Applied Language Studies

edited by Crystal and Johnson

The ELT
Curriculum
Design, Innovation and
Management

Ronald V. White
THE ELT CURRICULUM
Applied Language Studies
Edited by David Crystal and Keith Johnson

This new series aims to deal with key topics within the main branches of
applied language studies — initially in the fields of foreign language
teaching and learning, child language acquisition and clinical or remedial
language studies. The series will provide students with a research pers¬
pective in a particular topic, at the same time containing an original slant
which will make each volume a genuine contribution to the development of
ideas in the subject.

Series List
Communication Strategies in Second Language Acquisition
Ellen Bialystok

Computers and Written Texts

Christopher S. Butler

Chomsky’s Universal Grammar

An Introduction
V. J. Cook

Principles of Language Testing

Alan Davies

Instructed Second Language Acquisition

Learning in the Classroom
Rod Ellis

Teaching Oral Communication

A Methodological Framework
William Littlewood

The ELT Curriculum

Design, Innovation and Management
Ronald V. White
THE ELT CURRICULUM
Design, Innovation and Management

Ronald V. White

BLACKWELL
Publishers
Copyright © Ronald V. White, 1988

First published 1988

Reprinted 1989, 1991, 1993 (twice), 1995 (twice), 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000

Blackwell Publishers Ltd

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

White, Ronald V.
The ELT curriculum: design, innovation and management/Ronald V. White
p. cm.
Bibliography, p.
Includes index.
ISBN 0-631-15152-4 (pbk)
1. English language—Study and teaching—Foreign speakers.
I. Title.
PEI 128.A2W517 1988
428’.007—dcl9 87-29365 CIP

Typeset in 10 on 12pt Ehrhardt

by Columns of Reading
Printed and bound in Great Britain
by Athenaeum Press Ltd, Gateshead, Tyne & Wear

This book is printed on acid-free paper

Contents

Note to the Reader vi

Acknowledgements vii
1 Approach, Design, Procedure 1
2 Two Traditions 7
3 Language Curriculum: Values and Options 24
4 Language Syllabus Design: Two Types 44
5 Where, What and How: Other Bases to Syllabus Design 62
6 Type A Syllabuses: Notional-Functional 75
7 The Type B Tradition 94
8 Language Curriculum Design: Process and Management 113
9 Innovation: Managing and Evaluating 136
Appendix Follow-up Activities 157
Bibliography 174
Index 189
Note to the Reader

This book is arranged in four parts, of which each contains a number of

chapters. Each chapter has a number of sections and the final two include a
summary of the chapter and suggested follow-up reading.
In the Appendix, there are follow-up activities for each chapter. These
activities are intended to be done by groups, and they should involve
discussion. Some of the activities can also be done individually; they are
linked to the content of each chapter, and provide some ‘hands on’ or
practical development of the points covered in the chapters themselves.
You may find it useful to skim the follow-up activities before you read each
chapter.
Acknowledgements

Authors always take a great risk: they receive praise if their work is good - and
criticism if it isn’t. Whatever the reception of this publication, I should like to
distribute some praise of my own. Firstly, to the students who have attended
the courses which provided the basis for this book. Secondly, to my colleagues,
for their helpful suggestions. Thirdly, to Keith Johnson, series editor, for his
critical comments and encouragement. Fourthly, to Sue Vice, for her keen
editorial eye which identified many a solecism before it reached print. Finally,
but most significantly, to my wife, Nora, for the kind of support and
understanding which only she can provide.
The blame for what follows is entirely mine.

The author and the publishers are grateful to the following for permission
to reproduce material which originally appeared elsewhere: The Council for
Educational Technology for the United Kingdom, for two figures from R.
Havelock (1971) ‘The utilization of educational research and development’,
British Journal of Educational Technology, 1, 2/2: 84—97. The British Council
for figures from Dunford House Seminar 1979: ELT Course Design; ELT
Documents 116, Language Teaching Projects for the Third World; ELT Documents
118, General English Syllabus Design, copyright © The British Council. B. T.
Batsford Ltd for a figure from R. T. Bell (1981) An Introduction to Applied
Linguistics: Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching. Unesco for a figure
from A. M. Huberman (1973) Understanding Change in Education: An
Introduction copyright © Unesco 1973. Cambridge University Press for
figures, one from J. Yalden (1983) The Communicative Syllabus: Evolution,
Design and Implementation-, and one from J. C. Richards and T. Rodgers
(1986) Approach and Methods in Language Teaching. Simon and Schuster for a
figure from C. Candlin and D. Murphy (eds) (1987) Lancaster Practical Papers
in ELT, vol. 7.

Ron White
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1 Approach, Design,
Procedure

Introduction

I have written this book in the way that I have because I have become
increasingly aware that the issues which face anyone concerned with
developing and introducing a new language syllabus are not only - or even
primarily - questions of content. Although in the 1970s there was much
concern with the content of syllabuses as a result of the notional/functional
‘revolution’, most of the problems which actually face anyone attempting to
introduce a new syllabus did not change. These problems tend not to have
anything to do with either the theoretical basis of the syllabus or curriculum
changes themselves, nor the content of the changes. Rather, they are issues
which have to do with ideas about education, and with people and
organizations. They are, in short, educational and managerial issues.
Thus, it seems to me that to talk of syllabus design in isolation from
broader educational issues is to deny access to an important body of theory,
research and practice, none coming under the umbrella of applied linguistics,
which has formed the primary academic reference for language pedagogy. I
am not alone in this. Stern (1983) devotes a whole section of his book,
Fundamental Concepts of Language Teaching, to a consideration of educational
issues, beginning with a discussion of curriculum theory. Thus, we can say that
curriculum studies have very definitely taken their place among the concerns
of language teaching.
Yet other issues arise when new principles and practices are advocated.
These issues have been documented for innovation in other fields of
education, but language teaching seems to have remained curiously aloof from
this body of knowledge. The management and implementation of innovation
is, of all things, crucial to the design and take-up of new syllabuses - in
language teaching as in any other part of education. And so it seems to me
that we may benefit from studying some of the problems and practices of
innovation management.
This, in short, provides the background to my thinking. Naturally, there are
other issues and questions which will be revealed during the course of this
book. Among them is the influence of the recent research on second language
acquisition (SLA). Although we are a long way from having an established
body of empirical data on which to base proposals for language curriculum
2 Approach, Design, Procedure

design, traditional views on selection and grading, not to mention method¬

ology, will have to take on board the findings of SLA research. Indeed, I
believe that we are now entering an era in language teaching when important
new developments are likely to occur as a result of the insights provided by
SLA research and innovations in language curriculum are likely to be quite
considerable. Let us hope that we shall be prepared to meet them.
In the meantime, I should like to begin by considering some of the
terminology in the title and which I have already been using. We will start by
considering the three terms at the heading of this chapter.

Method: Approach, Design, Procedure

In their 1982 paper of this title, Jack Richards and Ted Rodgers, adopting a
similar three part analysis proposed by Anthony (1963), set up a useful
framework for the systematic description and comparison of methods and I
propose to adopt their scheme and terminology in what is to follow. They
define method in terms of three levels: approach, design and procedure. By
approach, they mean a theory of language and of language learning, by design
they mean the definition of linguistic content and a specification for the

Figure 1.1 Approach, design, procedure

(from Richards and Rodgers 1982)
 Approach, Design, Procedure 3

selection and organization of content and a description of the role of teacher,

learner and teaching materials, while by procedure they mean the description of
techniques and practices in the instructional system. The relationship between
these three elements is indicated in figure 1.1.
In this book I shall be primarily concerned with level two: design. However,
as will become clear in our historical review, design is influenced by approach,
while practice is also subject to theories of language and learning. Thus, any
discussion of syllabus design will tend to refer to the other levels in the
Richards and Rodgers scheme. Furthermore, as we move into the arena of
curriculum studies, we shall see that language teaching is part of a network of
elements which go well beyond the scheme suggested by Richards and
Rodgers. None the less, their scheme provides a useful starting point.

Syllabus

In his investigation into the ways teachers planned their courses, Taylor
(1970:32) found considerable variation in the size and style of the syllabuses
which were sampled: ‘Some were no more than one or two pages in length,
others over one hundred pages. Some were well laid out and carefully bound.
Others were cramped and barely legible.’ In spite of such diversity in the
actual form of the document, there appears to be a consensus as to what a
syllabus is, and this has been summarized by Brumfit (1984a).

1 A syllabus is the specification of the work of a particular department in a

school or college, organised in subsections defining the work of a
particular group or class;
2 It is often linked to time, and will specify a starting point and ultimate
goal;
3 It will specify some kind of sequence based on

a) sequencing intrinsic to a theory of language learning or to the

structure of specified material relatable to language acquisition;
b) sequencing constrained by administrative needs, e.g. materials;

4 It is a document of administrative convenience and will only be partly

justified on theoretical grounds and so is negotiable and adjustable;
5 It can only specify what is taught; it cannot organize what is learnt;
6 It is a public document and an expression of accountability.

Brumfit’s summary raises other points, such as questions of the theoretical

basis of a syllabus and issues of negotiability, which will be discussed in more
detail later. Also, in this account of syllabus, the focus is on selection and
organization of content whereas, as we shall see, there are other approaches to
syllabus which shift attention to methodology.
4 Approach, Design, Procedure

Curriculum

The question of methodology brings us to the next term: curriculum. Some

confusion exists over the distinction between syllabus and curriculum, since
the terms are used differently on either side of the Adantic. In a distinction
that is commonly drawn in Britain, ‘syllabus’ refers to the content or subject
matter of an individual subject, whereas ‘curriculum’ refers to the totality of
content to be taught and aims to be realized within one school or educational
system. In the USA, ‘curriculum’ tends to be synonymous with ‘syllabus’ in
the British sense.
The hierarchical distinction usual in Britain places syllabus in a subordinate
position to curriculum, and this is a relationship which I will continue to
follow. However, curriculum should not simply be seen as a kind of super
syllabus, since there is a qualitative difference between the two, though
characterizing this difference is not easy since definitions of curriculum vary.
On the one hand, curriculum may be viewed as ‘the programme of
activities ... the course to be run by pupils in being educated (Hirst 1969 in
Hooper 1971:234).’ On the other, curriculum may be defined as ‘all the
learning which is planned and guided by the school, whether it is carried on in
groups or individually, inside or outside the school (Kerr 1968:16).’ Hirst
refers to the programme of activities, while Kerr refers to the activities
themselves. One school of thought regards the curriculum as a plan, whereas
the other views it as activities. Sockett (1976:22) succinctly characterizes this
distinction as ‘the difference between a plan of a house or a journey and the
house or the journey.’ Taking the house metaphor a stage further, we could
see the curriculum as being one or all of three things. Firstly, it could be like a
plan of a house yet to be constructed. In this sense, the curriculum is future
directed towards an objective yet to be realized and it is, in essence,
synonymous with syllabus as discussed in the previous section.
Secondly, curriculum could be seen to be like a plan of how to build the
house. Again the orientation is to the future, but in this case the concern is
with the systems that are needed in order successfully to build the house. The
specification for such systems and their effective operation will draw upon
resources and personnel not immediately involved in the construction process
itself, while the successful operation of the systems will also require the skills
of the manager as well as those of the craftsmen.
Thirdly, the curriculum could be seen to be like the view of the house after
it has been completed and is a dwelling for its inhabitants. The conception of
the house possessed by the people living in it will be determined by the use
they make of the dwelling: does it match their living requirements; how do
they use the spaces and facilities within the structure; what modifications
might they want to make to it to make it conform more usefully to their
requirements?
In the discussion which follows, I shall repeatedly return to these three
 Approach, Design, Procedure 5
views of the curriculum-as-house, which, though they emphasize different
aspects of curriculum, are by no means mutually exclusive. The first view
(curnculum/house = plan) shows a concern with objectives and content, which are
two of four elements in the traditional model of the curriculum to be
discussed further in chapter 3.

Objectives

Content

The second view (curriculum/house = construction system) adds methods to the

model. The methods are the means by which the ends - the objectives - are
to be achieved and this forms the basis of a process view of the curriculum, to
be considered in more detail in chapter 3.

Objectives

Content

Methods

The third perspective (curriculum/house — dwelling) adds a fourth and final

element: evaluation. In other words, do outcomes match objectives? This brings
us to the situational model of curriculum, also to be reviewed in chapter 3.

Objectives

Content Evaluation

Methods

Evaluation, as feedback (or monitoring), will also form a component of the

construction-systems model, since quality control will be an important
element of any production system. It is through monitoring and feedback that
planned and actual outcomes can be compared and appropriate remedial
action taken to repair failures or deficits. Thus, feedback will have a formative
effect on action. The role and types of evaluation will be reviewed in
chapter 9.
The future orientation of the first two perspectives may be contrasted with
the ‘here and now’ viewpoint of the third approach, as I have characterized it.
The distinction reflects what I see as a difference in attitudes towards
6 Approach, Design, Procedure

curriculum, although they should be regarded as being complementary rather

than being in conflict. Problems can arise, of course, if, by focusing on the
future, attributes of the present are ignored or sacrificed. Furthermore, if one
may take the house metaphor a step further, it is rarely the case that
curriculum developers are able, unlike property developers, to begin with a
clean site. Most curriculum development and curriculum proposals occur
within existing systems.
Thus, the third perspective may represent a more realistic approach, since
it takes account of existing systems before initiating proposals for change. The
systematic changes and the installation of new elements will, of course,
require planning and the effective use of systems in order to realize new
objectives, so that each of the first two approaches will make important
contributions to an overall process of curriculum development.
The characterization of different approaches to curriculum which I have
outlined above provides a basis for the more detailed discussion of curriculum
models to be given in chapter 3. Also, as will be clear when we come to
considering the process of language curriculum design, there is a role for all
three curriculum models.
2 Two Traditions

Introduction

Ever since human groups speaking different languages made contact with
each other, there has been a need to learn other languages while, since the
development of urban civilizations, with their specialization of functions within
a society, there has been a need to make provision for the teaching of other
languages. The formalization involved in teaching raises questions about
purpose, organization and methodology (Cook 1983). A review of the history
of language teaching (e.g. Kelly 1969), or of the teaching of English (Howatt
1984) or of modern language teaching (Hawkins 1981) demonstrates how
views on such issues have evolved, changed, disappeared and reemerged over
the centuries.
In his survey, Kelly suggests that three different views of language have
prevailed over the centuries: the social view that language is a form of social
behaviour; the artistic or literary view that language is a vehicle for creativity;
and the scholarly view, which often confuses the description and analysis of
language with teaching the language. At each period of history, Kelly believes
that one of these views has become predominant, generating its own approach
to method. In terms of syllabus design, each view will be manifest in both
content and organization.

The Modern Language/English Language Traditions

At the risk of establishing a dangerous dichotomy, I would like to suggest that

there are two traditions at work in language teaching, one founded on the
distinction between modern language teaching (MLT), e.g. French, German,
etc. and English language teaching (ELT), while the other is geographically
based on the division between Europe and North America. Let us begin by
looking briefly at the ML/EL divide.
The reader of Howatt’s history of ELT and of Hawkins’s account of MLT
will be struck by the parallels, contrasts and overlap which characterize these
two different traditions. Before the nineteenth century, the provision of
widespread access to education - let alone to learning a modem language -
was an alien concept, and the majority of the population were illiterate, still
8 Two Traditions

less lettered in a foreign tongue. Those few who did need to learn a modem
language would do so by whatever means were available (which meant either
with a tutor for the rich, or by untutored exposure for the less affluent), and it
was not until the nineteenth century, with the opening up of educational
opportunities, that modem languages came to occupy a place in the school
curriculum. In doing so, the division between the ELT and MLT traditions
became institutionalized.
What is striking in both Hawkins’s and Howatt’s accounts of the nineteenth
century is that modern languages were regarded as a ‘soft’ option, and to avoid
being dismissed as being beyond serious consideration, MLT drew upon the
model of Latin teaching which, during this period, was taught through the
grammar-translation method. Briefly, grammar-translation involves the learn¬
ing and application of rules for the translation of one language into another.
Vocabulary is learned as isolated items and words are combined according to
rule. Knowledge of the rule is regarded as being more important than
application and the focus is on teaching about the language. There is no oral
or pronunciation work, since it is the written language which is taught, and
‘mental discipline’ is stressed rather than any ability actually to use the
language.
Because of the influence of the universities, which then as now controlled
the public examination boards, language teaching conformed to the kind of
academicism which the universities considered appropriate, and which is
embodied in the classical-humanist ideology, one of the three value systems
underlying the curriculum, to be discussed in chapter 3. Essentially, within
this tradition, language is a body of esteemed information to be learnt, with an
emphasis on intellectual rigor.
The effect of treating living languages in much the same way as the dead
classical languages may, as Howatt rather ruefully observes, have led to the
British tradition of ‘being bad at languages’. What is more important from the
point of view of the evolution of the two traditions is that MLT and ELT took
quite separate paths. The modern languages became fixed within the grammar
school system, which was heavily influenced by the academicism of the
universities. Furthermore, the universities, in Hawkins’s view, refused to take
the teaching of modern languages seriously, with the consequence that no real
attention was given either to research into language teaching or into the
training of language teachers. Thus, it is difficult not to resist the conclusion
that the institutionalization of MLT within an essentially conservative state
grammar school system catering for only the most academically gifted pupils
stultified the development of MLT for generations.

The Rise of English as a World Language

The separation of the two traditions can also be attributed to other influences,
the most important of which is the emergence of English as an international
 Two Traditions 9

language. Whereas in medieval times English was the language of an island

nation and French was the language of a continental one, in the twentieth
century English has become the language of the world thanks to the linguistic
legacy of the British Empire, the emergence of the USA as an English-
speaking superpower and the fortuitous association of English with the
industrial and technological developments of the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries. Simultaneously, the status of the modem languages has declined
together with motives for learning them among the linguistically dominant
English-speaking world.
In MLT in Britain, changes in aims, content and methodology were absent
for decades, largely as a consequence of the back-wash effect of the A level
examination system under the control of the essentially conservative university
sector. Changes were, however, inevitable given the massive rise in the
number of children taking a modern language, following the change to
comprehensive, non-selective schools and the dismantling of the grammar
school system. From only 25 per cent of 11-year-olds taking a modern
language in the early 1960s, the percentage rose to 85 in 1977. This
unprecedented rise coincided with a period of widespread confusion during
the changeover to a comprehensive secondary school system.
It is scarcely surprising that modern language teachers were unprepared for
the change, nor that the results were criticized by Her Majesty’s inspectors in
a report published in 1977. The HMIs noted that the unfortunate modern
language teachers had been ‘caught up in the process of major educational
reform with the introduction of comprehensive secondary schools’ following a
period during the 1960s when they had been ‘asked to review the aims of their
teaching and to study new approaches, new methods and new techniques.’
English language teaching, by contrast, was largely unfettered by such
considerations and it was not until the 1960s that ELT, in the guise of
teaching English to immigrants, became an issue within the state-maintained
educational system in Britain. Meanwhile, ELT had gone abroad and it is not
without significance that the most influential British figures in the evolution of
ELT as a profession (notably Palmer, West, Hornby) spent important periods
of their careers outside their home country. When, with the founding of the
first pre-service teacher training course in the UK at London University in
1946, a quite different ELT tradition had already evolved.
Further factors have promoted different traditions within ELT. I have
already noted the status of English as a world language. In a time of recession
among MLT, ELT entered upon a boom period with all that this implies in
terms of financial resources and professional innovation and morale.
Furthermore, throughout the world English is a compulsory subject in the
secondary school curriculum - even, in some cases, continuing during tertiary
level. The instrumental function of English as a key to knowledge, recognized
60 years ago by Michael West in India, ensures that demand for English will
continue both in the compulsory school system and in the worlds of business,
commerce and industry. Thus, whereas in Britain, secondary school pupils are
10 Two Traditions

able to drop a foreign language after two years’ study, in continental Europe
the study of a foreign language (which for the majority means English)
continues throughout the secondary school stage.
Fortunately, for both MLT and ELT, the separate traditions have shown
many signs of coming together. Among the reasons for this, two are obvious.
Firsdy, since the shift to non-selective comprehensive secondary schooling,
MLT has had to face many of the issues which ELT has also had to confront,
most notably the provision of language teaching across a wide ability range
and the problems associated with mass provision of a foreign language.
Secondly, since the 1950s, both MLT and ELT have been subject to the
same influences from theory and research in applied linguistics. Thus, many
of the theoretical and practical controversies that preoccupy ELT specialists
now exercise the concerns of their colleagues in MLT so, although
professionally and socially there are still two traditions, intellectually and
practically they have come to occupy common ground. The most conspicuous
manifestation of this sharing of influences can be seen in the effects of
Wilkins’s and the Council of Europe’s work on notional-functional syllabuses
which have resulted in major changes in the design of teaching programmes
and examinations.
One direct result of this common influence can be seen in MLT in the
Graded Objectives Movement which ‘means the definition of a series of
short-term goals, each building upon the one before, so that the learner
advances in knowledge and skill’ (Page 1983:292). Likewise, the importance
now given to the spoken language in both ELT and MLT examinations
demonstrates the recognition now accorded by both traditions to the ability to
communicate orally in a foreign language. In short, both traditions
acknowledge the social view of language as social behaviour (Kelly 1969).

The ELT Tradition and The Reform Movement

The origins of a separate ELT tradition during this century can be traced to a
group of teachers who came together at the end of the nineteenth century
under the banner of the Reform Movement. This movement advocated an
approach to language teaching which challenged the tradition already
established by MLT - a challenge largely ignored by MLT but which
founded the basis for the British ELT tradition.
The Reform Movement was founded in continental Europe by an
international group of academics concerned with the state of language
teaching: ‘The Movement was a remarkable display of international and
disciplinary co-operation in which the specialist phoneticians took as much
interest in the classroom as the teachers did in the new science of phonetics’
(Howatt 1984:169). Of the four principal phoneticians in the movement,
three - Vietor in Germany, Passy in France and Jespersen in Denmark - had
begun their careers as teachers, and this accounts for the concern which the
 Two Traditions 11
Movement had with teaching. The fourth phonetician, Henry Sweet, was an
academic, but in spite of his academic background he was much concerned
with pedagogial issues, which Klinghard, a Realgymnasium teacher from
Silesia, applied and evaluated, thus helping to give the group credibility in the
eyes of practising teachers and, coincidentally, providing an early example of
the importance of trialability in curriculum innovation - a point to be noted in
chapter 9 in the discussion of managing successful curriculum innovation.
What were the principles of the Reform Movement, and why were they so
innovatory? The first principle, the primacy of speech, was clearly opposed to
existing practice, which focused on the written language. The second
principle, which emphasized the centrality of connected text as the heart of
the teaching-learning process, was also out of step with current practice,
which tended to work with isolated, unconnected and decontextualized
sentences. The third principle, advocating absolute priority of an oral
methodology in the classroom, also flew in the face of contemporary concern
with the written language in the grammar-translation method.
The emphasis on speech is scarcely surprising in view of the fact that so
many of the Reform Movement were phoneticians, and their stress on the
importance of phonetics and correct pronunciation did lead to a controversial
emphasis on the use of phonetic notation and an unrealistically long period of
training in its use. However, the importance they gave to connected text was
not controversial, while their oral method introduced techniques such as text-
based question and answer work, and retelling of the story, which actually
required the learner to use the language and which are still part of the
repertoire of techniques available to the language teacher.
As the text was a key element in the method, selection and grading were
important, foreshadowing the principles to be greatly developed by Palmer,
and thus laying die foundation for language grading, to be discussed at greater
length in chapter 4. Text grading was based on a functional typology,
beginning with descriptive, proceeding to narrative, and ending with dialogues
which, in contrast with much current practice, were not introduced at the
beginning but at the end. Good teaching texts, it was suggested, should be
direct, clear, simple and familiar. They could also, Sweet suggested, ‘be dull
and commonplace, but not too much so.’ Vocabulary was to be controlled,
based on around 3,000 common words.
In formulating their proposals for reform, Sweet and his colleagues
combined two disciplines which have become the basis for much subsequent
work in applied linguistics and which are included under Richards and
Rodgers’ ‘approach’, namely linguistics and psychology.

Harold Palmer: The Scientific Study of Languages

The applied linguistics upon which British ELT was founded was developed
further in the work of Harold E. Palmer whose major publications, such as
12 Two Traditions

The Scientific Study and Teaching of Languages (1917), The Principles of Language
Study (1921) and A Grammar of Spoken English (1924), ‘provided a statement
of intellectual principle on which the English language teaching profession
was to build for the next half century’ (Howatt 1984:232).
The descriptive apparatus developed by Palmer was influenced by
Bloomfield’s An Introduction to the Study of Language (1914), a seminal work in
the evolution of American structuralist linguistics. Although terminologically
quaint, Palmer’s system paid considerable attention to sentence patterns and
syntactic (or ‘ergonic’) relationships, presented in an ergonic chart, which
‘teaches us (1) to classify the units of a given language according to their
functions in the sentence and (2) to build up original (unknown) units from
the smaller known units of which they are composed’ (Howatt 1984:237). The
principles of working from simple to more complex, from known to unknown,
and of a ‘rational order of progression’ form the basis of most subsequent
attempts within the British tradition of ELT to grade linguistic material and
so have considerable implications for language syllabus design, as discussed in
chapter 4. Similarly, Palmer’s methodological principles, of which habit
formation was the core, acted as a strong influence on ELT methodology for
the next two generations, though it is important to realize that the bulk of the
psychological research into habit-formation had not yet been published and so
it is anachronistic to think of Palmer as a behaviourist. Indeed, his
methodology was largely uninformed by psychological principles as such. Yet,
his distinction between the ‘spontaneous’ and trained or ‘studial’ capacities of
the classroom learner prefigures a dichotomy recently revived by Krashen
(1982), whose contrast between ‘acquisition’ and ‘learning’ is a basic tenet for
his Input Hypothesis. What both Palmer and Krashen are doing is to draw a
distinction between the capacity of a learner to pick up a language in an
informal and untutored fashion compared with the ability to learn through
formal classroom study.

Michael West: Surrender Value

Palmer’s interest in controlled vocabulary coincided with that of Michael

West, whose name is closely associated with two important developments: the
New Method Readers, and General Service List of English Words. West began his
career in Bengal, where he became concerned with wastage within the Bengal
education system. He believed that the current approach to teaching English
had ‘low surrender value’ because pupils derived little benefit from the
amount of teaching they received during an incompleted course of instruction
which, at that time, attempted to teach Bengali children a command of spoken
English, for which they would have little use - a view echoed on a wider scale
in a recent paper by Abbott (1987).
West carried out what we would now call a needs analysis (to be further
discussed in chapter 6), and the results of his survey, were published in a
 Two Traditions 13
report in 1926, in which he advocated developing practical information reading
in English, which would enable Bengalis to have access to the technological
knowledge needed for economic development of their country. He proposed
two main ways of improving reading texts for children; first, simplifying the
vocabulary by replacing old-fashioned literary words with more common
modem equivalents; and second, by applying the principles of readability and
lexical distribution by presenting fewer words more often. In one of the first
attempts to evaluate the efficacy of a new method, West experimented with
new and old materials, demonstrating the superiority of his proposed
innovations, although it must be said that his experiment lacked the rigour and
precision which would nowadays be required of such an investigation.

Hornby: The Situational Approach

The culmination of the British tradition established by Sweet and Palmer is

the work of Hornby, who is probably best known for his Advanced Learner's
Dictionary of Current English, first published in 1954. He united the tradition
of oral method advocated by Palmer and the concern of Sweet and Jespersen
with connected text. Hornby termed his method the Situational Approach, as
each new pattern or lexical item should be introduced to the class in advance
of the work with the text, and the presentation be linked to classroom
situations in which the meaning of the new item would be established. In spite
of its name, his approach was not situational in the more commonly used
sense of contextualizing language in ‘real life’ situations found outside the
classroom.
Hornby’s Guide to Patterns and Usage in English, also first published in 1954,
is based on a graded and sequenced language syllabus together with
procedures for introducing each new item. Although his approach is rather
austere, the syllabus which formed the basis of his Guide has been very
influential and there are many structurally based courses published since his
Guide appeared in which features of this syllabus may be discerned.

The Two Traditions: the USA and Europe

We have now dealt with the first major tradition based on the distinction
between MLT and ELT and it is time to turn to a geographically - and even
culturally - based tradition founded on the difference between British and
American ELT. Aspects of the differences between the US and UK traditions
are embodied in the emergence of ‘theory’ as a key term within the American
tradition, as compared with ‘principles’ within the British one.
The academic basis to American language teaching is exemplified in audio-
lingualism, which became the prevailing American orthodoxy in the
generation following World War II. The foundations of audio-lingualism may
14 Two Traditions

be traced to the work of Bloomfield, the doyen of American linguistics, whose

Introduction to the Study of Language and Language established the tenets of
structural linguistics, which set out to describe languages by segmenting and
classifying utterances into their phonological and grammatical constituents.
The job of the linguist in the field was to reveal the structure of a language by
employing a set of discovery procedures and a native-speaking informant. By
applying such procedures, the linguist would be able to identify and describe
the phonemes, morphemes and syntactic structures of the language. Among
the techniques used is that of identifying words which contrast in only one
sound. Where such minimal sound differences coincide with differences in
meaning a phonemic contrast is revealed, and by systematically applying this
discovery technique, the phonemes - or minimal units in the sound system of
the language - are established. Examples in English are the phonemic
contrasts in such so-called minimal pairs as pit and pet, pat and pot.
Such linguistic field procedures were described by Bloomfield in a
pamphlet called An Outline Guide for the Practical Study of Foreign Languages,
published in 1942. As Howatt observes, this guide to elementary linguistic
fieldwork became rather unexpectedly a basic source for the Army Specialized
Training Program (ASTP), which arose in response to the need for large
numbers of foreign language speaking army personnel with the US’s entry
into World War II. Adapting the field work techniques from the Outline Guide,
the ASTP used linguists and native-speaking informants who together
analysed the target languages, devised teaching materials and acted as
classroom teachers. The linguist instructors introduced the new material,
giving explanations where necessary, and the native speakers were left to drill
the patterns by a simple method of imitation and repetition. Known as the
‘mim-mem’ method (mimicry and memorization), ‘this is the obvious
forerunner of the audiolingual approach and the early language laboratory
techniques’ (Howatt 1984:266).
The development of this methodology was taken a step further by Charles
Fries, whose Michigan Oral Method was founded on an applied linguistics
base. Drawing on scientific descriptions of the source and target languages,
the applied linguist

has to select and grade the structures taken from the original description
to suit the relevant pedagogical purposes, and prepare a contrastive
description of source and target languages in order to pinpoint areas of
potential difficulty. Secondly, he has to write teaching materials which
will illustrate the patterns of the new language and provide special
practice on difficult points. The materials are then passed on to the
teacher for use in class. (Howatt 1984:267)

This approach tended to emphasize the role of the teacher- as user of

materials written by trained ‘experts’ and thus established what some might
 Two Traditions 15

see as a disabling tradition of the teacher as consumer and the materials

producer as expert, each inhabiting rather different worlds and with
communication between them being in one direction - from the ‘expert’ to the
‘practitioner’.
From the point of view of syllabus design, the priority given to speech and
the principle of contrastive analysis of the native and target languages are
fundamental, as is the selection and grading of patterns or structures. Method¬
ologically, the emphasis on language learning as the formation and performance
of habits led to the use of pattern practice of the structure drill which, as
Brooks (1960:146) says, ‘makes no pretense of being communication ... It is
. . . exercise in structural dexterity undertaken solely for the sake of practice,
in order that performance may become habitual and automatic.’ In fact, there
was more to audio-lingualism than structure drilling, although this was an
important procedure. Control, guidance, the avoidance of error and
practising correct forms of the language, while being features of audio-
lingualism, were by no means confined to this particular method. We have
already noted how Sweet, Palmer, West and Hornby all made similar
proposals so that such principles were already well understood within British
ELT and are reflected in the language curricula developed within this
tradition, as may be seen in Hornby’s Guide to Patterns and Usage in English.
In spite of such similarities, there remain some important differences
between the British and American traditions. Audio-lingualism was founded
by structural linguists whose concern was with the form rather than the use of
the language, whereas British linguistics, which evolved under the influence of
J. R. Firth, became concerned with the relationship between language and
context of situation. So, at a time when the American approach to language
teaching gave absolute priority to the training of speech habits, in Britain
interest was growing in situational approaches in which a social model of
language use was applied to the design of language curricula. This British
interest was later to find common cause in the concept of communicative
competence, as we shall see.

A New Paradigm: Transformational—Generative (TG) Linguistics

In one of the great ironies of academic history, Skinner’s definitive

behaviourist explanation of language learning, Verbal Behaviour, was published
in 1957, the same year Chomsky’s Syntactic Structures launched an entirely
new theory whereby both language and language learning could be explained.
The shortcomings of a behaviourist explanation of language learning were to
be mercilessly criticized two years later in Chomsky’s much-cited (though
doubtless seldom read) (1959) review of Skinner’s Verbal Behaviour, while the
concept of linguistic competence proposed by Chomsky was to provide a basis
for future development in linguistic theory and research.
To Chomsky, a view of language as a collection of structures was too
16 Two Traditions

limited. Instead of concentrating on taxonomic classifications of structures,

Chomsky (1965) proposed in Aspects of the Theory of Syntax that linguistics
should develop the rules which would account for these structures. These
rules constitute linguistic competence, which is the unconscious knowledge of
the ‘ideal speaker-listener’ operating in ‘a completely homogeneous speech
community’. Thus competence is an idealization and is to be distinguished
from ‘performance’, which is ‘the actual use of language in concrete
situations.’ As performance is the imperfect realization of competence, it was
regarded as being of little interest to the theoretical and descriptive linguist.
Chomsky’s view of language as a mental phenomenon posited that humans’
capacity for language was unique and innate. His approach to describing this
mental phenomenon is very different from that of the structural linguist,
whose use of discover}' procedures and data obtained from a native-speaking
informant were repudiated by Chomsky and TG linguists. Instead, they
attempted to produce a logical model whose rules would enable the
production of grammatical sentences. It is important to realize that this is a
model of competence and therefore does not necessarily replicate what actually
occurs in the mental processes of a language user, even though psycholinguistic
research carried out under the influence of TG in the 1960s attempted to
demonstrate the psychological reality of TG rules. Subsequently, much
research into both LI (first language) and L2 (second language) acquisition
has been carried out within the theoretical framework established by
Chomsky, and the origins of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) research
can be traced to the First Language Acquisition (FLA) research which was
stimulated by TG theories of language acquisition. The implications of some
of the findings of SLA research for syllabus design will be reviewed in
Chapter 4.

Contextual Factors and Communicative Competence

While the TG view of language competence set a new direction for linguistic
research, the lack of attention to contextual factors omitted what, for the
sociolinguist, is a crucial aspect of competence, namely the ability of a speaker
to use language appropriately according to setting, social relationships and
communicative purpose. The concept of communicative competence, first put
forward by Hymes in a lecture in 1966, and subsequendy published in
Gumperz and Hymes (1972), greatly extends the notion of competence to
include such factors together with the speaker’s tacit awareness of such
constraints on language use. In short, Hymes (1966) turned attention from the
ideal speaker-hearer in a homogeneous speech community, to ‘differential
competence within a heterogeneous speech community’, pointing out that ‘there are
rules of use without which the rules of grammar would be useless.’
Although Hymes makes the point that ‘rules of use are not a late grafting’,
but are acquired from the first years of language acquisition his account of
 Two Traditions 17
communicative competence focuses on language in use rather than on
language in acquisition. As a means of analysing and explaining language use,
Hymes’s theory of communicative competence proved to be an important
theoretical influence on the evolution of communicative language teaching
(CLT) during the 1970s. Indeed, the formative influences on CLT were
sociolinguistic rather than psycholinguistic, and include not only the
theoretical impetus provided by Hymes, but the influence of speech-act
theory, through the work of Austin (1962) and Searle (1969), and discourse
analysis (e.g. Sinclair and Coulthard 1975). In fact, it is only very recently that
language teaching has turned to language acquisition studies as a source of
guidance and inspiration. Meanwhile, we shall review some of the
developments in ELT which were taking place in Britain and the rest of
Europe during the 1960s and 1970s.

