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ENG519...…….
Lecture: 01

Curriculum development focuses on determining what knowledge, skills, and values students learn in schools; what
experiences should be provided to bring about intended learning outcomes; and how teaching and learning in educational
systems can be planned, measured, and evaluated.

Curriculum development process is seen as a combination of:

 Needs analysis
 Goal setting
 Format and presentation
 Principles
 Syllabus design
 Methodology
 Approaches to curriculum
 Professional development of teachers
 Testing and evaluation

Language curriculum development - familiarizes us with an interrelated set of processes that focuses on designing,
revising, implementing, and evaluating language programs.

Syllabus design - is one aspect of curriculum development but is not identical with it. A syllabus is seen as a
specification of the content of a course of instruction and lists all possible teaching content.

Curriculum development - is a more comprehensive process than syllabus design. It includes the processes that are
used to determine:

 Needs analysis
 Goal setting
 Principles
 Syllabus design
 Methodology
 Testing and evaluation

Historical Perspective of Language Teaching Methods

 Grammar Translation Method (1800-1900)

 Direct Method (1890-1930)
 Structural Method (1930-1960)
 Reading Method (1920-1950)
 Audiolingual Method (1950-1970)
 Situational Method (1950-1970)
 Communicative Approach (1970-present)

Lecture: 02

Criteria for determining the word lists

 Teach-ability: In a course that is taught by following the Direct Method or Total Physical Response Method,
concrete vocabulary is taught early because it can easily be illustrated through pictures or by demonstration.
 Similarity: Some items may be selected because they are similar to words in the native language.
 Availability: Some words may not be frequent but are readily available in the sense that they come quickly to
mind when certain topics are thought of. For example, classroom calls to mind desk, chair, teacher, and pupil
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 Coverage: Words that cover or include the meanings of other words may also be useful. For example, seat
might be taught because it includes the meanings of stool, bench, and chair.
 Defining power: Some words could be selected because they are useful in defining other words. For example,
container might be useful because it can help define bucket, jar, and carton.

One of the most important lexical syllabuses in language teaching:

 Writer: Michael West

 Title: A General Service List of English Words (1953)
 Vocabulary bank: 2,000 words.

Principles of Selection and Gradation of Grammatical Syllabi

 Simplicity and centrality: This recommends choosing structures that are simple and more central to the basic
structure of the language than those that are complex and peripheral.

Approaches to Gradation

 Linguistic distance: This approach emphasizes first on those teaching structures that are similar to the native
language. This is because the elements that are similar the learners’ native language will be simple for them
 Intrinsic difficulty: This principle argues that simple structures should be taught before the complex ones
 Communicative need: Some structures will be needed early and cannot be postponed despite their difficulty
(such as the simple past in English)
 Frequency: The frequency of occurrence of structures and grammatical items in the target language may also
affect the order in which they appear in a syllabus

Assumptions Underlying Early Approaches to Syllabus Design

 The basic units of language are vocabulary and grammar

 Learners everywhere have the same needs
 Learners’ needs are identified exclusively in terms of language needs
 The process of learning a language is largely determined by the textbook
 The context of teaching is English as a foreign language

Lecture: 03

In Britain, applied linguists developed a methodology

Characteristics

 A structural syllabus with graded vocabulary levels

 Meaningful presentation of structures in contexts through the use of situations
 A sequence of classroom activities that went from Presentation, to controlled Practice, to freer Production (the
PPP method).

English for ESP - the ESP student is usually studying English in order to carry out a particular role such as that of a
foreign student in an English-medium university, a flight attendant, a mechanic, or a doctor.

Register analysis - studies the language of such fields as journalism, medicine, or law for distinctive patterns of
occurrence of vocabulary, verb forms, noun phrases, and tense usage.

The research process - The vocabulary is primarily verbs and nouns and is presented in a context which discusses the
five steps of research:

1. Formulating
2. Investigating
3. Analyzing
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4. Drawing conclusions
5. Reporting results

The vocabulary of analysis - It includes high-frequency and two-word verbs needed in order to present information in
an organized sequence, for example, consist of, result from, base on, be noted for, etc.

Discourse analysis - examines the communicative contexts that affect language use, for example, in social transactions,
the relationship between the discourse and the speakers and listeners.

