INTRODUCTION
Language
curriculum development is an aspect of a broader field of education activity
known as curriculum development or curriculum studies. 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 schools or educational system can be planned,
measured, and evaluated. Language curriculum development refers to the field of
applied linguistics that addresses these issues. It describes an interrelated
set of processes that focuses on designing, revising, implementing, and
evaluating language program.
There
are three aims/purposes of writing the paper:
1. To
provide a framework discussing of curriculum and syllabus (concept and
definition).
2. To provide the origin of language curriculum
development.
3. To provide the overview of language curriculum
components.
CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT IN LANGUAGE TEACHING:
AN OVERVIEW
A. Curriculum and
syllabus: concept and definition
1. Curriculum
a.
Definition
According to Beauchamp (1968:6), in the
broadest sense the term “curriculum” ordinarily is used by a specialists in the
field in two ways: (1). To indicate, roughly,
a plan for the education, of learners, and (2) to identify a field of
study.
Curriculum is a plan for the education
of learners usually is referred to as a curriculum or the curriculum. What is required when referring to the
term is “the grasp of the basic notions education involves as well as the
structural organization every author states within this definition for the term
curriculum” (Moreno, 2000:11). Evidence of what mentioned before is the
following listing of the same concept defined by different authors :
1) Curriculum
can be defined, as an educational program which states :
·
The educational
purpose of the program (the ends)
·
The content
teaching procedures and learning experience which will be necessary to achieve
this purpose (the means)
·
Some means for
assessing whether or not the educational ends has been achieved”
(Richard, Platt and Platt 1933: 94)
2) “Curriculum
is a very general concept which involves consideration of the whole complex of
philosophical, social, and administrative factors which contribute to the
planning of an educational program.” (Allen quoted in Nunan, 2006 : 6)
3) “Curriculum
theory encompasses philosophy and value systems; the main components of the
curriculum; purposes, content, methodology, and evaluation; and the process
whereby curricula are developed, implemented and evaluated”. (White, 1993: 19).
From the definition of curiculum, can summarize is the
curriculum is A plan for the education of learners in general concept.
b.
Concept
In the broadest sense the term
“curriculum” ordinarily is used by specialists in the field in two ways: (1) to
indicate, roughly, a plan for the education of learners, and (2) to identify a
field of study. Curriculum as a plan for the education of learners usually is
referred to as curriculum or the curriculum.
Curriculum as a field of study, like
most specialized fields, is defined by (1) the range of subject matters with
which it is concerned (the substantives, structure), and (2) the procedures of
inquiry and practice that it follows (the syntactical structure). Thus, the
curriculum field, for our purpose, may be describes in term of (1) the subject
matters and (2) the many processes with which specialists are characteristically
concerned.
Concepts of the curriculum.
The word “curriculum” comes from a Latin
root meaning “racecourse”, and traditionally the schools’ curriculum has
represented something like that figuratively speaking.
Curriculum as the Program of Studies.
A listing of the titles of program of studies
offered (or required) by the school. Furthermore, reflection on our own
experience will serve to remind us that course titles ordinarily reveal very
little with regard to learning out comes and the experiences that students can
expect to have while taking the course. For these reason, therefore specialists
in the field prefer to use the term “program of studies” rather than curriculum
to refer to school’s subjects and/or course offerings.
Curriculum as Course Content.
The content of particular courses in the
program often is regarded as the curriculum. This concept of curriculum, like the
one described above, was prevalent among most professional educators before the
advent of the curriculum movement. It
conceives of curriculum solely as the data or information recorded in guided or
textbooks and overlooks many additional
elements that need to be provided for in learning plan. Such a conception of
curriculum limits planning to the selection and organization of information
that learners are acquire.
Curriculum as Planned Learning
Experiences.
A curriculum conceived of as planned
learning experiences is one of the most prevalent concepts among the
specialists in the field today. For example, Krug (1956:4) refers to curriculum
as “All the means employed by the school to provide students with opportunities
for desirable learning experiences,” and Doll (1964:15) writes: “The commonly
accepted definition of the curriculum has changed from content of courses of
study and lists of subject and courses to all the experiences which are offered
to learners under the auspices or direction of the school.
