The focus of this book is the processes involved in developing, implementing, and evaluating language programs. By a language program I refer to any organized course of language instruction. Second and foreign language teaching is one of the world's largest educational enterprises and millions of children and adults worldwide devote large amounts of time and effort to the task of mastering a new language. Teachers too invest a great deal of their energies into planning language courses, preparing teaching materials, and teaching their classes. What educational principles are these activities based on? What values do these principles reflect? Whose interests do they serve? And can our practices be improved through reviewing the principles we operate from and critically examining the practices that result from them? The goal of this book is to provide some of the tools for this process of review and reflection through surveying approaches to language curriculum development and examining ways of addressing the issues that arise in developing and evaluating language programs and language teaching materials. Language curriculum development deals with the following questions, which provide the framework for this book:

• What procedures can be used to determine the content of a language program?

• What are learners' needs?

• How can learners' needs be determined?

• What contextual factors need to be considered in planning a language program?

• What is the nature of aims and objectives in teaching and how can these be developed?

Like many language teaching professionals, I entered the field of language teaching as a classroom teacher, anticipating that as I accumulated experience and professional knowledge, I would become a better teacher. As many others have discovered, however, I soon came to realize that being an effective teacher meant much more than becoming a more skillful and knowledgeable classroom practitioner. It meant learning how to develop and adapt materials, to plan and evaluate courses, to adapt teaching to students' needs, and to function within an institutional setting. It became clear that effective teaching was dependent on understanding the context for teaching, the needs of teachers and learners, the careful planning of courses and materials, as well as the monitoring of teaching and learning. In short, it was necessary to try to understand teaching as a part of an interrelated set of factors and processes that are often referred to as curriculum development.

This book seeks to describe and examine the processes of curriculum development in language teaching in order to acquaint language teachers and teachers-in-training with fundamental issues and practices in language curriculum development. Curriculum development is an essentially practical activity since it seeks to improve the quality of language teaching through the use of systematic planning, development, and review practices in all aspects of a language program. The book tries to provide as many examples as possible of how some of the practical problems in language program development have been addressed by practitioners in many parts of the world.

A number of different levels of planning and development are involved in developing a course or set of instructional materials based on the aims and objectives that have been established for a language program. In this chapter we will examine the following dimensions of course development:

• developing a course rationale

• describing entry and exit levels

• choosing course content

• sequencing course content

• planning the course content (syllabus and instructional blocks)

• preparing the scope and sequence plan

These processes do not necessarily occur in a linear order. Some may take place simultaneously and many aspects of a course are subject to ongoing revision each time the course is taught. The types of decision making that we will examine in this chapter are also involved in developing instructional materials and many of the examples discussed apply to both course planning and materials design.

The course rationale

A starting point in course development is a description of the course rationale. This is a brief written description of the reasons for the course and the nature of it. The course rationale seeks to answer the following questions:

Who is this course for?

What is the course about?

What kind of teaching and learning will take place in the course?

The course rationale answers these questions by describing the beliefs, values and goals that underlie the course.

Teaching materials are a key component in most language programs. Whether the teacher uses a textbook, institutionally prepared materials, or his or her own materials, instructional materials generally serve as the basis for much of the language input learners receive and the language practice that occurs in the classroom. In the case of inexperienced teachers, materials may also serve as a form of teacher training - they provide ideas on how to plan and teach lessons as well as formats that teachers can use. Much of the language teaching that occurs throughout the world today could not take place without the extensive use of commercial materials. These may take the form of (a) printed materials such as books, workbooks, worksheets, or readers; (b) nonprint materials such as cassette or audio materials, videos, or computer-based materials; (c) materials that comprise both print and nonprint sources such as self-access materials and materials on the Internet. In addition, materials not designed for instructional use such as magazines, newspapers, and TV materials may also play a role in the curriculum.