From Structuralism to Communication

In the 1960s it was taken for granted that a structural syllabus, based on
widely accepted principles of selection and grading as outlined by Palmer and
Hornby, would form the basis of language teaching materials, and in Britain
two such courses published during this decade became international best
sellers: L. G. Alexander’s New Concept English (1967) and G. Broughton’s
Success With English (1968). These courses also employed teaching procedures
which combined features of the situational method and audio-visual
techniques, while many of the controlled and guided practice activities showed
similarities to those found in American audio-lingualism. In MLT, a similar
combination of features may be found in the materials produced by the
Nuffield Project during the late 1960s and early 1970s.
The 1970s were characterized by a concern with meaning, and this was to
form the basis of the Council of Europe’s ‘Threshold Level’ or ‘T-Level’
project, initiated in 1971. Whereas the structural approach to language had
emphasized differences among languages as revealed in contrastive analysis,
the ‘notional-functional’ approach, as it came to be called, emphasized that all
languages expressed the same meanings, but with differing structural
realizations. Thus, it became possible to develop a meaning-based syllabus
which could be specified for any language, and the Council of Europe
working group set itself the task of specifying the content for a ‘common core’
which all learners would acquire before specializing in language related to
specific purposes. The influence of this work for syllabus design will be taken
up again in chapter 6.

Needs Analysis and Notional Syllabuses

There were two important outcomes of this project, which have had a
widespread and lasting influence on the design of language teaching
18 Two Traditions

syllabuses. The first was the development of a systematic approach to needs

analysis, expounded in A Model for the Definition of Language Needs of Adults
Learning a Modern Language by Rene Richterich (1972) and Identifying the
needs of adults learning a foreign language by Richterich and Chancerel
(1977/80). The significance of needs analysis for syllabus design will be taken
up in chapter 6.
The second outcome was to make meaning (specifically functional
meaning) rather than structure the basis of the language syllabus. The
specification of a meaning-based syllabus poses difficulties addressed by
D. A. Wilkins in Notional Syllabuses (1976). He specifies three types of
notional category: (1) semantico-grammatical, such as past, future, location,
etc., (2) modality, such as possibility, necessity, obligation, etc., and (3)
communicative function, such as asking questions, expressing agreement and
disagreement, inviting, accepting, declining, etc. The lists of categories which
appear in Notional Syllabuses are not, however, a syllabus within the terms
defined earlier, since such lists do not provide any indication of grading and
sequencing which, as we have seen, are important in a syllabus intended as a
guide to teaching, while the problems of combining structural and
notional-functional elements in a teaching syllabus have remained a
continuing difficulty, as will be discussed in chapter 6.
The influence of the Threshold Level’s new approach was soon to be seen
in published materials. By the mid-1970s new textbooks incorporating a
functional dimension, such as the Strategies series (Abbs, Ayton and Freebairn
1975) began to appear, while, instead of having such chapter or unit headings
as ‘articles before a vowel sound’ or ‘Present Perfect Simple Tense’, such
textbooks now included titles like ‘Ask for, Give and Refuse Permission’
and ‘Expressing personal opinions’. The power and influence of this new set
of categories for ELT syllabus design have been enormous, to the extent that
it has become conventional for syllabus designers to take them as given.

LASP
Another development of the 1970s was the growth of language teaching for
specific purposes (LASP), which spawned a number of acronyms, of which
ESP, EOP and EAP are now part of the ELT lexicon: English for Specific
Purposes, English for Occupational Purposes and English for Academic
Purposes. In these we can see the response of the profession to new demands
made upon both the English language and ELT teachers with the intimate
association between English, technological change and national development.
We also see in the development of LASP another example of the dichotomy
between training and education, the former being concerned with the teaching
of predetermined skills, the latter attempting to teach an understanding of the
underlying rationale or principles; although in his discussion of this issue,
Widdowson (1983:19) rejects such a characterization, seeing the distinction
more in the difference between conformity as the goal of training on the one
 Two Traditions 19
hand, and creativity as the aim of education on the other.
ESP has been characterized by a concern with content rather than method,
as is shown by the development of techniques to analyse the product (i.e.
analysis of target texts: see, for instance, Ewer and Latorre 1967) and to
determine learners’ needs (i.e. needs analysis: see, for instance, Munby 1978,
to be discussed in chapter 6). However, such analyses have been criticized on
the grounds that ‘They do not tell us what the language user does with the
knowledge that has been so neatly itemized, nor, by the same token, how the
language learner acquires this knowledge’ (Widdowson 1983:87). However,
recent work in ESP has shown equal concern with how the learner might most
effectively learn, and Hutchinson and Waters (1987) have outlined a learning-
centred approach to ESP which also provides a sound model for general course
design. Furthermore, there are signs of a development of ESP programmes in
which professional or occupational training and language training are
combined (McCallen (1989)), drawing upon techniques developed in such
areas as management training. Indeed, it may well be that ESP will become
increasingly important.

The Link with Curriculum

Before concluding this historical review, we need to look briefly at the

background to the other term in the title: Curriculum. Curriculum studies, as a
branch of education, originated in the work of Taba and Tyler, American
educationists, whose respective publications Curriculum Development: Theory
and Practice (1962) and Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction (1949)
attempted to address the fundamental question of this field of study: What
ought to be taught in an educational institution?
Curriculum theory encompasses philosophy and value systems; the main
components of the curriculum: purposes, content, methodology and evalu¬
ation; and the processes whereby curricula are developed, implemented and
evaluated. And because curriculum studies are so all-encompassing, it is a
characteristic of curriculum development that it involves a wide range of
issues and people. It is the breadth and depth of curriculum development
which distinguishes it from syllabus design, whose concerns and ramifications
are restricted to questions of content.

The Isolation of LT from Curriculum Studies

Language teaching - MLT and especially ELT - has been for the most part
isolated from curriculum studies. A number of reasons have been suggested.
As we have seen, ELT developed out of an applied linguistics tradition and
the academic reference group to whom practitioners have referred is the
applied linguist rather than the educationist. MLT, as already noted, drew its
inspiration from the language scholar, and any concern with methodology,
20 Two Traditions
which has always been of primary interest to the educationist, was much less
prominent.
ELT has also only recently emerged as a profession, with its own traditions,
values, preoccupations and identity. Whereas modem language teachers could
found an association in 1892, the setting up of equivalent ELT organizations
did not take place until over 60 years later, with the founding of TESOL in
the USA (1966) and IATEFL in Britain (1967). Furthermore, the first issue
of English Language Teaching (now ELT Journal) did not appear until 1946. Yet
another important influence on the development of ELT as a profession - the
British Council - is also of recent origin, having celebrated its fiftieth
anniversary in 1985. The fact that the British Council conducts most of its
work abroad draws attention to the geographical dispersal of ELT and its
practitioners, with the consequent absence of a firm home base for the
development of professional unity, in comparison with the UK-based ML
teaching profession which has evolved within one national education system.
A further reason for the isolation of ELT, in particular, from education in
general - and thus from curriculum studies - is the fact that the actual
practice of ELT tended to take place in two contexts which were themselves
isolated from mainstream metropolitan education, namely the private language
school and the colonial education system. The private language school stands
outside the state education system and thus is not constrained by the values,
assumptions and aims of that system. Indeed, it might be argued that in some
contexts the private language school system evolved because of the failures of
the state system to provide an adequate language education for its clients.
Furthermore, private language schools are fee-paying and tend to be subject
to market forces, from which state systems are (traditionally, at least) largely
protected. Thus, a different set of purposes and a different ethos prevail.
The development of ELT in the British Empire also isolated ELT from
developments at home. The role of English language teaching within a colonial
education policy was not generally disputed within the metropolitan arena; nor
were the aims of education open to such debate. However, with the development
of an Anglophone Commonwealth, consisting of independent nations, and the
new needs which education (and ELT) had to meet, a reappraisal of ELT has
been inevitable. Such a reappraisal has coincided with the unprecedented spread
of English teaching in developing countries around the world, reaching a wider
range and greater number of pupils than in any previous era. The age of mass
education has coincided with the emergence of English as a key to technological
knowledge and thus to economic development, recalling West’s recognition of
the instrumental function of the English language in Bengal over 60 years ago.

The Growth of an Educational Orientation

We have already noted that until the 1970s the concerns of language teaching
were with procedure rather than design. The change of emphasis to design,
 Two Traditions 21
characteristic of the 1970s, inevitably led to a reappraisal of the role and
purpose of language teaching, which in turn has led to questions which go
beyond considerations of content or technique. This development has been
accompanied by the realization, through aid projects and consultancies, that
the wholesale export of metropolitan materials and methods may not be
appropriate because other education systems exist within quite different
cultural, economic and political contexts than those which apply in western
Europe or north America. ELT experts, as participants in curriculum
development projects in such countries, have found that solutions to the new
educational issues which they have to face will not be found within applied
linguistics theory and research. ELT has begun to look to education as a
source of new theories and procedures, particularly in matters of developing
and implementing innovations in content and methodology.
Meanwhile, MLT, which in Britain and north America has been within the
state sector, has found itself in the middle of the reappraisals of aims and
methods which have characterized educational systems in the 40 years since
World War II. Just as prevailing values and assumptions within the system
have influenced other parts of the curriculum, so, too, MLT has come within
the scope of curriculum studies, under whose aegis such reappraisals have
taken place. Thus, in a period which put stress on efficiency, behavioural
objectives became a vogue, and language curriculum developers attempted to
express language teaching aims in such terms (cf. Richterich 1973). The
subsequent swing to humanist values has witnessed an emphasis on the social
and interpersonal nature of language.
Although it would not be true to say that language teaching has become a
branch of curriculum studies, the influence of the latter on the former is seen
in such work as A. M. Shaw’s (1975) Ph.D. thesis, Approaches to a
Communicative Syllabus in Foreign Language Curriculum Development, while
more recent discussions of ELT, such as Language Teaching Projects for the
Third World (British Council 1983), have placed the concerns of managing
innovations in ELT syllabus, materials and methods quite firmly within the
arena of curriculum studies. Meanwhile, the approach to communicative
language teaching advocated by Candlin, Breen and others at the University of
Lancaster has consciously drawn upon curriculum theory, as we shall see in
subsequent discussions of the process curriculum model (chapter 3) and process
syllabuses (chapter 7). Curriculum studies have now provided a field of discourse
in which many of the concerns of language teaching, as they have evolved, can
be and are being discussed and for this reason the language syllabus designer
is obliged to be informed by and, indeed, to participate in this area.

Conclusion

Language teaching is a branch of education. During the development of a

distinctive and independent profession, ELT evolved from an applied
22 Two Traditions

linguistics base established by the late nineteenth century Reform Movement

and Palmer, West and Hornby, within the British tradition, and by
Bloomfield, Fries and Lado within the American. While the American
tradition focused on grammatical structure as the basis for the content of the
language syllabus, the British school developed an interest in contextualized
language use, which was combined with a longstanding concern with language
structure. The development of new theories of language learning, under the
impact of Chomskyan linguistics, gave rise to theories of the learner’s own
innate language learning capacities and to revised views on both LI and L2
acquisition, leading to the evolution of SLA theory and research, whose
influence on language syllabus design is only just beginning to be felt.
The purely linguistic nature of competence, as defined by Chomsky, was
extended by Hymes (1966) to embrace the capacities underlying the
communicative use of language, and the interests of British and American
schools of thought have come together in their concern with learning language
for the fluent expression of the language user’s intentions in a variety of
contexts. A reappraisal of the principles upon which content and methodology
are selected has been accompanied by a consideration of the role of language
teaching within education, and by the realization that curriculum studies may
provide a body of theory and practice which can inform decision-making in
language teaching curriculum development and innovation.

Suggested Reading

General
The most extensive review of language teaching appears in Kelly (1969),
25 Centuries of Language Teaching, while a condensed overview may be found
in Part Two of Stern (1983), Fundamental Concepts of Language Teaching.
Undoubtedly the best history of ELT has been written by Howatt (1984), A
History of English Language Teaching. There is no comparable book on the
history of MLT, but Hawkins (1981), Modem Languages in the Curriculum,
covers much the same ground as Howatt, though he writes from the viewpoint
of the UK educational context. Another account from the MLT viewpoint is
provided by Clark (1987), Curriculum Renewal in School Foreign Language
Learning, framed within Skilbeck’s curriculum ideologies, to be discussed in
chapter 3. Finally, a comprehensive review of developments in ELT from the
viewpoint of the early 1980s has been provided by Roberts (1982).

The role of EL T
Bowers (1986) discusses the international role of English and ELT, while Judd
(1981 and 1984) addresses policy and political questions in his two papers.
Cook (1983) asks ‘What should language teaching be about?’ and Abbott
(1987) stakes an educational claim for ELT.
 Two Traditions 23

Audio-lingualism

Rivers (1964), The Psychologist and the Foreign Language Teacher, reviews audio-
lingualism, its tenets and its psychological basis, while an account of audio-
lingualism from one of the founding fathers is given by Fries (1945). A standard
account of audiolingualism teaching methodology appears in Brooks (1960).
Within recent British ELT tradition, Widdowson has been a major
contributor to the evolution of theory and practice, and two publications of his
date from the period dealt with in this chapter: Widdowson, (1978), Teaching
Language as Communication and (1979) Explorations in Applied Linguistics.

Threshold Level
Another major influence on the design of language teaching programmes has
been Wilkins and his colleagues on the Council of Europe ‘Threshold’ level
scheme. Wilkins (1976), Notional Syllabuses, is a comprehensible account of
meaning-based syllabuses. An earlier proposal appears in Wilkins (1972),
Linguistics in Language Teaching.

Graded Objectives in Modern Language Teaching (GOMLT)

Page reviews the GOMLT movement in a state of the art article in Language
Teaching (1983). As an example of teacher- and school-based curriculum
renewal in language teaching, the GOMLT Movement has implications
which go beyond questions of syllabus content.

LASP
The field of Languages for Specific Purposes is reviewed by Robinson (1980),
English for Specific Purposes, while a series of case studies of ESP is provided by
Mackay and Mountford (eds) 1978, with the same title. For a clear and
carefully thought out discussion of ESP, which also has much of value for
general course design, see Hutchinson, T. and Waters, A. (1987) English for
Specific Purposes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Discourse Analysis
Discourse analysis, conversational analysis and speech-act theory have been
important influences on language teaching during the past decade and a half,
and there is an extensive literature in these areas. For a well judged and
readable survey of the field, read Stubbs (1983), Discourse Analysis.
3 Language Curriculum
Values and Options

Introduction

Since one of the purposes of this book is to place language syllabus design
within the wider context of curriculum, it is important to review some of the
major value systems or ideologies which underlie approaches to curriculum, as
well as the curriculum models associated with these ideologies. Such a review
will serve to show where some ideas - such as behavioural objectives and
proposals for process syllabuses - have come from, while also providing some
perspective on the place of such ideas within the field of curriculum studies
and, thus, on their status within ELT.
It is also important to be aware that different models of curriculum
represent the expression of different value systems and, consequently, of quite
divergent views on education. Indeed, it is hardly surprising that views on
these issues will be value-laden, given the fact that curriculum studies attempt
to answer quite fundamental questions about the nature and purpose of
education. Even though the concerns of the language teacher and syllabus
designer might seem remote from such considerations, I hope it will become
clear that any decisions about developing a language teaching programme
must reflect the assumptions and beliefs of those engaged in such an
enterprise, and that it is important to illuminate such planning by working out
where one stands in relation to the numerous options available. I shall begin
this review of curriculum options by considering the important issue of the
major value systems which underlie them.

Value Systems

Views on the nature and purpose of education include those which emphasize
the transmission of an esteemed cultural heritage; which stress the growth and
self-realization of the individual; and those which regard education as an
instrument of social change. Respectively, these three orientations or
ideologies have been termed classical humanism, progressivism and recon¬
structionism. Classical humanism is associated with Matthew Arnold and
T. S. Eliot, progressivism with J. J. Rousseau, J. H. Pestalozzi and Friedrich
Froebel, and reconstructionism with John Dewey.
 Language Curriculum: Values and Options 25
In language teaching, each of these ideologies is expressed in different
proposals for aims, content and methodology. The grammar-translation
method, as already noted in chapter 2, is an expression of classical humanism.
Audio-lingualism and notional-functional syllabuses can be viewed as
different realizations of reconstructionism. The proposals of Krashen and
Terrell (1983), Breen and Candlin (1980) whose process syllabus will be
reviewed in chapter 7, and Prabhu (1987) whose procedural syllabus will also
be discussed in that chapter, are differing products of progressivism. As will
be clear even from these examples, different ideologies give rise to very
diverse views on both the purposes and methods of language teaching and
the most effective ways of implementing curriculum innovation, the latter
topic being the subject of chapters 8 and 9.
Reconstructionism is associated with a systems-behavioural approach (see
Crawford-Lange 1982), in which the pedagogical procedures are based on
Skinner’s (1968) application to education of the principles of operant
conditioning. The emphasis is on incremental and mastery learning, in which
each step is based on the preceding one, and ‘it is assumed that, given
appropriate learning activities, all students can achieve mastery if they have
enough time’ (Crawford-Lange 1982:88). In language syllabus design, such
views have been realized in the grading of structural syllabuses (to be
discussed in further detail in chapter 4), and in the concept of graded
objectives.
Progressivism, by contrast, coincides with what Crawford-Lange character¬
izes as ‘problem-posing education’, which ‘extracts a concern for the real-life
situation of the learners as well as a perception of the student as decision-
maker’ (Crawford-Lange:88). The two central pedagogical concepts of this
approach are praxis and dialogue, the former consisting of reflection and action
upon the world in order to transform it (Freire 1973 and 1976), the latter ‘the
educational context, the place where praxis occurs’, the purpose of which is
‘to stimulate new ideas, opinions and perceptions rather than simply to
exchange them’ (Crawford-Lange:89). As we shall see in chapter 7, both the
concepts and the terminology have been drawn upon in proposals for process
syllabuses in language teaching (see Breen and Candlin 1984).
Whereas progressivism is concerned with ‘doing things for’ or ‘doing things
with’ the learner, reconstructionism involves ‘doing things to’ him or her
(Davies 1976:32). Reconstructionism emphasizes the importance of planning,
efficiency and rationality, and it involves ‘the elevation of teachers and other
members of a carefully selected and highly trained elite of educators who are
designated the agents of cultural renewal’ (Skilbeck 1976). Reconstructionism,
to return to the house analogy of chapter 1, plans for an ideal future dwelling
(i.e. society), though not necessarily taking account of the constraints which
stand in the way of achieving such an ideal. Progressivism is more concerned
with the processes of building the dwelling or of adapting it to the needs and
requirements of the community living within it.
Having considered the ideological basis of these approaches to curriculum,
26 Language Curriculum: Values and Options

I shall now turn to an account of two curriculum models which reflect these
different perspectives, beginning with the means-ends or Rational Planning
model.

Means and Ends

As Stem (1984:501) observes, ‘a means-ends view of teaching is unavoidable

in language pedagogy’, so it is hardly surprising that the means—ends or
objectives model has provided a popular framework for language curricula.
The rationale underlying the objectives model is associated with Taba and
Tyler, and because it assumes a four-stage cyclic sequence, beginning with
clear specification of goals, it is sometimes called the rational planning model
‘on the grounds that it is rational to specify the ends of an activity before
engaging in it’ (Taylor and Richards 1979:64). A flow-chart representation of
the Taba-Tyler curriculum model appears in figure 3.1.

Figure 3.1 Flowchart representation of the Taba-Tyler curriculum development

model
 Language Curriculum: Values and Options 27

In this model, a distinction is made between goals, aims and objectives

(Taba 1962). Goals are very general and broad. Aims are more specific, and
are long-term - the target to be aimed at. These are what Bell (1981:50)*
refers to as ‘key objectives’. Conventionally, objectives are the short- to
medium-term goals, which in Bell’s terms are ‘critical’ or ‘specific’ objectives.
Both aims and objectives are generally regarded as important because, without
general aims to provide direction, it is possible to become lost in the attempt
to satisfy a range of short term objectives. Merritt (1971) in Hooper 1971:202
neatly summarizes the distinction between aims and objectives in the following
terms: ‘The satisfaction of hunger may be an aim. A plate of steak might be
the correlated objective.’ A similar distinction is drawn by Widdowson
(1983:7) in his discussion of EGP (English for General Purposes) and ESP
(English for Specific Purposes), in which he contrasts them in terms of the
place of aims in each type of course.

ESP specification of objectives: training: development of

equivalent to aims restricted competence

EGP specification of objectives: education: development of

leads to aims general capacity

By ‘objectives’, Widdowson means ‘the pedagogic intentions of a particular

course of study to be achieved within the period of that course and in
principle measurable by some assessment device at the end of the course.’ By
‘aims’ he means ‘the purposes to which learning will be put after the end of
the course’ (Widdowson 1983:6-7). Objectives, following Mager (1962), are
conventionally stated in behavioural terms which are intended to be specific,
unambiguous and measurable. Mager identifies three components:

1 Behaviour ‘First, identify the terminal behaviour by name; you can

specify the kind of behaviour that will be accepted as evidence that the
learner has achieved the objective.’
2 Conditions ‘Second, try to define the desired behaviour further by
describing the important conditions under which the behaviour will be
expected to occur.’
3 Standards ‘Third, specify the criteria of acceptable performance by
describing how well the learner must perform to be considered
acceptable.’

The core of the behaviour statement is an action verb, such as identify, define,
justify, classify, etc.
In the 1950s, a massive attempt was made to translate objectives into
behavioural terms by Bloom, Englehart, Furst, Hill and Krathwohl (1956) in
the Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. Objectives were classified under three
domains: the cognitive, which is concerned with intellectual abilities and
operations; the affective, which is the domain of attitudes, values and
28 Language Curriculum: Values and Options

appreciation; and the psychomotor, the area of motor skills, important in

technical contexts. Many of the objectives which the authors listed in the
cognitive domain have since been adapted for the specification of comprehen¬
sion skills in reading, as will be clear from the list of categories given below
from the cognitive domain.

1 Knowledge of facts, conventions, procedures.

2 Comprehension, which subsumes understanding, translation (or refor¬
mulation), interpretation (inferencing, summarizing, generalizing) and
extrapolation (estimating, predicting on the basis of the current
situation).
3 Application, or the transfer of training and skills to new or novel
applications.
4 Synthesis, or putting together elements and parts to form a whole, or
drawing upon elements from many sources and putting them together
into a structure or pattern not clearly there before.
5 Evaluation, or making judgements about the value, for some purpose, of
ideas, solutions, methods and material by reference to internal evidence
and external criteria.

In the affective domain, they also listed five categories:

1 Receiving or attending, e.g. attending carefully when others speak in

direct conversation, on the telephone.
2 Responding, e.g. finding pleasure in reading for recreation.
3 Valuing, e.g. assuming responsibility for drawing reticent members of
the group into a conversation.
4 Organizing, e.g. forming judgements of the responsibility of society for
conserving human and material resources.
5 Characterization by a value or value-complex, e.g. readiness to revise
judgements and to change behaviour in the light of evidence.

These affective objectives are especially noteworthy in the light of the

subsequent development of humanistic approaches to language teaching, in
which affectivity is recognized as both a means and an end of the
teaching-learning process.
In language teaching, in contrast to general education, one notable attempt
to adapt behavioural objectives has been made by Steiner (1975). Another
important application, following the classical form of behavioural objectives
specified by Mager, is to be found in the Council of Europe’s ‘Threshold
Level’ (see Van Ek in Trim, Richterich, Van Ek and Wilkins (1973)). A more
recent development may also be found in the Graded Objectives in Modem
Language Teaching (GOMLT) movement.
Following the classical prescription for behavioural objectives, Steiner
proposes that a performance objective should state:
 Language Curriculum: Values and Options 29

1 What the student will do (p.g. write an essay, answer five questions
orally).
2 Under what conditions (e.g. in class without notes, in an individual
conference with the teacher).
3 Within what time (e.g. 40 minutes, 5 minutes, no time limit).
4 To what level of mastery (e.g. must include 5 pertinent ideas each
supported with specific documentation; must have good paragraph and
essay construction; must contain no more than 5 errors of grammar,
punctuation or spelling; 4 out of 5 oral answers must be correct in
content; no more than 3 errors in pronunciation).

Such a specification provides a detailed guide to the learner, the teacher and
the tester - the last two often being one and the same person. As a statement
of desired teaching-learning outcomes, such objectives constitute a guide to
criterion-referenced or mastery learning and testing. If the learners’ behaviour
matches the specification, they have achieved mastery of the objective
concerned.
An example of a performance objective for a first-level language course
might be:

In an individual conference with your teacher you will be assigned one of

four topics (your family, the weather, your schedule, or the classroom.)
Your teacher will ask you 5 questions orally in the target language and you
will answer these orally in the target language and in complete sentences.
Criteria: 4 of 5 must be correct in content (according to the information
you provided the teacher). You should make no more than 3 errors in
pronunciation.

Steiner outlines three main criteria for terminal course objectives. Firstly,
terminal course objectives must provide clear guidance to the prospective users
and ‘as the specificity increases through the refinement process, greater clarity
should appear.’ Secondly, the terminal course objective should be relevant by
being meaningful to the learner, ‘related to the educational goal from which it
is derived’ and ‘desirable in terms of the present and future expectations of
the school and its related groups.’ Finally, such an objective should be feasible
‘if there is a good probability of its being achieved’. If objectives meet these
criteria, the entire set of objectives should be reviewed by asking the following
questions:

1 Does the set contain an appropriate representation of cognitive

behaviours?
2 Does the set contain an adequate representation of affective behaviours?
3 Is the set of objectives broad enough to cover the subject adequately?
4 Are all of the objectives internally consistent?
30 Language Curriculum: Values and Options

To screen objectives, Steiner suggests matching each terminal course

objective with a purpose.

Behavioural Objectives: Some Problems

In spite of the appeal of behavioural objectives, there have been a number of

objections to them on philosophical, educational and practical grounds. For
instance, Tumposky (1984), in an article tellingly entitled ‘Behavioral
Objectives, the cult of efficiency, and foreign language learning: are they
compatible?’, points out that the development of behavioural objectives was
associated with the scientific management movement in education during the
period between the two world wars. Bobbitt (1924), a curriculum specialist
concerned with the need for efficiency, ‘attempted to apply the techniques of
business to the schools. In the name of efficiency, he gave paramount
importance to the setting of acceptable performance standards and to their
measurement.’ The attention given to efficiency and predicted outcomes
brings us to the heart of much criticism of behavioural objectives and
illustrates how all aspects of education are value-laden. If education is viewed
as a voyage of discovery, the pre-specification of outcomes inherent in
behavioural objectives may be seen as conflicting with the essentially
speculative nature of the educational process. Indeed, Stenhouse (1975:82)
takes the view that ‘education as induction into knowledge is successful to the
extent that it makes the behavioural outcomes of the students unpredictable.’
Sockett (1976:50), like Stenhouse, is philosophically opposed to the
prescriptive character of the objectives model and he is suspicious of the
dogmatism to which the rigid adherence to an objectives model can give rise.
He points out that the demand for objectives to be measurable ‘presupposes a
dogmatic attachment to the one way of making scientific progress’ and ‘that
different teaching practices are ruled out’, while ‘the teacher is seen as a
technician or a manager.’
Indeed, as Tumposky observes, Bobbitt’s views resembled those of the
advocates of programmed learning in that both ‘give the impression that their
products are, or should be, “teacher-proof”.’ Such a view of the teacher as
technician, working to a plan provided by an expert, is strikingly similar to that
advocated by Fries; whose views are in line with a reconstructionist ideology,
but in conflict with progressivism, which values consultation with and
participation by teachers and learners in decisions affecting professional
practice. Thus it is not difficult to see why behavioural objectives are treated
with such circumspection, particularly when they become associated with the
politics of education and questions of control, power and authority.
Tumposky’s critique is clearly motivated by more than questions about the
educational value of behavioural objectives.
One of the strongest arguments which advocates of behavioural objectives
put forward lies in the claim that they enable goals to be specified
 Language Curriculum: Values and Options 31

unambiguously. However, as Taylor and Richards (1979:70) point out,

‘objectives cannot have exact, true and real meaning, because the meaning of
words depends on the way they are used, and the way they are used does
vary.’ This is especially true in the teaching of language itself, and efforts to
produce a list of agreed behavioural objectives for a language curriculum can
founder on differences in ‘values and interpretation underlying superficial
agreement on objectives’ (Taylor and Richards 1979). Another problem is the
tendency to concentrate too much on low-level objectives which can be most
readily specified, although it does not follow that ‘trivial outcomes need be
emphasised at the expense of those of greater importance’ (Nicholls and
Nicholls, 1978:34).
Davies (1976:72), while rehearsing the arguments against behavioural
objectives, suggests that the strongest argument for them

lies in the power of the methodology as a means of exposing underlying

assumptions. Once objectives for a learning experience have been
isolated and defined, it is possible to go beyond them to the very value
structure that they apparently reflect. Objectives are the consequences
of values, and it is these values - rather than the objectives themselves -
that need to be revealed when previously they may have been concealed.

Indeed, Davies sees attempts to specify objectives as

a very useful stimulus to clear thinking as well as a means of allowing

teachers to communicate with each other in a relatively precise and
unambiguous manner. They force you to come down to earth, and start
thinking in specific terms rather than in terms of vague hopes and
aspirations.

The last point should be kept in mind when we come to discuss the issues
involved in the management of curriculum innovation because of the
importance of an unambiguous understanding of both the current position
and future intentions. To the extent that objectives can act as a means of
focusing thought and discussion, they will serve a very useful purpose.

Although, as we have seen, behavioural objectives are open to criticisms on

many grounds, ‘even two of the foremost critics ... accept that behavioural
objectives have a part to play, though necessarily a limited one’ (Taylor and
Richards 1979:71). One of these critics, Eisner (1972), distinguishes three
types of objective that can be used in curriculum design: instructional
objectives, which can be expressed in behavioural terms; expressive objectives,
which are concerned with personal responses and are not susceptible to
behavioural specification; and finally, what he calls Type III objectives, which
specify problems, the solutions to which are left to pupil initiative and
justification.
32 Language Curriculum: Values and Options

Another critic of behavioural objectives, Stenhouse (1975), suggests that

education has four aims: induction into knowledge; initiation into social norms
and values; training,; and instruction. Though repudiating the role of objectives,
he acknowledges that behavioural objectives may appropriately be used to
specify the goals of training and instruction, but not of induction and
initiation. To Stenhouse, ‘knowledge is not something to regurgitate, but
something to think with’ (Taylor and Richards 1979:72) and he believes that
education is concerned with speculation about ideas and not mastery of
behaviour. Improvements in education, he believes, come from raising
teachers’ awareness and self-criticism rather than from specifying objectives
with precision. Instead of objectives, Stenhouse proposes principles for the
selection of content, the development of a teaching strategy, making decisions
about sequence, and so on.
The distinction Stenhouse raises between training and education, between
mastery and speculation, is at the heart of much argument about the aims of
teaching. Tumposky’s objections to behavioural objectives in language
teaching mirror the values implicit in this distinction: training is concerned
with the inculcation of fixed forms of behaviour, education with the
development of unexpected outcomes. Clearly, there is an ideological divide
between those who regard education as training the student in pre-specified
behaviours and those who see it as liberating the student to deal effectively,
autonomously and creatively with the novel and unplanned.
We may be unwise, however, to join Stenhouse and Tumposky in
repudiating so completely the role of objectives, since it can be argued that ‘in
teaching we are not satisfied merely with fostering or seeking to effect
learning, we quite properly look for evidence that learning is occurring ... It
is not necessary to suggest that “mastery” is our goal to insist that qualities of
performance are of vital concern to us in education’ (Skilbeck 1984:223).
Skilbeck goes on to say that

The implausibility of predicting detailed performances (when there can

be unexpected outcomes) and the inherent freedom of the learner in an
educative process are not reasons for supposing that we cannot or must
not try to specify performance objectives. We can agree that student
performances (a) cannot or should not be prespecified in detail and (b)
are a part but not the whole of what we mean by education, but why
should either of these considerations be inconsistent with stating
objectives as the directions in which we are trying to guide student
learnings?

In fact, as we are about to see, a process approach to curriculum which

focuses on means as ends is not directionless, while the specification of aims
is not necessarily inconsistent with a focus on the processes of learning or on
the procedures involved in developing cognitive skills. Skilbeck’s argument
may serve as a reminder to the language curriculum designer that, although
 Language Curriculum: Values and Options 33

communicative competence involves being able to use language creatively and

in unpredictable ways, this ability itself constitutes an aim which suggests a
criterion against which to measure learner performance. Thus, in designing
language curricula, there will certainly be a place for aims, the nature of which
will depend on the level of behaviour concerned. However, we must not forget
that such aims are, as Skilbeck observes, ‘a part but not the whole’ of what is
meant by communicative competence.

The Process Approach

In chapter 1, I suggested that one approach to curriculum was analogous to

working out the plan of a dwelling from the viewpoint of the inhabitants. In
his survey of how teachers plan their courses, Taylor (1970) discovered that
the steps followed by teachers were rather like this model of curriculum, and
much less like the model proposed by rational planners. The contrast is
summarized in the diagrams below.

Rational Planners

Aims/Purposes-►Objectives-► Learning Experiences-► Evaluation—

Teachers
Context-►Learning Situation-►Aims/Purposes-► Evaluation

As we have seen, in a rational planning model aims and objectives are defined
first, and content, learning experiences and evaluation follow in linear
sequence, although as Wiseman and Pidgeon (1970) and Davies (1976) point
out, the entry point can, in fact, be at any stage in the model, which is
recursive rather than strictly linear
Teachers, in actual practice, tend to begin with the context in which they
are working (i.e. the dwelling), taking due regard of sequence, time and
methods. In other words, practical concerns figure prominendy in their
approach to curriculum design. Next, they consider the pupils’ interests and
the selection of subject-matter. It is only after such practical factors have been
considered that teachers attend to aims and purposes, which come third and
not first in the sequence of planning stages. As Kelly (1977:34) says, taking
his cue from Sockett (1976),

It may be that they have thus come to realize, long before the
curriculum theorists got onto it, that to state one’s objectives in advance
in terms of intended behavioural changes and to stick rigidly to such a
plan or programme is to fail to take account of the complexities of the
34 Language Curriculum: Values and Options

curriculum and of the importance of the individual context in which

every act of teaching occurs.

