of structural and latterly in the guise of
functional-notional syllabuses. Process-oriented alternatives include the
'fringe' methodologies such as Silent Way, Community Language Learn-
 ESL and Curriculum Planning 19

ing and Suggestopedia. It also includes task-based, and process-based

syllabuses such as the Bangalore syllabus of Prabhu. In discussing
methodology, Richards suggests that regardless of orientation there are
three underlying components. These are (a) a linguistic dimension which
justifies what aspects of language will be taught, (b) a psycholinguistic
dimension which includes an account of the processes underlying learn-
ing, and (c) a teaching dimension, which relates to learning experience
activities and tasks and to the role of teachers learners and materials in
the learning system.
Richards comments on the general lack of evaluation procedures in
language teaching, attributing this to the relatively short life span of
most teaching methods and also to the absence of the sort of systematic
approach to curriculum development that he is advocating. He suggests
that the purpose of evaluation is to determine whether the objectives of
a programme have been attained and, where they have not been attained,
to suggest procedures for improvement. He describes a comprehensive
evaluation model taken from Omaggio etai (1979) which contains eight
steps. These are as follows:

1 Identify a set of programme goals and objectives to be evaluated.

2 Identify programme factors relevant to the attainment of these
objectives.
3 For each factor in Step 2, develop a set of criteria that would
indicate that the objectives are being successfully attained.
4 Design appropriate instruments to assess each factor according
to the criteria outlined.
5 Collect the data that is needed.
6 Compare data with desired results.
7 Match your discrepancy.
8 Prepare an evaluation report.

The course design model developed by Nunan (1985a) is similar in many

respects to that devised by Richards. The essential elements in this model
include needs analysis, goal identification, objective setting, materials
development, learning activities, learning mode and environment and
evaluation. The model differs from that proposed by Richards, however,
in that apart, from initial ad hoc needs analysis for the purposes of
grouping learners, curriculum development activities occur during the
process of teaching and learning. The curriculum development process
is cyclical and is thus similar to that developed by Wheeler (1967). It is
also interactive, recognising that the impetus for curriculum development
can begin with any of the elements in the model and that a change in
one element will affect other elements. For example, the discovery of
new materials may suggest a modification to objectives, learning arrange-
ments and evaluation. Use of new materials will almost certainly have
20 Curriculum Processes

an effect on methodology and the sorts of learning activities which take

place in the classroom.
The other aspect of the model which differs slightly from previous
ones is the prominence it gives to the teacher in the course design process.
Reassessment of the role of the teacher in curriculum development is a
major preoccupation of the present work and is expanded upon in the
pages which follow.
In this section we have looked at recent language curriculum develop-
ment models. We have seen that until fairly recently there has been a
lack of balance in the attention devoted to different elements within the
model with the focus being either exclusively on the selection and grading
of content, or on methodology.
The current need is for language curriculum designers to look beyond
linguistics to the general field of educational research and theory for
assistance in developing curricula. There is also a need for curriculum
development to be systematic, and for due consideration to be given to
all the key elements in the curriculum development process.

2.3 Summary
The curriculum model developed in the rest of this book is a synthesis
of the product-oriented ends—means model, and the process-oriented
approach first proposed for language teaching by applied linguists such
as Breen and Candlin. One of the articles of faith underpinning this
book is that any curriculum which fails to give due consideration to
both process and product will be defective. Thus, while the model con-
tains procedures for developing goals and objectives, and for evaluating
these, it sees the various curriculum development activities as ongoing
processes within the teaching—learning process. Important in planning,
presenting and evaluating learning outcomes will be joint consultation
and negotiation between teachers and learners. Adopting a process orien-
tation allows for greater flow and integration between planning proces-
ses, implementation processes and evaluation. The model thus rejects
the ballistic nature of ends—means models where planning occurs before
course delivery and evaluation after course delivery. It also rejects the
general tendency for some ends—means approaches to downplay the role
of methodology or ignore it completely.