Cunningsworth (1995, 7) summarizes the role of materials (particularly course books) in language teaching as:

• a resource for presentation materials (spoken and written)

• a source of activities for learner practice and communicative interaction

• a reference source for learners on grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, and so on

• a source of stimulation and ideas for classroom activities

A recurring theme throughout this book has been reflective analysis of the practices that are involved in planning and teaching a language course. This has involved an examination of the context in which the program occurs, of the goals, syllabus, and structure of a course, and how these can be planned and developed, as well as analysis of the teaching and learning that takes place during the course. The focus throughout has been analysis of the different factors that determine the successful design and implementation of language programs and language teaching materials. This overall and interlinked system of elements (i.e., needs, goals, teachers, learners, syllabuses, materials, and teaching) is known as the second language curriculum. However, once a curriculum is in place, a number of important questions still need to be answered.

These include:

• Is the curriculum achieving its goals?

• What is happening in classrooms and schools where it is being implemented?

• Are those affected by the curriculum (e.g., teachers, administrators, students, parents, employers) satisfied with the curriculum?

• Have those involved in developing and teaching a language course done a satisfactory job?

• Does the curriculum compare favorably with others of its kind?

Curriculum evaluation is concerned with answering questions such as these. It focuses on collecting information about different aspects of a language program in order to understand how the program works, and how successfully it works, enabling different kinds of decisions to be made about the program, such as whether the program responds to learners' needs, whether further teacher training is required for teachers working in the program, or whether students are learning sufficiently from it.

One of the basic assumptions of curriculum development is that a sound educational program should be based on an analysis of learners' needs. Procedures used to collect information about learners' needs are known as needs analysis. Needs analysis as a distinct and necessary phase in planning educational programs emerged in the 1960s as part of the systems approach to curriculum development and was part of the prevalent philosophy of educational accountablity (Stufflebeam, McCormick, Brinkerhoff, and Nelson 1985). If providers of training programs wanted public or other sources of funding in order to provide different kinds of training programs, they were required to demonstrate that a proposed program was a response to a genuine need (Pratt 1980). Subsequently needs analysis developed into something of an industry. Berwick (1989, 51) comments:

The need for convincing precision in educational needs assessment was also reinforced during this period by the “behavioral objectives” movement in educational planning, particularly in North America, which insisted on specifying in measurable form all goals of importance within an educational system. The emphasis on precision and accountability clearly influenced the appearance of needs assessment as a form of educational technology and its diversification into a collection of educational research methodologies.

Needs analysis was introduced into language teaching through the ESP movement (see Chapter 2). From the 1960s, the demand for specialized language programs grew and applied linguists increasingly began to employ needs analysis procedures in language teaching. By the 1980s, in many parts of the world a “needs-based philosophy” emerged in language teaching, particularly in relation to ESP and vocationally oriented program design (Brindley 1984).

Curriculum development processes as they have been described so far in this book are essential resources in helping schools achieve their goals. The other principal educational resource is teaching itself. The focus of this chapter is how quality teaching can be achieved and maintained in a language program. Whereas the preceding chapters have described some of the essential planning that is involved in developing a language course, the present chapter seeks to examine factors that are involved in creating conditions for good teaching to take place. Quality teaching is achieved not only as a consequence of how well teachers teach but through creating contexts and work environments that can facilitate good teaching. The following issues will be considered in this chapter:

• institutional factors

• teacher factors

• teaching factors

• learner factors

The institution

The organizational culture

The organizational culture of a school refers to the ethos and environment that exist within a school, the kinds of communications and decision making that take place, and the management and staffing structure they support. In Chapter 4, several aspects of a school's organizational culture were discussed, including the extent to which the school's organizational culture facilitates or hinders the reception of new ideas and practices. A school's organizational culture is revealed in the way the following questions are answered:

• What are the school's goals and mission?

• What is the school's management style?

