LANGUAGE CURRICULUM DESIGN

I.S.P. Nation ● John Macalister

Chapters 1, 5, and 7

Presented by:
Lisda Warnida
NIM: F2201141010
 Chapter 1

Language Curriculum Design

Curriculum design can be seen as a kind of writing

activity and it can be usefully studied as a process.

There are 3 factors that should be considered in the

curriculum design process:
1. Environment analysis
2. Needs analysis
3. Application of principles
 The result of environment analysis is a ranked list
of factors and a consideration of the effects of
these factors on the design.

 The result of needs analysis is realistic list of

language, ideas or skill items, as a result of
considering the present proficiency, future needs
and wants of the learners.

 The result of applying principles is a course where

learning is given the greatest support.
 The curriculum model in Figure 1.1 consists of:
- The outer circles (principles, environment, and needs)
- The inner circles (goals, content and sequencing, format
and presentation, and monitoring and assessing)

 The goals is in the centre. It means to reflect the

importance of having clear general goals for a course.

 The content and sequencing represent the items to learn

in a course.

 Consideration of content makes sure that there is

something useful for the learners to learn to advance their
control of the language.
 The format and presentation represent the
format of the lessons or units of the course,
including the techniques and types of
activities that will be used to help learning.

 The monitoring and assessment represent

the need to give attention to observe
learning, test the result of learning, and
provide feedback to the learners about the
progress.
Considering the environment

• Environment analysis involves considering the

factors of the situation in which the course will be
used and determining how the course should take
account of them.

• One way of approaching environment analysis is

to work from a list of questions which focuses on
the nature of the learners, the teachers and the
teaching situation.
Discovering needs

Hutchinson and Waters (1987) make a useful

division of learners’ needs into:
1. Necessities (what the learners have to know
from the function effectively)
2. Lacks (what the learner knows and does not
know already)
3. Wants (what the learners think they need)
Following Principles
• It is very important that curriculum design makes the
connection between the research and the theory of
language learning and the practice of designing lessons
and courses.

 Goals
• The curriculum design model in Fig.1.1 has goals as it is the
centre. This is because it is essential to decide why a course is
being taught and what the learners need to get from it.
• Example of goal:
The aim of communicative teaching is to encourage students to
exploit all the elements of the language that they know in order to
make their meaning clear. Students cannot be expected to master
every aspect of the language before they are allowed to use it for
communicative purposes (Orbit, Harrison and Menzies, 1986).
 Content and Sequencing
 The content of language courses consists of the language
items, ideas, skills and strategies that meet the goals of the
course.
 One way to provide a systematic and well-researched basis for
a course is to make use of frequency lists and other lists of
language items or skills.

 Finding a Format and Presenting Material

 The presentation of material in a course involves the use of
suitable teaching techniques and procedures.
 The advantages of having a set format for lesson are:
- The lessons are easier to make.
- The course is easier to monitor.
- The lessons are easier to learn.
 Monitoring and Assessing

 The aims of curriculum design are to make a

course that has useful goals, that achieves its
goals, that satisfies its users, that does all
this in an efficient way.
 An important recurring part of the design
process is to assess how well these aims are
achieved.
 Assessing generally involves the use of
tests.
 There are 4 kinds of tests:
1. Proficiency test (measuring what a learner
knows of the language).
2. Achievement test (measuring what has been
learned from a particular course).
3. Placement test (used to see if the course is
suitable for a prospective learner or to see
where in the course the learner should begin).
4. Diagnostic test (used to see if learners have
particular gaps in their knowledge).
 Evaluating a Course

 Information gained from assessment is a useful

source of data about the effectiveness of a course,
but it is only one of the sources of information
that can contribute to the evaluation of a course.

 An evaluation of a course can have many

purposes. The main one is to continue or
discontinue the course, or to bring about
improvement in the course.
 Chapter 5
Goals, Content and Sequencing
 Goals and Content
The goals of a language lesson can focus on one or more
of the following things: language, ideas, skills or text
(discourse).

Making sensible, well-justified decisions about content is

one of the most important parts of curriculum design.

Some curriculum designers break goals down into

smaller well-specified performance objectives (Brown,
1995).
 The Units of Progression in the Course

The units of progression in a course are the

items that are used to grade the progress of
the course.

Long and Crookes (1993: 9-19) call unit of

progression ‘units of analysis’ and argue that
the choice of the unit of analysis should be
one of starting points of curriculum design.
 Task-based Syllabus

Published experimentation with task-based

syllabuses largely began with the work of Prabhu
(1987) and the interest in this type of syllabus may
be a result of the links that teachers and curriculum
designers see between this approach and their own
teaching and planning activities.