For example, it looks at how the choice of verb tenses or other grammatical features affect the structure of the discourse.

Lecture: 04

The Munby Model

It describes a systematic approach to needs analysis in ESP course design and focuses on two dimensions of needs
analysis:

1) The procedures used to specify the target-level communicative competence of the student
2) Procedures for turning the infor-mation into a syllabus

Lecture: 05

Situation analysis - an analysis of factors in the context of a planned or present curriculum project that is made in order
to assess their political, social, economic, or institutional situation. It complements the information gathered during
needs analysis.

Project Factors that need to be considered in situation analysis

  Who constitutes the project group and how are they selected?

  What are the management and other responsibilities of the team?

  How are goals and procedures determined?

  Who reviews the progress of the project and performance of its members?

  What experience do members of the team have?

 How do members of the team regard each other?

Institutional factors that need to be considered in situation analysis

 What leadership is available within the school to support change and to help teachers cope with
change?
 What is the role of textbooks and other instructional materials?
 What is staff morale?
 What problems do teachers face and what is being done about them?
 How committed is the institution to attaining excellence?

Teacher Factors

Teacher is a key factor in the successful implementation of curriculum changes. But inadequately trained teachers may
not be able to make effective use of teaching materials, no matter how well they are designed. In any institution, teachers
may vary according to the following dimensions:

 Language proficiency
 Skill and expertise
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 Morale and motivation
 Teaching experience
 Teaching style
 Training and qualifications
 Beliefs and principles

Teacher factors that need to be considered in situation analysis

 What kinds of teachers currently teach in the target schools or institutions?

 What typical teaching methods do the teachers use and believe in?
 To what extent are teachers open to change?
 What opportunities do they have for retraining through in-service or other kinds of opportunities?

Lecture: 06

Adoption Factors
Curriculum changes are of many different kinds. They may affect teachers’ pedagogical values and beliefs, their
understanding of the nature of language or second language learning, or their classroom practices and use of teaching
materials. Some changes may be readily accepted while others might be resisted.
Environment analysis - involves looking at the local and wider situation to make sure that the course will fit and meet
the 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.
Steps in Environment Analysis
 Step 1: Brainstorm and then systematically consider the range of environment factors that will
affect the course.

 Step 2: Choose the most important factors (not more than five) and rank them, putting the most
important first.

 Step 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. Step 4: Consider the
effects of each factor on the design of the course.

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

Lecture: 07

Purposes of Needs Analysis

 To collect information about a particular problem learners are experiencing

 To identify a gap between what students are able to do and what they need to be able to do
 To find out what language skills a learner needs in order to perform a particular role
 To help determine if an existing course adequately addresses the needs
 To determine which students from a group are most in need of training
 To identify a change of direction that people in a reference group feel important
Users of Needs Analysis
 Teachers who will teach from the new curriculum.
 Learners who will be taught from the curriculum.
 Writers who are preparing new textbooks.
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 Curriculum officers in the ministry of education who may wish to use the information to evaluate the
adequacy of existing syllabus, curriculum, and materials
Target Population - refers to the people about whom information will be collected. It might include:

 policymakers
 ministry of education officials
 teachers
 students
 academics
 employers
 parents

Lecture: 08

Task Analysis and Case Studies

This refers to analysis of the kinds of tasks the learners will have to carry out in English in a future occupational or
educational setting and assessment of the linguistic characteristics and demands of the tasks.

Designing the Needs Analysis

Decisions have to be made on the practical procedures involved in collecting, organizing, analyzing, and reporting the
information collected. The procedures of needs analysis are:

 Literature survey
 Analysis of a wide range of survey questionnaires
 Contact with others who had conducted similar surveys
 Interviews with teachers to determine goals
 Identification of participating departments
 Presentation of project proposal to participating departments
 Development of a pilot student and staff questionnaire
 Review of questionnaires by colleagues
 Piloting of questionnaires
 Selection of staff and student subjects
 Developing a schedule for collecting data
 Administration of questionnaires

Evaluating Needs Analysis

Needs analysis is a kind of assessment and thus can be evaluated by considering its reliability, validity and practicality.
Reliable needs analysis involves using well-thought-out, standardized tools that are applied systematically.
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.