Curriculum as Experiences “Had” under the
Auspices of the School.
Writers who favor the broader definition
of the curriculum sometimes refers to the “invisible curriculum” or the “hidden
curriculum”. For example to teach students to read, but as a result of certain
other experiences “had” by students, they may also learn to dislike reading.
Curriculum as a Structured Series of Intended
Learning Outcomes.
Among the writers who view “planned
learning experiences” as too broad a definition of the curriculum is
MauritzJhonson. In a widely debated essay, this curriculum theories point out
that “there is. . .no experience until an interaction between the individual
and his environment actually occurs. Clearly, such interaction characterized
instruction, not curriculum. Thus, he maintains, the curriculum can consist
only of “a structured series of intended learning outcomes” [Jhonson,
(1967:130)].
Curriculum as a (Written) Plan for Action.
Macdonald (1965:3) proposes that schooling be
conceptualized as the interaction of four systems. The first of
these, teaching, is defined as the “professionally oriented behavior of
individual personality systems, called teachers...”. The second
system, learning consist of the “actions that students perform which teachers
perceive to be task related...”. Combining these two systems, Macdonald defines
the third instruction, as “the action context within which formal
teaching and learning behaviors take place”. In other words, the teaching
learning system. The fourth system of schooling is the curriculum
system, which like instruction, is a social system. The curriculum system
consist of those individuals whose behaviors eventuate in a curriculum.
Macdonald then defines a curriculumas a plan for action. A plan which guides
instruction.
A
Compromise Concept of the Curriculum.
Taba (1962:9) finds the extreme breadth
of the “experience” definition of the curriculum non functional. On the other
hand, she feels that “excluding from the definition of curriculum everything
except the statement of objectives and content outlines and relegating anything
that has to do with. . . learning experiences to method” might be too confining
to be adequate for a moderncurriculum”.
Clearly, Taba has succeeded in drawing
only a very hazy distinction between the aspects of learning processes and
activities that are concern in curriculum and those that are distinctively
within the realm of teaching and instruction. Taba’s conception of curriculum,
unlike Johnson’s and Macdonald’s, does not employ an “implementation”
criterion, rather it depends on a relatively flexible and subjective judgment
as to where a dividing line is to be drawn on a continuum which is clearly
ultimate-general at the “curriculum” pole and immediate-specific at the
“instruction” end.
2.
Syllabus
a.
Definition
Syllabus is a more detailed and
operational statement of teaching and learning elements which translates the
philosophy of the curriculum into a series of planed steps leading towards more
narrowly define objectives at each level. Dubin&Olshtain,
(1997: 28).
b.
Concept
A syllabus is a specification of the
content of a course of instruction and lists what will be taught and tested.
Thus the syllabus for a speaking course might specify the kinds of oral skills
that will be taught and practiced during the course, the functions, topics, or
other aspects of conversation that will be taught and the order in which they
will appear in course.“Syllabus is essentially a statement of what should be
taught, year by year –through language– syllabuses also contain points about
the method of teaching and the time to be taken” (Lee 1980:108). Another
opinion is that that a syllabusare more localized and are based on accounts and
records of what actually happens at the classroom level. Given these
definitions it is suggested that it seems helpful to define a curriculum and
syllabuses as separate entities.
B.
Origins
of Language Curriculum Development
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 schools or educational system can be planned, measured, and
evaluated. Language curriculum development refers to the field of applied
linguistics that addresses these issues. It describes an interrelated set of
processes that focuses on designing, revising, implementing, and evaluating
language program.
Historical Background.