A process approach to curriculum turns out to be closer to the practice of the

teachers in Taylor’s survey than to the proposals of some curriculum theorists.
What is also notable is that a process approach allows for the personal and
professional autonomy of teachers and the exericse of their judgement on the
spot. A process approach to curriculum is firmly based on the school and the
classroom. Finally, a process-based curriculum is viewed in terms of
procedures rather than in terms of content, behavioural outcomes or
measurable products. It is, in short, concerned with the process rather than
the product of learning. In this respect, it is more like the second view of
curriculum which I proposed in chapter 1, namely curriculum/house =
construction system.
This is not to say that a process curriculum is without aims or direction.
Instead of tighdy formulated short-term objectives, general principles are
defined and it is these overall, looser aims which provide direction to the
curriculum. Implicit in this is a view of education being concerned with
intrinsically valuable content, the development of understanding rather than
the acquisition of knowledge, and the promotion of individual autonomy and a
capacity for continuing learning.
The psychological basis for the process curriculum may be found in the
work of Piaget (1967) and Bruner (1960). Piaget’s concern was to explore the
growth of intelligence and to establish how a child is able to learn, and he
advocated adapting teaching methods to the ways in which the child’s thought
processes develop. Educational applications of Piaget’s work are found in
active learning and the enquiry and discovery techniques common in primary
school education. A second important principle is that active experience
cannot be displaced by verbalizing about experience, while a third is the
importance of social interaction in children’s cognitive development.
Bruner, too, sees learning in terms of cognitive growth. It is through
learning that children master their environment. Learning first to cope with
the world through action, children proceed to images and pictures and
eventually to symbolic means, usually through the use of language. Like
Piaget, Bruner emphasizes the importance of experience for cognitive growth;
the task of the teacher is to provide stimulation and to convert what is known
into a form that can be mastered by children.
Bruner’s own application of his theories to education were in MACOS
(Man-A Course of Study), described in Bruner (1960). In this course ‘the
broad aims of the project centre around the processes of learning rather than
the products, and include teaching children the skills of enquiry; helping them
to develop methods of observation and research; encouraging them to reflect
on their own experiences; and helping them to use original source material
and to evaluate it critically’ (Kelly 1977:80). The speculative nature of
knowledge which is a feature of Bruner’s approach is also found in the
 Language Curriculum: Values and Options 35

Humanities Curriculum Project, associated with Lawrence Stenhouse who,

rejecting an objectives model, claimed that a process model is more
appropriate in areas of the curriculum which centre on knowledge and
understanding as opposed to training.
In the Humanities Curriculum Project, the emphasis was on defining
acceptable principles of procedure for dealing with such issues as protecting
divergence of opinion within the group, with developing critical standards by
which evidence can be appraised, and with extending the range of relevant
views and perspectives accessible to the group (Stenhouse 1970). A series of
themes was chosen: war, poverty, education, relations between the sexes.
These formed the basis for discussions involving the pupils, with the teacher
as neutral chairman. The novelty, for both pupils and teachers, was that there
were no preordained outcomes, since the ideas and procedures were
generated by the pupils themselves. What was important was that the group
would develop ways of handling discussion and divergence of opinion and
extending the range of relevant views. In other words, the emphasis was on
the processes involved and not in reaching a predetermined goal.
Taylor and Richards note that Stenhouse’s version of the process
curriculum has yet to be subject to much evaluation, although certain
difficulties have been revealed in application, notably the demands it makes on
teacher competence. Furthermore, assessment is difficult given the absence of
predetermined outcomes. Finally, although Stenhouse denies that it is a
means-ends approach, Hirst (1975) argues that it is still concerned with ends,
even if they are not specified in a behavioural manner.
From the viewpoint of language curriculum, the process model offers an
important alternative to an objectives model at a time when applied linguistic
theory and research is devoting more attention to the processes of language
learning (Faerch and Kasper 1983); to the strategies and techniques used by
language learners (Cohen 1984, Cohen and Hosenfeld 1981, Naiman et al.
1978, Wenden 1986); and to the effects on interaction and learning which
result from varying forms of classroom organization and activities (Bygate
1987, Doughty and Pica 1986, Gass and Varonis 1985, Long 1975, Long and
Porter 1985).
There is a significant coincidence of viewpoint between a process approach
to education and the views of such applied linguistics as Widdowson (1983)
and Brumfit (1984c) on the open-endedness and creativity of language.
Language use cannot be predicted in advance and the prepackaging of
language, implicit in an objectives model, is similarly rejected in a process
curriculum. Likewise, the distinction between training and education, which
Widdowson (1983) equates with the dichotomy between ESP and EGP, leads
to a consideration of preparing learners for ‘the purposes to which learning
will be put after the end of the course’ (Widdowson 1983:7) - in other words,
to unexpected and unpredictable outcomes.
The influence of progressivism and of a process curriculum model is most
conspicuous in the proposals of Breen and Candlin (1984), to be discussed in
36 Language Curriculum: Values and Options

chapter 7. It is no coincidence that their proposals for language syllabuses

should so closely resemble the model summarized above, both in ideology and
terminology. And it is no coincidence that such a radical approach to the
design of language programmes will upset a means—ends view of the language
teaching process. In fact, what we have in this product—process dichotomy is a
tension which must always exist in language teaching between the
‘unavoidable’ means—ends view noted by Stem and the unpredictability of
language use, stressed by Widdowson; between the linear, graded organization
of content, which is such a strong tradition in language teaching, and the non¬
linear, organic growth picture of language learning, which is emerging from
second language acquisition (SLA) research.

The Situational Model

Having reviewed two curriculum models whose ideological basis has been
traced to reconstructionism on the one hand and progressivism on the other,
we now come to the third model, which stands apart from the other two by
using the context in which curriculum planning is to take place as the starting
point. In this respect, it might be best called a curriculum renewal model since,
unlike reconstructionism or progressivism, it begins by acknowledging existing
practices. It does not begin with the assumption that curriculum proposals are
to be written on a blank slate - or even that what is already on the slate should
be obliterated. In terms of the analogies suggested in chapter 1, the model we
are about to discuss adopts the third perspective of curriculum/house =
dwelling.
The situational model proposed by Skilbeck (1984a) has its basis in cultural
analysis and begins with an analysis and appraisal of the school situation itself.
Such an appraisal is, in any case, an important starting point, since one of
Skilbeck’s major concerns is with school-based curriculum development,
which he defines as ‘the planning, design, implementation and evaluation of a
programme of students’ learnings by the educational institution of which these
students are members’ (Skilbeck 1984:2). He goes on to say that an
educational institution ‘should be a living educational environment, defined
and defining itself as a distinct entity and characterized by a definite pattern of
relationships, aims, values, norms, procedures and roles.’ Skilbeck points out
that curriculum development will be something internal to the institution, not
imposed from without, but at the same time ‘the curriculum should not be
parochially conceived’ because the institution is part of a network of
relationships which include stake-holders other than members of the school
itself. Among these stake-holders are the students, and Skilbeck advocates
participatory decision-making in the curriculum which will involve the
students ‘in determining the pattern of experiences they are to undergo’.
In advocating school-based curriculum development Skillbeck is well aware
 Language Curriculum: Values and Options 37

of the effects of controls which are extrinsic to the school and he notes that
neither the independent initiatives of the school nor those larger
external forces in the curriculum are by themselves sufficient for
achieving the systemwide kinds of changes that are needed. Imposed
change from without does not work, because it is not adequately thought
out, or it is not understood, or resources are not available to carry it
through, or because it is actively resisted. Within-institution change is,
by its nature, situation specific, often piecemeal, incomplete, of mediocre
quality and so on. Each process requires the other, in a well worked out
philosophy and programme of developments. (Skilbeck 1984a:5)

Here, Skilbeck raises issues which we shall not meet again when we come to
consider the management of curriculum innovation.
Skilbeck’s summary of his situational model for school-based curriculum
development is set out in the diagram below (from 1984a:231).

Analyse the situation

l
Define objectives

I
Design the teaching-learning programme

I
Interpret and implement the programme

i
Assess and evaluate

Skilbeck acknowledges that ‘such a diagrammatic representation of the

process of curriculum making must simplify and risk distortion by its very
brevity and apparent orderliness.’ He says, ‘Let us be ready to take
concurrently or even in reverse what may suggest themselves to the orderly-
minded as items for step-by-step progression,’ thus echoing the point made
by Wiseman and Pidgeon (1970) on the overlapping of activities which will
occur in any truly effective developmental programme.
The usefulness of such a sequence of actions, Skilbeck suggests, lies in
three things:

First, we may use it to provide a resume, a kind of prospectus of tasks to

be accomplished. Second, it can be the basis of agreed action and hence
help in reducing arbitrary or authoritarian decisions, a matter of some
importance when hierarchies may feel challenged by unstructured
reviews and evaluations. Third, it will be useful if it encompasses, in
simplified ways, crucial and productive kinds of action. . . . Fourth, what
is proposed is useful if it helps in the presentation and communication
38 Language Curriculum: Values and Options

to interested parties of what is planned and is happening in the

curriculum. (Skilbeck 1984a: 232)

Skilbeck deals with each element in more detail, as follows (1984a: 234-6).

1 Analyse the Situation

The question to be asked here is, ‘What are our curriculum problems and
needs and how can we meet them?’ In order to answer this question, Skilbeck
proposes a set of key questions to ask and answer in a situational analysis.
These are set out below.

Within the School

1 What is the existing curriculum including the school rules, rituals and
value sets?
2 What is the students’ experience of (performance in, perception of) the
curriculum?
3 What is the curriculum context within the school (i.e. social climate,
patterns of conduct, etc.)?
4 What are the strengths and capabilities of the staff?
5 What are the available resources for the curriculum?

Wider Environment

1 What kind of neighbourhood, community, society are we serving?

2 What are the key educational policies to which we should be responding
(Local Education Authority, national)?
3 What kinds of resource/support can we draw upon (LEAs, teachers’
centres, community, teacher education, research, etc.)?
4 What are some of the changes, proposals and developments in
curriculum practice and ideas that could be useful for us here?

2 Define Objectives
Objectives are not a once-for-all matter which occurs at an initial stage of a
planning model, and the question of objectives will already arise during the
situational analysis. Skilbeck makes four points about objectives:

1 Objectives in a curriculum should be stated as desirable student

learnings and as actions to be undertaken by teachers and those
associated with them to affect, influence or bring about these learnings;
they need to be clear, concise and to be capable of being understood by
the learners themselves.
2 Objectives are directional and dynamic in that they must be reviewed,
 Language Curriculum: Values and Options 39

modified and if necessary reformulated progressively as the teaching¬

learning process unfolds.
3 Objectives gain their legitimacy by being related systematically both to
general aims and to the practicalities of teaching and learning, and by the
manner of their construction and adoption in the school. ... it is desirable
to try to show that the objectives have a rational and legitimate basis.
4 There are several types of objectives: broad and general-specific; long
and short-term; higher order cognitive - lower order informational;
subject-specific - global; and so on. Working groups . . . .need to select
and plot types of objectives.
5 The construction of curriculum objectives has to be participatory,
involving students as well as teachers, parents and community as well as
professionals.

3 Design the Teaching—Learning Programme

The general procedural principles advocated by Skilbeck refer to:

1 fundamental orientation of the curriculum, as for example areas of

experience in a core curriculum, or academic specialization or leisure
interests in the electives part of the curriculum;
2 the groupings and combinations of subject matter;
3 the groupings of students, for example mixed ability, or special interest
groups;
4 the relationship of learning in the different subject areas to the overall
objectives of the curriculum;
5 the scope, sequence and structure of teaching content;
6 space, resources, materials, equipment;
7 the proposed methods of teaching and learning;
8 staffing needs and allocations;
9 timetabling and scheduling.

Skilbeck lays stress on the school’s autonomy in making curriculum decisions

about defining objectives and interpreting and implementing programmes. It
is worth noting, given the items enumerated above, that Skilbeck’s proposals
in many ways match those practices which are characteristic of the successful
business enterprise (Goldsmith and Clutterbuck 1984), among which are
clarity of and agreement on long term objectives and the basic philosophy of a
company or organization.

4 Interpret and Implement the Programme

The interpretation and implementation stage is both crucial and problematic
as it depends on ‘achieving what was envisaged, coping with uncertainty,
confusion, resistance perhaps or indifference, being flexible enough to adjust
40 Language Curriculum: Values and Options

and modify according to circumstances’. (Skilbeck 1984a:237) Furthermore,

‘Problems of communication, shared values and expectations, of differences of
interpretation, of inadequate implementation, frequently arise. Skilbeck
suggests that school-based curriculum development, in which the people
interpreting and implementing it also influenced its design, should be more
effective because ‘the curriculum is not an accidental extra; but is of the
essence of the institution.’ However, successful implementation cannot be
taken for granted — and this takes us to Skilbeck’s fifth step.

5 Assess and Evaluate

Skilbeck distinguishes between assessment and evaluation in the following
terms: ‘assessment in the curriculum is a process of determining and passing
judgements on students’ learning potential and performance; evaluation
means assembling evidence on and making judgements about the curriculum
including the processes of planning, designing and implementing it’ (p. 238).
From a curriculum viewpoint, continuous rather than summative assessment
is indispensible, which means a change in evaluation aims and procedures (see
Parlett and Hamilton 1972), with evaluation forming part of planning as a
cyclical process. In fact, evaluation has come to occupy a central place in
much recent discussion on curriculum development generally and language
teaching specifically (e.g. Alderson 1985). As such, it is an issue to which we
shall return in chapter 9.

The Situational Model and Language Curriculum Design

The situational framework can embrace both objectives and process models,
depending on which aspects of the curriculum are being designed. Skilbeck,
in fact, doesn’t see the objectives and process models as being in conflict and,
as is clear from the steps enumerated in his model, the definition and
redefinition of aims is crucial. One appeal of this model is that it involves an
understanding of the situation as it currendy exists, which requires gathering
information from which a definition of a problem may emerge. Another appeal
of this model is that the development procedures which are advocated take
account of the problems involved in implementing curriculum innovation so
that, far from being divorced from the arena in which change will occur, the
situational model takes this as its starting point. Or, to put it another way, we
begin with the dwelling and the way it is used and perceived by its inhabitants.
The rationality of Skilbeck’s framework encourages a moderately systematic
approach to curriculum development, and it provides a useful scheme within
which to plan language curricula and, indeed, in some ways it serves to
systematize existing practice in language curriculum development. Further¬
more, as language curriculum development has tended to be closely focused
on questions of content and objectives, the breadth of Skilbeck’s model may
 Language Curriculum: Values and Options 41

serve to open up the field in a way that should be enormously helpful. Finally,
his emphasis on curriculum development as school-based matches the rise of
local as opposed to national initiatives in language curricula, and thus it can
inform and guide an existing trend. In short, it seems to me to offer both a
practical as well as a rational basis for dealing with the complexities involved
in language curriculum renewal, and it integrates well with the approach to
the management of curriculum innovation to be outlined in chapters 8 and 9.

Conclusion

As we have seen, there is a wide range of options when it comes to curriculum

planning and development. Any approach to curriculum is, as I have
suggested, influenced by the value system and attitudes of those involved. No
curriculum choice or decision is value-neutral.
These values are expressed in the different ideologies and models of
curriculum which have been described in this chapter. Both reconstructionism
and a means-ends model have the attraction of rationality and clarity. Both
are essentially a plan of the building yet to be constructed. The association of
behavioural objectives with this model is not entirely fortuitous, given the
concern with pre-specifying outcomes. Accepting that a means-ends view is
difficult to avoid in language teaching, the appeal of this model of teaching is
obvious.
The process approach and progressivism, with their focus on exploration
and growth, also have an appeal, given the fact that language learning involves
growth and development. However, there is a conflict of interests (and values)
between means-ends and process models. The process model tends to
substitute only a very vague idea of what kind of house we might be building,
and instead focuses on the procedures whereby the dwelling may be
constructed.
The situational model, which attempts to provide a plan of the house from
the occupants’ and users’ viewpoint, offers a third approach. The flexibility of
this model is one of its attractions. It also provides a comprehensible
introduction to the process of curriculum renewal, and it does not rule out the
use of rational planning and an objectives models if this is appropriate.
Aspects of the process model are not excluded, either, since concern with how
learning takes place well as with content and outcomes is an important aspect
of curriculum renewal within the situational model.

Suggested Reading

General
There is an extensive curriculum literature, including specialist journals. The
review in this chapter is no more than an introduction, but it helps establish a
42 Language Curriculum: Values and Options

broad context into which different aproaches to and proposals for language
curriculum design may be placed.

Value Systems
Discussions of the value systems underlying the different curriculum
approaches dealt with in this chapter appear in Davies (1976), Objectives in
Curriculum Design, and Skilbeck (1976), ‘Three educational ideologies’, which
is also used by Clark (1987).
For activities on value clarification, see Simon, Howe and Kirschenbaum
(1978), Values Clarification: a handbook of practical strategies for teachers and
students. An enlightening account of some of the influences on experiential
learning, one of the cornerstones of progressivism, may be found in
Experiential Learning by Kolb (1984).

Curriculum
Often cited, though now out of print, is Taba (1962), whose Curriculum
Development: Theory and Practice established a foundation upon which much
subsequent curriculum thinking and practice has been based. Tyler’s Basic
Principles (1949) is available in a 1973 reprint.
For general introductions to curriculum studies, see Barrow (1984), Giving
Teaching Back to Teachers, Kelly (1977), The Curriculum Theory and Practice,
Nicholls and Nicholls (1978), Developing a Curriculum: a Practical Guide,
Sockett (1976) Designing the Curriculum, and Taylor and Richards (1979), An
Introduction to Curriculum Studies.
A review of curriculum development within the UK context, which includes
an historical survey by Stenhouse, is to be found in Galton and Moon (1983),
Changing Schools. .. Changing Curriculum. Among the papers assembled in
this collection are several on evaluation.

Behavioural Objectives
Barrow’s title indicates the trend of his wide-ranging discussion, which
includes a consideration of behavioural objectives, also dealt with by Kelly, as
well as by Rowntree (1982) Education Technology in Curriculum Development in
a very clear and extensive account. A classic statement on behavioural
objectives appears in Gagne (1975), Essentials of Learning for Instruction.
Meanwhile, Raths (1971) proposes teaching without specific objectives, Findley
and Nathan (1980) consider them essential for ELT, and Tumposky (1984)
casts serious doubt on them. There is a discussion on graded objectives by
Rowell in British Council (1984).
In an encyclopaedic collection of papers on curriculum, edited by Golby,
Greenwald and West (1975) for the Open University, there is McDonald
Ross’s much cited critique of objectives, together with discussions on
 Language Curriculum: Values and Options 43

objectives by Eisner and Davies, as well as Cronback on course improvement

through evaluation.

The Process Curriculum

The late Lawrence Stenhouse is one of the most stimulating and influential
figures in curriculum studies, and there is a substantial philosophical basis to
his theories, while the significance he attaches to curriculum development and
teacher professionalism has important implications for all teachers. See An
Introduction to Curriculum Research and Development (1975). Rudduck and
Hopkins have edited a posthumous collection of Stenhouse’s writings,
Research as a Basis for Teaching; (1985).

The Situational Curriculum

Skilbeck’s situational model and his proposals for school-based curriculum
development are lucidly outlined in Skilbeck (1984a), School-based Curriculum
Development, which also contains a clear and helpful survey of the main
approaches to curriculum development.

Curriculum and ELT

Stern is one of the few writers in the field of language pedagogy to see a
relationship between language teaching and curriculum studies, which he
discusses in his Fundamental Concepts of Language Teaching (1983) Part 6,
‘Concepts of language teaching’. Strevens also adopts a curriculum-based
perspective in his New Orientations in the Teaching of English (1977) and in a
paper on teacher training and the curriculum in British Council (1982).
Another important contributor to the evolution of such thought in ELT is
Brumfit. See his paper, ‘Key issues in curriculum and syllabus design for
ELT’ in British Council (1984a). For further reading, see also Dubin and
Olshtain (1986), Ullman (1982), Wilson (1976) and White (1983).

Psychology and Education

Entwhistle (1987), in Understanding Classroom Learning, opens with a helpful
perspective on psychological theories which have influenced educational
thought and practice, ranging from behavioural objectives to process curricula,
while the rest of the book provides insights for anyone concerned with
learning in classroom settings.
4 Language Syllabus
Design: Two Types

Introduction

In chapter 3, three models of curriculum were described and a connection

suggested between these models and ideology: a rational-planning model
tends to be associated with reconstructionism while a process model is linked
to progressivism. A similar set of distinctions and associations occur in the
types of syllabus reviewed in this and the following two chapters, in which, as
with the classification of curriculum models, two basic types will be proposed,
each reflecting quite different orientations to language, learning and teaching.

Language Syllabuses: Types A and B

The two main approaches to curriculum and the underlying value systems
discussed in chapter 3 are reflected in two approaches to language syllabuses,
which I call Type A and Type B. I have summarized what I consider to be the
salient characteristics of these two types, drawing upon the curriculum
classifications suggested by Davies (1976).

Type A What is to be learnt? Type B How is it to be learnt?

Interventionist
External to the learner Internal to the learner
Other directed Inner directed or self fulfilling
Determined by authority Negotiated between learners and
teachers
Teacher as decision-maker Learner and teacher as joint
decision makers
Content = what the subject is to Content = what the subject is to
the expert the learner
Content = a gift to the learner Content = what the learner brings
from the teacher or knower and wants
Objectives defined in advance Objectives described afterwards
 Language Syllabus Design: Two Types 45
Type A What is to be learnt? Type B How is it to be learnt?
Subject emphasis Process emphasis
Assessment by achievement or by Assessment in relationship to
mastery learners’ criteria of success
Doing things to the learner Doing things for or with the
learner

Certain points emerge from this summary. An approach which emphasizes

process, while giving attention to socially desirable behaviour and the
formation of approved attitudes, may lose sight of culturally valuable content,
while an approach which stresses the acquisition of approved content may be
orientating learners towards conformity rather than divergence and independ¬
ence. In one case, the approach tends towards intervention in the learning
process through the pre-selection, specification and presentation of content,
while in the other, the approach eschews such intervention by an authority,
such as the teacher. In either case, the significance of different value systems
will be obvious.
In relation to language teaching syllabuses, these two types can be
summarized in terms of the distinction between an interventionist approach
which gives priority to the pre-specification of linguistic or other content or
skill objectives on the one hand, and a non-interventionist, experiential,
‘natural growth’ approach on the other, ‘which aims to immerse the learners
in real-life communication without any artificial preselection or arrangement
of items’ (Allen 1984:65).
Discussing this distinction, Prabhu (1987:89) notes that the syllabus as an
‘illuminative construct’ ‘is concerned with the product of learning: it is a
specification of what is to be learnt, in terms of a conceptual model which
aims to provide an understanding (hence the term “illuminative”) of the
nature of the subject area concerned.’
He contrasts such content syllabuses with the syllabus as an ‘operational
construct’, in which

The syllabus is a form of support for the teaching activity that is planned
in the classroom and a form of guidance in the construction of
appropriate teaching materials. It is concerned, from this point of view,
with what is to be done in the classroom, not necessarily with what is
perceived to be taught or learnt thereby; its role is essentially to make it
possible for one teacher to draw on the experience of another (p. 86).

The list of tasks which a teacher had found ‘feasible and satifying’ would
constitute what he terms a ‘procedural syllabus’ ‘with the intention of
indicating that it was only a specification of what might be done in the
classroom - that is to say, only an operational construct.’
Whereas, in Prabhu’s terms, a ‘content’ syllabus ‘may be said to be an
illuminative construct which is also used as an operational construct... a
46 Language Syllabus Design: Two Types

procedural syllabus is an operational construct which is deliberately different

from illuminative constructs’ and he contrasts the control of learning through
understanding, which is the basis of a content syllabus, with the development
of ‘organic growth’ through the provision of favourable conditions, which is
the starting point for a procedural syllabus.
In the content syllabus, knowledge of the subject assumes an important
role, and Ellis (1984) suggests that what I have termed a Type A syllabus
contributes directly to analytic L2 knowledge, which is the kind of knowledge
involved in knowing about the language - its parts, rules and organization. It is
this kind of knowledge which, he suggests, is not available for ‘unplanned
discourse’, that is, the kind of language use which occurs in spontaneous
communication where there is no time or opportunity to prepare what will be
said. In comparison, a Type B syllabus contributes to what Ellis has called
‘primary processes’, which automatize existing non-analytic knowledge. This
type of knowledge is available for ‘unplanned discourse’.
The approach found in Type A can, in fact, give rise to syllabuses which
may appear to have little in common simply because of differences in content.
A structural syllabus, for instance, will specify rather different content to that
in a functional syllabus, which is defined in terms of categories of
communicative language use, while a skills syllabus will list those skills which
are characteristic of the proficient language user. Whether the focus is form,
function or skills, the basis for such syllabuses remains essentially the same,
however: it is on objectives to be achieved, content to be learned. Indeed, any
such syllabus will be based on lists of items to be learnt, whether these are
grammatical structures, categories of communication function, topics, themes
or communicative and cognitive skills. Such lists may run to many items, as a
glance at the Council of Europe’s Threshold Level or Munby’s (1979) list of
‘Language Skills’ will reveal.
By contrast, in a Type B syllabus, content is subordinate to learning
process and pedagogical procedure. The concern of the syllabus designer is
with ‘How’ rather than ‘What’ and the basis for such a syllabus will be

Bases for
language syllabuses

CONTENT SKILL METHOD

FORM TO 3IC LANGUAGE LEARNING PROCESS PROCEDURAL

Structural Informational Receptive/ Skill Learning Cognitive
focus focus Productive acquisition focus focus
SITUATION FUNCTIONAL focus Learner- Task-based
Contextual Notional/Functional led
focus focus

Figure 4. i Bases for language syllabus design

 Language Syllabus Design: Two Types 47

psychological and pedagogical rather than linguistic, the view being either a
learner-centred or a learning-centred one. Accordingly, in such a syllabus, the
selection and grading of language content will be ‘roughly tuned’ in terms of
selection and difficulty, and there is little or no attempt to intervene in the
language learning process through the selection, ordering and presentation of
content by the syllabus designer or teacher. Such syllabuses call for the same
kind of radical break with tradition as Stenhouse’s process curriculum, as we
shall see.
We shall begin a review of different syllabus types (see figure 4.1) by
looking at content syllabuses. There are a number of reasons why it is
important to be familiar with such syllabuses. Firstly, they represent the
conventions upon which the most widely used language course books have
been based and, indeed, the most popular newly published materials continue
to draw upon this tradition. The reluctance to break away from established
tradition reflects, no doubt, widespread teacher and student preferences and
expectations on the one hand and the caution and realism of publishers on the
other. Secondly, it is unwise to dispense with an existing tradition without first
becoming familiar with it. Thirdly, it is as yet too early to accept
unhestitatingly the proposals of process syllabus designers in the absence of
any substantial evaluation of the approach they advocate.

The Type A Tradition

The introduction of a functional-notional language syllabus in the 1970s

provided a powerful and useful new set of categories for the syllabus designer.
It was motivated by a reconstructionist concern with bringing about social
changes through developing international understanding via functionally based
language learning goals; however, this innovation was not, in one sense, as
radical as it seemed at the time. Both structural and functional syllabuses
were, in their time, motivated by similar considerations and both took content
as their basis, even though the definitions and details are different in each
case. Furthermore, the selection of content depends on the priorities of the
syllabus designer so that a structurally based syllabus will tend to give more
importance to the artful selection and organization of structures. A
functionally based syllabus however, will take communicative functions as the
leading element, with structural organization being largely determined by the
order already established by the functional sequence. In practice, syllabus
designers will try to balance structural control and functional requirements,
and today a typical Type A syllabus will consist of a combination of both, as
we shall see in the discussion of proportional and hybrid syllabuses in
chapter 6.
Discussing the question of organizing language content, Allen (1984:66)
says ‘It seems that some form of grading, either implicit or explicit, is a
universal requirement in language teaching.’ Grading - or ‘gradation’ as
Mackey prefers to call it - answers the questions: What goes with what? and,
48 Language Syllabus Design: Two Types

What comes before what? (Mackey 1965:204). If language is a system, argues

Mackey, then gradation matters a great deal: ‘It means that we cannot start
anywhere or with anything; for in a system one thing fits into another, one
thing goes with another, and one thing depends on another.’
Halliday, McIntosh and Strevens (1964) distinguish between two different
aspects of grading, to revert to the more widely used term. The division of a
course into time segments they call staging. This is related to the number and
frequency of lessons and the intensity of teaching. By sequencing, they mean
deciding the order in which the items should be taught. Staging is important
in deciding how much of any given item to teach during the time available,
while sequencing is concerned with decisions about which elements may have
to be taught before others are introduced. In spite of the wealth of examples
of grading in syllabuses, ‘there exist very few statements of principles for the
guidance of others who wish to do likewise’ (Halliday, McIntosh and Strevens
1964:210) and, ‘In fact, for an intelligent approach to sequencing it is almost
essential to have practical teaching experience with the pupils for whom a
given course is intended, because here above all the teaching programme
must be sensitive to the precise needs of the pupils, both in general terms and
in close detail.’ Although there is, as Halliday, McIntosh and Strevens have
noted, a surprising lack of published guidance on syllabus grading, a number
of criteria have been proposed and have become accepted through use, and
these are listed below according to focus: structural, topic or functional.
Criteria for Selection and Grading
STRUCTURAL TOPIC FUNCTIONAL
frequency interest and need: immediate and
affectivity long term
coverage need utility
availability pedagogic merit coverage/
generalizability
simplicity/complexity relevance interest
leamability/teachability depth of treatment complexity of form
combinability practicality
contrast utility
productiveness/
generalizability
natural order of
acquisition

Selection and Grading

The selection and grading of vocabulary provides a good starting point for
looking at the criteria to be used, since these have been subject to much study
 Language Syllabus Design: Two Types 49

and discussion over the years. I have already noted, for instance, Michael
West’s concern with vocabulary selection, and many of the principles he
advocated remain in use.
The first of these is frequency, the total number of occurrences of an item in
a given corpus of language. Frequency counts are made by taking samples of
the sort of material which the learners are likely to read or hear, and counting
the items that occur most often, and arranging them in descending order
according to their overall frequency. Obviously, the larger the sample, the
more reliable the frequency figures are likely to be and the best known
published frequency counts are based on a very large corpus (e.g. The General
Service List).
There are, however, difficulties with taking frequency as a basis for
selection and grading. The most frequent words are few in number. Indeed,
the 1,000 most frequently used words make up about 95 per cent of the total
number of words in any randomly chosen corpus of language. Another
problem arises when we consider what we mean by a ‘word’, since one and
the same written form may have many different grammatical functions.
Furthermore, high frequency words typically have a multitude of meanings, so
some decision has to be made about which particular meaning of a given item
is the most frequent.
Related to the multiple meanings of a word is the criterion of coverage,
which refers to the number of things which can be expressed by any given
item. If there are two more possible words of similar frequency, the one which
covers the greatest number of uses is preferable. For instance, a verb like go
will have a far wider coverage of meaning than other verbs of movement, such
as travel, move or walk. Coverage is an important criterion because it enables
the selection of a restricted quantity of vocabulary with a wide range of meanings.
It is this principle which is behind Ogden and Richards’s Basic English, although,
taken to extremes, the ‘system will break down because the language that it
produces will conflict with what people actually say’ (Howatt 1965:10).
Range, a third criterion, is also complementary to that of frequency. Words
found in a large number of texts within a given corpus have a high range. By
contrast, some words may occur in only a limited number of texts within the
total corpus, so that their range would be restricted. Obviously, both
frequency and range need to be taken into account in vocabulary selection to
ensure that items selected are representative of a wide sample and so that high
frequency is not merely the fortuitous result of high occurrence in a restricted
area of the total corpus.
Another criterion for selection is availability or disponibilite. This term refers
to the readiness with which a word is remembered and used by native
speakers in certain situations. For instance, salt and pepper are equally
available to an English speaker, even though they rank very differently in
terms of frequency. Taking availability into consideration is important because
it draws upon the native speaker’s knowledge in a way which may not be
revealed by other selection criteria.
50 Language Syllabus Design: Two Types

The final criterion Mackey (1965) lists applies to both selection and
grading: leamability. He gives five factors which are taken into account when
considering the leamability of a word, although similar considerations apply to
structures as well. The first factor is that of similarity of the L2 word to its LI
equivalent, e.g. French classe and English class or German schule and English
school. Secondly, there is the demonstrability of a word, an important factor in
its teachability. In general, concrete terms are easier to demonstrate (and
easier to understand) than abstract ones. For instance, a concrete noun like
car is easier to leam than an abstract noun like transport. Thirdly, we have
brevity, on the assumption that long words are more difficult to leam than
short ones. According to this measure, car should be an easier word to leam
than automobile. A fourth factor is that of regularity of form, e.g. a new verb
with a regular past tense will be easier to leam than a new verb with an
irregular form. Finally, there is the learning load represented by a new word.
Some items will be easy to learn because one or more components are known
already. Mackey gives as an example the word handbag. If both elements are
already known separately, the effort required to learn the new word will be
low. Similarly, if some constituents of a new structure are already known, the
leamability of the new structure should be increased.
Mackey also points out what will have become obvious, that ‘some items
may be justified by one principle but not by another’, and that some conflicts
may have to be resolved so as to permit the selection of items for teaching.
There are two further criteria which Mackey does not mention, but which
can taken into account. The first of these might be termed opportunism, by
which is meant that some things are available within the immediate situation
or are felt by the teacher to be useful to the students. Opportunist items
include such pieces of classroom vocabulary as blackboard (or whiteboard), pen,
book and paper, while cassette recorder, video and computer are likely to be part
of the beginner’s vocabulary requirements in the up-to-date language school.
Few, if any, of these words are likely to be high in a frequency list, yet the
need for them is obvious and their selection on opportunist grounds can be
justified.
The second influence on selection and grading is that of centres of interest.
These can range over a wide variety of areas, including such categories as
transport, food, clothing, work, leisure, travelling and entertainment. Clearly,
selection of vocabulary made on this basis should be informed by a survey of
the students’ interests-a notoriously difficult area of study and always a
slippery basis for organizing a syllabus.

Structure Selection

The term ‘structure’ is generally used to include not just sentence structures
or patterns, but other formal features of language at lower levels, notably the
 Language Syllabus Design: Two Types 51

noun and verb phrase and inflections of both nouns and verbs. I will use the
term in all of these senses.
The selection of structures could, in principle, be subject to the same
criteria as those which have been outlined for the selection of vocabulary.
However, frequency has not been applied to the selection of sentence patterns
with the same enthusiasm as it has to the selection of vocabulary (but see
Greens 1973 and Turano-Perkins 1979) though, as we shall see shortly,
frequency counts have been applied to the selection of elements at a lower
rank than the sentence or clause. Likewise, range and availability do not
appear to have been used as a basis for structure selection. Coverage is
relevant, however, since some structures allow for a wider range of
substitution within a given pattern than others.
The final criterion, that of learnability and teachability, is relevant, since the
selection of sentence patterns appears to be motivated by two principles. The
first is that the simpler patterns are more easily learnt than the more complex
ones. The idea that difficulty should influence selection and grading can be
traced back to Palmer, but as McDonough (1980:311) points out,

psychologists have objected that there is no reason to assume that

linguistic complexity is itself a cause of learning difficulty because many
constructions that appear complex in terms of counts of elements or
underlying rules are used by native speakers with no hesitation or
greater difficulty in execution than apparently simpler ones, in
appropriate context. . . . This is not to deny that constructions do differ
in complexity and learnability, rather it is to claim that the only measure
of learnability is actual learning and not predictions derived from
linguistic description alone.

The second principle involved in learnability and teachability is that the

structures which are most different from those of the native language will be
those that are most difficult to learn. However, several factors have
contributed to the decline in the significance attached to contrastive analysis
as a basis for organizing a language syllabus. As a linguistic procedure,
contrastive analysis was married to behaviourist psychology as a learning
theory with its emphasis on the systematic shaping of responses through the
careful ordering of elements to be learnt. The rising awareness of universal
developmental sequences in learning a second language has been linked to a
cognitive view of learning in which the learners themselves may determine the
optimally efficient order of acquisition. The effect of this has been that little
systematic attention has been given to constrastive features in structural
selection and grading, even though reference to such features has not been
abandoned, as we shall see.
When we come to elements at a lower rank than the clause, we find that
there are a number of frequency studies, including several on the verb phrase.
One of the most substantial accounts is that of George (1963), whose findings
52 Language Syllabus Design: Two Types
are largely confirmed in the work of Duskova and Urbanova (1976) and
Kramsky (1972). What George and his colleagues found was that the most
frequently occurring tenses in their chosen English corpus were the Simple
Past narrative, the Simple Present actual, the Simple Past actual and the
Simple Present neutral. George, it should be noted, distinguishes between
different tense uses under each main tense heading. ‘Actual’ refers to ‘at this
or that time’, ‘neutral’ has no specific time reference, while ‘narrative’ refers
to a sequence of events.
George’s survey also took into account the occurrence of different verb
forms: stem (or bare infinitive), stem + s (the inflected third person simple
present form) and stem + ed (the preterite or past tense form). Out of every
1,000 verb-form occurrences, the following items accounted for 575.