Lecture: 09

Twenty Principles
These principles must be based on research and theory, and must be general enough to allow variety and flexibility in
their application to suit a wide range of conditions. The principles have been divided into three groups. These three
groups represent the three major divisions of the central circle in the curriculum design diagram.
The first group of principles deals with content and sequencing. The aim of these principles is to make sure that the
learners are gaining something useful from the course.
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The second group of principles deals with format and presentation. These principles are concerned with what actually
happens in the classroom and during the learning.

The third group of principles deals with monitoring and assessment and to some degree evaluation.

Content and sequencing

Principle 1: 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

Principle 2: Strategies and autonomy – A language course should train learners how to learn a language so that they
can become effective and independent language learners.

Spaced retrieval – Learners should have increasingly spaced, repeated opportunity to give attention to wanted items in
a variety of contexts.

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

Principle 5: Keep moving forward – A language course should progressively cover useful language items, skills and
strategies.

Principle 6: Teach-ability – 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.

Principle 7: Learning Burden – The course should help the learners to make the most effective use of previous
knowledge.

Principle 8: 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.

Lecture: 10

Format and Presentation

Principle 1: Motivation – This principle stresses the importance of the learners’ attitude to what they are studying.
Principle 2: Four Strands – This principle is concerned with the relative amount of time given to the four main strands
of a language course – meaning-focused input; language focused learning, meaning-focused output and fluency
development.

Principle 3: Comprehensible input – There should be substantial quantities of interesting comprehensible receptive
activity in both listening and reading.

Principle 4: Fluency – A language course should provide activities aimed at increasing the fluency with which the
learners can use the language they already know, both receptively and productively.

Principle 5: Output – The learners should be pushed to produce the language in both speaking and writing over a range
of discourse types.

Principle 6: Deliberate Learning – The course should include language-focused learning in the sound system,
vocabulary, grammar and discourse areas.

Principle 7: Time on Task - As much time as possible should be spent on using and focusing on the second language.

Principle 8: Depth of Processing – Learners should process the items to be learned as deeply and as thoughtfully as
possible.

Principle 10: Learning Style - There should be opportunity for learners to work with the learning material in ways that
most suit their individual learning style.
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Monitoring and Assessment

Principle 1: Ongoing Needs and Environment Analysis – The selection, gradation, presentation and assessment of
the material in a language course should be based on a careful consideration of the learners and their needs, the teaching
conditions, and the time and resources available.

Principle 2: Feedback – Learners should receive helpful feedback which will allow them to improve the quality of
their language use.

Uses the List of Principles

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

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

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

Lecture: 11

Empowerment - Teachers must empower their students so that they can recognize unjust systems of class, race or
gender and challenge them. Schools must engage teachers and students in an examination of important social and
personal problems and seek ways to address them.

Social Constructionism - This philosophy argues that schools should prepare students to participate in several different
cultures and not merely the culture of the dominant social and economic group. This particular philosophy defines the
role of schools where there is no inequality on the basis of gender, race or age. Learning is an inclusive process where
roles of schools and learners are integrated.

Cultural pluralism - defines the role of various cultures and to what extent it is important to look at the culture of the
native speakers while designing the course. Cultural pluralism leads to the bilingual education in some parts of the
world.

Lecture: 12

Aim – a statement of a general change that a program seeks to bring about in learners. Aims statements reflect the
ideology of the curriculum and show how the curriculum will seek to realize it. The purposes of aim statements are:

 To provide a clear definition of the purposes of a program.

 To provide guidelines for teachers, learners, and material writers.
 To describe important and realizable changes in learning.
 To help provide a focus for instruction.

Objectives characteristics

 They provide a basis for the organization of teaching activities.

 They describe what the aim seeks to achieve in terms of smaller units of learning.
 They describe learning in terms of observable behavior or performance.

Criticisms on the Use of Objectives

 Objectives turn teaching into a technology

 Objectives trivialize teaching and are product-oriented
 Objectives are unsuited to many aspects of language use.

CBLT seeks to make a focus on the outcomes of learning, a central planning stage in the development of language
programs. CBLT shifts the focus to the ends of learning rather than the means.