Long and Crookes (1992), argue that a pedagogic

task provides a vehicle for presentation of
appropriate language samples to learners and allow
negotiation of difficulty (p.43).
 Chapter 7
Monitoring and Assessment

o Monitoring and assessment can provide a teacher

and learners with information about the learners’
present knowledge and progress, and it can also be
a means of encouraging involvement and
participation.

o The purpose of the monitoring and assessment

part of curriculum design is to make sure that
learners will get the most benefit from the course.
o The major types of monitoring and
assessment that can occur as the part of a
course are:
1. Placement assessment
2. Observation of learning
3. Short-term achievement assessment
4. Diagnostic assessment
5. Achievement assessment
6. Proficiency assessment
 Good Assessment:
.
1 Reliability
A reliable test gives results that are not greatly upset by
conditions that the test is not intended to measure.
A test is more reliabe if:
- it is always given under the same conditions.
- it is consistently marked.
- it has large numbers of points of assessment.
- its questions and instructions are clear and
unambiguous.
2 . Validity
A valid test measures what it is supposed to measure.
3 . Practicality
Tests can be made more practical by having reusable test
papers, by being carefully formatted for easy marking, by being
not too long, and by using objectively scored items such as
true/false or multiple choice.
Evaluation is a process that involves
gathering information about the
effectiveness of curriculum and
measurement is done in terms of levels
of achievement of the pre-set
objectives.
Audience Person/Group Commissioning
the evaluation

Purpose To improve the course or to

guide a decision whether to
maintain or get rid of the course
 Formative Summative

Purpose Improve the course Judge the course

Type of data More likely to look at causes, More likely to look at results,
processes, individuals standards, groups

Use of data Used for counseling, mentoring, Used to make decisions on

professional development, adequacy
setting goals, and adapting
material

Presentation of Presented to and discussed with Presented in a report

findings individuals
 Interview
Interviews are usually conducted on a one to one basis, but it is
sometimes useful to interview a committee or to use a staff
meeting as a way of gathering data.
 Self-Report scales
it is a type of survey, questionnaire or poll in which respondents
read the question and select a response by themselves without
the researcher’s interference. It is any method which involves
asking a participant about their feelings, attitudes, beliefs and so
on.
 Observation and checklist
An observation checklist is a list of things that an observer is
going to look at when observing a class. This list may have been
prepared by the observer or the teacher or both.
This book has taken the approach that curriculum design
is best viewed as a process like writing where the
curriculum design could begin at any of several places –
needs analysis, materials writing, selection of principles,
goals, etc. Some models of curriculum design see it
occurring as a series of steps in fixed order.
Tessmer and Wedman (1990) describe this view as a
‘waterfall’ model, where one stage of curriculum design,
for example environment analysis, is done thoroughly, and
then the next stage of needs analysis is done thoroughly,
and so on in much the same way as the flow of water fills
one container in a stepped-down series and then flows
over to fill the next. If this does happen, it is probably rare.
Some constraints that make it almost impossible for a
waterfall model to occur.
For example, in many English courses the teacher does not
know who the learners will be until the first day of class.
Needs analysis before the course begins is thus virtually
impossible. The teacher needs to come prepared for the first
class and so deciding on the content and format and
presentation of the material may be a first step. The decisions
made for the first day may have to be revised after meeting
the learners.
Other constraints faced by curriculum designers include
having very limited time to prepare the course, having to
prepare a course for a largely unknown environment, having
to design a course which can be marketed and used in a very
wide range of environments, and having to prepare courses
that will be taught by other teachers.
 Curriculum designers and teachers can start from nothing and gather and
write the material. This most often happens because of copyright issues
with courses that are likely to be published, or where there is no existing
course. The curriculum designer or the teacher is, thus, responsible for all
parts of the curriculum design process.
 Curriculum designers and teachers can draw on a bank of existing
materials from which they select the most appropriate material for the
course. Such a bank could include (1) copies of activities prepared by
themselves or other teachers for other courses or for previous deliveries
of the course, (2) published supplementary materials such as graded
readers, grammar activity books, and conversation texts, speed reading
courses and so on, (3) clippings from newspapers or magazines,
recordings from the radio or TV, or photocopied material from texts or
course books. The curriculum designer or teacher chooses the bits and
puts them together to make a course. The curriculum designer or the
teacher, thus, takes most responsibility for content and sequencing, and
goals.
 Some curriculum statements and some course books deliberately
provide only some of the materials needed for a complete course.
Curriculum statements usually 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 Waterfall Model

Macalister and Sou (2006) draw on a "waterfall” model in their

description of a course design. The output of one stage becomes the
input of the next. The waterfall model is most likely to be applied in
the design of the commercial course book or in a well-funded
curriculum design project. Both of these situations provide time and
resources for systematic curriculum design so that designers can do
needs analysis, consider the environment and principles, and prepare
a syllabus and lessons in advance of the actual teaching.
 The Focus Opportunistic Approach

In a “focused opportunistic” approach, the format and presentation

part of the curriculum design process is typically done first. That is,
material is gathered or prepared to teach the course. Then, with each
re-teaching of the course, one part of the curriculum design process is
done thoroughly. Thus it might be that a proper needs analysis is not
carried out until the third or fourth re-teaching of the course.
 The layers of Necessity Approach