Form Use

stem imperative
after imperative ‘don’t’

stem/stem + s simple present actual (referring to ‘now’)

simple present neutral (without time reference)

stem + ed simple past narrative

simple past actual (‘at that time’)
past participle of occurrence
past participle of state

The verb survey also revealed that the Simple Present tense referring to ‘now’
was much more frequent than the Present Progressive by a ratio of twenty-four
occurrences to one, a finding which confounds expectation and conflicts with
the occurrence of each tense in many structural syllabuses. Turano-Perkins
(1979), in a smaller investigation based on a corpus of TV interviews,
confirmed the frequency of the Simple Present tense.
George and Kramsky also investigated the noun phrase, and discovered that
the predominant type was simple, with little modification. These findings are
confirmed by Quirk et al. (1972) who found that ‘less than one-third of the
17,000 noun phrases in a sample are “complex’” within the range of
complexity that they defined.
Regarding the implications of such findings, George claims that ‘a great
formal simplication is possible by selecting for inclusion into the early parts of
a teaching program those verb forms which have a high frequency of
occurrence in the ordinary use of the language’ (George 1972:24). A similar
principle can be applied to the noun phrase as well.
George was concerned with simplification of input to promote efficient and
effective learning. The linguistic evidence that he draws upon - notably in the
frequency studies - has largely been ignored, while his proposals for careful
 Language Syllabus Design: Two Types 53

grading of input are out of step with more recent thinking. However, with the
return to structural syllabuses as the basis for some popular coursebooks, the
principles advocated by George may yet provide a useful basis for grading,
though one course based on these principles has been less successful than
some of its rivals, no doubt because the application of a set of principles in
pure form yields materials which conflict with such factors as teacher and
student expectations, interests and needs.

Grading: Structures

Kelly (1969) credits Palmer with laying the foundations for modern ideas on
grading. Palmer (1917/1968:240) states that

there will be found to be five bases of gradation - that is to say, five

different considerations governing the choice of matter and the order of
presenting it. These . . . are:

(a) Frequency
(b) Ergonic combination
(c) Concreteness
(d) Proportion
(e) General expediency

Palmer’s ‘ergonic combination’ is what we would now call structural

combination, while proportion refers to the balance of receptive and active.
Palmer (1917/1968) also stressed the importance of grading ‘in accordance
with the capacities of the average student, to work from the easier toward the
more difficult forms of exercise, to select the more used in preference to the
less used ergons [structures], and to avoid abrupt transitions.’ Thus, for
Palmer, the prime consideration in grading was not linguistic, but rather the
ability of the student to cope with the various aspects of the foreign language.
However, as we have already noted, judging ease and difficulty is no simple
matter since this is a question of learning rather than linguistics. There are,
indeed, quite different considerations in grading when the criteria are
psychological rather than linguistic. This can be seen in applying the criteria
of combinability, grouping and contrast, which are based on linguistic
considerations.
‘Combinability’ means that simple structures can be combined to form
longer and more complex structures. Given the hierarchical nature of
linguistic structures, this is an obvious criterion for grading. A structure such
as the simple noun phrase, e.g. determiner + noun, can be combined with a
preposition to form a preposition group, and the preposition group can be
combined with another noun phrase to form a post-modified noun phrase,
thus:
54 Language Syllabus Design: Two Types

the book
on the table
the book on the table

Combining and rearranging clause elements can yield more varied and
complex patterns, too.

X is V+ing Maria is reading

Is X V+ing? Is Maria reading?
Qword is X V+ing? Why is Maria reading?

Clearly, combinability is an important factor in grading structures since

building up more complex structures in later stages of a syllabus will depend
on the combinability of structures introduced earlier.
Grouping, the second criterion, may bring together structures which are
similar on one level but different on another. On linguistic grounds, such
grouping may seem justified since substitutibility of elements within a
structure is an important structural feature. Thus, within the pattern
Subject + Verb + Complement, a number of substitutions are possible, e.g.

This is a car
This is an American car
This is American
This is big

George (1972:105) points out that such grouping can lead to what he calls
‘cross association’, which may be clearer from the example he provides:

IN OUT

This is a book-J ►This is a book

►This is Sita

►This is book

This is Sita- This is a Sita

Where the student is already predisposed by the nature of the LI to omit

various structural features of English which, as George observes, are usually
redundant in terms of communicating a message (thus the omission of the
indefinite article before a singular count noun, such as ‘box’, does little to
damage the message), grouping together such items as those given above may
lead to the type of erroneous output which appears in his example. If such
grouping together of structures does produce errors, then clearly, grading
requires careful thought as well as the kind of knowledge which comes from
 Language Syllabus Design: Two Types 55

observation of student output. The implication is that some elements may be

better separated rather than grouped together in potentially confusing
association.
Another criterion for grading is that of contrast. As noted in our historical
review, contrast is an important feature of the structural linguist’s method of
identifying elements in a language. Furthermore, there are many contrasts
within any language system, such as the contrasts found in plurality and
singularity, past and present tenses, perfective and continuative aspects, and
so on. Such contrasts are, like the grouping together of similar structures,
essentially a linguistic phenomenon and although in terms of the linguistic
system contrast may be necessary for full understanding of the elements so
contrasted, from the psychological point of view the learner may be confused
rather than aided by having items presented in contrast.
So, then, the picture which emerges on grading of structures is by no
means clear-cut because there is obviously a conflict between linguistic and
psychological considerations. Linguistic criteria must be augmented by
psychological criteria based on evidence from students’ output. It was the
failure to take account of such evidence which, in part, led to disenchantment
with structural syllabuses. However, it could be argued that such disenchant¬
ment was premature and that with more careful use of evidence from learners’
output, structural grading based on psychological principles would have
yielded better structural syllabuses. What is striking is that, in spite of the fact
that until recendy there was no empirical evidence to guide structural grading,

syllabus designers seem to have a relatively homogeneous idea of the

order of difficulty of various grammatical devices of simple English.
Some kind of empirical validation of this, or empirical challenge, is
required, because despite gradual replacement of structural criteria by
communicational criteria of sequencing in recent textbooks, the
presentation of grammatical constructions is still ordered according to
intuitive ideas of relative difficulty. (McDonough 1980:318)

In fact, empirical evidence which could challenge intuitive ideas of relative

difficulty is now available in the findings of SLA research. An early attempt to
work out the implications of such findings for organizing language syllabuses
was made by Valdman (1974), who discussed whether the process of
pidginization could be used as a basis for grading teaching material. The
result would be a ‘little language’ which could be exploited from the earliest
stages for actual communication. The problem would be, of course, that this
little language would contain stigmatized forms, which could become
fossilized. To avoid this, Valdman proposed the ‘Focus Approach’, which
Pienemann (1985:51) summarizes as follows:

1 The learners are allowed to use reduced and deviant forms in

communicative activities.
56 Language Syllabus Design: Two Types

2 However, these forms will not be brought into focus in the syllabus.
3 The learners are exposed to a ‘fully formed input filtered only by the
application of pedagogical norms’. (Valdman, 1977:68)
4 The syllabus will be graded according to what is easy to acquire.

Pienemann himself points out that, in fact, ‘natural order’ and textbook
grading of structures (albeit of a very restricted range) are not widely
divergent, and, following Hatch (1978), he compares the two:

Natural Order Textbook Grading

ING-(r ARTICLE
PLURAL PLURAL
COPULA COPULA

AUXILIARY AUXILIARY
ARTICLE- ING

IRREG. PAS IRREG. PAST

POSSESSIVE
REG. PAST REG. PAST
SINGULAR SINGULAR
POSSESSIVE

Other structures, notably inversion as part of interrogation, tend to occur later

than in many textbooks - or than for the demands of real life communication.
Asking questions is an early need for most learners, whether in natural or
tutored contexts, but such questions tend to demand grammatical develop¬
ment, such as subject/verb inversion and the use of ‘dummy’ do, which is
beyond the learners’ existing stage of grammatical competence.
With this in mind, Pienemann (p. 55) outlines some general guide-lines
based on natural grading:

1 Do not demand a learning process which is impossible at a given stage

(i.e. order of teaching objectives be in line with stages of acquisition).
2 But do not introduce deviant forms.
3 The general input may contain structures which were not introduced for
production.

He points out that conflicts will arise between these criteria, but that one way
round such conflict is to vary the focus of the language and to bring about a
match between input and intended output. Thus, at that stage in the
progression at which inversion is required, it would be applied in the general
input, although ‘inversion is neither instructed at this point nor would I
suggest reacting, e.g. by “correction” to the corresponding “deviant”
interlanguage forms which are bound to occur at this stage’ (p. 65).
 3
i—
CD

3
cn
!
MorphoL

S o
£-0
1
1
1
t T T

>
CD
n
«/>
CD
CL
ge + V+t
t

z
>
t t

m i n
Figure 4.2 Communicative syllabus and interlanguage development
(from Pienemann 1 985)
58 Language Syllabus Design: Two Types

In order to allow learners to perform the function of ‘asking’ from the

earliest stage, Pienemann suggests introducing non-inversion question forms
(e.g. intonation questions which preserve statement word order). Typically,
these are not introduced for some time (if at all) in traditional structure-based
syllabuses. He proposes incorporating such a grammatical grading within a
communicative syllabus, and figure 4.2 is his illustration of the proposed
implementation (p. 66).

The syllabus is split into two parts: the general input (to the left in [the
figure]) and the learning objectives (the right). According to the tenets
of communicative syllabus construction, the learning objectives are
systematized in notional/functional terms (‘asking’, ‘temporal reference’
etc.). The structural devices to fulfil these notions/functions are taken
from the developing interlanguage system.

This is in line with the principles summarized above. Moving from top to
bottom of the table in figure 4.2 ‘represents the chronological axis of both the
interlanguage development and the progress in formal instruction.’
What Pienemann has proposed is a marriage of a natural order grammar
syllabus with a notional - functional syllabus; the requirements of the latter are
met by focusing on grammatical forms which are not beyond the current level
of language development of the learner. He summarizes the advantages of his
approach as:

1 L2 items are focused on in the order they are learnable.

2 L2 forms are introduced which have proved to be communicatively
effective in natural L2 development.
3 The focus on meaning can be maintained in the instruction, while the
required L2 items are selected and graded according to the above
principles.

Obviously, Pienemann’s proposal leaves unanswered a number of questions,

one of them being the precise sequence of natural acquisition of grammatical
items beyond the very restricted dozen or so items so far investigated. Another
point which Pienemann does not consider is the role of such unanalysed chunks
in language acquisition, as discussed by Peters (1983a and 1983b), who
suggests that learners make communicative use of such holistic, grammatically
unanalysed phrases or sentences which are ‘beyond their competence’. Thus
it may be that what is called for in a syllabus is a combination of grammatically
tuned and grammatically unanalysed input and output whereby learners are
able to communicate (if in a restricted way) in the target language, their
competence and performance gradually expanding as their own grammatical
system evolves as a result of increasingly rich and complex input and
challenging communicative demands.
It is clear that abandoning teaching and following ‘natural order’ is not the
 Language Syllabus Design: Two Types 59

answer, even if natural order as revealed by SLA studies may ultimately

provide a guide to the sequencing of input and what can reasonably be
expected of output from learners at any given stage of second language
learning. It is also clear that learners’ output will (and does) lag behind input
in terms of grammatical development. In other words, learners will continue
to make errors. A well-planned grammatical syllabus will be organized in such
a way as to ‘catch’ the learners when they are ready to proceed to the next
developmental stage. Attempting to force them to learn a grammatical item
before they have reached this stage of readiness may, in fact, lead to a
distortion of their evolving competence. Unfortunately, the state of research
on the one hand and of the art of teaching on the other does not as yet enable
us to fine tune language grading to match the developing competence of the
learner.

Conclusion

I have suggested that syllabuses fall into two main categories: Type A and
Type B. The former focuses on content, the traditional domain of syllabus,
and both the traditional structural as well as the more recent notional-
functional syllabuses belong to this class. Tradition, largely following the lines
laid down by Palmer, rather than empirical evidence, has determined the basis
for selection and grading of vocabulary and structures in syllabus design.
Although the principles of selection and grading have been widely exploited
in the design of language syllabuses, evidence from learners’ output, which
has formed one of the main sources of data for SLA research, was largely
ignored because the prevailing view during the heyday of structural syllabuses
was that errors were instances of deficient learning or of interference from the
LI. George, while not rejecting LI interference as a factor, noted that the
presentation of structures in combination or contrast could promote error, and
pointed out the need to avoid such ‘cross associations’.
More recent research into SLA has indicated a natural acquisition order,
thus giving rise to the possibility of developing structural selection and grading
principles in tune with this natural order. Pienemann has suggested modifying
grading to bring the two in line, though without requiring learners to produce
correct forms before they are ready to do so. While non-deviant input will be
provided, focus on correct forms in learner output will be planned to coincide
with the learners’ stage of readiness to produce such forms. As yet, however,
the kind of detailed evidence on which to base such a progression is lacking,
although the accumulation of research in SLA may result in the evolution of
new criteria for organizing language input to learners to avoid some of the
learning problems which appear to have arisen from syllabuses planned
according to traditional criteria for structural sequencing.
60 Language Syllabus Design: Two Types

Suggested Reading

Selection and Grading

Contrastive analysis, once an important principle in structural syllabus design,
is reviewed by James (1980) in his book of that title. A very detailed and
comprehensive account of selection and grading is provided by Mackey,
Language Teaching Analysis (1965), while a less intensive but more readable
account appears in chapter 7, ‘Language teaching and language learning’ of
Halliday, McIntosh and Strevens (1964), The Linguistic Sciences and Language
Teaching. McDonough (1980) is virtually alone in considering the psychological
aspects of sequencing.

Syllabus Design

Howatt’s clear discussion of course design is included in The Edinburgh Course

in Applied Linguistics, edited by Allen and Corder (1974), while in his
Introducing Applied Linguistics Corder (1974) also devotes a chapter to syllabus
organization, and apart from demonstrating the complexity and difficulties of
grading structures, suggests a scheme in which elements are recycled at
intervals throughout the syllabus. In Linguistics in Language Teaching, Wilkins
(1972) gives a critical review of the organization of structural syllabuses,
showing how the terms in which such syllabuses are specified tend to be
ambiguous and imprecise.
George’s discussion of selection and grading appears in Common Errors in
Language Learning (1972), an application of his principles being provided by
McEldowney (1976), with their realization in a course book, English Right from
the Start, being made by Hore and Hore (1982).
Hornby’s The Teaching of Structural Words and Sentence Patterns (1959-66)
presents a classic example of structural syllabus design. An updated structural
syllabus has been prepared by Alexander, Allen, Close and O’Neill in English
Grammatical Structure (1975).

Second Language Acquisition (SLA)

In 1974, Valdman made an early response to the findings of SLA research,
while Pienemann’s more recent proposals are in Modelling and Assessing Second
Language Learning, edited by Hyltenstam and Pienemann (1985). Other
contributions to this discussion have been made in a seies of articles by Long
(1975, 1981, 1983) and by Pica (1983, 1984, 1987).
For a way into the rapidly expanding literature on SLA (of which these are
instances), refer to Hatch, Second Language Acquisition: a Book of Readings
(1978); Ellis, Classroom Second Language Development (1984) and Understanding
Second Language Acquisition (1986); Faerch and Kasper, Strategies in
 Language Syllabus Design: Two Types 61

Interlanguage Communication (1983); Krashen, Principles and Practice in Second

Language Acquisition (1982); McLaughlin, Theories of Second Language Learning
(1987); and Ritchie, Second Language Acquisition Research (1978). Apart from
presenting a well-grounded account of the field, McLaughlin also puts the
work of Krashen into perspective.
Pedagogical proposals based on SLA research have been announced by
Krashen and Terrell, who promise more than they deliver in The Natural
Approach: Language Acquisition in the Classroom (1983). More carefully
considered, if more modest, indications of classroom applications are
discussed by Bygate (1987) in his book on speaking.
5 Where, What and How:
Other Bases to
Syllabus Design

Introduction

In chapter 4 I suggested that there are two main approaches to syllabus

design, and we reviewed the traditional structural basis to content syllabuses,
noting the as yet imperfectly realized implications of SLA research for
grammatical sequencing and grading. In this chapter I shall continue the
survey of content syllabuses, ending up with a discussion of skills-based
syllabuses, which represent something of a half-way-house between the
content syllabuses of Type A and the process syllabuses of Type B.

Situational Syllabuses

CONTENT

SITUATIONAL
Contextual focus

In chapter 2 I referred to Hornby’s so-called ‘situational’ method, in which

classroom situations were used to demonstrate the meaning of a new language
item. In his use of the classroom as a setting for presenting language and
meaning, Hornby was adapting a feature of direct method teaching, and such
demonstrations of language items, using real objects and activities which can
be performed within the classroom, have become part of the repertoire of
conventional language teaching procedures.
The other use of the term ‘situational’ matches the layperson’s view of
situation, that is, it refers to the contexts in which language and behaviour
occur in the ‘real world’, outside the classroom. The relationship between
language and context, long recognized in the British tradition thanks to the
work of Malinowski and Firth, has - quite intuitively - long formed the basis
of many phrase books produced for travellers and traders.
Basically, in considering the various aspects of a situation, we are concerned
with
 Other Bases to Syllabus Design 63

the setting (Where?)

the participants (Who?)
relevant objects within the setting (What?)

Thus, to take an example, we might have the following:

Setting at a bank
Participants bank clerk, customer
Relevant travellers’ cheques, passport,
Objects bank forms, currency

Such a combination of elements will be associated with fairly predictable

language, in lexical, structural and functional/interactional terms, e.g.:

A: Good afternoon. Could I cash some travellers’ cheques, please?

B: Yes. What currency are they?
A: Sterling. They’re Thomas Cook cheques.
B: Will you fill in this form, please? And can I have your passport?

Variations on the above will soon suggest themselves, based on experience,

although in such service-encounters the range of possibilities will be relatively
restricted.
In a situationally based syllabus a series of situations will form the main
organizing principle. Often, the situation will be closely linked with a practical
activity or task of the kind which tourists might have to undertake. Typically, a
restricted range of language will be covered, the emphasis being on getting
things done rather than learning the language system; some attention may also
be given to grammar, but usually only to the extent that it is helpful in
generating further utterances of the type represented in the model.
In fact, it is difficult to find any publications organized on an exclusively
situational basis. As will probably be obvious, it is not easy to take situations as
the main element in syllabus planning because there are difficulties with the
very category itself. A ‘situation’ can be defined with varying degrees of
precision or generality and the more broadly the category is defined, the less
useful it is likely to be. Thus, a general situational category like ‘banks’
provides such a wide spectrum of possibilities as to be practically useless. It
becomes necessary, therefore, to specify the situation with more precision.
Then there is the danger that the situation will be so special and the language
so situation-specific that the content will have relevance to only a limited
number of. students.
An example of a situationally based course for tourists will illustrate some of
the features involved. The BBC have developed the useful ‘Get By In’ series,
and the list below is taken from Get By In Italian (1981). Each unit is
organized under a general heading, with subheadings for specific activities. As
64 Other Bases to Syllabus Design

will be clear, a series of typical tourist situations is used in conjunction with

associated activities. Thus we have shops, restaurants, streets, the station, the
post office and hotels as typical settings, with buying things, asking the way
and ordering a meal as typical activities within these settings.

Ordering and paying

Helloes and goodbyes
Ordering a drink
Simple numbers and money

Shopping around
Buying an ice-cream
buying food for a picnic . . . ham, cheese, bread rolls
Buying stamps
Buying a wallet

Travelling around
Asking the way ... to the cathedral, the station, the post office
Catching a train - tickets and platform
Catching a bus

Getting somewhere to stay

Booking into a hotel
Getting a place at a campsite
Opening times

A meal and a chat

Ordering a pizza meal and wine; the bill, toilets
Meeting people
The weather

Once the situations have been selected, a language syllabus can be devised,
based on the language associated with the situations concerned. The basis for
grading and sequencing the syllabus will be less obvious than in a purely
structural syllabus, since there are no clear criteria for grading situations. The
syllabus designer may, therefore, simply order them according to a
chronological sequence based on arriving, staying and departing, or group
situations together according to similarity, so that service-encounters dealing
with everyday needs might go in one section, while cultural activities (museum
visiting, theatres, etc.) might go in another. Alternatively, a structural grading
of the associated language might be used as a guide to the sequenring of
situations.
In fact, the category of situation has become one of several which the
syllabus designer usually takes into account, and the typical coursebook will be
based on such a combination of categories. Indeed, the concern with
authenticity and realism which has exercised materials writers during the past
 Other Bases to Syllabus Design 65

two decades has ensured that situations as well as functions have been an
integral part of most language syllabuses.

Topic-based Syllabuses: Selection and Grading

When linguists refer to an idea as ‘pretheoretical’, they are, in effect, saying

that the concept in question is messy, imprecise and insufficiendy rigorous as
a basis for scientific study. Such, in general, is the attitude towards ‘topic’,
which is regarded as ‘a very attractive pretheoretical notion’ (Brown and Yule
1983). Attractive though the concept may be, there are, as Brown and Yule
show, a number of difficulties with it. Simply defined, topic is what is being
talked or written about. Unfortunately, there are no formal characteristics
which enable any particular topic to be defined unambiguously, unlike
grammatical categories which, by and large, can be defined in terms of
objective formal features. (For instance, a noun, among other things, has a
plural form, marked in regular nouns by the -s suffix.) Topics are defined by
meaning, not form, and meaning is a notoriously slippery concept to work
with.
A second problem, deriving from the difficulties of dealing with meaning, is
that defining what a stretch of speech or writing is about may be very difficult
in itself. Brown and Yule (1983:73) point out that ‘there is, for any text, a
number of different ways of expressing “the topic”. Each different way of
expressing “the topic” will effectively represent a different judgement of what
is being written (or talked) about in a text.’ There are also other problems.
Topics can be thought of in varying degrees of generality, some so general as
to be meaningless. Thus, topics like travel and shopping can mean many
things to many people and ultimately almost anything could be included under
such content headings. By contrast, topics can be limited to things which are
so minutely particular that it becomes difficult to decide whether the focus is
topic (in the general sense of subject matter) or vocabulary (in the specific
sense of labels for things, actions and experiences). Meanwhile, the
interchangeability with which ‘notion’ and ‘topic’ appear to be used creates
further confusion.
Yet, in spite of all these problems, topic continues to be a category which
most Type A syllabus designers use, even though few syllabuses are entirely
topic-based. There are, however, two justifications for a topic focus for the
language syllabus. One justification is broadly educational, as argued by
Abbott (1987), who suggests that learners (specifically European children in
his example) ‘could learn a great deal through English’, and that ‘much of the
content of the English syllabus could well consist of a revision, illustration and
broadening of other parts of the school curriculum.’ Although he does not
refer to Widdowson in his discussion, Abbott appears to be thinking along
similar lines by advocating learning the language through exposure to content.
In a content-based syllabus, the geography or history lesson becomes both a
66 Other Bases to Syllabus Design

vehicle for language learning, as well as a means of providing content of

educational value within the total school curriculum.
The second justification for topic-based syllabuses is a purely motivational
one. In their search for new and stimulating bases for courses at advanced
levels, some syllabus designers and text book writers turn to topic. Such was
the motivation of Fein and Baldwin (1986) and their colleagues teaching a
pre-university course in the USA. They report that their students ‘had no
intrinsic interest in English’ and, seeing the English requirement as necessary
for university admission, simply ‘went along with the skills-based approach’.
So ‘members of the faculty saw the content-based approach, with its
incorporation of the many features of college courses, as a way of motivating
such students, as a way of providing “free validity” to their English
instruction.’

The result was a course organized on a modular basis, each module was
equal to one content area (i.e. topic) and lasting approximately three weeks of
the ten-week quarter. Modules and sub-topics for one level are (Fein and
Baldwin 1986:2):

1 ‘Marketing’ (creating products, advertising, marketing abroad, consumer

protection).
2 ‘The Environment’ (ecology, man’s negative and positive impact on the
environment, problems of the future).
3 ‘The Brain’ (physiology, behaviour modification, memory, abnormality,
cognition, and altered states of consciousness).

Having identified their topics, they then selected and organized the readings
which were to form the basis of input for each module. Selections were made
which

1 did not require simplification;

2 represented a variety of sources, types of sources (books, newspapers,
magazines) and points of view;
3 were neither too long nor too technical.

Although interest, need, utility and relevance appear to be the main criteria in
selecting topics, it is probably the case that the interests of the syllabus
designer will also be an important and covert influence, a point acknowledged
by Fein and Baldwin, who conclude their account by pointing out that ‘in a
field where burnout is all too common, teachers have the opportunity to
replenish their energies by expanding their own knowledge of a variety of
exciting subjects’ (p. 2). Whereas in structural grading there are some
linguistic criteria, there is no established theoretical basis for the grading of
topics. Fein and Baldwin and their colleagues adopted the following criteria
for content selection:
 Other Bases to Syllabus Design 67

1 Pedagogic merit, by which they avoided topics likely to become too

similar to introductory university course material. Topics with an
academic orientation relevant to a broad spectrum of students were
given priority.
2 Affective considerations, by which stimulating topics were selected,
which would also expose students to various aspects of American
culture.
3 Practicality - basically, what materials could easily be found.

Another criterion which can be applied to topic grading is depth of treatment

(cf. Reynolds 1981). We have already noted that topics can be considered in
terms of specificity so that in grading it is possible to move from the more
general and superficial to a highly specific and detailed treatment. Grading by
depth of treatment will, therefore, probably involve such considerations as
length of texts to be dealt with and conceptual features, the latter being
concerned with the familiarity of the conceptual field to the learners, its
conceptual complexity and the number of mental operations involved in
dealing with textual material.

At this point, it is difficult to keep conceptual factors separate from task

factors; in other words, in-depth treatment of a given topic may call for
performing increasingly complex skills involved in the comprehension or
construction of discourse. Fein and Baldwin (p. 2) note the importance of
providing a range of skills activities appropriate for their students: ‘Care is
taken to sequence the skills, from the receptive (reading and listening) to
the productive (speaking and writing). In addition, the teacher can make
use of supplementary exercises ranging from vocabulary reviews to error
analysis activities.’ A factor which Fein and Baldwin do not mention is the
utility of given topics as a vehicle for language. The problem here is that
topics can be relegated to an instrumental role, being simply a way of
operating the language rather than an end in their own right. It is also
important to realize that reactions to topics are particularly influenced by the
attitudes of both syllabus designer and students - cf. Fein and Baldwin’s
‘affective considerations’ - and while few stake-holders will question the
choice of language items in a syllabus, the selection of topics can arouse
considerable controversy on religious, moral or political grounds.
Another development in topic-based syllabuses is the use of literature as a
source for language work. Language-based approaches to the study of
literature are not, in themselves, an innovation (cf. Leech 1969, Widdowson
1975), but there has of recent years been a growing interest in the teaching of
language through literature (Brumfit 1983), in which literary texts (embracing
works which fall outside the traditional literary canon) are used as a resource
for language. The focus is not on the literary canon as classically defined, nor
on the study of literary forms and genres and criticism. Rather, literature and
68 Other Bases to Syllabus Design

the topics which are embodied in literary texts are incorporated into the
syllabus on a thematic basis. Texts sharing a common theme but drawn from a
variety of sources (including imaginative writing) will be exploited as language
material (Brumfit and Carter 1986), as exemplified in a textbook by McCrae
and Boardman (1984).
In general, topic selection and ordering will be determined by educational
rather than linguistic criteria, as the value of topic lies in the provision of
meaningful and relevant content to stimulate motivation and lead to
opportunities for meaningful discussion. The teacher can still derive language
focused work from the textual material, of course, though when the material is
organized by topic rather than considerations of linguistic grading, the
language exposure may be somewhat random and only ‘roughly tuned’
grammatically. However, in so far as the content is both significant and
comprehensible to the learner, such rough tuning may be less important than
the fact that learners are being provided with the kind of language input that
may stimulate successful language learning - a point to be taken up in the
discussion of process and procedural syllabuses in chapter 7.

Skills Based Syllabuses

SKI XS

LANGUAGE LEARNING
Receptive/Productive Skill Acquisition focus

In this section I will consider two ways of looking at skills: firsdy, in terms of
the traditional division into receptive and productive skills, and secondly, in
terms of the similarities between language and skilled behaviour. I will also
suggest that there is some overlap between these two views which might
usefully be incorporated within syllabus design.

Language Skills
Traditionally, the so-called receptive and productive skills - listening and
reading, speaking and writing respectively - have been regarded as the ‘four
skills’ in language syllabus design and it is these which fall into the first
category in the diagram above. In syllabuses for general (as opposed to specific)
purposes, these four skills have been given more or less equal weighting,
although a glance at any general language textbook will usually show that of
the four skills speaking will have been given more weighting than any of the
 Other Bases to Syllabus Design 69
others, even though reading and writing will have been used as a means of
presenting and practising the language.
The realization that equal weighting for all four skills is not appropriate to
all learners is one of the insights provided by ESP and needs analysis. The
traditional idea that science students, for instance, needed a ‘reading’
knowledge of German is at the basis of the principle of defining different
skills requirements for different purposes. The development of needs analyses
in association with ESP in the first instance, and subsequently for the so-
called general learner, has strengthened differentiation among skills and levels
in such examinations as the Royal Society of Arts Examination in the
Communicative Use of English as a Foreign Language.
In this examination, students can opt for different levels of performance in
the four skills, so that it is not necessary to achieve uniformity in all of them.
Thus a student for whom reading is an important requirement can aim at a
higher level of performance than in, say, speaking, which may be less
important - or the student can even opt not to be tested in speaking. Similar
differentiations are to be found on the Graded Objectives in Modern
Language Teaching. Another change is the greater significance attached to
listening and speaking as examinable skills so that nowadays most public
examinations contain listening and speaking components.
These changes have been reflected in the development of supplementary
skills materials by most publishers, so that language teachers now have the
opportunity of using a core course book augmented by a range of skills-
specific materials. In curriculum terms, the opening up of supplementary skills
materials has greatly broadened the options available to teacher and learner,
with a considerable expansion of aims and objectives as well as of learning
experiences and evaluation requirements.
In spite of the greater awareness and importance of specific language skills,
less attention has been given to designing skills syllabuses than to structural or
functional syllabuses. There are, however, signs of change, partly because of
the already noted growth of interest in these skills, and partly because work in
applied linguistics, psychology and education is providing interesting new
insights into the skills of reading (e.g. Carrel 1983, Goodman 1967,
Olshavsky 1977, Pugh 1978) and writing (e.g. Freedman, Pringle and Yalden
1983, Nystrand 1982, Pellegrini and Yawkey 1984) in particular. One result
of these new insights is that views on the very nature of reading and writing
are changing. Another consequence is that there is a redirection from what
may be broadly called product-focus to process-focus in teaching reading and
writing. In other words, instead of attending to the text (either as a product to
be read or written), interest has shifted to the ways in which readers interpret
texts and to the processes whereby writers compose them. Such a change of
focus is in line with the general trend in curriculum studies and I shall return
to a consideration of such process skills in the account of the process syllabus
in chapter 7.
70 Other Bases to Syllabus Design

Language and Cognitive Skills

All language use involves the mastery and deployment of numerous skills
other than linguistic ones. Activities such as writing and speaking can be
broken down into their sub-skills; some will be linguistic, others will be the
kinds of process skills referred to in the earlier discussion of the four skills.
Although the evidence from skills psychology suggests that holistic rather than
atomistic practice of skills may be more effective when synchronization of
sub-tasks is important, it has also been noted that concentrating on sub-tasks
may be better when there is a wide range of them. Thus the identification of
sub-tasks may be a useful stage in syllabus design as a prelude to organizing
the various skills in a graded sequence.
Munby (1978) has provided an extensive, though non-graded, taxonomy of
language skills, which can form a useful starting point for such a specification.
His list of language skills is, of course, only one component of several in his
syllabus model (to be discussed in the section on needs analysis in chapter 6).
The list is specified in terms which partially resemble behavioural objectives.
Each skill is stated in terms of a verb:

understanding
expressing
interpreting
extracting
recognizing
indicating
expanding
planning
initiating
maintaining
terminating

The verb is followed by a noun phrase object:

information
the script
relations within the sentence
the discourse

More specific detail is supplied in the modifying phrase or adverbial which

follows:
 Other Bases to Syllabus Design 71
explicitly
of a language
using especially, elements of sentence structure
how to initiate the discourse

Typical examples of language skills specification are:

understanding explicitly stated information

manipulating the script of a language:

forming the graphemes

catenating grapheme sequences (spelling system)
using punctuation

using indicators in discourse for

introducing an idea
developing an idea (e.g. adding points, reinforcing argument)

Munby’s taxonomy, exhaustive though it is, has its limitations. It is not

organized hierarchically (Widdowson 1983:52), although it is quite clear that
some of the skills are of a lower order and subsumed within others, while the
relationship of the skills to language use also remains unspecified. Nor does
the taxonomy distinguish between language skills in the sense of being able to
use the language code (as in articulating stress patterns within words); cognitive
skills (such as planning and organizing information in expository language);
and study skills (such as skimming to obtain gist). (See Yalden 1983 for an
adapted version of Munby’s skills taxonomy.) Furthermore, although Munby
lists such composition skills as planning and organizing information in
expository language, and using rhetorical functions, he does not specify other
composition skills such as generating ideas and revising. Nor is any reference
made to the skills involved in drawing upon existing world knowledge and
schemata in both reading and writing, or to the heuristic skills (cf. Hughey,
Wormuth, Harfiel and Jacobs 1983) which are increasingly seen as being
important in writing.
In terms of behavioural objectives, the list is also deficient in that it does not
specify the conditions under which the skills are to be used nor the degree of
skill to be exhibited. In fact, by a cumbersome matching up of skills with other
specifications in the model, some such statement could be arrived at. In
principle it is thus possible to state that the skill of understanding explicitly
stated information would occur within a specified physical, occupational and
psychosocial setting, in interaction with a given set of addressees, through
specified channels of communication, involving interlocutors of a given
regional and social class origin, and to specified standards of length, speed
and complexity.
72 Other Bases to Syllabus Design

Even accepting these limitations, Munby’s list of language skills provides a

useful checklist of sub-skills involved in skilled language use, both in general
and in respect of the four receptive and productive skills. For writing, by way
of illustration, his list yields about 24 language skills, including some of those
already noted above. In addition to his list, there are other skills which
research into writing processes suggests should be incorporated in a writing
syllabus. These include:

using invention and discovery techniques to generate ideas;

organizing ideas according to various criteria, including the writer’s own
writing plan as writing proceeds;
identifying and developing a thesis;
identifying and developing a theme or viewpoint;
providing thematic unity to a text through the use of lexical and
grammatical devices such as synonymy, collocation and parallelism;
establishing a shared frame of reference with the reader by identifying
shared and privileged knowledge.