Process of developing a competency-based curriculum

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 Reviewing existing curricula, resource materials, and textbooks
 Needs analysis (interviews, observations, survey of employers)
 Identifying topics for a survival curriculum
 Identifying competencies for each of the topics
 Grouping competencies into instructional units

The Standard Movement

Standards are descriptions of the targets students should be able to reach in different domains of curriculum content.
The standards are framed around three goals and nine standards.

Non-language Outcomes

If the curriculum seeks to reflect values related to learner centeredness, social re-constructionism, or cultural pluralism,
outcomes related to these values will also need to be included. Because such outcomes go beyond the content of a
linguistically oriented syllabus, they are sometimes referred to as non-language outcomes.

Lecture: 13

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 rationale thus serves the purposes of:

 Guiding the planning of the various components of the course.

 Emphasizing the kinds of teaching and learning the course should exemplify.
 Providing a check on the consistency of the various course components in terms of the course values and goals.

Information sources for planning of course content

 Available literature on the topic

 Published materials on the topic
 Review of similar courses offered elsewhere
 Review of tests or exams in the area
 Consultation with specialists in the area
 Consultation with teachers familiar with the topic

Determining the Scope and Sequence

Decisions about course content also need to address the distribution of content throughout the course. This is known as
planning the scope and sequence of the course. Scope is concerned with the breadth and depth of coverage of items in
the course.

Factors in choosing a particular syllabus framework

 Knowledge and beliefs about the subject area

 Research and theory
 Common practice
 Trends

Lexical syllabus – It identifies a target vocabulary to be taught, normally arranged according to levels such as the first
500, 1,000, 1,500, 2,000 words. Vocabulary syllabuses were among the first types of syllabuses to be developed in
language teaching.

Situational syllabus – It is organized around the language needed for different situations such as at the airport or at a
hotel. A situation is a setting in which particular communicative acts typically occur.
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Topical or content-based syllabus

It is organized around themes, topics, or other units of content. It is the teaching of content or information in the language
being learned with little or no direct effort to teach the language separately from the content being taught

Advantages of courses based on content-based syllabuses

 Facilitate comprehension
 Address students' needs
 Motivate learners
 Allow for integration of the four skills
 Allow for use of authentic materials

Competency-based syllabus – It is based on a specification of the competencies learners are expected to master in
relation to specific situations and activities. Competencies are a description of the essential skills, knowledge, and
attitudes required for effective performance of particular tasks and activities.

Text-based syllabus – It is built around texts and samples of extended discourse. This approach starts with the texts
which are identified for a specific context or which have been identified by students.

Developing Instructional Blocks

A course also needs to be mapped out in terms of instructional blocks or sections. An instructional block is a self-
contained learning sequence that has its own goals and objectives and that also reflects the overall objectives for the
course. Instructional blocks represent the instructional focus of die course

Preparing the Scope and Sequence Plan

Once a course has been planned and organized, it can be described. One form in which it can be described is as a scope
and sequence plan. This might consist of a listing of the module or units and their contents and an indication of how
much teaching time each block in the course will require.

Lecture: 14

Units of progression in a course are the items that are used to grade the progress of the course. 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.

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

Three major ways of defining subskills

1. 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.
2. Another way is to look at the skill as a process and to divide it into the parts of the process. One possible division
of the process is:
 Having a model of the reader
 Having writing goals
 Gathering ideas
 Organizing ideas
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 Turning ideas into written text
 Reviewing what has just been written
 Editing the written text
3. A third way of dividing up a skill is to use levels of cognitive activity. Bloom divides cognitive activity into six
levels of increasing complexity:
 Knowledge
 Comprehension
 Application
 Analysis
 Synthesis
 Evaluation

Forms the ideas content of a course can take

The ideas about the content of a course can be as under:

 Imaginary happenings
 An academic subject
 Learner survival needs
 Interesting facts
 Culture

Task - an activity which requires learners to use language, with emphasis on meaning, to attain an objective‖.

Sequencing the Content in a Course: A Linear Approach

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)
 Whether each lesson is separate from the others so that the lessons can be done in any order

Sequencing the Content in a Course: A Modular 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 itself and does not usually
assume knowledge of previous modules.

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
 The modules could be based on language functions

Lecture: 15

Format

It is at the format and presentation part of the curriculum design process that the data gathered from needs, environment
analysis and the principles chosen to maximize learning come together in activities that involve the learners.