In Tessmer and Wedman’s model, curriculum design is seen initially as

a choice between various layers. Each layer is complete in itself and
includes the major parts of the curriculum design process –
environment analysis, determining needs and goals, deciding on the
instructional strategy (format and presentation), developing the
materials, and evaluating and revising. But each layer differs in the
detail and thoroughness with which each of these parts of curriculum
design is carried out. The curriculum designer has to decide what layer
of curriculum design will be chosen.
Choosing which path to take will depend on
the starting point, the time availability for
course preparation, the availability of needs,
analysis information, the availability of a
usable course book, and the skill of the
curriculum designer. We will assume that time
is short and that only a small amount of needs
analysis information is available.
DESIGNING A LANGUAGE CURRICULUM
BY:
VEDYANTO (F2201141020)
The Interrelationship among the Course
Book, the Learners, and the Teacher

• Being flexible in using the course book is

necessary. Allwright (1981) affirms that
course books should evade the learners
from passing the difficult process of the
curriculum design. The effectiveness of
course books must contain lessons
leading teaching to be appropriate for the
learners’ present knowledge (as cited in
Nation & Macalister, 2010).
 The Interrelationship among the Course
Book, the Learners, and the Teacher
• Differentiating the types of the learners’
needs, Richards (2001) clarifies that there
should be a focus on leading ESP learners
to have performance (i.e. the capability to
act out with language) and guiding the
general English learners to have a global
English mastery.
Adaptation of Course Books

The Ministry of Education or the School

Course
Books

Teachers Learners
 Adaptation of Course Books
• Changes and addition are decided to do as the
course book is not totally appropriate. For
instance, it does not ascertain the success of
the activity conduct, does not fit the time
availability, does not suit learners’ proficiency
or age, does not cover strategies, does not
apply principles on the basis of the teachers’
needs, and does even not involve the learners’
activeness. Besides, due to the truth that lots of
course books do not provide the guidance of
assessment, the teachers need to create tests.
 Using Source Books as an
Alternative to Course Books
• Since the use of course books is debatable (see,
for example, Richards, 1985), it is recommended
by Prabhu (1989) that courses provided in the
course books are also supported by sources
served in the source books (e.g. conversation
books, reading books, listening scripts, and
teacher-made materials). Nevertheless, making
these two books unified and related each other
is complexion that the teachers must cope with
(as cited in Nation & Macalister, 2010).
 Connecting the Use of
Computers and the Internet
• Computers supportively connected with the internet are
inevitably vital and bring significant teaching impacts in
some main ways (e.g. individual access, language
learning, the instruction of writing (DiGiovanni &
Nagaswami, 2001; Fedderholdt, 2001), and information
source (Yang, 2001 as cited in Nation & Macalister,
2010).
• There should be consideration of the teachers, however,
to suit the technological uses and instructional materials
to the course materials developed by the curriculum. Not
to mention, being computer-literate is another essential
concern.
Implementing Evaluation of a
Course Book
• Evaluating a course book should match
the basis of the curriculum design under
the ascertainment of the environmental
use, learners’ necessities, teaching and
learning principles, aims of the course,
learners’ proficiency and level,
involvement of effective techniques,
and assessing materials.
 Teaching and Curriculum
Design
• It is pointed out by Nation & Macalister (2010)
that a curriculum design procedurally covers
various beginnings, chances of being
sustained, revision, reconsideration, and
reevaluation. A lesson with a small activity can
be developed in the curriculum design process.
Comprehensibly, there is an obvious focus on a
single course that the teachers have as long as
the time, the material, and the assessment are
thoroughly planned.
 Prior Concerns of Teaching
and Curriculum Design
• There are, of course, several needs that deserve to be a
priority of designing teaching and curriculum design.
1. Environmental Analysis (i.e. the analysis of the
practical facets of dealing with teaching in a
circumstance)
2. Needs Analysis (i.e. the analysis of the learners’
current, necessary, and desired knowledge)
3. Principles (i.e. strong belief of the material quality
derived from research and teachers’ experience and
observation)
4. Goals (i.e. particular aims reflecting the usefulness of
teaching such material)
Prior Concerns of Teaching
and Curriculum Design
5. Content and Sequencing (i.e. whatever that will
emerge and the arrangement in which it will appear in
the course)
6. Format and Presentation (i.e. things that the
learners do procedurally in the lesson)
7. Monitoring and Assessment (i.e. the engagement
of the teacher in paying attention to the activities of
the learners and measuring how their knowledge and
performance)
8. Evaluation (i.e. judging the quality of the course)
(Nation & Macalister, 2010)
 References

• Nation, I. S. P., & Macalister, J. (2010).

Language Curriculum Design. New York:
Routledge.
• Richards, J. C. (2001). Curriculum
Development in Language Teaching.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.