As should by now be clear, organizing these various skills into a graded

syllabus is likely to be difficult. Some skills, such as manipulating the script of
a language, would be regarded as basic and therefore preceding others, such
as providing thematic unity to a text. One set of criteria for grading might be
concreteness versus abstractness of the skills - characteristics which are, of
course, difficult to measure. One set of skills could be established on a
linguistic basis, such as expressing relations within the sentence, for which
formal criteria could be invoked, while another set of skills, based on
conceptual criteria, would include generating, planning and organizing.
Because writing (in the sense of composing) involves numerous skills
operating both sequentially and in parallel, it would be important to avoid
specifying a writing syllabus as a series of unrelated sub-skills. Instead, writing
activities could be specified in which the focus on sub-skills would change
from one task to another. Thus, any part of the syllabus would specify a
number of skills and the degree of importance of any sub-skill could be
indicated for each part. Likewise, the importance and difficulty of various
skills would lead to their being recycled throughout the writing syllabus.
Obviously, this begs the question of how importance and difficulty can be
established. In part, this will depend on the view of writing espoused by the
syllabus designer; and it will also derive from experience with students similar
to those for whom the syllabus is being prepared.
We have seen that, in principle, skills syllabuses could be based on two
categories of skill, of which the second, derived from skills psychology, is as
yet only imperfectly realized. There is, however, a coming together of the
traditional ‘four skills’ and those such as behaviour in the specifications
 Other Boses to Syllabus Design 73

offered by Munby and others. The skills which are specified can be grouped
into several classes: language skills, cognitive skills, composition skills, and
study skills. The conditions and levels of performance for these skills can be
specified, though attempts to achieve the precision called for in behavioural
objectives are likely to be cumbersome and difficult and ultimately impossible
to operate. Even so, the grouping together of sub-skills and a varying focus on
these skills throughout a language programme could provide a basis for a
skills syllabus. Such a syllabus - or syllabuses, given the range of skills to be
covered — would, however, form only one component in a language syllabus
since there are other aspects, such as features of form and meaning, which
would also have to be covered by a comprehensive syllabus.

Conclusion

Although the syllabus types reviewed here are very disparate, each has a
contribution to make to the design of a fully realized, integrated syllabus.
Language structure cannot of itself form the complete basis, unless it is as an
object of study, when the language system rather than its use becomes the
focus of learning. Language use must be contextualized, and any interactive or
social use of language occurs in a situation involving institutionally defined
relationships which influence stylistic and interactional features. Thus the
category of situation is an important element in syllabus design, although it
does not by itself make a sound basis for organizing a language programme.
Even when language has been contextualized, the participants must have
something to talk (or write) about, and the category of topic provides the basis
for this aspect of content. Topic can, like situation, be considered at greater or
lesser degrees of generality and it is a difficult category to define precisely. At
their most general, topics can be grouped under thematic headings at a macro
level, while at their most specific, they can be very particular subjects at a
micro level.
Arguments have been put forward for the educational value of content-
based syllabuses in which topics from other parts of the curriculum can
provide educationally worthwhile content as a vehicle for language learning.
Such content-based programmes can also serve a motivating function. The
use of very wide-ranging literary content, organized on a topic or thematic
basis, has also been advocated by those who propose using literature as a
vehicle for language input.
Finally, the traditional four skills and the cognitive skills involved in the
expression of purpose and meaning, and in the creation and interpretation of
messages, provide other bases for syllabus design. Again, they constitute only
one aspect of a complete syllabus and need to be viewed in relation to the
other categories already outlined in this chapter and chapters 4 and 6.
74 Other Bases to Syllabus Design

Suggested Reading

Language and Context

Neither situational nor topic based approaches to syllabus design have
spawned much in the way of literature. For an accessible discussion of the
relationship of language and context, see Trudgill’s Sociolinguistics (1974),
while for an account of the relationship between speech situation and style,
see O’Donnell and Todd’s Variety in Contemporary English (1980) and Gregory
and Carroll’s Language and Situation (1978). A key work in the discussion of
language variety is Crystal and Davy, Investigating English Style (1969).

Content Based Syllabuses

For a discussion of a content basis to the language syllabus, see Widdowson,
Learning Purpose and Language Use (1983), while for language-based
approaches to literary stylistics, refer to Widdowson, Stylistics and the Teaching
of Literature (1975). A collection edited by Brumfit (1983) focuses on the
issues of teaching English literature outside of Britain, while Brumfit and
Carter, in Literature and Language Teaching (1986), provide an up-to-date
review of the field. An interesting example of theme-based literature material
may be found in McCrae and Boardman (1984), Reading Between the Lines,
whose content is grouped under such themes as war, authority, rebellion and
ambition.
A very good account of the differences between spoken and written
language is provided by Brown and Yule (1983), who in Discourse Analysis also
devote chapters to the role of context and topic.

Skills
On skills psychology, see Reed in Lunzer and Morris (eds) (1968), Holding
(1965) and Welford (1976). For a discussion of skills and language learning,
see Herriot (1970), An Introduction to the Psychology of Language, Levelt (1975),
Johnson (1986) and McDonough (1981), Psychology in Foreign Language
Teaching. For the realization in teaching material of many of the composition
skills reviewed in this discussion of writing, see White (1987b).
6 Type A Syllabuses:
Notional-Functional

Introduction

In this chapter we come to the most recent form of content-based Type A

syllabus: the notional-functional syllabus. Essentially a product of the 1970s, a
notional-functional approach introduces two important elements to syllabus
design: firstly, a notional or conceptual aspect, which is concerned with such
concepts as time, space, movement, cause and effect; and secondly, a
functional aspect, with which the intentional or purposive use of language is
described and classified. Neither notions nor functions were in themselves an
innovation, because language teaching has always been concerned with
teaching concepts (e.g. possession: ‘This is my book’) and functions (e.g.
using interrogative forms to ask for information, or the past tense to report
events). What was new was the proposal that syllabuses could take
notional-functional categories as an organizing principle. Thus, syllabus
organization would no longer be determined solely by grammatical consider¬
ations, but would have to take communicative categories into account as well.
Where functional categories become a principal feature of language syllabus
content, the issue of needs analysis soon follows. Whereas no learner could
actually be said to ‘need’ the past tense, many learners might need to be able
to report events and narrate stories. So, associated with functional syllabuses,
though by no means unique to them, has been the incorporation of needs
analysis as a stage in notional-functional syllabus design, and a discussion of
needs analysis will form the final part of this chapter.

Waystage and Threshold Level

The prototype notional-functional syllabuses are the Threshold (Van Ek (1975))

and Waystage (Van Ek and Alexander (1977)) syllabuses prepared by the
Council of Europe. ‘Syllabuses’ is, however, something of a misnomer, since
they lack some of the critical features of a syllabus according to Brumfit’s
definition (chapter 1). It is notable that in neither of them is the content
presented in a graded and sequenced order, so that what we have is simply a
checklist of items under such categories as ‘language functions’ and ‘topic’.
There is more to these lists, however, than meets the eye, since they are the
76 Type A Syllabuses: Notional-Functional

product of applying the criteria for grading functions listed on page 48: need,
utility, coverage and interest. Thus, the lists which appear in the Council of
Europe syllabuses are not simply random selections of functions, topics and
exponents. That this is so can be inferred from the topics and functions
chosen for inclusion in Waystage, of which the following are examples:

Topics Functions

personal identification identifying

health and welfare reporting
food and drink greeting people

Unfortunately, the Waystage listing suffers from some of the flaws inherent in
a functional approach. The first problem is impossibility of defining functions
with precision and clarity. Although speech-act theorists (Austin 1962, Searle
1969) have proposed conditions whereby a given speech act may be defined as
performing a given function, no reference is made to such specifications in the
Council of Europe syllabuses - nor, indeed, in any other similar listings. The
absence of a specification of conditions (or contextual factors) which limit or
determine the interpretation of a given function means that there is at best,
some ambiguity, and, at worst, total misunderstanding over what is meant by
such functions as expressing intention, expressing one is/is not obliged to do
something or expressing dissatisfaction.
The second difficulty, related to the first, is that the interpretation or
definition of a function is, in considerable measure, determined by context,
including the other language in that context. Indeed, the functional
interpretation we place on virtually any utterance depends upon the situation,
the role of participants, the various purposes of the speakers so far, and much
else besides - including cultural knowledge and knowledge of the world.
Further complications are that, firstly, one language function may be
expressed in many different ways; and, secondly, one exponent may express
more than one function. There is not, in short, a one-to-one relationship
between context and function, or function and exponent. This may be
clarified by looking at the following examples:

Example 1

We’re thinking of going to see the new Woody Allen film tonight.
How about going to see the new Woody Allen film tonight?
If you’re free tonight, shall we go and see the new Woody Allen film?
Would you like to see the new Woody Allen film tonight?
Have you seen the new Woody Allen film? Because if you haven’t, you
could come with us tonight.
 Type A Syllabuses: Notional—Functional IT

Example 2

A: What about the camera?

B: It’s in the cupboard in my study.

A: What about the camera?

B: I don’t think I’ll take it.

All of the exponents in Example 1 will immediately be recognized as forms of

invitation, although some of them might also be interpreted as exponents of
the function of making a suggestion. Without further knowledge of the
context, it is impossible to decide which function is being expressed. Thus
there is considerable lack of congruity between form and function.
The two exchanges in Example 2 provide further demonstration of this lack
of congruity, together with the fact that one and the same exponent can be
interpreted in quite different ways, depending on the context and the
participants’ shared knowledge and assumptions. Clearly, in the first
exchange, participant B has interpreted A’s question as a request for
information, specifically about the location of a camera. In the second
exchange, B assumes that A is making a suggestion, specifically to take his or
her camera with them.
The third difficulty with functional selection and grading is very closely
connected to the issues we have just noted: language functions do not usually
occur in isolation, a point emphasized by Crombie (1985) in her discussion of
what she terms ‘binary discourse values’. For instance, the functions of
accepting and declining an offer or invitation usually occur as part of an
exchange in which offering or inviting appear in a preceding stage, thus:

A: Invites B to the cinema.

B: Accepts A’s offer.
or
Declines A’s offer.

The value or meaning of B’s utterance depends upon the value or meaning of
A’s. Thus, the value of accept or decline within such an exchange depends upon
the relationship with invite. The binary units which occur above may be
followed by further units, each linked in a similar way.

Either
B: Accepts A’s offer.
Asks for further details.
Or
B: Declines A’s offer.
Gives reason for declining.
78 Type A Syllabuses: Notional-Functional

It is unusual for any stages in an exchange to occur in isolation, unrelated to

other steps or segments in the exchange. Warnings, insults and threats would
be among the few instances of such segments having unitary rather than
binary value or function (Crombie 1985:5).
Curiously, in the Waystage, there is no reference to the binary nature of
most functions so that, while the functions of ‘accepting’ and ‘declining an
offer or invitation’ are listed, ‘making an offer or an invitation’ is not. Thus, if
applied unthinkingly, the Waystage functional list could lead to the bizarre
situation in which a language learner might know how to recognize and
produce an acceptance or refusal, but not be able to make an offer!
One way of avoiding treating language functions simply as an unrelated list
of items is to follow Crombie’s (1985) approach, and regard them as binary
values (or mutually dependent paired functions). The pairing of segments is
realized at several levels of abstraction. Thus, she suggests that we can take
notional relations, such as cause-effect, or discourse relations, such as
question/reply, or clause structure, such as interrogative and declarative, or
even specific linguistic items, such as Q (question) word what. The outcome
of her proposals is what she calls a relational syllabus. Although the emphasis
on the relationship between functions and structures in discourse is
admirable, her proposals do not appear to have overcome the problem of
achieving functional coherence with structural control.

Function and Form: the Problem of Combining

What is certain is that the exponents and the structures used to express
various functions may be highly varied in frequency and complexity. Thus,
there will almost inevitably be a conflict between principles of simplicity,
combinability, teachability and learnability when applied to exponents and
structures on the one hand, and need, utility, coverage and binary relations,
applied to functions, on the other. Further criteria in addition to those
traditionally applied to structural selection may also have to be evolved.
Canale and Swain (1980), for instance, have suggested five categories in
addition to that of grammatical complexity: transparency with respect to the
communicative function of an utterance; generalizability to other communi¬
cative functions; the role of a given form in facilitating acquisition of another
form; acceptability in terms of perceptual strategies; and degree of
markedness in terms of social and geographical dialects (Yalden 1983:126).
The problems inherent in structural grading while operating within a
functional framework can be seen in some of the Waystage items:

Identifying This is + Noun Phrase

Expressing preference I’d prefer + Noun Phrase/Pronoun
I’d like + Noun Phrase/Pronoun
 Type A Syllabuses: Notional—Functional 79

Inquiring about want/desire Would you like 4- Noun Phrase/Pronoun?

Do you want + Noun Phrase/Pronoun?

Typically, in a structurally graded syllabus, the modal verbs such as should and
would are introduced after such modals as shall and will, which means that the
actual structures required to operate the two functions given above would not
appear at an early stage. However, need, utility and coverage might dictate
that these two functions and the exponents and structures here associated with
them should occur early in the syllabus. In fact, this very problem has had to
be faced by coursebook writers in the post Waystage-Threshold era, and one
solution is to introduce such exponents as would you like and social formulae
as grammatically unanalysed units, standing outside the structural sequence
found elsewhere in the syllabus.

Mixing and Matching

Another solution is to interweave functional and structural elements. Various

proposals for such interweaving have been put forward, giving rise to a range
of communicative syllabus types (Yalden 1983). Basically, the range of types
arises from the differing combinations of structural and functional elements,
which can be summarized diagrammatically thus:

A B c D E F
+++ +#+#
AA. AA. AA AA. AA AA, AA AZ. AA

++++++ 7P TP 7T 7P 7P W | j | •7V' ‘TV' *TV"

+++ *+*+ +*++

AA AA AA AA AA AA AA. AA. AA.

++++++ ■7V' ■7V' '7V' '7V" *7r '7V' | j | •7V' 'TV' 'A'

AA.
'7V'
AA.
'TV'
AA.
"A'
AA.
7V'
AA.
•JP
AA.
'7V'
++++++ | j j
AA AA AA
VV' 'TV' * * # +#+* AA.
■7V' _J_
AA
-TV- _|_

AA
•TF
AA
Tv'
AA
•7V'
A/.
*75*
AA
"TV
AA
7V'
++++++ | | j
AA. AA. AA.
'TV' 'TV' 'Tv' * * + * + 000000
+++ +*+
AA AA. AA AA. AA .AZ. AA. AA AA.

++++++ -JV" ■TV' ■7V' TV" 'A' '/V' j j j 'A' 'TV' '7V'
000000
m

+#+
AA. AA AA. AA. AA. .y. aa

++++++ 7v 7T IP “TV* 'Tv* | | | TV- *71- TV

+++
AA
TV*
.AA.
VY*
AA.
'TV'
AA.
'7V'
AA,
"TV"
.AA.
TV'
++++++ # *
+#+#
* ^ j

AA
•Tv*
AA
*7v
AA
*7v*
AA
TP
AA
“TV"
AA
*7Y*
++++++ # #+*+
*

Key #* = functional, + + = structural, oo = free, unspecified

In type A, a substantial functional component is followed by an equally

substantial structural component. There is not necessarily any connection
between the two components; each could be quite independent of the other. It
makes sense, however, to establish a link between them so that the structural
component would develop grammatical and lexical features which had already
been presented and practised in the functional component. The role of the
80 Type A Syllabuses: Notional-Functional

structural component would be to systematize the grammar, which would not

have been presented in a grammatically ordered sequence within the separate
functional component. In short, there is a change of focus from one
component to another, with the functional one providing ‘roughly tuned’
grammatical input, and the grammatical one focused on selected grammatical
items with, possibly, an emphasis on formally correct output. (See the earlier
discussion in chapter 6 of Valdman’s and Pienemann’s syllabus proposals.)
Type B is similar to A, but here the order of elements is reversed, with the
structural preceding the functional. In this case, the learner would first be
systematically presented with language forms. These would then be followed
by a functional/communicative phase in which some or all of these structural
elements would be used to perform whatever communicative acts had been
planned for that section of the syllabus. In type B, organized and focused
structural input would be followed by a communicative phase in which
structures would be roughly tuned.
In type C there are two parallel streams, one grammatical, the other
functional. It would be possible, as in types A and B, to have no connection or
integration between the functional and grammatical elements, but in fact the
conception here is of the two elements acting in unison, with the content of
one reflecting and interacting with the content of the other. Learners are thus
given a systematization of the grammatical input they receive in the functional
element.
Type D is a variant of A and B, but here the separate functional and
structural components are arranged in shorter sections. In effect, this might
mean having a functional lesson followed by a structural lesson or vice versa,
whereas in types A and B the relationship between the two elements is seen in
terms of unit or sets of units, so that in actual practice a functional element
might cover several lessons or even weeks of work, the structural element
being of equivalent length. The spreading out or bunching together of
structural and functional elements will be influenced by the syllabus
designer’s or teacher’s theory of learning and knowledge of learners’
preferences.
In type E there is a combination of the two elements in a spiral, with the
structural and functional elements integrated in such a way that there is
revision and recycling of both as we move up the spiral. A spiral or cyclical
model emphasizes revision and expansion, a feature not implicit in types A to
D. A good syllabus, like a good curriculum, should incorporate recycling so
that the learners are given an opportunity to revise items previously learnt.
The cyclical or spiral syllabus does not merely provide a return to an earlier
point, however, for the concept of recycling embodies the idea of adding
something new to what has been learned before. For instance, a given
function could be reintroduced in a new setting, new exponents of the same
function might be presented, an expansion of stylistic variation provided, or
the function linked with a different topic or topics. Indeed, given the number
of different elements which can potentially be incorporated into a syllabus,
 Type A Syllabuses: Notional-Functional 81

recycling provides the syllabus designer with an opportunity to ‘mix and

match’ elements in a variety of ways. It also makes it possible to fine-tune
grammatical content and to change the focus as the students proceed through
the syllabus.
Finally, type F is identical to type E, but with ‘free’ elements in which
teachers are at liberty to include whatever they wish. If they feel that, however
desirable a carefully planned syllabus may be, the learner should be exposed
to a rich selection of language input which has not been adapted or simplified
for pedagogical purposes, then it is essential to allow for such exposure by
building in ‘free’ stages whose content would not be specified in advance.
Indeed, both objectives and content would derive from the preceding stages,
but by having free space, there would be opportunity for flexibility, catching
up, innovation and adaptation. Indeed, there is a good argument for designing
a syllabus so that the specified sections are stated in relatively general terms to
provide an overall structure and sequence for the leaming/teaching
programme, while simultaneously allowing for opportunities to respond to
formative feed back. Such provision is in line with the give-and-take which
tends to be part of any pedagogical programme. (See chapter 7 on the process
syllabus for further discussion on this point.)
A further solution to the problem of reconciling functional and structural
demands on the syllabus designer is outlined by Yalden (1983) in her
Proportional Syllabus, which offers a close interweaving of structural and non-
structural, systematic and non-systematic elements over time, as illustrated in
figure 6.1.

Structural Specialized
phase Communicative phases phase

Formal component

Specialized
Linguistic content and
form surface features
of language

Functional, discourse,
rhetorical components

Duration
Figure 6.1 The proportional syllabus
(from Yalden 1983)
82 Type A Syllabuses: Notional-Functional

Identifying Form: Function Relationships

In carrying out the mixing and matching implied in most of the syllabus
models just received, it would be useful to have some information on the
typical exponents of particular functions in various contexts. In an earlier
discussion of grading, I noted that there is some empirical evidence regarding
the frequency of structures, but there is a dearth of such evidence for
functions. Applied linguists with an interest in register study have attended
to the formal characteristics of certain varieties of the language (see Chiu
1973, White 1974a, 1974b), while specialists in English for Specific Purposes
have also looked at such features (e.g. Selinker, Trimble and Trimble 1978).
The vogue for such studies has declined, however, and has not been revived,
even though Wilkins (1979) has noted the need for observational research into
the realizations of communicative categories.
One consequence of the lack of such empirical research (though see
Sinclair and Coulthard (1975) on classroom discourse) is that functional
syllabus and textbook writers tend to depend on intuition when it comes to
selecting exponents and structures for the functions they have chosen. On the
one hand, exponents may be chosen with half an eye to such traditional
structural criteria as simplicity and combinability, while on the other, they may
be selected on the basis of such criteria as authenticity or frequency.
Unfortunately, it is rare to find these latter criteria being evaluated by actual
observation.
As yet, other criteria based on language acquisition studies (see Ellis 1985),
have not emerged for functional grading. This is partly because much of the
acquisition research has focused on a distinctly limited range of morphological
features and little attention has been given to the functional development of
language (but see Halliday 1975, Wells 1985). Even here, though, there are
problems: a natural order of acquisition of given functions by a child learning
its native language does not logically provide a basis for grading and
sequencing language functions for the SL learner, while the differences in
both the needs of the SL learner and the situations in which the target
language is used will give rise to further differences between the functional
development of first and second languages.

Functional Syllabuses: Conclusion

The selection and grading of items for functionally based syllabuses relies on
such considerations as the needs of the learners, both in terms of classroom
functions and in the ‘real world’, usefulness, coverage or generalizability,
interest or relevance and complexity of form. Issues of matching functional
and formal selection and grading have proved to be problematic. Various
models have been created with a view to providing a satisfactory mix of form
and function, though there is an absence of any evaluation of the models
 Type A Syllabuses: Notional—Functional 83

proposed. Similarly, syllabus designers lack any empirical evidence upon

which to base their selection of structures and exponents when working within
a functional framework, and to date there has been an unsatisfactory reliance
on intuition.
What may be provided by the syllabus models reviewed above is variety of
forms of organization which can be matched to various exigencies, while the
implications of FLA and SLA research are that some variation in syllabus
organization along the lines discussed here might very well match, in broad
terms, the sequence of SLA. In particular, there are planning implications in
the account of SLA by Peters (1983a and 1983b), who suggests that there is a
stage involving unanalysed chunks and sequences which are used functionally
and appear to be stored in the memory pending later grammatical analysis. If,
in fact, learners do operate two different but complementary and interactive
systems - memory and syntactic - in tandem, there would be some justification
for maintaining two different strands in a language syllabus, one of which
would be broadly functional/communicative, the other analytical, with content
from memory feeding into the syntactic system for analysis. Such a two-level
model of language learning fits into the two-element syllabus models just
discussed.
Following such a model, the learner would be presented with contextualized
chunks of unanalysed language which could be used for communicative
purposes in interactive practice. Subsequendy, the student would be
introduced to exercises in which the chunks already known and used would be
analysed grammatically, and opportunities for producing new variations on the
elements concerned would be provided. (The precise nature of the
grammatical work is left aside in this discussion. One important consideration
would be whether such work was inductive or deductive in nature.) Variants
on the spiral and other syllabus types summarized on p. 79 would readily
lend themselves to such a combination and sequence of language focus.
Another context in which one of the above syllabus models would be used
is in the all-too-familiar situation in which a group of learners is either
strongly wedded to a particular approach (e.g. rule-based grammar manipu¬
lation) or is afflicted by a desire to reject the traditional. In the former, it
would be unwise to abandon the familiar, and so retaining form-focused work
would be essential as part of the transition to a meaning-based approach. For
the latter, the adoption of a functional syllabus with a grammar safety net
would fit the bill. In any case, given the mixed characteristics of most groups
of learners, it is unlikely that the teacher could assume an all-or-nothing
approach by switching over to a totally new type of syllabus. Thus, a hybrid or
a proportional syllabus would provide a valuable and viable compromise.

Needs Analysis
Needs analysis, to return to the house-building analogy once more, has
parallels with the curriculum = house plan, only in this case the plan is based
84 Type A Syllabuses: Notional-Functional

on an existing dwelling, which is to provide the basis for a dwelling owned by

someone else. Briefly, in needs analysis the teacher or planner investigates the
language required for performing a given role or roles. The specification
derived from this forms the plan for the language syllabus. Thus, it is rather
as if an architect were told to look at someone else’s house as the basis for the
dwelling he or she is about to plan for the client.
The resulting needs analysis specifies the ends which the learner hopes to
achieve. What a needs analysis does not specify is the means by which the
ends will be reached. In other words, a construction system is not described.
For such a plan, a means analysis is required. The means analysis will concern
itself with the resources (in terms of people and materials) available for the
realization of the product specified by the needs analysis. Whereas in the early
1970s much attention was given to needs analysis and the specification of
objectives, recently there has been a realization that means analysis is equally
important, since without a clear understanding of resources and constraints
the teacher/planner may face difficulties in achieving the goals specified in the
needs analysis.
The impetus for needs analysis came from recognition of the link between
language code and language use as manifest in the notional-functional
approach. When, previously, the focus of language teaching had been on the
code, it was not possible to define learners’ needs except in terms of the
language system itself. Thus, in this sense, a learner ‘needed’ the affirmative
before the negative or interrogative; or ‘needed’ the present tense indicative
before the past; and so on. Once, however, the functional use of language is
admitted, the learners’ needs take on an entirely different perspective
because these needs are determined not by the content of the language system
but by the exploitation of that code by users in the world of affairs.
Thus, the purpose for which language is to be used becomes a key
consideration in defining the content and objectives of a language syllabus.
And once considerations of purpose are admitted, a number of other factors
must be taken into account. It is no great step from this point to the
realization that what is required is a sociolinguistic description of the language
use needed by a given set of learners when carrying out the target roles of which
language is a crucial part. In this way, the essentially descriptive categories
outlined by Hymes (1966) become the basis for a predictive account of
learners’ needs.
Not surprisingly, the development of needs analysis as a stage in syllabus
design and as a set of procedures evolved in association with languages for
specific purposes (LSP), already noted in chapter 2. LSP is that branch of
language teaching most closely allied to training in such fields as industry,
commerce, science and technology. In LSP, the language is not being learned
as an end in itself; it is being learned as a means, these being indicated in the
SP of the title. As a branch of vocational training, LSP is thus associated with
a battery of procedures and techniques which have evolved in this field.
Adopting a training model (see figure 6.2), Bell (1981) proposes a stage in
 Type A Syllabuses: Notional-Functional 85

Figure 6.2 Ten steps in the design of training programmes

(from Bell 1981)

which job requirements and learner characteristics are matched, the deficit
between the two then defining the needs which have to be fulfilled on the
training programme. The question which now arises is, how are language
needs to be defined?
Essentially, this depends on establishing a number of categories whereby
language needs can be described. At its simplest, this would mean describing
needs in terms of

Who?
Where?
When?
86 Type A Syllabuses: Notional—Functional

Why?
What?
How?

In addition, other questions such as the ones below will refine the
specification further:

A stranger? An equal? A superior?

A familiar situation? A stressful and noisy one?
During working hours? In the evening?
How often?
What purposes are involved? What degree of reciprocity is there?
What topics are to be dealt with? Are these specialized? general?
What medium (or combination of media) is involved?
Are productive and receptive skills involved?
What level of performance is required?
What kinds of levels of cultural knowledge are required?

Answers to questions of this kind were sought by Richterich and Wilkins

(1975/80) and Richterich and Chancerel (1977/80) in their Council of Europe
projects concerned with the definition of needs for adult learners. Mindful of
the fact that ‘one of the characteristics of the adult learner is his desire to
learn rapidly something he can use immediately’, Richterich and Wilkins
(1975/80:46) proposed defining language needs and content by obtaining
quantitative and qualitative statistical data from polls and surveys. ‘Analysis of
content means observing and examining the oral and written use made of a
language by a given person or class of persons, and then deducing objective
needs which are foreseeable and generalizable’ (p. 48). They point out that a
person about to learn a foreign language ‘has only a vague idea, if any, of his
future needs’, and therefore a survey of the language needs of a pre¬
determined category of adults should be carried out by analysing the language
use ‘among persons already using the language in the same field as the
category of persons concerned’ (p. 49). They also advocate surveying the
learner group ‘in order to discover their motivations and their opinions as to
their needs’.
The Council of Europe project was concerned with the definition of needs
for European adult language learners as a means of standardizing specifications
across the member states - essentially a bureaucratic approach which has its
counterpart in the various forms of standardization which have characterized
the Council’s commercial counterpart, the EEC. Such standardization for
‘general’ adult learners is, as the authors acknowledge, very difficult.
Less difficult is defining needs for learners with specific requirements. A
 Type A Syllabuses: Notional-Functional 87

very influential proposal for this was published by Munby (1978), whose
language skills in Communicative Syllabus Design have already been mentioned.
His approach, which is summarized in figure 6.3, has been described by
Hawkey (1979:8) as directed towards ESP contexts,

informed by functional views of language and biassed towards a

sociolinguistic interpretation of competent language use. Hymesian
notions of contextualised language use and Hallidayan views on the
functions of language were thus reflected in a systematically organised,
sequential, cumulative and comprehensive set of procedures for defining
the communicative needs of a particular potential language user.

He points out that it is important to recognize what the model ‘did and did
not claim to do’.

In broad terms, it took only two steps - needs profile and target
syllabus - towards course design. It did not take account of implemen-

Figure 6.3 Model for specifying communicative competence

(from Hawkey 1979)
88 Type A Syllabuses: Notional-Functional

tational constraints: the syllabus specification could be adjusted later. A

distinction was therefore drawn between target syllabus and pedagogic
syllabus. It did not specify how data should be collected and analysed. It
did not claim to generate direcdy language realisations. The first step
was to define: who will be using English, for what purpose, where, with
whom, in which media, using which dialects, at what level, to perform
what activities, to convey which tones. The second step was to identify
the skills, notions, functions (and possibly forms) which were required in
order to satisfy the user’s requirements. (Hawkey 1979:8)

The procedures derived from the Munby model involve systematically

working through a series of steps in a ‘Communication Needs Processor’,
beginning with a profile of the learner (called ‘participant’). Next, the
purposive domain (e.g. educational, occupational) is identified, together with
the setting, both institutional and psychosocial. Next come interaction (the
social relationships involved) and instrumentality (the medium, mode and
channel). After this the dialect (both for understanding and production) is
defined, followed by target level. This is specified in some detail, including
the size, complexity, speed and flexibility of language for receptive and
productive purposes, together with the conditions under which it is used, such
as tolerance of error and stylistic failure. Finally, there comes the
communicative event (e.g. attending lectures, negotiating with contractors)
and communicative key (the style of interaction, such as sociable, co¬
operative, thoughtful).
Munby’s model has been the subject of criticism (e.g. Davies 1981, Mead
1982) on both theoretical and practical grounds. It would be tiresome to
catalogue these criticisms, but two are worth taking note of, in addition to the
criticism of the non-hierarchical nature of his language skills specification,
already discussed in the section on skills-based syllabuses in chapter 5.
The first point is that the Munby model does not address itself to the
political, economic, administrative and personnel factors which inevitably
influence planning and outcomes. In fact, Munby quite firmly states that the
consideration of such constraints must be deferred until after the syllabus
content specification, based on learners’ needs, has been arrived at. Although
such an approach reduces the complexity of the syllabus design process, by
deferring means analysis, it begins by ignoring the current situation, which may
prove to be the most important factor in the whole equation. More recent
work in ESP by Holliday and Cooke (1982) and Holliday (1983) has raised
the status and significance of means analysis, serving as a reminder that any
syllabus design proposal exists within the wider context which is such an
important part of Skilbeck’s situational curriculum model. Thus, means
analysis should be regarded not as a subsidiary, but as an equal stage in the
syllabus planning process.
The second criticism, related to the exclusion of implementational
 Type A Syllabuses: Notional-Functional 89

constraints, is the tendency of the Munby model to encourage needs analysis

in the study or office instead of on the shop floor, as is clear from the
examples which Munby himself provides. Whereas the Richterich approach to
needs analysis encourages surveying the user community, Munby’s model
seems to encourage a ‘hands-off’ approach whereby the needs analyst, using
the ‘Communication Needs Processor’, analyses by remote control. The
danger is that the analyst will impose his or her own perception and
interpretation of needs on the learner.
It is only by checking with the user community and with the learners
themselves that a rounded picture of needs can be obtained. There are, of
course, a number of practical difficulties in the way of doing so. The first
problem is actually gaining access to the user community whose language use
forms the basis of the learners’ needs. Stories of attempting to record oil rig
operatives on the job are legion, and may serve to highlight the difficulties of
on-site data gathering. Although there is a long tradition in industrial training
of job analysis, this has tended to focus on psycho-motor rather than linguistic
skills, so the needs-cum-job analyst will be ploughing a new furrow when
waving his (or, even more problematically, her) tape recorder under the nose
of an oil rigger.
Approaching the learner may be less onerous, and quite large-scale
attempts have been made to engage would-be learners in a definition of their
wants. Clark (1979) reports a survey carried out in Lothian among secondary
school pupils, in which they were polled on such questions as:

What language did they want to learn? (French, German, etc.)

What reasons did they have for learning it?
Which jobs did they have in mind in which a foreign language would be
useful?
Which areas of language (in particular, immediate v. deferred use of the
language and role relationships)?
WTiich modes of communication?
What listening/reading/writing activities?
What physical settings?
Which spoken communicative activities/functions?
Which topics?

The answers to this survey became an important source of information for

Clark and his colleagues in planning a new secondary schools language
syllabus which would match the aspirations and expectations of the pupils.
The result is a graded objectives syllabus of the kind now becoming popular
in MLT in Britain.
Eliciting such information from clients, sponsors and prospective learners
remains a problem, however, as may be obvious from questionnaires in which
90 Type A Syllabuses: Notional-Functional

respondents are asked to rank the importance they give to such language
functions as:

expressing want, desire, intention

expressing bewilderment
forbidding someone to do something

Although examples of many of the functions may be provided, e.g. blaming

(It’s your fault. . .), the unfamiliar terminology can prove confusing to
informants. In any case, there is, as I have already noted in the discussion of
language functions, some ambiguity in the definition and realization of any
function, the context playing a crucial role. Thus, a questionnaire of
decontextualized functions, catalogued rather in the manner of language
structures, may not prove to be very helpful when attempting to define
learners’ needs, whereas having the informants talk through those situations
and episodes in which they are required to use the target language may prove
more enlightening to the needs analyst. Unfortunately, such procedures do
not form part of the typical needs analysis literature.
As will have become obvious during the discussion of the basis and
outcomes of needs analysis, the specification of learners’ needs tends to be
made in behavioural terms. Indeed, the Council of Europe’s specification was
quite consciously formulated in this style. Such use of behavioural objectives
raises another issue, that of the pre-specification of outcomes in precise terms
to which the course designer, teacher and learner are expected to conform.
The controversy surrounding behavioural objectives has already been aired in
chapter 3, from which it will be recalled that there is implicit in this argument
the conflict between language teaching as training for ordained outcomes on
the one hand and education for unexpected outcomes on the other.
There is, however, another side to needs analysis because, as Johnson
(1982:41) points out, it ‘enables us to discriminate between various learner
types, and to produce syllabus inventories (and courses) especially geared to
their needs’, although, as he observes, this only works satisfactorily ‘as long as
we are dealing with groups having the same needs.’ In languages for general
(as opposed to specific) purposes, it is rarely possible to predict the needs of
all learners. One solution to this difficulty is to attempt to define a common
core of functions relevant to all learners. It is precisely this which the Council
of Europe project attempted to do. The functions listed in this common core
include those which are associated with the general area of social interaction
rather than with specific occupations. Thus, all doctors or secretaries or
dentists or engineers will greet, introduce and ask for information. Richterich
and Chancerel (1977/80) point out that needs analyses will contribute
information not only before the course, but during it as well. The formative
effects of needs analysis thus overlap with the formative influence of
evaluation, to be discussed in chapter 9. Indeed, many of the concerns and
 Type A Syllabuses: Notional-Functional 91

procedures of needs analysis and evaluation are similar. Each is concerned

with informing decision-making about the aims, objectives, content and
methods of a learning programme. Although needs analysis has tended to be
regarded as a pre-course stage, I see it as an on-going process which will help
both learners and teachers by providing feedback according to which
succeeding stages of a programme can be modified, and in doing so, needs
analysis can make provision for the unexpected outcomes which, as we have
noted, are seen to be such an important aspect of education.