When designing the format of a lesson, the curriculum designer needs to consider environment factors such as:

 The length of time available for each lesson,

 The teachers’ skill and role in the lesson
 The size of a typical class

Format and presentation must take account of,

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 The environment in which the course will be used
 The needs of the learners
 The principles of teaching and learning

The Four Strands

1. Meaning Focused Input - Meaning-focused input involves having the opportunity to learn from listening and
speaking. Krashen would call it learning from comprehensible input.
2. Meaning Focused Output - Meaning-focused speaking should involve the learners in conversation and also in
monologue. The conversation can have a largely social focus and can also be used for conveying important
information.
3. Language Focused Learning - Language-focused learning involves a deliberate focus on language features such
as pronunciation, spelling, word parts, vocabulary, collocations, grammatical constructions and discourse
features.
4. Fluency Development - the fluency development strand of a course does not involve the learning of new
language features, but involves becoming fluent with features that the learners have already met before.

Activities which could occur in the language focused learning strand

 Intensive reading
 Pronunciation practice
 Guided writing
 Spelling practice
 Blank-filling
 Sentence completion or Sentence combining

Conditions for the fluency development strand

 Easy, familiar material

 Focus on communicating messages
 Some pressure to perform at a faster speed
 Plenty of opportunities for fluency practice

In a very interesting book entitled Planning from Lesson to Lesson, Woodward and Lindstromberg describe two ways
of planning a lesson – Blocks and Threads.

1. Blocks – the lesson has a set format and is a separate block largely complete within itself. Typical block formats
include the type of lesson with listening and reading input, language-focused activity, and meaning-focused output.
Another block format involves an experience-providing stage,

2. Threads – activities that run through a series of lessons. Threads are activities that can be used again and again with
minimal planning and only small changes.

Tasks and Presentation

In a task-supported syllabus, the task is likely to be the final stage in a conventional Present– Practice–Produce unit of
work; the task may be designed to focus on the language structure that has been presented. In a task-based syllabus,
however, the task is likely to be the unit. The task-based learning framework as consisting of three phases:

 Pre-task
 Task cycle
 Language focus

Lecture: 16
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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).

Quality Indicators in an Institution

 There are clearly stated educational goals

 There is a well-planned, balanced, and organized program that meets the needs of its students.
 Systematic and identifiable processes exist for determining educational needs
 There is a commitment to learning
 There is a high degree of staff involvement
 The school's programs are regularly reviewed

Quality assurance - refers to systems a school has in place to ensure the quality of its practices. Factors relevant to
creating a culture of quality assurance in an institution are as follows:

 The curriculum is coherent

 A formulated policy on quality assurance
 The range of courses offered corresponds to the needs of learners.
 Systems in place to ensure that quality are regularly assessed
 A reward system is in place to ensure that those who attain high quality in their work are recognized.

Factors to ensure the transparency of the system

 Regular meetings
 Regular communication
 Transparent admin system
 Shared decision making
 Clear guidance for staff
 Feedback on program aspects

Factors that affect the quality of teaching in a program

 Quality Indicators in an Institution

 A Sense of Mission and a Strategic Plan
 Good Internal Communications
 The Teaching Context

Lecture: 17

The Teachers: Qualifications

In describing teachers' skills, it is possible to compare teachers in terms of their training (trained or untrained) and
experience (novice or experienced). The training dimension refers to possession of a professional qualification in
language teaching; experience dimension refers to classroom experience.

Certificate in Language Teaching to Adults (CELTA)

It focuses on six areas of basic teaching skills:

1. Language awareness
2. The learner, the teacher, and the teaching/learning context
3. Planning for effective teaching of adult learners of English
4. Classroom management and teaching skills
5. Resources and materials for teaching
6. Professional development
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Support for Teachers

If teachers are expected to teach well and to develop their teaching skills and knowledge over time, they need ongoing
support. This may take a number of forms:

 Adequate materials
 Course guides
 Division of responsibilities
 Further training
 Feedback
 Teaching release
 Mentors
 Orientation

The Teaching Process: Teaching Models

1. The communicative approach: The focus of teaching is on authentic communication, extensive use of pair and
group activities that involve negotiation of meaning and information sharing. Fluency is a priority.