The history of curriculum development in
language teaching starts with the nation of syllabus design. Syllabus design is
one aspect of curriculum development but it is not identical with it. A
syllabus is a specification of the content of course of instruction and list
what will be taught an tested. It includes the processes that are used to
determine the needs of a group of learners, to develop aims or objectives for a
program to address those needs, to determine an appropriate syllabus, course
structure, teaching method, and materials, and to carry out an evaluation of
the language program that result from these process. Curriculum development in
language teaching as we know it today really began in the 1960s, though issues
of syllabus design emerged as a major factor in language teaching much earlier.
The methods concept in teaching-the
nation of systematic set of teaching practices based on a particular theory of
language and language learning-is a powerful one and the quest for better
methods has been a preoccupation of many teachers and applied linguistic since
the beginning of the twentieth century. Many methods have come and gone in the
last 100 years in pursuit of the “best method,” as the following chronology
illustrates, with dates suggesting periods of greatest dominance :
1. Grammar
Translation Method (1800-1900)
2. Direct
method (1890-1930)
3. Structural
Method (1930-1960)
4. Reading
Method (1920-1950)
5. Audio-lingual
Method (1950-1970)
6. Situational
Method (1950-1970)
7. Communicative
Approach (1970-present)
The oral-based method known as the
Direct Method, which developed in opposition to the Grammar Translation Method
in the late of the nineteenth century, prescribes not only the way a language
should be taught, with an emphasis on the exclusive use of the target language,
intensive question-and-answer teaching techniques, and demonstration and
dramatization to communicate meanings of words; it also prescribes the
vocabulary and grammar to be taught and the order in which it should be
presented.
Harrold Palmer summarized the principles
of language teaching methodology at that time as follows:
1. Initial preparation-
orienting the students toward language learning.
2. Habit-forming-
establishing correct habits.
3. Accuracy- avoiding
inaccurate language.
4. Gradation- each
stage prepares the students for the text.
5. Proportion- each
aspect of language given emphasis
6. Concreteness-
movement from concrete to the abstract.
7. Interest- arousing
the students’ interest at all times.
8. Order of
Progression- hearing before speaking, and both before writing.
9. Multiple line of
approach- many different ways used to teach the language.
(Palmer
{1922} 1968, 38-39).
Vocabulary Selection
Vocabulary is one of the most obvious
components of language and one of the first things applied linguists turned
their attention to. Some of the earliest approaches to vocabulary selection
involved counting large collections of texts to determine the frequency with
which words occurred, since it would be seem obvious that words of highest
frequency should be taught first.
Other criteria were therefore also used in
determining word lists. These included:
Teachability: in course
taught following the Direct Method or a method such as Total Physical
Responses, concrete vocabulary is taught earlyon because it can easily be
illustrated through pictures or by demonstration.
Similarity: Some item may
be selected because they are similar to words in native language. For example,
English and French have many cognate
such as table, page, and nation and this may justify their
inclusion in a word list for French-speaking learners.
Availability: Some words may
not be frequent but are readily “available” in the sense that they come quickly
to mind when certain topics are taught of. For example, classroom calls to mind desk,
chair, teacher, and pupil, and
these words might therefore be worth teaching early in a course.
Coverage:
words that cover or include the meaning of other words may also be useful. For
example, seat might be taught because
it includes the meaning of stool, bench,
and chair.
Defining power: Some words
could be selected because they are useful in defining other words, even though
they are not among the most frequent words in the language. For example, container might be useful because it can
help define bucket, jar, and carton.
The procedures of vocabulary selection
lead to the compilation of a basic
vocabulary, that is a target vocabulary for a language course usually
grouped or graded into levels, such as the first 500 words, the second 500
words, and so on.
Grammar Selection and Gradation
The need for a systematic approach selecting
grammar for teaching purposes was also a priority for applied linguists from
the 1920s. The number of any syntactic structures in a language is a large, as
is seen from the contents any grammar books.
The following principles have been used
or suggested as a basis for developing grammatical syllabuses.
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.
Frequency:
Frequency of occurrence has also been proposed in developing grammatical
syllabus, but relatively little progress was made in this area for sometimes
because of the difficulty of deciding on appropriate grammatical units to count
and the difficulty of coding grammatical structures for analysis.