Type A Syllabuses: Conclusion

What Type A syllabuses have in common is a basis in content. In this respect

they conform to the traditional definition of a syllabus as an organized
statement of content of things to be learnt. All syllabuses are based on
principles of selection and grading, although these will vary according to the
content of the syllabus. Syllabuses which give priority to grammatical form
(i.e. structural syllabuses) will be based on such criteria as frequency,
simplicity, learnability and teachability. Syllabuses which have meaning as
their priority will tend to be based on the needs of the learner, which vary
according to whether they are short, medium or long term.
SLA research has, as yet, had little impact on content syllabuses, although
it is clear that the concept of a natural order of acquisition must be taken into
account in syllabus development in the future. It is also clear that abandoning
attempts at selection and grading would be premature. Rather, a reconsider¬
ation of selection and grading in the light of SLA findings would seem to be
advisable. While input to the learner would lack the grammatical fine-tuning
characteristic of traditional structural syllabuses, such syllabuses would vary
the language focus to match the developmental progress of the learners, since
attempting to teach items well beyond their existing competence is wasteful
and ineffective. However, provision would also have to be made for
capitalizing on learners’ capacity to acquire, store and use unanalysed chunks
as a preliminary to processing these items as part of grammatical development.
With the substitution of functional for structural content, needs analysis has
become an important stage in syllabus design. The principles of needs analysis
are sociolinguistically based, and procedures involving both the user
community (i.e. the target language users) and the learner have evolved. Many
of these overlap with evaluation procedures, and in so far as needs analysis is
on-going, it merges with formative evaluation as a means of shaping both
syllabus and course. Both make use of similar techniques, including
questionnaires and interviews.
Although needs analysis has tended not to give much attention to situational
constraints on the content, scope and methodology of the language
curriculum, recent trends have emphasized the importance of means analysis
as a stage in language curriculum development. By attending to the present
92 Type A Syllabuses: Notional—Functional

situation rather than the situation in the future, such a shift has matched the
concerns of needs analysis with those of situational analysis and thus the
concept of needs-based syllabus design has been greatly extended and
enriched, albeit at the cost of adding a new set of variables.
While content-based syllabuses have become the norm, there are other
approaches to syllabus design, one based on topic and the other on skills. The
former falls within the content-based category, while the latter forms an
intermediate point between Type A and Type B syllabuses. In fact, a complete
syllabus specification will include all five aspects: structure, function, situation,
topic, skills. The difference between syllabuses will lie in the priority given to
each of these aspects, any one of which can become the leading or organizing
principle upon which the others are dependent.
The more elements which are included and specified in a syllabus, the richer
it is, and the more complex the process of specifying the syllabus becomes.
Furthermore, the richer the syllabus, the less choice is given to the teacher
and learner, thus raising basic issues regarding the educational effects of the
behavioural objectives which are commonly associated with such syllabus
specifications. Ultimately, such syllabuses can become so rigid a scaffolding
that there is little room for adaptation, improvisation and growth. An
alternative basis, which attempts to make provision for such flexibility and
growth will be found in Type B syllabuses, the subject of the next chapter.

Suggested Reading

Overview
A review of the state of the art of language syllabus design from the viewpoint
of the late 1970s was published by Shaw in a review article in Language
Teaching Abstracts in 1977. A more recent review, containing a very good
selection of papers by Widdowson, Candlin, Breen and Yalden, has been
edited by Brumfit (British Council 1984a) in the ELT Documents Series, and
indeed it is Brumfit’s definition of syllabus from this source which has been
cited in chapter 1. Another collection of articles in the same series may be
found in ELT Documents 108, National Syllabuses (British Council 1980).
Meanwhile, the latest overview of syllabuses is found in Breen (1987).

Notional—Functional Syllabuses

The best introduction to notional-functional syllabuses is provided by Wilkins’s

Notional Syllabuses (1976). To find out what the Council of Europe’s proposals
contained, see The Threshold Level, Van Ek (1975) and Waystage, Van Ek
and Alexander (1977). Their syllabus proposals stimulated a lot of discussion
at the time, as is reflected in the fact that much of an issue of Applied
 Type A Syllabuses: Notional—Functional 93

Linguistics was devoted to this topic: vol. 2/1 (1981). It includes papers by
Brumfit, Paulston and Wilkins. For further discussion of notional categories
in language teaching, see Crystal (1976).
A criticism of the notional-functional basis to syllabuses by Widdowson is
found in a collection of his papers, Teaching Language As Communication
(1978). A lucid review of syllabus design, including notional-functional
syllabuses, has been contributed by Furey to Trends in Language Syllabus
Design, edited by Read (1984). A discussion of the design and procedural
issues arising out of the move to semantically based syllabuses appears in
Johnson, Communicative Syllabus Design and Methodology’ (1982).
For an example of the application of functional theory to syllabus design,
see Jupp and Hodlin, Industrial English (1975). Examples of syllabuses also
appear in Yalden, The Communicative Syllabus: Evolution, Design and
Implementation (1983) and Principles of Course Design for Language Teaching
(1987). For a discussion which moves from syllabus to materials design, see
Dubin and Olshtain, Course Design: Developing Programs and Materials for
Language Learning (1986).
Realizations of the functional syllabus in published materials can be found
in such representative series as Strategies, by Abbs, Ayton and Freebairn, and
Abbs and Freebairn (1977 onwards); Network, by Eastwood, Kay, Mackin and
Strevens (1980); and Alain Course English, by Garton-Sprenger, Jupp, Milne
and Prowse (1979).

Needs Analysis

Munby’s Communicative Syllabus Design (1978), though open to criticism (see

Davies 1981 and Mead 1982), has provided a widely adopted and adapted
model for identifying learners’ needs. A seminar, in which the Munby model
was put to the test, took place in 1979 and the outcomes were published by
the British Council (1979) as one of their Dunford Seminar Reports. For a
data-based approach to needs analysis, see Freihoff and Takala (1974), while
for an evaluation of approaches to needs analysis, see Cunningsworth (1983).
7 The Type B Tradition

Introduction

In chapters 4, 5 and 6, I reviewed the characteristics of and principles

underlying Type A syllabuses, which are based on the pre-specification of
content. I also reviewed skills-based syllabuses and noted the importance of
incorporating a skills component into the language syllabus. I now turn to the
Type B tradition, which represents a move, already implicit in the skills
approach, from content to processes of learning and procedures of
teaching - in other words, to methodology. I shall begin by reviewing some of
the principles underlying the Type B tradition, and then go on to look at the
process and procedural syllabuses in some detail.

Methods-Based Syllabuses

METHODS

PROCESS PROCEDURAL
Learning focus Cognitive focus
Learner-led Task-based

Under the Type B tradition, I have classified two rather different types of
syllabus united by a common basis in methodology rather than in content. In
most other respects, the syllabuses are very dissimilar, however, being based
on rather different approaches. Of the two, only the procedural syllabus has as
yet been evaluated. In India its originator, Prabhu, has tried out this type of
syllabus on an experimental basis in a number of classrooms. By contrast, the
process syllabus, advocated by Breen and Candlin, has as yet to be evaluated,
one of the difficulties undoubtedly being that it is by its very nature learner-
led rather than teacher-directed (as is the case in the procedural syllabus).
But what does ‘learner-led’ mean in this context? And what is the
 The Type B Tradition 95

difference between a teacher- and a learner-led syllabus? Briefly, there are a

number of bases upon which a syllabus can be developed. Traditionally,
syllabuses are content- and teacher-led, that is, a teacher (using the term very
broadly) selects and organizes the content, following those criteria which have
been reviewed in the discussion of Type A syllabuses in the preceding
chapters. A more radical approach involves basing the syllabus on
methodology (or means), in which tasks rather than content form the focus.
While the aim of such a syllabus is to promote effective language learning, the
emphasis is on tasks through which language is used and learned. Such a
syllabus is still teacher-led, however, since the teacher is in control of the
selection and organization of the tasks.
A learner-led syllabus, by contrast, will take the direction determined by the
learners, so that it is impossible to predict in advance exactly what route the
syllabus will follow, since it is the pace and direction set by the learners that
will dictate its shape. The fact that learners do follow some kind of internal
syllabus has been referred to on a number of occasions, and it is this kind of
learner-led syllabus which constitutes the basis of the programme to be
followed.
To return to the house-building analogy, a learner-led process syllabus is
rather like building a house a section at a time, with only a general idea of
what the final dwelling will be like. The only aspect which is likely to be
agreed on in advance is the ultimate outcome, though even that will have to be
negotiated among participants before construction. This does not mean that
the teacher is completely powerless, entirely at the mercy of the learner. What
it does mean is that a very different view of the teacher’s and learners’ roles is
implied by such an approach, and, as we shall see later in discussing
innovation, such redefinition can be a powerful factor in inhibiting change. In
this, among other considerations, we may discover a reason for the striking
shortage of tangible examples of the process syllabus.

Approaches to Learning

Both the process and procedural syllabus are influenced by views on the way
learners learn a language. An accumulating body of research into learners and
learning (see below) has given support to the idea that some learners are more
efficient language learners than others and that different people have different
ways of learning. In one sense the picture has been clarified; in another, it has
been made more complicated.
The growth of interest in the learner has been one spin-off of the
Chomskyan view of language, from which has evolved a reassessment of the
role of error in both native and second language learning. Instead of being
viewed as ‘vicious tendencies’, errors could be viewed as evidence of learning,
and, indeed, the systematic study of learners’ errors has revealed that in both
LI and L2 learners proceed through progressive stages, each governed by a
96 The Type B Tradition

consistent set of rules whose salient characteristic is that they differ from the
rule system of the adult form (in the case of children acquiring their LI) or
the target language form (in the case of second language learners). In SLA,
‘Interlanguage’ is the term given to this language system which is independent
of both LI and L2.
Paralleling the linguists’ concern with the processes of language acquisition
has been the development of a similar interest among educationists and
educational psychologists (e.g. Entwhisde 1981) in learning processes, based
on cognitive theories of information processing and learning. From a concern
with finding out how learners learn, it is no small step to organizing a learning
programme around the enabling skills thus identified. Such an approach to
curriculum will be means- rather than ends-based, although some notion of
target performance skills must be taken into account, because an exclusive
concern with means can lead to the provision of a directionless set of learning
experiences.
There are three main sources of information on the way learners go about
learning a language. The first consists of that body of research which is often
subsumed under the heading ‘Good Language Learner Studies’ (e.g. Naiman
et al. 1978, Pickett 1978). The second is a collection of investigations based
on subjective data derived from introspection and self-report (e.g. Cohen and
Aphek 1981, Hosenfeld 1976, 1977, Wenden and Rubin 1986). The third
falls outside the field of language learning as such, and is based on
investigations into cognitive styles and strategies on the one hand, and into
students’ approaches to learning on the other (e.g. Witkin et al. 1962,
Entwhisde 1981).
Of the two approaches to syllabus design subsumed under Type B, the
process syllabus shows the greater influence from these sources of information
on how learners approach learning. Indeed, as we shall see, organizing the
syllabus around learners’ learning preferences is an important feature of the
process syllabus proposals. In comparison, the procedural syllabus shows
more direct influence from SLA theory and research.

The Process Syllabus

MET HOD

PROCESS
Learning focus
Learner-led

The rationale for the process syllabus is an educational rather than a linguistic
 The Type B Tradition 97

one and this is reflected in the proposals Breen and Candlin have put forward,
the latter pointing out that ‘targets for language learning are all too frequently
set up externally to learners with little reference to the value of such targets in
the general educational development of the learner’ (Candlin 1987). Candlin
(1987) and Breen (1984:86) both repudiate a means-ends approach to
curriculum, observing that ‘even a predesigned plan ... is inevitably and
continually reinterpreted by ourselves and by our learners.’ Furthermore, they
say, there is always a disparity between intention and reality, and Candlin
(1984:32), while acknowledging that such a tension between ‘what is’ and
‘what should be’ can be valuable, asserts it can only be so ‘if the should-be is
personal and unchartered, not imposed and pre-defined.’ The similarity of
this view to Stenhouse’s is not accidental, since Candlin quite overtly draws
upon his curriculum philosophy (as described in chapter 3).
Candlin (1984:34) goes on to argue for an interactive syllabus ‘which is
social and problem-solving in orientation rather than one which transmits
preselected and often predigested knowledge’ and he suggests a retrospective
syllabus, the product of the kind of negotiation and evolution which actually
goes on in the learning milieu. Indeed, it is likely that most teachers, if asked
to compare initial plans with eventual outcomes, would acknowledge that what
they and their students actually did during the course of a year did not exactly
match what they thought they would do. Inevitably, there is a process of give
and take (or negotiation) which determines the eventual journey and possibly
even the destination. Candlin’s proposal is, in part, to build this process of
negotiation into the system rather than to ignore it.
Candlin summarizes his proposals in figure 7.1, in which the planning of
language learning and teaching occurs at two levels: curriculum and syllabus:

Prospective
STRATEGIC PRINCIPLE Planning level I

Curriculum guidelines

Syllabus accounts
{of learning
of content
of procedure

TACTICAL ACTION Planning level II

Retrospective
and prospective

Figure 7.1 The process model

(from Candlin 1 987)
98 The Type B Tradition

At the level of curriculum guidelines we would find statements about

learning in general and learning of particular subject-matter, indications
of learning purpose and experience, targets and modes of evaluation,
role relationships of teachers and learners, as well as banks of learning
items and scripts with accounts of procedures for drawing on these,
exploring and expanding their boundaries. (Candlin 1987:5).

The joint planning between teacher and learners concerns ‘everyday decision-
making’, which leads to three kinds of syllabus: (1) language learning, (2)
content and (3) actions - ‘of what was explored and how that was
accomplished’ (Candlin 1987:6): ‘What we have, then, as [the figure] indicates,
is a dialectic process between the level of guidelines and the level of
syllabuses, by means of which the accounts of classroom work can effect
curriculum change.’ Breen takes such proposals a step further in a model
which moves away from knowledge of abilities and skills for communication
and from ends towards means. He suggests that, in addition to a content
syllabus, there should be a second kind of syllabus, co-existing and supporting
the first. This second kind of syllabus ‘would be a plan relating to the teaching
and learning process made available by the classroom’ (Breen 1984:54). The
process syllabus he advocates would involve the learners in designing the
programme of learning, and the approach attempts to deal with the question,
‘How might we best realize and involve the learner’s own principles or
organization when confronted with new knowledge?’ Such a syllabus will be
concerned with joint participation by teacher and taught, with the procedures
to be adopted and followed in negotiating content, methods and objectives,
and with the decision-making related to these. In short, the syllabus addresses
the question, ‘Who does what with whom, on what subject-matter, with what
resources, when, how and for what learning purposes?’ Figure 7.2, from
Breen (1984), provides his own summary of the process syllabus, in which it
can be seen that there are a number of levels through which participants
proceed in a continuing, cyclic process.
As outlined by Breen, the syllabus appears abstract and, to many teachers,
either incomprehensible or unworkable. This is unfortunate, because,
whatever impression may be given by the terminology and the diagram, the
proposals are not as alien as they might at first seem. Any teacher even
vaguely familiar with individualized learning and the organization and use of
resource centres will find much that is familiar, since both of these involve
identifying learner needs, wants and preferences and directing the learners to
appropriate resources.
What Breen is proposing is in many ways an extension of such a practice,
but whereas individualized learning and resource centres have tended to be
something extra attached to an existing programme, here they would become
part of the very basis of the syllabus. At Level 1, the class and teacher will
negotiate general aims, procedure and content, thus providing an overall
direction to their activities. The processes of discussion and participation
 The Type B Tradition 99

Level 1 - Decisions for classroom language learning

Relating to participation, procedure and

subject-matter
(Who does what with whom, on what content,
with what resources, when, how and why?)

Level 2 - Alternative procedures

To be chosen from and agreed upon as

basis for 'working contract' of the
classroom

Level 3
I
Alternative activities

To be selected from on the basis of

appropriateness to decisions at
level 1

Level 4 - Alternative tasks

To be selected and undertaken within

activities

On-going evaluation

of chosen tasks, activities and procedure

concerning their appropriateness and
effectiveness in relation to initial
decisions made

Main characteristics: Framework of questions requiring

joint decisions in the classroom and an 'index' or 'bank'
of alternatives requiring agreed choices. Each level or
element interrelates with the others - a higher level
entailing those below it.
Its actual use involves continual evaluation and, thereby,
a cyclic process through the levels from level 1 to 4 and
from level 4 back to level 1 again.

Figure 7.2 The 'levels' or elements of a process syllabus

(from Breen 1984)
100 The Type B Tradition

through which agreements are reached are regarded as important, because

they will involve genuine communication and personal commitment within
what is termed the classroom arena. The syllabus will, in other words, be
based on opportunities made available by the classroom and the processes of
learning.
In the second level, the teacher and students will agree on procedures to be
followed in reaching their agreed upon aims, while in Level 3 alternative
activities will be chosen in so far as they are appropriate to the aims and
procedures agreed in Level 1. Each activity will embody a range of tasks, from
which, again, a negotiated selection will be made. Throughout the processes
of discussion, selection and agreement, students and teachers will be
evaluating the tasks, activities and procedures in the light of their original aims
and plans, made at Level 1. Such evaluation will be continuous and formative,
informing decision-making at each stage and, if necessary, resulting in
alterations to earlier decisions or changes to the choices about to be made.
One can imagine such a process syllabus in action. At the beginning of a
course, teachers would review their knowledge of the students - their
characteristics, their previous language learning experience, their past results
and future needs. The students’ perception of their needs would be elicited by
questionnaire and discussion, as would their preferences for content, skills
and learning activities. It might be, for instance, that the students were
particularly keen to be able to understand public announcements in the target
language, possibly because of recent experience on recent or planned travel
abroad. Students and teachers could together decide what kinds of public
announcements were envisaged, how well the students wished to be able to
comprehend them, what difficulties they had had or anticipated, and so on.
Discussion could then focus on available materials and how they might be
exploited, e.g. in the language lab, in small groups in the classroom, as a
whole class activity, etc. An agreement would be reached on how, how much
and when such listening materials would be used and how teachers and
students would evaluate successful learning.
After this stage participants would begin work, following the agreed
methods of classroom activity and teaching materials. Evaluation of the
learning experiences would take the form of discussion involving both learners
and teachers, and such matters as the match between methods and student
learning strategies and techniques could be aired, and solutions to the
learning problems could be shared. Such questions as the following would be
asked (cf. Candlin 1985, citing Dam 1985):

What are we/am I doing?

Why are we/am I doing it?
How do we/I go about it?
What can it be used for?
 The Type B Tradition 101

Through such discussion, both the content and the processes of learning
would become part of the language learning experience. At the same time, the
learners would be assuming some control over the direction and methodology
of the teaching/learning programme.
Clearly, the stimulating proposals which Breen and Candlin have put
forward are a manifestation of progressivism, and they draw on the curriculum
philosophy articulated by Stenhouse as well as the ideas set out by such
radical educators as Freire (1970), whose concepts of praxis and dialogue are
an integral part of Breen and Candlin’s approach. However, like all such
utopian proposals, there will be problems of implementing them in the world
of everyday affairs, and it is as well to consider what some of these contraints
might be.
The first problem is that there exists no evaluation of such a model in
practice. The fact that language curriculum evaluations are thin on the ground
does not invalidate this criticism - all proposals for curriculum development
should be evaluated at every stage, and the process proposals are not exempt
from this requirement. Secondly, as with Stenhouse’s process curriculum
proposals, the process syllabus calls for considerable professional competence
and confidence on the part of teachers. Although curriculum development (of
which syllabus design is an aspect) may be a good vehicle for teacher develop¬
ment (by extending professional skills through INSET (in-service education
of teachers), there are situations where such development is at worst not
feasible or at best is very difficult (cf. Kouraogo 1987).
This brings us to the third criticism: there is inadequate provision within
the proposals for relating the syllabus to the context in which it will occur.
There may be many cultural barriers to the implementation of such a syllabus
which, by its very nature, tends to challenge conventional or accepted notions
of authority. Fourth, and related to this last point, is the redefinition of roles
which such an approach to syllabus design entails. It is not only the teacher
who has to change roles - the students do too. Even in a situation where
students may hope for or demand more participation in decisions to do with
their learning, accepting such participation requires the assumption of
responsibility and effort, neither of which may be willingly shouldered by
students when the time comes (see Rudduck 1973, for instance.) Further¬
more, the abdication of certain areas of authority by the teacher may be very
unwillingly undertaken.
Quite apart from these problems, there are other practical ones as well.
Such a process syllabus involves the abandoning of the single textbook, the
mainstay of many language courses in which the textbook equals the
curriculum. It is difficult to see how a process syllabus as outlined by Breen
and Candlin would be compatible with the traditional reliance on a textbook,
even when it is supplemented by skills-based materials. Instead of using one
main textbook, the teacher would be required to draw on a bank of materials,
some of which could and would probably be published textbooks and
supplementaries. Questionable though reliance on a textbook might be, it is a
102 The Type B Tradition

tradition which dies hard, while in many situtaions the coursebook is all the
hard-pressed or underskilled teacher has to rely on. What price the process
syllabus, then?
Finally, we come to the question of aims and objectives. As we noted in
chapter 3, behavioural objectives are regarded with suspicion or even distaste
by some educationists, though such suspicion may derive more from the
source of the objectives than from the aims themselves, as there is a tendency
for objectives to be defined by authorities other than the teachers, still less the
students. This places teachers in a dependent and non-participatory role
within the decision-making process, and such a posture is, within the ideology
underlying a process curriculum, untenable. One response is to reject the
presetting of ends and to concentrate on means.
Within language teaching, such a position seems equally untenable, given
the means-ends nature of language pedagogy (cf. Stern 1984:421, 501).
Although the process model does not advocate ignoring aims, the emphasis on
process and procedures rather than on outcomes could result in an aimless
journey. There is little point in substituting a pedagogical magical mystery
tour for a reasonably well-defined educational destination and such a warning
may need to be kept in mind when replacing prescription by negotiation.

The Procedural Syllabus

METHOD

PROCEDURAL
Cognitive focus
Task-based

The procedural syllabus is associated with the work of Prabhu, who has
developed a Tearnmg-centred’ (as opposed to learner-centred) approach to
language teaching. Working at the Regional Institute of English in Bangalore,
Prabhu shared the growing dissatisfaction with the Structural-Oral-Situational
method which had been developed and disseminated as the pedagogic
orthodoxy in the 1960s. Taking the work of Palmer, among others, as a
theoretical inspiration, Prabhu has evolved an approach which is based on the
principle that the learning of form is best carried out when attention is given
to meaning, and since 1979 in India 8 classes of children ranging in age from
8 to 13 years have been taught by the methods developed by Prabhu and his
colleagues. Early in 1984, the project was cautiously but favourably evaluated
by Beretta and Davies (see below), and their report was published in ELT
Journal a year later. Meanwhile, and almost inevitably, some controversy has
 The Type B Tradition 103

surrounded the project, finding expression in a paper by Greenwood (1985).

There are several notable features to the Bangalore/Madras Communi-
cational Teaching Project (CTP), as it has come to be known. Unlike some
theorists (e.g. Krashen), Prabhu has been very modest about the wider
application of his approach, which is based simply on the findings of the
project. Also, unlike the process syllabus discussed earlier, the Bangalore
project and the procedures to which it has given rise have been subject to
public scrutiny. Indeed, it could be said that a project which has for the most
part been described in relatively obscure publications (mostly emanating from
the Regional Institute, Bangalore) and which has involved about 300 children
and less than a dozen teachers in southern India, has generated a
disproportionate amount of professional interest. Fortunately, Prabhu has
himself now provided an account of the project which will be available to an
international audience (see Prabhu 1987) and it is from this source that I have
largely drawn.
At the basis of the CTP are tasks which engage the learner in thinking
processes, the focus of which is completion of the task rather than learning
the language. Such task-based teaching is intended to enable the learners, in
due course, to achieve ‘grammatical conformity in their use of language’
which is believed ‘to arise from the operation of some internal system of
abstract rules or principles’. This process of ‘internal system-development’
was believed to go on ‘at a subconscious level of their minds’, and the system¬
building would be

activated or furthered by immediate needs to understand and express

meaning but, once activated, capable of going beyond what is strictly
called for by those immediate needs, achieving grammatical conformity
in addition to communication. Learners engaged in task-based activity
are, at any given time, meeting the demands made on their
understanding and expression by bringing into play such internal
systems as they have developed so far (which, being in formative stages,
may lead to miscomprehensions or ungrammatical expression) but, in
doing so, they are also developing those systems a little further.

I have summarized the CTP model below.

Task —> Learners’ Cognitive Processes —> Task completion

Conscious Meaning-building Meanings understood

or conveyed

Unconscious System-building Grammatical system

developed

‘Task-based teaching’, says Prabhu (pp. 69-70)

104 The Type B Tradition

operates with the concept that, while the conscious mind is working out
some of the meaning-content, some subconscious part of the mind
perceives, abstracts or acquires (or recreates, as a cognitive structure)
some of the linguistic structuring embodied in those entities, as a step in
the development of an internal system of rules. The intensive exposure
caused by an effort to work out meaning-content is thus a condition
which is favourable to the subconscious abstraction - or cognitive
formation - of language structure.

He points out that the acquisition of any element in language structure is not
‘an instant, one-step procedure’ for ‘it may take several instances of intensive
exposure to different samples of language before any abstraction is made, or
cognitive structure formed, and particular instances may or may not lead to
any such result.’ Indeed, it is only ‘recurrent effort at comprehension [which]
thus leads to recurrent deployment and to the gradual growth of an internal
linguistic competence.’ Prabhu repudiates any attempt to develop the language
system by formal means, pointing out that it is not the job of language
teaching to discover the various aspects of the internal system (this is the
linguists’ job), but to develop the system in the learners:

the internal system developed by successful learners is far more complex

than any grammar yet constructed by a linguist, and it is therefore
unreasonable to suppose that any language learner can acquire a deploy¬
able internal system by consciously understanding and assimilating the
rules in a linguist’s grammar, (p. 72)

He emphasizes the point that ‘teaching a descriptive grammar is likely - as has

pointed out at various times in the history of language pedagogy - to promote
in learners an explicit knowledge of that grammar, rather than a deployable
internal system.’ Prabhu also draws attention to the mismatch between the
organization of a descriptive grammar and the organization of the learner’s
internal system - a point which I have already noted in references to research
into language acquisition. He notes that the assumption that ‘the development
of the internal system is a discrete item, additive process . . . goes counter to
the highly plausible perception in interlanguage studies that the process is a
holistic one, consisting of a sequence of transitional systems.’ Thus, a
linguistically graded syllabus is rejected in favour of a task-based one, in
which the tasks are selected and graded in terms of cognitive complexity. The
language selection which arises from such a sequence of tasks will be based
on ‘the needs of the activity/discourse and manageability for learners’.

The Tasks

Since a great deal of what is done in the procedural syllabus is related to

tasks, a list of some of the tasks used in the CTP may serve to illustrate the
 The Type B Tradition 105

basis of the approach in recognizable terms. Here are some of the tasks given
by Prabhu. The numbering follows the order in his list, thus reflecting the
sequencing of the tasks.

1 Diagrams and formations

a Naming parts of a diagram with numbers and letters of the

alphabet, as instructed.
b Placing numbers and letters of the alphabet in relation to one
another, as instructed, to arrive at particular formations.
c Placing letters and numbers in given crossword formats; construct¬
ing/completing such formats, as instructed.

5 Maps

a Finding, naming or describing specific locations on a given map.

b Constructing/completing a map from given descriptions/instruc¬
tions.
c Deciding on the best route from one place to another; giving
directions.
e Deciding on the best form of transport (given information on bus
routes, fares, etc.).
f Making decisions on good/bad siting (e.g. of a new hospital or
school).

10 a Working out the money needed to buy a set of things (e.g. school
stationery; vegetables), from given price lists and needs.
b Deciding on qualities to be bought with the money available;
inferring quantities bought from the money spent.
c Discovering errors in bills; inferring when an underpayment/
overpayment must have taken place.
d Deciding between alternatives in shopping (e.g. between a small
store nearby and a large one which involves lower prices but
expenditure on transport).
e Working out possibilities of saving, from information about incomes
and expenses.

16 Stories and Dialogues

a Listening to stories (of a ‘whodunit’ kind) and completing them

with appropriate solutions.
b Reading stories or dialogues and answering comprehension
questions (particularly of an inferential kind) on them.
c Completing or continuing given dialogues, as appropriate to given
situations.
d Identifying factual inconsistencies in given narrative or descriptive
accounts.
106 The Type B Tradition

18 Personal details

a Finding items of information relevant to a particular situation in an

individual’s curriculum vitae.
b Constructing a curriculum vitae from personal information.
c Organizing/reorganizing a curriculum vitae for a given purpose/
audience.
d Working out ways of tracing the owners of objects, from
information supplied by the objects.

These tasks will not strike most readers as being particularly innovative, since
such tasks are the stock-in-trade of many language teachers. What is claimed
to be innovative is the way the material is used. Instead of focusing on the
language, the teacher (and learners) focus on the task, and such attention to
language as occurs is in order to complete the task. Furthermore, although
language errors are corrected, they are only repaired by the teacher offering
(or eliciting from the rest of the class) the correct form; there is no attempt to
focus on the language and to provide a rule of grammar or spelling.
Such language repair is what Prabhu (p. 61) calls ‘incidental correction’,
contrasted with ‘systematic correction’ in which there is ‘a larger interruption
of on-going activity to focus learners’ attention to an error that has taken place
by providing an explanation of a set of other instances in the hope of
preventing a recurrence of the error.’
Each lesson consists of two stages: a pre-task and a task. It is the purpose of
the pre-task to provide a ‘public’, teacher-directed run through of the task,
but with different content, so that although it is similar, it is not actually the
same as the task the pupils will do themselves later in the lesson. The pre-task
enables the teacher to judge the pupils’ comprehension of what is involved,
and from this judgement the teacher can, if necessary, break the task down
into smaller, more comprehensible and more manageable units. The task itself
is ‘private’ and, although the pupil can seek help from peers or teacher, the
idea is that it will be completed individually. Prabhu summarizes the sequence
as follows:

the pre-task and task pattern divides a lesson desirably into an initial
period of whole-class activity, teacher-direction and oral interaction and
a later period of sustained self-dependent effort by learners sustained
reading (or sustained listening, when the task is presented orally by the
teacher) and some writing, (p. 55)

What is important in such task-based teaching is the maintenance of the

pupils’ effort to understand, ‘since it is this effort which brings about a
preoccupation with meaning and a contingent struggle with language.’
Because repeated failure would be demoralizing for the learner, the concept
of a ‘reasonable challenge’ in the tasks is important. Learners ‘should not be
 The Type B Tradition 107

able to meet the challenge too easily, but they should be able to meet it with
some effort.’ The criterion for judging the reasonableness of a task was
that approximately half the learners in the class should be successful on
approximately half the task, as revealed by marking their work. It was also
found necessary to have a regular change of task types after every few lessons
for reasons of over-familiarity leading to ‘fatigue’.
An important characteristic of caretaker language (as used by parents,
teachers and other care-givers) as input to the learner is that, although there is
simplification, caretakers rarely indulge in the kind of simplification which
gives rise to ungrammatical language. However, in peer-group interaction in
the target language, instances of such ungrammatical language are legion,
resulting in the provision of‘junky input’ (Selinker, Swain and Dumas 1975).
One concern of the Bangalore project was to avoid the effects of such junky
input during that phase of learning when, through opportunities for
production, the learners’ grammatical system is ‘firming up’. This meant that,
although opportunities for group work were by no means ignored, it was
underplayed. The reasons for this are discussed by Prabhu:

Deployment... is a process during which learners’ internal systems get

firmed up (in production as well as in comprehension) and revised or
extended (in comprehension). Opportunity for revision or extension
arises when there is a mismatch between the internal structures being
deployed and those embodied in the sample of language being
processed-when, that is to say, the internal system encounters ‘superior
data’ or, in other words, samples of language which embody a more
highly developed internal system. It is therefore important for learners’
internal systems to be continually encountering ‘superior data’ so that
the process of firming up is balanced by a process of revision and
extension. Since differences between the internal systems of different
learners are much smaller than those between the internal systems of
the learners as a group and the teacher, sustained interaction between
learners is unlikely to provide very much opportunity for system-
revision. As a result, the effect of learner-learner interaction will largely
be a firming-up of learners’ systems.

The consequence can be the risk of fossilization of the learner’s internal

system.
Although ‘voluntary consultation or collaboration’ between learners was
allowed, there was no pressure on learners to engage in such interaction (as
there is in group work intended to promote interaction in the target language).
Furthermore, Prabhu makes the perceptive point that not all learners like to
have to take part in group work and may feel humiliated in front of their
peers, even though they may accept loss of face in front of the teacher who is,
in any case, regarded as a superior.
108 The Type B Tradition

The Bangalore/Madras CTP: An Evaluation

Prabhu, as may be clear from the quotation I have taken from his account,
puts forward a convincing and well argued case. What, though, are the results
in practice?
One account of the Bangalore project had already been published by an
outside observer (Brumfit 1984d) when Beretta and Davies undertook an
evaluation of the project in 1984 (Beretta and Davies 1985). Their purpose in
seeking an evaluation was ‘to assess through appropriate tests, whether there
is any demonstrable difference in terms of attainment in English between
classes of children who have been taught on the CTP and their peers who
have received normal instruction in the respective schools.’ Beretta and
Davies point out that, given the complexity and difficulty of designing a
satisfactory research procedure to evaluate methodologies, the history of such
Which? type comparative studies is not encouraging (a point also made by
Cronbach (1963), some 20 years earlier). Because the CTP was not set up as
an experiment (with matched control and experimental groups), Beretta and
Davies had to use intact classes, rather than operate in a ‘stripped down
environment’ (Beretta 1986a), with consequential limitations on the validity of
their findings. Three hypotheses were raised (Beretta and Davies 1985:125):

1 There is a difference between the language abilities arising from form-

focused teaching and those arising from meaning-focused teaching. Thus, we
expected each group to perform significandy better on its own achievement
tests.

2 Acquisition of non-syllabus-based structure is best achieved without

focus on form. If this were true, experimental classes would do significandy
better than control classes on the proficiency tests of contextualized grammar
and dictation.

3 Structure acquired without focus on form is more readily available for

deployment than structure learned with focus on form. For this to be
confirmed, CTP groups would have to score significandy higher than control
groups on the proficiency test of listening/reading comprehension.

They conclude that the requirements of the first and third hypotheses were
fulfilled, while ‘The second hypothesis ... is pardy borne out.... In short,
the results reveal a pattern which is consistent with the first and third
hypotheses, and in part consistent with the second (and central) hypothesis.’
Finally, Beretta and Davies (p. 126) says that while admitting the limitations
inherent in their study, ‘we regard the results as being, on the whole, positive,
and conclude that they provide tentative support for the CTP claim that
grammar construction can take place through a focus on meaning alone.’ In
contrast to these cautiously phrased conclusions, one writer (Greenwood
 The Type B Tradition 109

1985) has been quite sceptical, suggesting that none of the accounts of the
project had offered sufficient evidence to evaluate the claims made for the
procedural syllabus and its associated methodology. The subsequent
publication of the Beretta and Davies report and of Prabhu’s own account of
the project does not altogether diminish the doubt Greenwood voiced and,
although theoretically the procedural syllabus has much in its favour - as
Prabhu himself has so eloquendy argued - commitment to a particular
viewpoint can give rise to a vested interest which supports rather than
evaluates the very principles the project set out to demonstrate. Is Greenwood
observing that the emperor really has no clothes? Fortunately, the curious or
sceptical reader has an opportunity to investigate the question further by
referring to the publications I have drawn upon in writing this account. In any
case, the debate on the procedural syllabus is unlikely to diminish.

Which Syllabus?