2. The cooperative learning model: Students work in cooperative learning situations and are encouraged to work
together on common tasks and to coordinate their efforts to complete tasks. Rewards systems are group-oriented rather
than individual-oriented.

3. The process approach: In writing classes, students take part in activities that develop their understanding of writing
as a process. Different stages in the writing process (planning, generating ideas, drafting, reviewing, revising, editing)
form the focus of teaching.

Self-study – involves a study of a program's practices and values as part of the process of self-evaluation and review. It
is part of the process of demonstrating a commitment to quality and to long-term goals and professional development.

The Learning Process

Learning is not the mirror image of teaching. The extent to which teaching achieves its goals will also dependent on
how successfully learners have been considered in the planning and delivery process. The following factors may affect
how successfully a course is received by learners:

 Learning styles
 Motivation
 Support
 Understanding of the course
 Views of learning

Lecture: 18

Forms of Instructional Materials

 Printed materials such as books, workbooks, worksheets, or readers

 Non-print materials such as cassette or audio materials, videos, or computer-based materials
 Materials that comprise print and non-print sources such as self-access materials and materials on the Internet
 Authentic or Created Materials

Roles of Instructional Materials by Cunningsworth

 A resource for presentation materials (spoken and written)

 A source of activities for learner practice and communicative interaction
 A source of stimulation and ideas for classroom activities
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 A reference source for learners on grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, and so on
 A support for less experienced teachers who have yet to gain in confidence
 A syllabus (where they reflect learning objectives that have already been determined)

Authentic materials refer to the use in teaching of texts, photographs, video selections, and other teaching resources
that were not specially prepared for pedagogical purposes.

Created materials refer to textbooks and other specially developed instructional resources.

Some have argued that authentic materials are preferred over created materials because they contain authentic language
and reflect real-world uses of language.

Advantages of Authentic Materials

 They have a positive effect on learners’ motivation

 They provide authentic information about the target culture
 They provide exposure to real language rather than the artificial texts
 They relate more closely to learners' needs
 They support a more creative approach to teaching

Use of commercial textbooks in teaching: Advantages

 They provide structure and a syllabus for a program

 They provide a variety of learning resources
 They help standardize instruction
 They maintain quality
 They are efficient and train teachers

Criteria for Textbook Evaluation

 They should correspond to learners' needs

 They should reflect the uses (present or future) that learners will make of the language
 They should reflect a clear role as a support for learning
 They should take account of students' needs as learners and should facilitate their learning processes

Checklist for textbook evaluation and selection organized under the following categories:

 Aims and approaches

 Design and organization
 Language content
 Skills
 Topic
 Methodology
 Teachers' books
 Practical considerations

Factors to be considered during evaluation and selection

 Program factors
 Pedagogical factors
 Teacher factors
 Learner factors
 Content factors

Adaptation in Textbooks may take a variety of forms

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 Modifying content:
 Adding or deleting content:
 Reorganizing content: A teacher may reorganize the syllabus of the book, and arrange the units in what she
considers a more suitable order.
 Addressing omissions: The text may omit items that the teacher feels important
 Modifying tasks:
 Extending tasks

Lecture: 19

Preparing Materials for a Program: Advantages

 Relevance: Materials can be produced that are directly relevant to students' institutional needs
 Develop expertise: Developing materials can help develop expertise among staff
 Reputation: Institutionally developed materials may enhance the reputation of the institution
 Flexibility: Materials produced within the institution can be revised or adapted as needed

Preparing Materials for a Program: Disadvantages

 Cost: Quality materials take time to produce and adequate staff, time as well as resources need
 Quality: Teacher-made materials will not normally have the same standard of design and production as
commercial materials and hence may not present the same image as commercial materials.
 Training: To prepare teachers for material writing projects, adequate training should be provided

Characteristics of good Materials

Good materials do many of the things that a teacher would normally do as part of his or her teaching. They should:

 Arouse the learners' interest

 Remind them of earlier learning
 Tell them what they will be learning next
 Explain new learning content to them
 Relate these ideas to learners' previous learning
 Help them get feedback on their learning
 Encourage them to practice

