Curriculum and Materials Development

Introduction Course

Curriculum Development

ÚA comprehensive, ongoing, cyclical process “to determine the needs of a group of learners;

Úto develop aims or objectives for a program to address those needs;

Úto determine an appropriate syllabus, course structure, teaching methods, and materials;

Curriculum Development

Úto carry out an evaluation of the language program that results from these processes” (Richards, 2001, p.2).

Ú The curriculum development process should reflect needs analyses and ideologies about language, language teaching and language learning

What needs to be done?

Ú Needs analysis

Ú Situation analysis

Ú Specification of goals, objectives, and outcomes

Ú Syllabus Design and course planning

Ú Materials selection and development

Ú Course “piloting

Ú Curriculum evaluation

Needs analysis

ÚA cyclical process – that takes place prior to, during, and after courses have been taught – that involves the collection of information that can be used to develop a profile of the needs of a group of learners in order to be able to make decisions about the goals and contents of a language curriculum (and its courses).

Needs analysis

ÚDetermination of who students are (e.g., educational background, prior experiences with English, attitudes toward English and English needs)

ÚDetermination of students’ language abilities (e.g., communicative abilities, pragmatic competence, strategic competence, formal knowledge of English)

Needs analysis

ÚDetermination of which language skills, language strategies, content, and experiences students need and for what purposes

ÚIdentification of gap between what students are able to do and what they need to be able to do

Situation analysis

Ú A continual/cyclical process----that takes place prior to, during, and after courses have been taught—that involves the collection of information about the broader context in which instruction is given in order to be able to make decisions about the goals and contents of a language curriculum (and its courses).

Situation analysis

ÚIdentification of stakeholders (e.g., higher administration, program administrators, teachers, parents, educational and other governmental officials) and their attitudes toward English language instruction

ÚExamination of societal factors in relation to language education

Situation analysis

ÚExamination of institutional factors that may facilitate or hinder change and innovation at the curricular level

ÚExamination of teacher factors (e.g., language proficiency, teaching experience and skills, qualifications, morale, motivation, beliefs about language teaching and language learning)

Specification of goals, objectives, and outcomes

Ú Specification of goals (general purposes of a curriculum),

Ú objectives (more specific and concrete description of purposes/goals)

Ú and learning outcomes (what students will have learned/ be able to do) based on needs and situation analyses and ideologies about language, language learning, and language teaching.

Syllabus Design and course planning

Ú Translation of goals, objectives, and targeted outcomes into a decision about the structure of courses within the curriculum, the distribution of course content, breadth and depth of content coverage at different levels, adaptation of different syllabus frameworks (e.g., grammatical, skills-based, task based, content-based, situational) to meet goals and objectives.

Ú Course syllabi will identify what is to be taught, when it is to be taught, and how it is to be taught (thereby providing additional guidance for teachers, materials, writers, test writers, and learners).

Ú The goals and objectives statements should provide guidelines for teachers, materials writers, test writers, and learners.

Ú They should provide a focus for instruction and evaluation.

Ú Goals and objectives often focus on these learning areas: Language, strategies, content, and experiences.

Materials selection and development

Ú Evaluation of commercial materials to determine their appropriacy to previous steps in the curriculum development process. Decisions about what commercial materials to adopt, what in-house materials should be created, and how primary materials might be adapted and/or supplemented to accomplish goals, objectives, and targeted outcomes.

Course “piloting

Ú Implementation of courses, with ongoing evaluation (thereby making almost all courses pilot courses) and fine-tuning in response to evolving student needs, teacher abilities, institutional goals and objectives, etc

Curriculum evaluation

Ú Ongoing cycle of (formative and summative) evaluation of all aspects of the curriculum in order to understand how the program works, how successfully it works, and whether it, in all its complexity, is responding to students’ needs, teachers’ abilities, etc.

Thanks for Your Attention