CompetencyBased Language

Teaching

Competency:

Essential skill, knowledge or

behaviour required for effective
performance of a real world task
or activity.

Background

CBE (Competency-Based Education)

Emerged in the U.S in 1970s

For immigrants and refugees
An educational movement
Focusing on the outputs and outcomes of
learning rather than inputs
To the competencies perspective, outputs to
learning is central

Differences between CBE and other

methods
Other methods
Input centered
Syllabuses, materials,
activities
Changing the role of the
learners and teachers
So, more effective
language learning occurs

CBE
Output centered
No matter how the
language learning occurs
What are expected from
students (output)

CBE Described by Schenk 1978

.

Performance based instruction

Individualized instruction
Mastery learning
Outcome based
Adaptive to the changing needs

Competency-Based Language
Teaching(CBLT)

By the end of 1970s

Work-related and survival-oriented language

teaching programs for adults.

The most important breakthrough in adult ESL

1990s

The state-of-the-art approach to adult ESL by

national policymakers and leaders in curriculum
development as well.

1986

Refugees in the U.S had to be enrolled in a

competency-based program.
Programs based on specific skills needed for
individuals

Advocates of CBLT see it as a

powerful agent of change.
Because;

Opportuinty for teachers to revitalize their

education and training programs
Quality of assessment and teaching improves
Student learning is enhanced

Specification of expected outcomes

Continuous feedback

Standards Movement since 1990s

Glaser and Linn states:

..The national educational standards
emerged

Washington D.C.-based center for Applied

Linguistics under control to the TESOL
organization- developed the K-12 school standards
for ESL.

They divided the grade levels into clusters:

Pre-K to 3rd grade

4th to 8th grade

9th to 12th grade

CBLT in Britain in 1980s

Sharing features of the graded objectives

movement proposed as a framework for organizing
foreign language teaching
Graded objectives are; series of short-term goalsbuilded upon one before.
One of the most remarkable events in modern
language learning in UK.

CBLT in general:

the principles of CBE

educational movement
focuses on outcomes of learning
Work-related and survival-oriented learning
The learners: refugees, immigrants
the most important breakthrough in adult ESL
teachers opportunity to revitalize their education programs
Teaching quality enhances
The aim is that the students being master of specific language
skills to function proficiently in the society

Approach: Theory of Language and

Learning

CBLT (Competency Based Language Teaching)

is base
d on functional and interactional perspective
based
language is taught in social context
Has in common with behaviorist views
Language can be analyzed into parts and subpart and they can be tested incrementally.
mosaic approach
develops functional communication skills in learners, known of specific real-world task.

Design:Objectives, Syllabus, Learning

activities, Role of Learners, Teachers, and
Material

Docking(1994)
Syllabus
Start with field of knowledge
Subject based content and syllabus
Objectives
Assessment based on norm referencing
Recieving marks for performances
CBLT
designed not around the notion of subject knowledge but
around the notion of competency

Focuses on what students can do with language not what they

know about language.
Instead of norm-referenced assessment, criterion-based
assessment procedures are used in which learners are assessed
according to how well they can perform on specific learning
tasks. (tells us how well students are performing on specific
course or standards rather than just telling how their
performance compare to group of students)
Competency consists of knowledge attitudes, behaviors, for
reals tasks and activities

HOW CBLT WORKS

Teacher:
first carries out a needs analysis to see how and where the
students will need to use their English.
defines some competencies (tasks) that the students will need
to accomplish. For example, giving personal information,
filling a form, making a doctors appointment, applying for
work, and so on.
creates activities that will teach the students how to
accomplish those competencies (tasks).
Finally evaluates the students on their ability to perform those
tasks.

Competencies consist of activities related with the real life situations

for surviving social environment.

ESL curriculum for immigrant and refugees include:

Task performance
Safety
General word-related
Work schedules, times sheets, paychecks
Social language
Job application
Job interview

Competencies for retaining a job:

Follow instructions to carry out a simple task

Respond appropriately to supervisors comments

Request supervisor to check work

Report completion of task to supervisor

Request supplies

Follow oral directions to locate an object

Follow simple oral directions to locate a place

Read charts, labels, forms or written instructions to

perform a task

State problem and ask for help if necessary

State amount and type of work already competed.

Respond appropriately to work interruption or

modification

Dockings relationship between

competencies and job performance
a unit of competency

A role, function, task or learning module

Change over time, show difference from context to context
An element of competency
any quality or characteristic of and individual
specific knowledge, attidutes,thinking process,perceptual and
physical skills
independent of context and time
building block

Mid-nineteenth century
Spencer in1860:
The major areas of human activity as the basis for
curricular objectives.
Bobbitt in 1926:
curricual objectives related to his analysis of
functional competencies required for adults in U.S

Northrups report in 1977:

Five knowledge areas

Four basic skill areas

65 competencies

Auerbach in 1986:

Eight key features in the implementation of CBE

programs in ESL:

A focus on successful functioning in society

Autonomus learners

A focus on life skills

Language as a function of communication

Task-or performance-centered orientation

What a person can do rather than what he knows

Modularized instruction
objectives are broken into narowly focused subobjectives

Outcomes that are made explicit a priori

specifying in terms of behavioral objectives

Continuous and ongoing assessment

Students being pretested and posttested

Demonstrated mastery of performance objectives

assesment relying on demonstration of the behaviours

Individualized, student-centered instruction

Objectives acording to students needs, prior learning, no
time based instruction

Advantages of CBE for learners

Specific and practical

judged by learners
specific and public
can be mastered one at a time

Procedure

Australian Migrant Education Program

One of the largest immigrant language training

program.
Moved from centralised planing (content-based
and structural curriculum) to decentralised learnercentered (needs-based)
More recently to the competency-based
curriculum frameworks.

Certificate in Spoken and Written

English

Learning outcomes are specified in three stages

Stages 1 and 2 relate to

General language development
Stage 3 relates:
Grouping learners according to their goal focus and
competencies
Competencies defined by three syllabus

Further Study
Vocational English
Community Access

Advanced Certificate in Spoken and

Written English

These three stages lead to Stage 4: Advanced Certificate in

Spoken and Written English.

Students are placed according to

their:

English proficiency level

Learning pace

Needs

Social Goals for learning English

The Competency descriptions

1)Knowledge and learning competencies
2)Oral competencies
3)Reading competencies
4)Writing competencies

Competencies described in terms of

Elements breaking down competency into smaller components
and linguistic features

Performance criteria

Range of variables setting limit for competency peformanc

Sample texts and assessment tasks providing examples of texts

and tasks

CONCLUSION

Embraced with enthusiasm

Criticised practically and philosophically

No valid procedures available

Impossibility of applying needed competencies (adult living,
survival, functioning proficiently in the community)
Sum of the parts is not equal to the whole (reductionist approach)

Banking Model
The function of education is:
Socializing learners according to their dominant socioeconomic group

Transmitting the knowledge

Teachers job is to create ways to teach skills.

Prescriptivist in that teaching focuses on behavior and
performance rather than on the development of thinking skills

CBLT is gaining strength internationally. As Rylatt

and Lohan said:
It can confidently be said, as we enter a new
millennium, that the business of improving
learning competencies and skills will remain one
of the worlds growing industries and priorities.

Thank you for your attention!..