Decisions in Materials Design

There are two key decisions which researcher needs to take:

a) Choosing input resources

b) Selecting exercise

In order to design material, the designer has to consider the following points:

 Developing aims
 Developing objectives
 Developing a syllabus
 Organizing the course into units
 Developing a structure for units
 Sequencing units

When the process of writing begins, further decisions need to be made about:

 Choosing input sources

 Selecting exercise types
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Managing a Material Writing Project

The management of a team-based writing project involves addressing the following issues:

 Selecting the project team: How many people will take part in the project
 Project Director: responsible for overall management of the project
 Writers: responsible for writing all components of the course
 Media Specialist: responsible for audio visual materials
 Editor: responsible for reviewing everything the writers have produced
 Illustrator: responsible for preparing and selecting art and illustrations
 Designer: responsible for the layout, type, style, graphics, and the overall format of the materials.

Lecture: 20

Purposes of Monitoring the Use of Materials

 To document effective ways of using materials.

 To provide feedback on how materials work
 To assist other teachers in using the materials

Monitoring may take the following forms:

 Observation: classroom visits to see how teachers use materials

 Feedback sessions: group meetings in which teachers discuss their experience with materials
 Written reports: the use of reflection sheets or other forms of written feedback in which teachers make brief
notes
 Reviews: written reviews by a teacher or group of teachers on their experiences
 Students' reviews: comments from students on their experience with the materials

Possible negative aspects of preplanned materials

 Each group of students is unique so pre-made material cannot meet the needs
 Text books reduce teachers’ role.
 There are cultural prejudices.
 Some materials fail to present appropriate and realistic language examples.

Possible positive aspects of preplanned materials are as follows:

 Source of information and support

 Suggestions for teachers
 An agent of change
 Collaboration among teachers

Effective materials are likely to reflect the following:

 Language is functional and must be contextualized:

 The language should be realistic and authentic:
 Effective teaching materials foster learners’ autonomy
 Classroom materials will usually seek to include an audio visual component
 Language development requires learners’ engagement in purposeful use of language:

Adopting and Adapting an Existing Course Book

 The course book material does not fit comfortably into the time available for the course.
 The course book contains content that is unsuitable for the learners’ level of proficiency or age.
 The course book does not apply principles that the teacher feels should be applied.
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 The course book does not include language items, skills, ideas, discourse or strategies that the learners need.

Teacher can do the following things to adapt a course book:

 Add or omit content

 Add or omit monitoring
 Add or omit assessment
 Time on task
 Change the sequencing of the content
 Change the format
 Change the presentation

Using Computers and the Internet

It has had an impact on language teaching in four main ways:

 The use of computers and computer software in self-access centers and language-learning laboratories.
 The use of computer-mediated activities in the classroom
 The use of the internet as a source of information
 The use of corpora such as the British National Corpus

Essential features of a course book

 The book should be at the right vocabulary and grammar level for the learners.
 The book should focus on the language and skills that are the goal of the course.
 The book should be below a certain price.
 The book should be readily available

Criteria for evaluating a test

 Is the form reliable?

 Is the form valid?
 Is the form practical?

Lecture: 21

Curriculum statements - provide the content and sequencing, goals, and assessment parts of the course, and leave it to
the teacher to decide on the materials to use to deal with format and presentation.

The Process of Curriculum Design

Waterfall Model

 Requirement analysis
 System design
 Implementation
 Testing
 Deployment
 Maintenance

There is a range of starting points and different paths through the curriculum design process. Choosing which path to
take will depend on:

 The time available for course preparation

 The availability of needs analysis information
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 The availability of a usable course book
 The skill of the curriculum designer

Lecture: 22

Three Curriculum Approaches

1) Forward design starts with syllabus planning, moves to methodology, and is followed by assessment of
learning outcomes. Resolving issues of syllabus content and sequencing are essential starting points with
forward design
2) Central design begins with classroom processes and methodology. Issues of syllabus and learning outcomes
are not specified in detail in advance.
3) Backward design starts from a specification of learning outcomes and decisions on methodology and syllabus
are developed from the learning outcomes.

Criteria for the selection of syllabus units

 Frequency
 Usefulness
 Simplicity
 Learnability
 Authenticity

Lecture: 23
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