From our review of syllabuses, it will be clear that the would-be syllabus
designer is faced with a rather bewildering choice. Although attempts can
be - and indeed, have been - made to combine different types, as in hybrid
and proportional syllabuses, there is a basic incompatability between Type A
and Type B which might make some combinations or compromises
unworkable. Thus, it is difficult to imagine how a structurally based syllabus
could be combined with a process one without compromising the theoretical
principles upon which each is based, since the pre-selection and ordering of
structures which lies at the heart of a structural syllabus are quite
incompatible with the avoidance of such a pre-specification in a process
syllabus.
The answer to the question, Which syllabus? will be influenced by two
factors. Firstly, it will be recalled that, in his definition of syllabus, Brumfit
(1984:75) pointed out that ‘It is a document of administrative convenience and
will only be partly justified on theoretical grounds and so is negotiable and
adjustable.’ This means that the choice and definition of a syllabus will be
influenced by policy rather than principle, a point which curriculum
developers ignore at their peril. Decisions about syllabus will, therefore, be
subject to the values and aims of the learning system itself. Such influences
are less to do with what has been demonstrated by theory and associated
research than with what is based on custom, belief and convenience. Any
curriculum choices tend to be compromises reached by negotiation (Weston
1979) among individuals with divergent interests (Jenkins and Shipman 1976).
Furthermore, from the point of view of introducing a new syllabus, the
evidence from innovation studies (to be discussed in chapters 8 and 9)
suggests that compatability with current practices is a characteristic of
successful innovations.
When we come to the theoretical justification of a syllabus - the second
110 The Type B Tradition

factor - we find ourselves in very deep water, since the evidence accumulated
from SLA research throws considerable doubt on traditional justifications for
Type A syllabuses. The general tenor of such research findings is that it is
methodology rather than organization which may hold the key to successful
language teaching - and learning. Reference to the characteristics of an
optimal learning environment, oudined by Ellis (1984), will reveal that at least
half the features concerned fall under the heading of ‘procedure’ rather than
‘design’, although some will be linked to design decisions.
On the question of empirical demonstration of the effect of organization
and procedures on learning outcomes, with the exception of the Bangalore
experiment there has been no really concerted effort to evaluate any approach
in actual operation, although there is a growing body of research into the
effects of procedure on language learning in tutored settings (e.g. Aston 1986,
Doughty and Pica 1986, Long 1981, Long and Porter 1985). While there are
difficulties in comparative ‘Which?’ type research, as I noted earlier, we
should not be deterred from requiring both rigour and caution in adopting a
new approach simply because it is theoretically more satisfying; nor because
some research, with little ecological validity as far as typical learning milieux
are concerned, lends weight to a theory that there is a natural order of
acquisition or that children pass through a period of learning holophrases or
unanalysed utterances.
Theory-driven practice can be unworkable because practice is so complex,
as the ultimate failure of audio-lingualism, based on linguistic and
psychological theory, has revealed. Most language learning takes place in the
classroom, which can disturb the predictions based on evidence acquired
under controlled or experimental conditions. Attempts directly to work out the
implications of language acquisition research in the classroom - either in
terms of syllabus design or pedagogical procedures - may not yield the results
anticipated, and for this reason we must be cautious.
We must also take account of what language teaching aims are. These aims
may be of two kinds in an educational system: firstly, to acquire a knowledge
of the second language system and culture; secondly, to acquire the ability to
perform with some degree of fluency in the second language, that is, to
develop communicative competence. These are two very different aims, and
the design and procedures for one will not be appropriate for the other - a
lesson which should be clear from the historical review in chapter 2.
If priority is given to language as product, a Type A content syllabus will be
most appropriate. If, however, priority is given to the process of developing
second language competence, a Type B syllabus will be preferred. Within
these two general syllabus types, a choice may be made between sub-types,
according to the needs and circumstances of the learner. Thus, a notional-
functional syllabus, in which - at least initially - the focus is on useable
chunks of language, will be appropriate when the aim is a limited fluency in
the target language. If, however, the aim is to develop a flexible and adaptable
control over the target language, a process or a procedural syllabus is likely to
 The Type B Tradition 1 11

be more appropriate. In the end, a hybrid syllabus will probably result, not
simply because of theoretical considerations, but because, in the day-to-day
world of teaching, this will be the compromise which satisfies most interest
groups, and I personally would find it difficult to argue against such a
pragmatic solution.
In any case, the choice of syllabus type will be determined initially by the
aims of the education system. Clarity of aims, as will be emphasized in the
discussion of managing curriculum development in chapter 9, is essential.
Once aims have been clarified, the choice of syllabus type should be made
with a full awareness of what is and what is not possible within the constraints
of each syllabus. Confusion over such matters simply leads to frustration and
disappointment. For instance, a notional-functional syllabus is not the best
choice if the aim is control of formal accuracy, and policy-makers need to be
aware of this. If, however, both accuracy and fluency are aims, consideration
must be given to a combination of functional and formal syllabuses of the
hybrid or proportional type.
Even with such considerations in mind, disappointments and frustrations
will still arise. I think this is inevitable if too narrow a view is taken of
language teaching. Language teaching is concerned with more than the choice
of the ‘best’ syllabus, and an excessive amount of time and effort can be
devoted to the selection and ordering of content, while giving insufficient
attention to questions of methodology; to the numerous factors which should
influence choices of design and procedure; and to the practical issues of
implementation. What I am suggesting, in fact, is that to focus on content is
too restricted and that the language educator needs to draw on the principles
and procedures of curriculum studies and to apply principles of effective
management, the latter being the subject of the following two chapters.

Suggested Reading

Good Language Learner Studies

A seminal paper in the good language learners studies is Rubin (1975), while
two important studies are Naiman et al., The Good Language Learner (1978)
and Pickett, The Foreign Language Learning Process (1978). Observational
studies include Wong Fillmore (1982) and Saville-Troike (1984).

Introspection
Investigations based on introspective data have been published by Hosenfeld
(1976, 1977) and Cohen and Aphek (1981) and Cohen (1986). A more recent
study by Wenden (1986) is in the same tradition. A collection of papers on
this topic, Learner Strategies, has been edited by Wenden and Rubin (1987).
112 The Type B Tradition

Process and Procedural Syllabuses

Unfortunately, little has been published on process syllabuses, so we must rely
on largely on Breen’s (1984) and Candlin’s (1987) accounts of it. We are
rather better off for descriptions of the procedural syllabus, as there are
accessible and readable accounts by Johnson (1982) and Brumfit (1984d), as
well as a lengthy description by Prabhu in Second Language Learning: A
Perspective (1987). A more critical discussion has been written by Greenwood
(1985).
For grading tasks within a syllabus for spoken language, see Brown,
Anderson, Shillcock and Yule, Teaching Talk (1984).
8 Language Curriculum
Design: Process and
Management

Introduction

In earlier chapters, I reviewed the historical background, as well as some of

the main approaches, to curriculum design and language syllabuses. I have
also noted that while a syllabus is essentially a specification (predominandy of
content), curriculum design is a process embracing aims, method and
materials which may be specified in a plan, either of future intentions or of
existing practices. Any such process will involve choices and decisions, while
any process involving people and resources will require the exercise of
management. Furthermore, any proposals for renewal or change immediately
take us into the area of innovation studies.
It is with such issues that this chapter will be concerned, as a prelude to the
final chapter, which will deal with management and evaluation. My own
experience, as well as that of many others working in the field of language
curriculum, confirms the importance of looking beyond the traditional
concerns of the syllabus designer, whose main influences are derived from
applied linguistics. Although applied linguistics provides a basis for approach,
design and procedure, putting into effect any decisions regarding design and
procedure takes us right out of applied linguistics and straight into innovation
management. This is because decisions about language curriculum rapidly
cease to be decisions about ideas and become actions which affect people. On
such matters, applied linguistics is silent, and it is in order to benefit from
experience in other fields that this and the following chapter have been
written. My hope is that they will provide a useful introduction to what I
believe to be crucial to the concerns of anyone dealing with language
curriculum development and syllabus design.

Language Curriculum as Innovation

The introduction of a new textbook, changes in forms and procedures of

assessment, the substitution of new methods for old, the provision of new
equipment (e.g. video recorders, computers) are all aspects of curriculum
innovation, though they are often dealt with in a largely unplanned manner.
Yet, as Hoyle (1970:2) has observed, ‘the cost, complexity and radical nature
114 Language Curriculum Design

of current innovations perhaps renders inappropriate the reliance upon the

rather ad hoc and individualistic response that one has had in the past.’ One
of the problems when considering innovation is that it is concerned with a
hugely complex area. At one level, we are dealing with systems which can
range in scale from the international to institutional, while at another we are
dealing with individuals, the private and the personal. Thus, while we can
consider innovation in relation to the various effects and forces which operate
within a system, we need also to consider innovation from the viewpoint of the
individuals who will be most affected by it: the teachers and learners.
Furthermore, innovations are rarely, if ever, disseminated in a ‘pure’ form,
for dissemination almost always involves re-invention, that is, ‘the degree to
which an innovation is changed or modified by a user in the process of its
adoption and implementation’ (Rogers 1983:175). It is important to recognize
the widely observed tendency of innovations to be modified during the
dissemination and adoption process, and the failure to do so lies behind the
questionable practice of developing so-called ‘teacher-proof materials in an
effort to protect the purity of ELT innovations.
What is innovation and how does it differ from change? Change is
considered to be any alteration in something between time 1 and time 2.
Change can occur spontaneously and does not involve conscious planning or
intention. Innovation, by contrast, is defined as involving deliberate alteration -
intention is a crucial element. A number of definitions of innovation have
been offered. Miles (1964:13), for instance, has emphasized organizational
behaviour, while the definitions offered by Rogers and Schoemaker (1971:19)
and Rogers (1983:11) highlight the personal perception and interpretation of
innovation. This phenomenological view characterizes much of the most
insightful work on educational innovation (Hurst 1983:52-3; Fullan 1982).
Drawing on these earlier definitions, Nicholls (1983:4) defines an
innovation as ‘an idea, object or practice perceived as new by an individual or
individuals, which is intended to bring about improvement in relation to
desired objectives, which is fundamental in nature and which is planned and
deliberate.’ Nicholls goes on to point out that there are a number of
difficulties associated with innovation. The first is that, because innovation (as
she defines it) is fundamental in nature, it will involve changes in teachers’
attitudes and practices. This, as has already been pointed out with regard to
language curriculum, can be seen as probably the most important single
factor, and one which serves as a reminder of the private and personal aspects
of innovation. It is recognition of this which informs the normative-re-
educative strategy of innovation, to be discussed later.
The second difficulty is that innovation will almost always lead to an
increase in teachers’ workloads. Such an increase can occur at all stages: in
preparing for the change (through staff meetings, workshops, in-service
courses); in planning lessons and materials; in the classroom itself (through
having to adopt new roles and techniques); and after the lesson (in the
marking of assignments and tests or processing questionnaire or interview
 Language Curriculum Design 115

data). Any important change in language curriculum will - indeed, should -

involve such extra work.
There will also be an economic cost in terms of time and funds. Innovations
may require extra preparation time, the costs involving not only paying
teachers for extra time spent on such activities, but in footing the bill for new
materials and equipment. Time and cost may also be involved in setting up
and running research and trialling projects, monitoring outcomes and
disseminating findings. In fact, such expense is characteristic of the Research,
Development and Diffusion model of innovation, to be discussed below.
Finally, there is the question of evaluation. Since innovations are normally
introduced so as to ‘be more efficacious in accomplishing the goals of the
system’ (Miles 1964:13), there is some obligation on those involved to
demonstrate that improvement has in fact occurred. Such evaluation may
require the system to open itself up to outside appraisal, thus raising issues of
accountability, which, as I noted in the discussion of behavioural objectives,
can be regarded as a threatening experience by those subject to the evaluation.
Furthermore, even within an individual institution, evaluation can raise
uncomfortable issues which its members might prefer to keep submerged.
Thus, we see that curriculum innovation is likely to be fraught with
difficulties from the outset, as any change agent will rapidly discover, even
when proposing an innovation as seemingly innocuous as a new composition
marking system or the use of cassette recorders - let alone a new language
syllabus.

Innovation within a System

We have seen that at one level, innovation occurs within a system. What, then,
is a system? Miles (1964:13) defines it as ‘a bounded collection of interdepen¬
dent parts, devoted to the accomplishment of some goal or goals, with the
parts maintained in a steady state in relation to each other and the
environment by means of (1) standard moves of operation, and (2) feedback
from the environment and the consequences of system actions.’ Miles, like
many other writers concerned with educational systems, points out that they
have special characteristics which, among other things, make the management
of innovation different from those systems - notably commercial, industrial,
and agricultural - in which it has been studied. In educational systems it is
difficult to measure outputs precisely, whereas, of course, in the other systems
referred to, the measurement of both inputs and outputs is done with great
precision. A further important feature of educational systems is that
products - that is, students’ learning - are supposedly to be assessed over a
long span of time. After all, at least 11 years’ compulsory education is the
norm in developed countries, while the effects of such education are to be
viewed in an even longer term, possibly a whole lifetime.
Another significant difference between educational and other systems is
116 Language Curriculum Design

that in the former there is a narrow difference between lay and professional
competence. Everyone has had some experience of an educational system, and
thus everyone claims some expertise in education. In an earlier discussion I
noted the important role of stake-holders. While in a commercial or industrial
organization stake-holders might be reluctant to claim technical or professional
expertise because of the apparently specialized nature of the organization’s
activities, many people are prepared to put forward their views on education in
general and language teaching in particular, and on how their children should
be taught because, of course, everyone can draw on personal experience of
being educated and many people have experience of trying to learn another
language. Only a few people can draw on comparable experience of running a
production facility or managing a retail oudet.
It is with people that we come to a crucial factor: organizations are made up
of people, not things, and although systems and organizations can be
described in terms of structural and functional elements which can be
depicted in organizational charts, in an organization, as Paisey (1981:10
quoting Emmet 1967:184) emphasizes, it is people who inhabit the institu¬
tion, and an organization consists of ‘networks of relationships between
people acting and reacting on each other, sometimes in accordance with
intended ways of furthering the purpose of the organization; sometimes in
ways which are intended, though not always in terms of the official purpose;
and sometimes in ways not intended by anyone.’ Thus, organizations contain
rational as well as non-rational elements, a fact which emerges in the
subjectivity members of an organization bring to their perception of the
organization and of innovation. Most crucially, an educational organization is
operated by the persons who are themselves the instruments of change.
Without their willingness and participation, there will be no change. And, it
might be added, without the participation of the pupils there will not be
change, either. Furthermore, because innovation will almost always involve
some evaluative element, teachers can resist the changes that are required,
even if, on rational grounds, they might agree with the proposals concerned.
Within any complex society, there will be a large number of interconnected
systems, which Miles lists under four main heads:

Non-professional structures
Government agencies
Commercial structures
Directly educative systems

Each of these influences the other, and Miles notes the importance of
commercial considerations when old investments and new products are at
stake in any innovatory process. Also, as Richards (1984) points out, the
feasibility with which language teaching innovations can be converted into
publishable materials has a profound effect on their dissemination and take-
 Language Curriculum Design 117
1-3

4-6

Figure 8.1 Interlocking systems affected by a curriculum development

(from Bowers 1983)

up. Thus, the commercial viability of an innovation in terms of published

materials provides an instance in which commercial and educational systems
interact.
The complexity of any educational system has been well illustrated by
Bowers (1983), who likens it to a spider’s web in which a touch at any one
point sets the whole network in motion (see figure 8.1). He also shows how
decisions made at one point will have a knock-on effect at other points in the
system, which in turn may restrain or even inhibit such decisions. To take one
instance: decisions to introduce a new textbook will lead to questions about
in-service teacher training, which will then result in questions about
resources - time, money and the availability of trainers. And so on.
118 Language Curriculum Design

The Process of Innovation

There are three main elements and three main stages in innovation,
summarized in a diagram adapted from Bolam (1975).

Stage 1

Change agent Innovation User

Stage 2

Change agent <1 -t> User

Innovation

Stage 3

Change agent Innovation User V

Time

The role of the change agent is to initiate the innovation and to assist in its
adoption. The agent may not, in fact, be the originator of the innovation, but
in terms of the receiving system or institution it is the change agent who is the
message-bearer. In practice, the change agent may be the principal, the
director of studies or a staff member who has been on an in-service course or
even an author or publisher with new materials. The role of user is that of
receiver and adopter of the innovation.
Initially, the three elements - change agent, innovation and user - may exist
independently. In fact, change agent and user may be one and the same,
although the roles of each are different. Also, change agent and user may
occupy identical or separate parts of the system. Where the change agent is
separate from that part of the system into which the innovation will be
introduced and ‘installed’, the innovation itself will be external to the receiving
user and institution. Where, however, the change agent and innovation are
both members of the same institution, the innovation may be internally
developed, although an outside agency may be called in as consultant or
adviser.
If an innovation is indigenous to an institution, the process will tend to be
from the bottom-up, whereas an innovation introduced from outside may
follow a top-down process. Much will depend upon by whom and how the
innovation is identified, specified and introduced. In school-based curriculum
development (as discussed by Skilbeck 1984a), the innovation will have been
initiated by members of the institution, whereas in a national and centrally
 Language Curriculum Design 119

controlled curriculum development, the innovation will have its origins outside
the receiving institution, whose role will be that of receiver and implementer
rather than that of initiator and developer.
Once the change agent, innovation and user become focused on the
innovation, there is an interactive stage during which the two parties
concerned will negotiate the installation of the innovation. It will be at this
stage that what may have started as a national or regional initiative will be
translated into operational terms within the individual institution, leading
ultimately to change in the classroom itself and in the practices of teacher and
students. Finally, when the innovation is ‘successfully and durably installed’,
the three elements may revert to the same kind of relationship as indicated in
the initial stage and the whole process can be repeated.
Innovation in schools takes place within an organization, and account will
have to be taken of the antecedent context, the process whereby organizational
innovations are implemented and maintained (cf. Rogers 1983:374-8), and
the fact, as Miles (1964:18) points out, that ‘innovations are always operant in
relation to a given social system; they affect one or more parts of the system
crucially, and are in a very real sense rejected, modified, accepted and
maintained by existing forces in the immediate system.’
Indeed, the different interests of members of the system - teachers, pupils,
administrators and other stake-holders - lead Weston (1979:39) to invoke the
concept of negotiation in curriculum development within the social system of
the school - a view reminiscent of Brumfit’s point regarding the negotiability
of the syllabus, quoted in chapter 1. In Weston’s view (1979:39), members of
this social system are ‘constandy working out their own understanding and
relationship to the system’, while the process of curriculum development
involves ‘a probing for common ground by groups and individuals with
divergent interests but some shared meanings as fellow-members of the same
system.’
Thus, we may view the context in which curriculum development and
innovation occur as one of divergent interests and conflicting forces (Jenkins
and Shipman (1976:42)). In such a dynamic setting, innovation is seen as
something which is not necessarily complete or finished, a point stressed by
Miller (1967:17): ‘Too often an innovation is introduced as “the answer”
rather than as something good but not perfect that can be improved with
experience and careful study.’ This is very apposite if we think of curriculum
innovation as being on-going and developmental rather than as the installation
of a ready-made and complete solution to an educational problem or the
answer to a teacher’s prayers. Indeed, the adoption of a new language
textbook or new hardware (video and computers being two instances) may
mistakenly be seen as being ‘the answer’, whereas it may be only the
beginning of a process of adaptation, adjustment and refinement. The
innovatory process is a complex one, and just as several models of curriculum
have been put forward, so, too, several models of innovation have been
suggested, and it is to these that we shall now turn.
 120 Language Curriculum Design

Three models of the change process, from Huberman (1973)

RD and D Problem-solving Social interaction

1 Invention or 1 Translation of 1 Awareness of

discovery of need to problem innovation
innovation

2 Development 2 Diagnosis of 2 Interest in it

(working out problems
problems)

3 Production and 3 Search and 3 Evaluation of its

packaging retrieval of appropriateness
information

4 Dissemination to 4 Adaptation of 4 Trial

mass audience innovation

5 Trial 5 Adoption for

permanent use

6 Evaluation of
trial in terms
of need
satisfaction

Emphasis on

Developer Receiver Communicator

Dissemination
Strategies

One-way media for Two-way involve¬ Variety of trans¬

information and ment between mission media
training sender and
receiver

Models of Innovation

The three main models of innovation, as described by Havelock (1971), have

been summarized on page 121. It is important to realize that these are models,
and therefore do not necessarily represent any actual state of affairs. Such
 Language Curriculum Design 121

models involve a simplification of actual events, and* it may be difficult to

match any particular instance with the characteristics of any one model. Even
so, these models do provide us with a scheme for helping to make sense of
innovation. I shall summarize each model in turn before discussing strategies
for innovation.

Research, Development, Diffusion/Dissemination!(RD and D)

The RD and D model has been regarded as a successful basis for develop¬
ment in such fields as agricultural innovation and the adoption of new
industrial processes. In a period in which the shortcomings of education were
criticized, the application of such a model to curriculum development had
obvious attractions and so during the 1960s and 1970s, large-scale, national
projects were established on an RD and D model, in the USA, Europe and
Australasia as well as in the newly emerging countries of Africa and Asia
(Skilbeck 1985). It is a model of innovation which coincides with the ideology
of reconstructionism, which emphasizes cultural renewal, improvement and
rational planning.

Basic k\
by
Applied \
Development
and testing
U\
\
Mass
production
research / research / and
0f n/
J"!Y prototypes ly packaging

Figure 8.2 The research, development and diffusion model

(from Havelock 1971)

Of the three models, this is the closest to an engineering approach to

innovation, as may be clear from the stages from which the model takes its
name and from figure 8.2, from Havelock (1971). Classically, a team is
assembled and it undertakes

needs assessment
specification of objectives
analysis of alternative strategies and treatments
choice among alternatives in field situations
continuing evaluation and refinement
production
dissemination and installation

Typically, such RD and D projects have devoted themselves to the production

of materials or the development of new methods, and the package,
conventionally in the form of published materials, is disseminated to the mass
122 Language Curriculum Design

audience who are the intended users of the innovation. In language teaching,
the Council of Europe Threshold Level is an instance of such an RD and D
model motivated by a reconstructionist ideology. Ministries of education in
both developed (e.g. the Netherlands) and developing countries (e.g.
Malaysia) have adopted or adapted the notional-functional basis of the T-
level in centrally controlled RD and D style innovation, and ministries as well
as commercial publishers have not been slow to produce appropriately
organized materials which can be disseminated and installed following either a
power-coercive or an empirical rational dissemination strategy.
Based on the assumption that there is a rational sequence of activities from
research, to development, to dissemination, the RD and D approach involves
a high level of initial development costs before dissemination takes place. It
also implies that planning on a large scale has occurred and the model
involves a division of labour, with a clear separation of roles and functions,
among which the consumer’s role is seen to be a passive one. Indeed, it is
assumed that because the user will be motivated by enlightened self-interest,
the innovation (typically either a new textbook or new methods, or both) will
be adopted with alacrity.
There are, however, problems with the RD and D model. Although it is
essentially a linear-sequence model, it has been suggested (Wrigley 1973) that
in education, research and development are never linear but are always
interactive. Also, while there is an implied separation of specialist-researcher
and teacher-user, in fact, the two may intermingle in development teams.
Furthermore,

Despite the verbal and at times ideological promulgation of RD and D,

in the UK setting it is difficult to find examples of large-scale
curriculum projects where there is at the beginning a substantial
research phase out of which emerges a design which ultimately provides
a product for widespread dissemination. (Skilbeck 1985:267)

Another problem arises over the dissemination and take-up of the product. In
a ‘free market’, in which teachers have an open choice, the RD and D body
may face the prospect of limited interest in and acceptance of their
product-an outcome not unknown to the publishing trade. Yet, in such a
free market setting, making use of the product mandatory will be
unacceptable, whereas in a system where teachers have no choice of materials
other than those specified by the ministry of education, dissemination and
take-up will be less of a problem, at least in terms of textbooks actually being
installed in the schools. Thus, in many countries where decisions regarding
language curricula are taken centrally, ELT textbooks sponsored by the
ministry of education are distributed throughout the system.
The tendency for such RD and D projects to be closely associated with
government may prove to be a limitation in several respects. Because such
projects tend to look to central funding for finance, and because such central
 Language Curriculum Design 123

funding almost inevitably derives from government, questions of control can

arise together with difficulties stemming from the tendency of governments to
be less rather than more generous with funding. Ultimately, of course,
government can withdraw financial support altogether, as happened in Britain
with the Schools Council in the early 1980s. Another problem with the close
association of such centrally funded development bodies with government is
that they may be viewed simply as a creature of government. If, too, the
teacher is regarded as a passive consumer, the situation can become
politicized, with rejection on one side and attempts at coercion on the other.
Perhaps, however, the most important constraint on the effectiveness of an
RD and D strategy is the lack of what Rogers (1983) calls homophily between
change agents and clients. Homophily is ‘the degree to which pairs of
individuals who interact are similar in certain attributes’ (Rogers 1983:26).
Heterophily ‘is the degree to which pairs of individuals who interact are
different in certain attributes, such as beliefs, education, social status, and the
like.’ As Rogers notes, the relationship between change agents and clients,
when characterized by heterophily, limits the diffusion process. In ELT, such
a situation frequendy arises when the change agent (such as an expatriate
project leader or a school inspector based in an urban office) who is associated
with a centralized diffusion agency, is seen belong to a different world from
the teachers who are required to take up the innovation.
It would not be right, though, to conclude that the RD and D model is
entirely inappropriate and has no further use. Large-scale RD and D can
provide important insights and can have - indeed has had - valuable spin-offs.
It would be quite irrational to deny the beneficial influence of the Council of
Europe’s T-level project, for instance, or to denigrate the centrally developed
and disseminated publications which have been stimulated by this initiative. In
all cases, though, experience shows that no proposal for action will ever be
realized unchanged, as is well demonstrated by the variety of materials
claiming to be either notional-functional or communicative in basis which
have appeared all over the world since the mid 1970s.

The Problem-solving Model

In the problem-solving model of innovation (see figure 8.3 from Havelock

1971) can be seen an expression of progressivism and the approach to
curriculum development advocated by Stenhouse, who takes the view that all
teachers should assume some responsibility for researching their classroom
work and that this is an important part of the teacher’s professionalism. A
problem-solving approach is also at the basis of action research, whose aim is
to make use of research in modifying and improving curriculum practice, thus
having a direct relationship to innovation and reform. Indeed, the term
‘action’ research embodies the aims of this approach-the commitment to
action, to the elimination of problems and to the growth of practical
124 Language Curriculum Design

Figure 8.3 The problem-solving model

(from Havelock 1971)

understanding and the improvement of practice - while the focus of action

research is on the identification of problems by teachers themselves rather
than on those defined by an outside consultant or change agent.
The first stage in the problem-solving model involves problem identification
in a highly specific manner, the users’ needs being paramount in this process:
what the users think they need is the primary concern of any would-be
consultant or helper and the diagnosis of their needs has to be an integral part
of the total process. The outside change agent should be non-directive and
adopts the role of counsellor rather than instigator or director, since it is
believed that self- (or client-)initiated innovation will have the strongest user
commitment and the best chances for long-term survival - a point emphasized
by Everard and Morris, citing Lavelle (1984), who has noted that innovation is
more likely to be successful when perceived as necessary by those in the
school, rather than by outsiders.
Such an approach means that innovations are likely to be highly appropriate
to the context in which they occur, but there is the danger that a head teacher
and staff can impose their own values on the school. Furthermore, there are
limitations to the technical skill of teachers, particularly in terms of research
skills. However, the application of action research methods may overcome
such limitations, particularly as action research involves the planned and
systematic collection of appropriate forms of data and not just a muddle and
impressionistic gathering of evidence. Also, action research aims to improve
practice by stimulating reflection upon action in the light of theory derived
from practice. We shall return to such questions in the final chapter when
discussing evaluation.
 Language Curriculum Design 125

Within the context of current ideological concerns, the problem-solving

model is closely allied to both the process and situational models of
curriculum described in chapter 3, while, with its emphasis on a bottom-up
rather than top-down approach, it fits in with much contemporary thinking on
the importance of school-based and teacher-initiated research and
development. Furthermore, in the ELT context, Holliday (1983) has applied
many features of the problem-solving model to ESP curriculum development
in a way which has drawn attention to the importance of carefully basing any
ELT curriculum initiatives in the local context.

The Social Interaction Model

By its very name, the third model highlights the influence and importance of
social relations in the transmission and adoption of innovation. Within the
social network, communication and the communicator are key factors, while
the role of the change agent is also significant.
In this model (see figure 8.4 from Havelock 1971), the individual user or
adopter belongs to a network of social relations which largely influence his or
her adopter behaviour. The place of the adopter within the network is a good
predictor of the rate of acceptance of new ideas. Briefly, the more central the
adopter is within the network, the higher the rate of acceptance. Informal
personal contact is a vital part of the influence and adoption process (Rogers
1983), so such a model of innovation will match a decentralized system of
management in which influence rather than coercion is the means whereby
new ideas and practices are disseminated and taken up.
Group membership and reference group identification are major predictors
126 Language Curriculum Design

Figure 8.5 Research, development and diffusion takes place in a social context
(from Havelock 1971)

of individual adoption, while the presence of an opinion leader (Rogers 1983)

and the relation of the leader to the group is also important. (An opinion
leader is the kind of individual of whom people say, ‘If so-and-so thinks it’s
good, it must be OK.’) The rate of diffusion through a social system follows a
predictable S-shaped curve pattern (see chapter 9), during which the stages of
awareness, interest, evaluation, trial and eventual adoption are followed.
The social-interaction model may well be an appropriate way of accounting
for the diffusion of some innovations in ELT, although the diffusion process
in this field awaits study and explanation. The role of opinion leaders in the
profession, teachers’ centres, informal local groupings and professional
organizations (such as TESOL and IATEFL) will all have their place in
developing the kind of networks described by Havelock (1971), whereby users
and resource persons are put in contact so that the benefits of innovations
resulting from RD and D can be diffused to would-be users; or, through
collaboration and helping projects, a change agent can assist users to identify
and resolve their own problems, following a problem-solving model.
In figure 8.5, Havelock (1971) illustrates how the flow of knowledge from
research to practice takes place via social networks, rather than through a
series of logical steps, while Rogers (1983) has shown how dissemination fol¬
lows cliques and social networks. What figure 8.5 does not make clear is what
Havelock himself emphasizes (1971:42), that ‘social interaction is not merely a
matter of passively receiving from others; it is also a matter of give-and-take,
of mutual influence and two-way communications.’ The reciprocal nature of
dissemination and the non-passive role of client or user are features which
would-be language curriculum innovators are unwise to ignore (Fullan 1982).

Strategies of Innovation
From models of innovation, we now turn to innovation strategies, the
assumptions which underlie them and the limitations and benefits which each
 Language Curriculum Design 127
might offer. No doubt anyone who has been involved with innovation in
language teaching - whether at classroom or managerial level - will recognize
aspects of each model. The three strategies concerned have been proposed by
Chin and Benne (1976), and, like the models of innovation, they are an
idealization and do not necessarily represent what actually occurs in any given
innovatory process. What can be gained from summarizing these models is
alerting would-be language curriculum innovators to the assumptions which
underlie their own approaches to innovation, thus helping them avoid some of
the problems which can arise when a given strategy is adopted. It may also
become clear that certain strategies are more likely to evolve in some contexts
than others, and that one of the problems may derive not just from the
innovation itself but from the attempts to employ an innovatory strategy which
does not readily match characteristics of the context - part of the ‘ecological’
issue noted by Holliday (1980, 1983) and the sociopolitical factors discussed
by Markee (1986) in their accounts of innovation management in ESP.
The three strategies are

Power-Coercive
Empirical- Rational
Normative-Re-educative

Power-Coercive

The first type of innovation strategy is based on the application of power in

some form - political or otherwise. Knowledge is seen as a major ingredient of
power, and knowledgeable people are viewed as legitimate sources of power,
with the desirable flow of power being from those who know to those who do
not through processes of education and the dissemination of valid
information. Where there is resistance or reluctance, political and economic
sanctions as well as moral force may be used, and where there is anything like
differentiation of opinion or power within a society or organization, this
strategy tends to be divisive.
One of the attractions of a power-coercive strategy is its simplicity and ease
of use where the innovation is supported or proposed by those in authority,
such as the head teacher or departmental head. However, coercive power is ‘a
decreasingly effective strategy for gaining real commitment’, although as
Everard and Morris (1985:223) point out, ‘there are times when it helps to
overcome initial resistance, and it can then give way to more acceptable and
enduring methods of winning hearts and minds.’
Persistence in applying a power-coercive strategy may lead to opposition by
some, who can adopt the same strategy in retaliation. The result is non¬
productive conflict and power competition.
A power-coercive strategy is likely to go hand-in-hand with a so-called
‘Theory X’ management style (McGregor 1960) ‘which is seen in the
128 Language Curriculum Design

autocratic behaviour of the individual who enforces his own pre-determined

decisions by manipulative means which compel alienative or calculative
responses in others’ (Paisey 1981:114). We shall consider the relationship of
management style with innovation strategies in chapter 9. Meanwhile, let us
turn to the second innovation strategy: the empirical-rational.

Empirical-Rational

This approach, as its name suggests, is based on two main assumptions:

1 That people are rational;

2 That people will follow their rational self-interest once this has been
revealed to them.

A change is proposed by an individual or group which knows of a situation

that is desirable, effective and in line with the self-interest of the individual or
organization concerned. Because people are assumed to be rational and
motivated by self-interest, it is also assumed that those concerned will adopt
the proposed change if it can be rationally justified and if they wiil gain by the
change. As Everard and Morris (1985:171) observe,

The first reason why those who initiate change often fail to secure a
successful conclusion to their dreams is that they tend to be too rational.
They develop in their minds a clear, coherent vision of where they want
to be at, and they assume that all they have to do is to spell out the logic
to the world in words of one syllable, and then everyone will be
immediately motivated to follow the lead.

And they quote a characteristically acerbic rebuff to such a notion from

George Bernard Shaw (p. 171): ‘“Reformers have the idea that change can be
achieved by brute sanity.’”
Chin and Benne (1976:30) point out that ‘a clearer view of the process of
diffusion must include the actions of the receiver as well as those of the trans¬
mitter in the transactional events which are the units of the diffusion process.’
It is therefore essential to take account of the receivers’ perception of things;
not to do so is to risk failure. Indeed, the empirical-rational strategy assumes a
relatively passive recipient of input, and in this, together with inadequate
attention given to communication difficulties and role conflicts, lies one of its
main limitations. Furthermore, the empirical-rational approach has evolved
within bureaucratically organized enterprises which are characterized by a role
culture (Handy 1978), in which the organization’s purposes are given priority
and there are codified procedures for carrying out roles and functions. Finally,
empirical-rational strategies have been concerned more with the diffusion of
‘thing’ than ‘people’ technologies, which, as will have become clear, do not
 Language Curriculum Design 129

really match the requirements of educational systems.

The feeling that the empirical-rational approach is inappropriate in
education is cogendy summed up by Nicholls (1983:33): ‘The fact that many
educational innovations exist which can be shown to offer certain advantages
but which are not taken up by teachers suggest that empirical-rational
strategies are not appropriate in all cases.’ Such a conclusion does not mean
that attempts at introducing innovation should entirely abandon an empirical-
rational basis. Indeed, Everard and Morris (1985:171) make the point ‘that
rationality has to be applied not only to defining the end of change, but also
the means' Furthermore, as Barrow (1984:225) observes, perhaps rather
optimistically, ‘it is easier to sell a well-thought-out plan to those with
requisite understanding than it is either to sell such people an ill-thought-out
plan, or to sell the well-thought-out plan to those without understanding.’
In any case, there will usually be stages in an innovatory process during
which an appeal to the rational self-interest of teachers (and learners) will be
both necessary and effective. Furthermore, in contexts where initiatives are
expected to come from a central authority - as in a RD and D model - an
empirical-rational strategy may encounter less resistance than an approach
which conflicts with traditional roles and expectations. In practical terms, an
empirical-rational strategy will take the form of directives, seminars,
newsletters and resource or teachers’ centres through which teachers are
informed of innovations. The introduction of new syllabuses and textbooks by
a ministry of education may be promoted by an empirical-rational strategy,
whose appeal to the academic administrator is obvious.
However, an empirical-rational approach will have to be supplemented by
other strategies if an innovation - such as a new textbook - is to be effectively
installed, and it is to the third of these strategies that we now turn.