Subject and verb ellipsis:
such as “Don’t know” instead or “I don’t know”
Learnability:
it has sometimes been argued that grammatical syllabuses should take into
account the order in which grammatical items are acquired in second language
learning.
In addition to decisions about which
grammatical items to include in any syllabus, the sequencing or gradation of
grammatical items has to be determined. The need to sequence course content in
a systematic way is by no means a recent concern.
The following
approaches to gradation are possible:
Linguistic
distance:Lado
(1957) proposed that structures that are similar to those in the native
language should be taught first.
Intrinsic
difficulty:this
principles argues that simple structures should be taught before complex one
and the commonest criterion used to justify the sequence of grammatical items
in a syllabus.
Communicative
need:
Some structure will be needed early on and can not be postponed, despite their
difficulty, such as the simple past in English, since it is difficult to avoid
making reference to past events for very long in a courses.
Frequency:
The frequency of occurrence of structures and grammatical items in the target
language may also effect the order in which they appear in a syllabus, although
as we noted, little information of this sort is available to syllabus planners.
Assumptions underlying
early approaches to syllabus design:
1. The
basic units of language are vocabulary and grammar
2. Learners
everywhere have the same needs
3. Learners’
needs are identified exclusively in terms of language needs
4. The
process of learning a language is largely determined by the textbook
5. The
context of teaching is English as a foreign language
C.
Overview
of Language Curriculum Components
Systematic
Approach to Designing and Maintaining Language Curriculum (Adapted from Brown
1989)
|
NEEDS ANALYSIS
|
|
OBJECTIVES
|
|
TESTING
|
|
MATERIALS
|
|
TEACHING
|
|
E
V
A
L
U
A
T
I
O
N
|
1.
Need analysis
Need analysis in language
programs is ofyen viewed simply as identification of the language likely need to use in the target language
when they are required to actually understand and produce the language.
Needs analysis of s analysis will
be defined tentatively as the systematic collection and analysis of all
relevant information necessary to statify the language learning requirements of
the students within the context of the particular institutions involved in the
learning situation.
2.
Goals and objectives
Goals is general statements about
what must be accomplished in order to attain and satisfy student’s needs.
Objectives are precise statements
about what content or skills the students must master in order to attain a
particular goal
3.
Language testing
The goals and objectives of a
program may require extensive test development for widely different purpose
within a program
Tests can be used to drive a
program by shaping the expectation of the students and their teachers. Tests
are very crucial element in the curriculum development process.
4.
Materials development
Material choices and use will be
affected by what is learned from each of the other components of a program and
will in turn have an effect of their own on tose other components. Materials
can be handled rationally-wether adopted, developed or adopted-perhaps for the
first time in same language programs.
5.
Language teaching
Teachers must be supported in
their jobs to whatever degree that is possible in teaching
6.
Program evaluation
Evaluation is systematic
collection and analysis of all relevant information necessary to promote the
improvement of the curriculum and to asses its effectiveness within the context
of the particular institutionss involved. Program
evaluation might be defined as the ongoing process of information gathering,
analyis, and synthesis.
Brown, James
Dean.1995.The Elements of Language Curriculum: A systematic Approach to
Program Development. USA: Heinle & Heinle Publishers
Dubin, F.
& Olshtain, E. (1997) Course Design: Developing Programs and Materials
for language Learning, Cambridge: Cambridge university Press
Núñez y Bodegas Irma Dolores.2007. From Curriculum to
Syllabus Design: The Different Stages to Design a Programme. Universidad de
Quintana Roo
Richard, Jack
C.1990.The Language Teaching Matrix.USA: Cambridge University Press.
______________.2001.Curriculum
Development in Language Teaching.USA: Cambridge University Press.
Richards,
Platt and Platt (1993) Dictionary of language Teaching and Applied
Linguistics. London: Longman
Zais, Robert
S.1976.Curriculum: Principles and Foundation.
New York: Harper & Row Publishers.
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