The approach to syllabus design outlined in Chapter 1 was largely sufficient to support language teaching up to the 1950s. This consisted of a focus on general English using materials graded for their vocabulary level and linguistic difficulty. English was taught through its structure and vocabulary. Darian (1972, 94), commenting on the influential Michigan materials produced at the University of Michigan, complains:

There is little in the way of “contextual material.” Sentences chosen for exercises are perfectly normal utterances, but they seldom have any relation to one another…In addition, almost all responses are complexly controlled, and there is little provision for students to generate any utterances different from the controlled responses being practiced.

Other approaches to language teaching were also available at this time, such as travel and commercial English books that were organized around topics, situations, and phrases as well as some that focused on technical English or the English used in specific occupations. But the latter type of book or language course was incidental to the main trend in language teaching, which focused on the teaching of general English, or, as it has sometimes been referred to, English for No Specific Purpose.

The quest for new methods

The teaching of English as a second or foreign language became an increasingly important activity after World War II. Immigrants, refugees, and foreign students generated a huge demand for English courses in the United Kingdom, Canada, the United States, and Australia.

The goal of needs analysis is to collect information that can be used to develop a profile of the language needs of a group of learners in order to be able to make decisions about the goals and content of a language course. However, other factors apart from learner needs are relevant to the design and implementation of successful language programs. Language programs are carried out in particular contexts or situations. Clark (1987, xii) comments:

A language curriculum is a function of the interrelationships that hold between subject-specific concerns and other broader factors embracing socio-political and philosophical matters, educational value systems, theory and practice in curriculum design, teacher experiential wisdom and learner motivation. In order to understand the foreign language curriculum in any particular context it is therefore necessary to attempt to understand how all the various influences interrelate to give a particular shape to the planning and execution of the teaching/learning process.

The contexts for language programs are diverse and the particular variables that come into play in a specific situation are often the key determinants of the success of a program. Some language curricula are planned for centrally organized state school systems where a great deal of direction and support for teaching is provided. Others take place in settings where there are limited human and physical resources. Some proposals for curriculum change are well received by teachers, but others may be resisted. In some situations, teachers are well trained and have time available to plan their own lesson materials.

It was suggested in Chapter 1 that early planners of English-language courses saw the purpose of language teaching as self-evident. It was sufficient to state that the goal of a course was to teach English. The ESP movement argued that this approach was inadequate and that in order to teach English it was necessary to find answers to much more specific questions: What kind of English? At what level of proficiency? And for what purposes? Needs analysis seeks to provide answers to these questions and situation analysis seeks to identify the role of contextual factors in implementing curriculum change. In this chapter we will consider another crucial dimension of decision making in curriculum planning: determining the goals and outcomes of a program.

Several key assumptions about goals characterize the curriculum approach to educational planning. These can be summarized as follows:

• People are generally motivated to pursue specific goals.

• The use of goals in teaching improves the effectiveness of teaching and learning.

• A program will be effective to the extent that its goals are sound and clearly described.

These principles appear to be self-evident and uncontroversial, and most language programs describe their goals in terms of aims and objectives. The nature of aims and objectives, however, is not necessarily straightforward because they refer to knowledge, skills, and values that educational planners believe learners need to develop. In deciding on goals, planners choose from among alternatives based on assumptions about the role of teaching and of a curriculum.

The activities of language teaching have often been viewed from a very narrow perspective. This is evident from the fascination with teaching methods that has characterized the history of language teaching until relatively recently. Methods have often been regarded as the most important factor in determining the success of a language program, and advances in language teaching have sometimes been seen as being dependent on the adoption of the latest method. A perspective often missing from the method-based view of teaching is that of how methods interact with other factors in the teaching - learning process. Who are the learners and the teachers? What expectations do they have for the program? What learning and teaching styles do they bring to the program? For what purposes is the language needed? What goals does the program have, and how are these goals expressed? In what settings will teaching take place, and what organizational structure is in place to support and maintain good teaching? What resources will be used, and what are their roles? What is the role of textbooks and other materials? What measures will be used to determine the success of the program? Choice of teaching method cannot therefore be made unless a great deal is known about the context for the language program and the interactions between the different elements involved. It is this perspective that characterizes a curriculum-based approach to language teaching.