Normative-Re-educative

At the basis of the normative-re-educative model is the assumption that

people are self-activating and non-passive. As rational and intelligent beings,
people must participate in their own re-education, which involves normative
as well as cognitive and perceptual changes. Normative change wiil involve
alteration in attitudes, values, skills and significant relationships. It will
involve, therefore, more than changes in the knowledge, information and
beliefs that inform action and practice. In other words, the implementation of
changes in teachers’ practices will involve changing their own theory of
teaching. Without such changes, change will be superficial and short-lived.
Normative-re-educative approaches involve direct interventions by change
agents. Such interventions are based on a consciously worked out theory
of change and of changing and they involve intervention in the life of the
client system, whether that system is a person, a small group, an organization
130 Language Curriculum Design

or a community. There are common elements to normative-re-educative

approaches.
Firstly, there is an emphasis on the clients’ system and the clients’
involvement in working out programmes of change and improvements for
themselves. In education, this means that teachers are involved in planning
and introducing change - they assume the role of change agents. Secondly,
the problem the clients face is not assumed automatically to be one that can
be met by more adequate technical information, though such a possibility is
not ignored. The problem may lie in the values, norms and the external and
internal relationships of the client system and may require alteration or re¬
education of these as a condition of solving the problem.
In language teaching, improvements in results may not follow the provision
of courses on more effective methodology or other revisions to curriculum. If
the problem is inherent in some aspect of the organization - such as streaming
by ability levels, timetabling of classes, power relationships between staff
members - the provision of more technical information is unlikely to have an
ameliorating effect because the problem is not one which can be solved by
such information. It is a case of an inappropriate solution being applied to the
wrong problem.
The third feature of normative-re-educative approaches is that the change
agent must learn to intervene mutually and collaboratively along with the
client into efforts to define and solve the clients’ problem(s). Clearly, such
intervention requires tact, skill and confidence. If the change agent is an
outsider, commissioned to intervene, he or she will need to be fully briefed on
the situation. If there are internal conflicts or schisms, the change agent will
have to take care to identify them and not be recruited to one side or another.
If the change agent is an insider, the dangers of being identified with a
particular interest or power group are obvious, and it will take considerable
care to avoid being so identified. Partly for this reason, it is a good idea to
have an outside change agent since they are more readily viewed as neutral.
Finally, both change agent and clients have a wide range of resources to
draw upon in bringing about change. It is important that these resources are
used selectively, relevantly and with care in learning to deal with the problem
which they face and with problems of a similar kind in the future. Some
techniques for raising people’s awareness and sharing problems can be very
effective; but they can also get out of control or raise further problems which
can have uncalled-for side effects. Thus, the change agent and clients have to
choose with care from the various options which are open to them.
The implications of this are emphasized by Chin and Benne (1976:33):

These approaches center in the notion that people technology is just as

necessary as thing technology in working out desirable changes in
human affairs. Put in this bold fashion, it is obvious that for the
normative-re-educative change agent, clarification and reconstruction of
values is of pivotal importance in changing. By getting the values of
 Language Curriculum Design 131

various parts of the client system along with his own, openly into the
arena of change and by working through value and conflicts responsibly,
the change agent seeks to avoid manipulation and indoctrination of the
client, in the morally reprehensible meanings of these terms.

As to the effectiveness of normative-re-educative approaches, Nicholls

(1983:33) points out that

there is some evidence to support the claim that normative-re-educative

strategies are the most lasting and most self-sustaining forms of
innovation, particularly when outside consultants are used, but they are
time-consuming and difficult and require knowledge and skills that
might not be present in all schools and so might initially necessitate
some form of external support.

On a practical level, adopting a normative-re-educative strategy will require

two things: an awareness by members of an organization that there is an issue
(or problem) which calls for a solution; and the ability to call upon an outside
adviser or change agent who can work together with members of the
organization to achieve a solution. In some situations, the outsider is already a
member of the organization by virtue of being imported as part of a
development or aid programme. In others, the adviser can be recruited by
seeking advice from a teachers’ centre or similar body. In either case, the
legitimacy of the adviser-change agent must derive from the organization
itself. Attempts to impose legitimacy are almost certain to be unsuccessful.

Conclusion

Many proposals for change in the existing curriculum will be proposals for
innovation. Decisions for innovation may be prompted by a number of stimuli;
but once such decisions have been made, the implementation of the
innovation will be subject to influences from within the education system in
which it is to be installed. Since any educational organization exists only by
virtue of the people who constitute it, proposals for innovation will inevitably
involve the members of that system.
Proposals for innovation will come from a change agent and will involve a
user or users. The implementation of an innovation will involve organizational
changes, which in turn require negotiation among members of the
organization to provide the conditions in which the innovation will be
accepted.
Three models of the innovatory process have been proposed: RD and D,
problem-solving and social interaction. The RD and D model tends to involve
large-scale change, with centralized research, development and diffusion
agencies. The problem-solving model is more localized in application,
132 Language Curriculum Design

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 Language Curriculum Design 133

emphasizing the definition and solution of problems which arise within

individual institutions rather than across a complete system. The social
interaction model emphasizes the role of the individual within a network of
social and professional relationships in which personal influence provides a
means whereby innovation is disseminated.
Models of innovation have their counterparts in strategies of innovation.
Again, three models are proposed: power-coercive, empirical-rational and
normative-re-educative. The power-coercive model is based on the manipu¬
lation of power which derives from the possession of knowledge and is likely
to be linked to an autocratic style of management.
The empirical-rational model is based on the belief that people will act
according to their rational perception of the benefits of an innovation.
Associated with a ‘role’ organizational culture, in which there are established
and prescribed modes of procedure, the empirical-rational model has the
attraction of clarity and simplicity.
The normative-re-educative model involves a collaborative venture on the
part of change agent and client, in which they work together in defining and
meeting the client’s needs. Innovation is seen to involve more than superficial
or imposed change. It is recognized as involving changes in people’s values
and attitudes as well as practices, and it is only when these underlying aspects
are engaged that innovation will be effective.
The relationship between curriculum ideologies, language syllabuses and
methodologies, and innovatory models is summarized in figure 8.6. From the
point of view of contemporary language teaching, it is reconstructionism and
progressivism and their associated models which are of most relevance. It will
be noted that I have indicated a power-coercive innovation strategy could be
used in the dissemination of language curriculum proposals based on a
reconstructionist ideology. In fact, different strategies will be appropriate to
and may be used under different circumstances.
On the whole, though, innovations which are identified by the users
themselves (rather than specified by an outside change agent) will be more
effectively and durably installed than those which are imported from outside,
since it is the teachers and students themselves who will have ‘ownership’ of
and commitment to the innovation concerned if it has a grass roots or bottom-
up rather than a top-down origin. For this reason, a problem-solving model
and a normative-re-educative approach to innovation will probably be the
most successful combination, in language teaching as elsewhere.

Suggested Reading

Innovation Studies
Rogers (in collaboration with Schoemaker) is one of the main authorities in
the field, and the third edition of his book Diffusion of Innovations (1983) is
134 Language Curriculum Design

fundamental reading. Although many of his examples are not from education,
they illustrate basic points which apply in all fields, while his account of the
failure of curriculum innovation in Troy School, Ohio, provides an important
lesson to anyone concerned with introducing change into a school.
Within education, innovation has a growing body of literature, and a good
way of entering the fielc| is to read Nicholls, Managing Educational Innovations
(1983), who draws on earlier publications by Miles (1963), Innovation in
Education, and Gross, Giacquinta and Bernstein (1971), Implementing
Organizational Innovations, in which the fully documented account of
‘Cambire’ school includes the questionnaires that were used for staff
interviews. Havelock (1971), and Bennis, Benne, Chin and Corey (1976)
outline models and strategies of innovation. A salutary discussion, entitled
‘Innovation - bandwagon or hearse?’, by Nisbet (1974) draws attention to
some of the unexpected consequences of change.
A comprehensive critical review of the literature on implementing
educational change has been carried out by Hurst (1983), while Fullan (1982)
has produced a stimulating and authoritative account which must be regarded
as a key reading in the field. A collection of papers dealing with curriculum
change, including Skilbeck’s account of three educational ideologies, Dalin’s
summary of strategies of innovation, Havelock’s (1971) paper and Nisbet’s
(1974) discussion, has been edited by Harris, Lawn and Prescott (1985). In
addition, there is another collection edited by Horton and Raggatt (1982) for
the Open University.
Helpful discussions on the management of change appear in section 3 of
Everard and Morris (1985), Effective School Management and chapter 7 of
Rowntree’s Educational Technology in Curriculum Development. A package of
materials for in-service training on innovation is contained in Making School-
centred INSET Work, Code P536, the Open University. This package contains
a video case-study of curriculum innovation, which makes an excellent basis
for a workshop in association with readings from the relevant chapters of
Everard and Morris and Rowntree.

Innovation in ELT

For accounts dealing with ELT innovation, see ELT Documents 116, Language
Teaching Projects for the Third World (British Council 1983) as well as Dunford
House Seminar Report 1985, Communication Skills Training in Bilateral Aid
Projects (British Council, 1986). Proposals for ELT Innovation with respect to
INSET in a very poor third world country have been outlined by Kouraoeo
(1987).
Although ESP specialists, Holliday and Cooke (1982) make effective use of
a horticultural metaphor to discuss the issues involved in ensuring that ELT
programmes take root, while Markee (1986a and b) draws attention to the
sociopolitical context of programme development on the one hand and the
development of ‘an appropriate technology’ of course development on the
 Language Curriculum Design 135

other. Another relevant paper is Kennedy’s article, ‘Innovation for a change’

(1987), which relates strategies of innovation to ELT curriculum development.
Two discussions which centre on the problems of innovation in ELT
methodology and syllabus design respectively are Hutchinson and Klepac
(1982) and Tongue and Gibbons (1983). Vivid accounts of the problems of
innovation as they affect ELT teachers are provided by Early and Bolitho
(1981), Kirwan and Swales (1981), Medgyes (1983, 1986) and Smit (1979).
They make interesting reading in conjunction with Rudduck (1973 and 1984).
The Graded Objectives Movement in Britain has spawned a number of
locally based initiatives in curriculum renewal, while the Schools Development
Council’s National Writing Project uses a combination of centrally organized
support for locally based groups of teachers. For GOMLT, refer to the Centre
for Information on Language Teaching, Regent’s College, Inner Circle,
Regent’s Park, London NW1 4NS, while for information on the Writing
Project, write to Newcome House, 45 Notting Hill Gate, London W11 3JB.
9 Innovation: Managing
and Evaluating

Introduction

Curriculum development or renewal and the decision to design and imple¬

ment a new language syllabus are aspects of innovation. Indeed, the decision
to alter existing syllabuses or to develop new curricula - especially decisions to
adopt new aims (or ends) and new methods (or means) - is a decision for
innovation. Such innovations can, as we have seen, be stimulated by various
motives, which can range from a desire for higher efficiency to a wish for
greater individual development. It is as well to realize that any attempts to
bring about curriculum changes in ELT are essentially essays in innovation
and consequently, in the discussion which follows, language syllabus design
and curriculum development will tend to be used synonymously.
Although, as Barrow (1984:224) observes, ‘The truth is that there are no
correct or easy answers to the question of how change should be implemented
(that is why models are misleading and unhelpful)’, it seems to me that to
ignore the accumulated wisdom on the management of change in organizations
is to risk making the very mistakes others have made in the past - and which,
through ignorance, continue to be made. So, while there are no correct or
easy answers, there are some guidelines which the language curriculum
innovator or syllabus designer would be well advised to consider when
involved in the management of change, and it these which form the subject of
this chapter.

Models of innovation Strategies of innovation Organizational culture

RD and D Empirical-rational Club/Power

Power-coercive Role

Problem solving Normative re-educative Task

Person

Figure 9.1 Innovation and context

(Handy 1978)
 Innovation: Managing and Evaluating 137
Context

Innovations do not occur in isolation; they take place in a context. Schools, as

organizations, constitute the major context in which innovations will be
installed, so it is worth giving some attention to the culture of organizations,
especially as organizational culture, innovation strategy and models of
innovation will probably be interrelated, as I summarize in figure 9.1.

Handy (1978:186f.) describes four organizational ‘cultures’:

Club or Power
Role
Task
Person

A club or power culture is like a spider’s web, with a central power source or
authority figure, from whom influence radiates. (The owner-managed
language school is a representative of this type.) A role culture is one in which
the organization is a collection of roles or job boxes. Individuals are ‘role
occupants’, with job descriptions which effectively lay down the require¬
ments of the role. Role cultures are managed rather than led, in contrast to
the club or power culture. (Language schools which are part of a large chain
will tend towards a role culture.)
Task cultures are job-or project-oriented. A group or team of talents and
resources are applied to a project, problem or task, each task getting the
treatment it requires, since, unlike a role culture, there is no standardization
of procedures across the organization. Similarly, in a person culture, there is
no standardization, structure is minimal, and individual talents are given
priority. (Development units within a language school, or co-operatives
specializing in tailor-made courses, will be characterized by a task or person
culture.)
Few organizations are restricted to only one culture, since most are a
mixture of all four. ‘What makes each organization different,’ says Handy
(1985:13), ‘is the mix they choose. What makes them successful is, often,
getting the right mix at the right time.’ Discussing the organizational culture
of British schools, Handy suggests that, although members of secondary
schools may think of themselves as ocupying a task culture, such schools are
predominantly role cultures, while a primary (or elementary) school is a task
culture. He also points out that large secondary schools may be ‘afflicted by a
sort of organizational schizophrenia’, with a demand for role culture products
while valuing a person culture ethos.
Such organizational schizophrenia may, indeed, be found in a school or an
educational system characterized by plural value systems and, consequently,
different organizational ideologies or cultures, in various parts of the
138 Innovation: Managing and Evaluating

organization. It is commonplace for ELT teachers to express an awareness of

conflicting sentiments when comparing their own aims and means with those
of teachers in other parts of the system, and it is not difficult to see how
conflict can arise from a difference of cultures within one and the same
organization. Such conflicts are exacerbated when there are more profound
cultural differences arising from a mixture of nationalities - a not uncommon
feature of ELT organizations, which, by their very nature, tend towards such
diversity.
As far as innovations are concerned, they are more likely to arise in some
organizational cultures than in others. Thus, organizations having task and
person cultures provide a productive context for innovation, whereas a role
culture, with its emphasis on routinized procedures, is less likely to be
innovative. In a club or power culture, innovations will arise, but they will
come from the centre and may depend for their success on the influence of
the individual innovator or change agent.
Clearly, a centre-periphery style of innovation harnessed to a power-
coercive strategy is likely to emerge in a power culture, whereas an RD and D
style fits more readily within a role culture where the kind of role
specialization characteristic of this model finds a natural home. By contrast, a
problem-solving model linked to be a normative-re-educative strategy is likely
to arise within a task culture.
A successful organization - whether educational or commercial - is charac¬
terized by innovativeness because, of course, innovativeness and adaptability
to changing circumstances go hand-in-hand. Successful organizations are
biased towards action and they avoid stultification by developing and changing
rather than remaining routinized and standardized. Innovativeness is also
associated with autonomy and entrepreneurship: ‘Excellent organizations
encourage ideas and never kill a likely one until it is tried out. Above all, they
foster communication and the infectious spread of ideas and they never
penalize failure if it is learnt from’ (Handy 1985:29). As Miles (1964) notes, a
healthy organization exhibits problem-solving adequacy. To this we might add
that the healthy and successful organization is good at identifying new
problems and setting people to work on them, a characteristic commented
upon by Handy (1985:27), who says that ‘Problem-finding is often a more
creative and difficult task than problem-solving. It does not mean looking for
problems for the sake of it; it does mean discerning key opportunities for the
advancement of the organization.’
And such advancement will almost always mean innovation. In the school
context, this means curriculum renewal of some sort.
Finally, a key factor noted in the literature on innovation management in all
organizations is communication. In the context of ELT curriculum develop¬
ment context, Bowers (1983:115) points out the importance of communication
in his account of the Ain Shams project.
 Innovation: Managing and Evaluating 139

Time

Figure 9.2 The innovation adoption curve

(from Huberman 1973)

Not only does the project team ... need to communicate with the
administrators and financial authorities upon whom the success of the
project largely rests, as well as with those directly affected by the project
(the teachers, the trainers, etc.). In addition, a project team needs to
communicate within itself-to clarify the different preoccupations and
preconceptions and values which individual members hold. ... Too
often, a team is set to work without the time for this professional
familiarization, the opportunity to identify varying interests and strengths
and put them to work in the context of the programme. And failure to
recognize these differences of standpoint can lead to dissension later.

The same point is stressed by Nicholls (1983:75), who observes that

innovation is also likely to provoke conflict, which will not disappear simply
because it is ignored: ‘However, the creation of a climate in which ideas can
be discussed openly, criticized and rejected, while those putting forward the
ideas are accepted within the group, is more likely to lead to successful
innovation.’ This view is remarkably reminiscent of the activities and attitudes
which Stenhouse’s humanities curriculum project set out to develop in the
classroom, and of which process syllabus advocates in ELT also approve. In
short, that which applies to the classroom should also characterize the staff
room.

Stages in Innovation
The dissemination and adoption of an innovation - in language teaching as
elsewhere — follows an S-shaped curve (figure 9.2). There is an early stage
during which a very small percentage of innovators decide to introduce the
new idea. This is followed by a second stage, during which the early adopters,
who have noted that the innovation produces no harmful effects, take on the
innovation. During the middle stage, the majority adopt quickly, influenced
140 Innovation: Managing and Evaluating

mainly by the innovators. At a late stage, the laggards or late adopters finally
give in. A minority who never adopt lie outside the curve.
The stages represented in this S-shaped curve been summarized by Rogers
(1962), as follows:

awareness
interest
evaluation
trial
adoption or discontinuance.

In the final stage, Rogers allows for acceptance or rejection, since it is not
necessarily the case that an innovation will be taken up. Miles (1964) also
provides for either possibility in a series of stages: awareness, indifference/
interest, denial/evaluation and trial, and he lists a number of forms and causes
of rejection, including ignorance, the feeling that other things are equally as
good, and such personal factors as uncertainty or fear.

Characteristics of Innovations

Rogers (1983:15-16) has emphasized that it is the receiver’s perceptions of

the attributes of innovations that affect their rate of adoption, and he has
proposed a number of characteristics of innovations, as perceived by potential
adopters, which are positively related to adoption rate:

1 Relative advantage
2 Compatability
3 Trialability
4 Observability
5 Degree of interconnectedness (i.e. interpersonal networks) in a social
system
6 Complexity.

The final characteristic (6) is negatively related to adoption rate. No doubt all
of these will strike a chord with anyone who has been concerned with almost
any form of curriculum innovation in ELT. The fact is, of course, that some
innovations are more trialable and observable than others. Video and group
work are cases in point. Others, such as the introduction of a completely new
syllabus or textbook, may be supported on the grounds of relative advantage
(e.g. it will meet student needs more effectively than the existing syllabus), but
may be less supportable on the grounds of trialability, since the evaluation of
new syllabuses and textbooks is necessarily a lengthy process.
The question of compatibility will be applicable especially to teaching
 Innovation: Managing and Evaluating 141

methods and classroom organization. A new method which requires radical

reorganization of classroom procedures will tend to be less readily welcomed
than one which demands fewer changes of this kind. Finally, the more
complex an innovation, the less acceptable it will be. Thus, a language
teaching innovation which calls for complex organizational arrangements (e.g.
replanning timetables and introducing the use of multi-media, resource packs
and diverse classroom groupings) is a recipe for rejection.

Trump's Five-Step Innovation Sequence

Trump (1967) has proposed a systematic five-step sequence:

1 Analyse co-operatively reasons for present practices;

2 Discover what people want that is different from what they are doing;
3 Make tentative decisions about the priority of proposed changes;
4 Plan the innovation carefully in terms of teacher preparation, student
preparation, procedures to be followed and the anticipated effects of the
innovation;
5 Determine the times and techniques for evaluation.

As Trump’s list is concerned with educational innovation, and because it

reflects essentially the same sequence of stages outlined in Skilbeck’s
Situational Model of curriculum development, it constitutes a useful agenda
for planning and implementing a new language syllabus, materials, methods of
assessment, or teaching methodology. Also, it emphasizes the collaborative,
consultative character of the innovation process, and thus matches the
precepts of the normative-re-educative strategy and the problem-solving
model of innovation already discussed.

Management and Innovation

As will have become clear in the previous sections, management, both as a

process and as a section of an organization, is important in implementing
innovation - of which language curriculum renewal is, by definition, an
instance. Although both the theory and study of management in educational
organizations is in a formative phase (cf. Bush 1986), such studies as have
been made so far (e.g. Bell et al. 1984, Gross et al. 1971, Nicholls 1983,
Rogers 1983) demonstrate the importance of good organizational management
in successful innovation. Indeed, it is effective management that provides the
circumstances whereby innovation will arise, be taken up and successfully
installed.
Innovation can occur in two different circumstances. In the first, it arises
within an organization in response to the needs identified by members of the
142 Innovation: Managing and Evaluating

organization (though possibly, as I have noted in the discussion of the

problem-solving model of curriculum development, with an outside consultant
or adviser.) Typically, in such circumstances, someone within the organization
will have identified a need for a new language syllabus or for changes in
teaching methodology and will put forward proposals for change.
In the second, proposals for innovation occur when an outside or a
superordinate agency defines and proposes the innovation, as happens in
centrally organized curriculum projects or in those which are established as
part of aid packages, of which Key English Language Teaching (KELT)
projects are an example. Such proposals will usually be in the form of revised
or newly created language syllabuses with or without new materials. In either
case, the management and administration of a school or educational system
will play a crucial role, since even bottom-up grass roots innovation will
require forms of support which can only be provided by superordinate top-
down parts of the system. Thus, an initiative developed by staff in a school
can be nipped in the bud if the inspectorate disapproves, if extra resources are
not forthcoming or if there are no rewards (in terms of promotion, pay,
increased job satisfaction or other opportunities) for the innovators.
In either situation, as Gross et al. (1971) point out, only management is
likely to have a whole view of the process; management must remain in close
touch with things throughout, and they warn against assuming that an
innovation has been adopted once it has been introduced - a common, but
erroneous, assumption made by administrators in bureaucratic systems. Gross
etal. (1971:210-11) also suggest that subordinates have a right to expect
management to do certain things:

1 To take the steps necessary to provide them with a clear picture of their
new role requirements;
2 To adjust organizational arrangements to make them compatible with
the innovation;
3 To provide subordinates with necessary retraining experiences, which
will be required if the capabilities for coping with the difficulties of
implementing the innovation are to develop;
4 To provide the resources necessary to carry out the innovation;
5 To provide the appropriate supports and rewards to maintain
subordinates’ willingness to make implementational efforts.

The history of curriculum innovation in ELT is littered with instances of lack

of success arising from the failure of management (whether at school or
national level) to carry out the actions listed above.
In addition to making these provisions, an educational manager should

1 Take account of difficulties which teachers will probably be exposed to

when they attempt to implement the innovation.
 Innovation: Managing and Evaluating 143

2 Provide for feedback mechanisms to identify and cope with barriers and
problems arising during the period of attempted implementation.

Concluding their list of management responsibilities, Gross et al. (1971:215)

say that ‘The implementation of educational innovations, in short, not only
requires alterations in behaviour expected of teachers but also changes in the
role performance of management.’ Implementational efforts can lead to
frustration if obstacles are encountered and management does little or nothing
to help overcome them. A consequence of the frustration which develops
under such circumstances is that people who were initially favourable towards
the innovation ‘develop a negative orientation’. Once this happens, it is very
difficult to retrieve the situation, as their own study illustrates and as will be
attested by anyone who has tried to implement an innovation in ELT under
circumstances where implementational efforts have been frustrated by
inadequate management support.

A Systematic Approach

Managing innovation, which involves setting up and implementing new policy,

is a highly complex business, and the numerous theories of management in
general and of educational management in particular provide only a partial
view of the process. Some models of educational innovation are believed to
work better or to be more appropriate to some circumstances than others.
Also, variations in organizational culture and school climate can provide
contexts which may be more or less helpful to innovation. And we shall see
that while rational models of management may provide a normative basis for
action, actual practice tends to be less rational.
Here, then, we have a conflict. On the one hand, management principles
stress the importance of trying to be reasonably systematic and rational in
running any organization. Consultation and good communication, whereby all
members of an organization are involved, are constantly stressed as being
important. Clarifying goals, setting standards, monitoring progress are all
aspects of good management, which in turn will help to sustain appropriate
conditions for the continuing good health and adaptability of the organization
in responding to environmental changes.
On the other hand, there are factors which inhibit rationality. The
subjective views of members of an institution necessarily mean that there are
many different perceptions of reality. Interest groups, coalitions and shifts of
power mean that political factors may outweigh rational considerations. In
addition, the sheer complexity of an organization - and especially one of any
considerable size - enormously complicates the process of management.
Should we, then, give up entirely any attempt to approach the management of
policy change and innovation in a rational way? Should we simply abandon any
attempt to control affairs with a modicum of systematicity? And should we
144 Innovation: Managing and Evaluating

ignore the lessons that can be learnt from experience and the accumulated
wisdom of management theorists and practitioners? I would like to suggest
that the answer is ‘no’, and that we should try to be at least moderately
systematic in any approach to curriculum innovation.
In applying a systematic approach to introducing an innovation, we could
begin to clarify our aims by describing what it is we hope to achieve. The
clarification of aims can be thought of in three aspects. Firstly, we should ask
ourselves the following questions:

‘What is the innovation?’

Is it an innovation in hardware, software, materials, methods, forms of
assessment, etc.?

‘What do we mean by the terms that we use?’

For instance, what do we mean by functional or communicative or task-based
learning?

‘Why are we carrying out this innovation?’

Are we carrying it out because other stake-holders have told us to; or is it in
response to problems that have arisen through a drop in student
motivation or achievement; or is it to relieve teachers’ boredom; or what?

‘What is it for?’
Is it to improve learning in particular skills; is it to raise examination
performance; etc.?

‘Who is it for?’
Is it for the benefit of students or teachers? Is it for clients and sponsors?
Who are the intended beneficiaries of the change?

‘Do we actually need it?’

Can we really justify the innovation in terms of improvements and cost?

‘What justifications are there for it?’

Can we give a principled justification for the innovation?

Basically, we need to go on asking and attempting to answer the question

‘Why?’

Discussion of these and other questions will certainly be very time-

consuming, but the time is well spent if, by establishing a forum which allows
all parties to be aware of and involved in discussion and decision-making, a
consensus is reached, thus laying the foundation for later stages.
Secondly, we should attempt to define the end results. What, in short, do
we want to achieve? Although at this early stage the precise character of the
end results cannot be specified, an agreement on the nature of the outcome is
 Innovation: Managing and Evaluating 145

essential, since it is this specification which provides the goal towards which
all members of the organization will be working. The specification will, of
course, depend on the nature of the innovation. For instance, it could be a
fully equipped and organized resource centre with materials catalogued and
cross referenced with access achieved by means of a computerized key-word
catalogue. Or it could be an A4 sheet specifying the main topics to be covered
by a given class during the forthcoming semester. Or it could be a carefully
graded sequence of learning tasks linked to a list of language functions and
exponents to be covered by all students during a course of a specified level.
And so on. What is important is that everyone agrees on the general features
of the end result for the obvious reason that one wishes to avoid a situation in
X months’ time when it is revealed that everyone had a rather different idea of
what they thought the outcomes of their efforts would be.
Thirdly, we have the question of evaluation. What are the success criteria
or standards? What will demonstrate that we have been or are being
successful? How can the end product be evaluated? Evaluation criteria should
be built in right from the start, since it is important to know how to
demonstrate improvement if, as we assume, an innovation is intended to be
more efficacious in achieving organizational goals. Failure to consider success
criteria at this early stage can result in problems later when, through lack of
forethought, participants in the innovatory process apply inappropriate criteria
or fudge things by adapting their criteria to the outcomes actually achieved.
(Cf. the limitations of the evaluation of the procedural syllabus, referred to in
chapter 7.)
The process of defining aims and of‘laying things open’, as Bowers (1983)
describes it, will usually be enormously time-consuming, although the
evidence suggests that such time is well spent provided everyone is co¬
operatively involved in the discussions. It is as well, on a purely practical level,
to keep records of what is discussed and agreed, and that these records (which
should not be over-long and complicated, or nobody will read them) are
circulated to all concerned (some of whom may well be absent from some of
the discussions).
Another practical issue is that of time and outcomes. If it has been agreed
that an innovation of whatever sort is to be carried out, it is essential that the
task be achieved. To do this, a time scale and deadlines should be agreed,
even if, because of slippage caused by unforeseen circumstances, the
programme has to be changed and deadlines rescheduled. It will be
someone’s job to keep an eye on the schedule to ensure that there is as little
slippage as possible and to remind everyone about deadlines.
This brings us to another important point: leadership. Although demo¬
cratically organized groups tend to work better than ones in which there is a
top-down authoritarian structure, there does seem to be a need for an
opinion-leader to support the innovation, and for someone to assume a co¬
ordinating role within a group, particularly when more than half-a-dozen
people. Indeed, it may be difficult for even smaller groups to operate
146 Innovation: Managing and Evaluating

successfully over a prolonged period unless someone takes responsibility for

chairing, co-ordinating, monitoring and record-keeping. Within a typical
language school the co-ordinator can be the principal or director of studies, or
it may be another member of the organization who assumes the co-ordinating
role. It is not the role of co-ordinators to impose their own ideas about
language curriculum on the group; rather, it is their role to elicit, clarify,
encourage, summarize and to keep the group on target. In this, they should be
assisted by the group and by other members who may assume other similar
roles, such as record-keeper, information gatherer, researcher, and so on.
If materials production is envisaged, the co-ordinator’s role becomes even
more important, only then, the co-ordinator will assume the role of editor.
Even ministry-sponsored materials production projects have been known in
which there was no one to take on the role of editor, whose functions will
include not only programme-planning and keeping writers on target, but will
embrace such activities as reading and editing; seeing that materials are
trialled (even if only among members of the writing team); establishing and
maintaining conventions of format, rubrics and instructions; and generally
providing coherence and unity to the publication. Indeed, the editor is the
only person who (like any manager) will have an overview of the whole
process - and the product.
To return to goal-setting, it is important to note that often, during this
phase, people are very anxious to move straight into the next main phase, that
of Getting Things Done. Sponsors and employers will usually be anxious to
see some tangible evidence that their funding is being spent to good effect,
and so minutes of meetings and things agreed will not usually be taken as
evidence of such achievement. Such impatience and anxiety is understandable,
but the Getting Things Done phase does depend on a clear definition of aims;
thus pressure to move into action quickly should be tactfully resisted.
This may be amply demonstrated in the first step, which is concerned with
information-gathering. In fact, an information-gathering stage may have been
necessary before defining goals, as is clear from the first two steps in Trump’s
five-step sequence, outlined earlier. Information should be classified under
two headings: What We Already Know and What We Need to Know, and to
establish both will involve assembling relevant facts, ideas, skills, experience
and resources. This will mean drawing upon existing knowledge and expertise
and records. Some of the information will exist in people’s heads, and will
have to be elicited by discussion, interview and questionnaire. Other
information will exist in records, such as existing syllabuses, teaching
materials, examination results and test scores, comments from students and
other interested parties, ministry reports and proposals, articles in the press,
and so on. And a most important source of information will be concerned with
skills and expertise within the group: who and what is good? People’s existing
expertise is an important resource and to ensure involvement, commitment
and a sense of ‘ownership’, should be drawn upon.
Obtaining information which is needed for planning is, of course, crucial.
 Innovation: Managing and Evaluating 147

Decisions will have to be made about the precise nature of die information
required and the means of obtaining it. It may be necessary to find out about
such things as the students’ previous language learning experience, the precise
needs of the learners, costings and sources of funds in order to establish a
budget. Some thought will have to be given at this stage to what will be done
with the information once it has been assembled. How will it be processed,
presented and interpreted? What options for action will be revealed? What
risks will be discovered? How are people to react to the information? How will
it influence planned outcomes?
Once decisions have been made about information known and needed,
attention will shift to the What Has To Be Done and Planning phases. Here we
are concerned with listing everything that needs to be done and with stating,
in some detail, who will do what, how, when and where. It may seem obvious,
but it is easy to overlook that even when only two peple are working together,
failure to allocate responsibilities can lead to problems. With a group of
people, this becomes an even greater risk. So, plans have to be agreed as to
who does what, deadlines should be established, and records maintained and
distributed. As will be clear, there is now a transition from the task culture of
the initial phase of problem identification and objectives setting to the role
culture of the planning and action phases. In Trump’s terms, we have now
moved on to steps 3 to 5.
Once plans have been fixed, we proceed to the Action stage. In fact, some
actions may already have been carried out. It may be that what might be called
an ‘obvious action’ should be performed early on. For instance, if an
innovation is being mooted which will involve considerable expenditure (as
would be the case with a change of textbooks), it would be sensible to carry
out a financial feasibility study as a preliminary exercise, and this would
involve some action in terms of obtaining relevant information, such as the
ministry grant or projected income for the forthcoming year. In general,
though, the action stage comes after the goal setting and planning stages.
During the action stage, monitoring of what is being done should be
maintained. Indeed, it is important to schedule periodic review meetings so
that everyone can report achievements to date, problems encountered and
proposals for further action. This is what Roger Bowers calls ‘keeping an eye
on things’. Although the co-ordinator will have an important role here, all
members of the group should accept responsibility for keeping an eye on
things and for calling attention to problems.
Finally, we come to the review and evaluation stage. Reviewing, as just
noted, is part of the continuing monitoring process which ensures that things
are on target. Evaluation can be thought of in two stages: on-going or
formative, which is a process of feedback; and final or summative, whereby
outcomes are evaluated against the success criteria specified during the goal
setting stage. In both cases, successes and difficulties can be analysed to
provide the basis for improvement.
148 Innovation: Managing and Evaluating

Identification
of needs Setting

Figure 9.3 The place of evaluation

(adapted from Bramley 1986)

Evaluation

Evaluation is not, in itself, new. What is new is the incorporation of evaluation

as feedback and as a formative process within language curriculum
development, whereby it becomes an extension and elaboration of needs
analysis, sharing with such pre-planning the use of many of the same
information gathering procedures and techniques, such as questionnaires and
interviews. Instead of being either overlooked, or at best added as an
afterthought (as appears to have been the case with the Bangalore/Madras
CTP), evaluation is now seen to be an integral part of language curriculum
development, at whatever stage, and no one making proposals for any aspect
of the language curriculum - be it aims, content or methods - can do so
without carefully evaluating and justifying such proposals. In short, evaluation
occurs at all stages, as illustrated in figure 9.3.
Historically, there has also been a move from the evaluator being a
specialist somewhat outside a project, to evaluation (and the evaluator) being
integral parts of the project, with formative and summative evaluation occupy¬
ing a central role, feeding into decision-making at all stages. The importance of
evaluation as a means of course improvement has been stressed by Cronback
(1963:403), who believes that ‘Evaluation, used to improve the course while it
is still fluid, contributes more to improvement of education than evaluation
used to appraise a product already placed on the market.’ Such evaluation
should be concerned with ‘observing effects in context’ (Cronbach 1975)
rather than with making predictive generalizations. Instead, evaluation will
 Innovation: Managing and Evaluating 149

focus on the way in which retrospective generalizations relate findings to

subsequent action and decision-making.
Three models of evaluation (cf. Lawton 1980) have come to the attention of
ELT specialists of recent years. These are the illuminative, the professional
and the case study models. The first relies on observational data gathered by
the evaluator as participant—observer, using ethnographic techniques developed
in social anthropological field-work. The dangers of subjectivity in such
procedures are obvious, though less easily avoided. The teacher-as-researcher
model derives from the work of Stenhouse, and is closely related to action
research as proposed by Elliott (1981, 1985), and Cohen and Manion (1980).
The case study model, as described by Adelman, Jenkins and Kemmis (1976)
and Yin (1984), yields data that is ‘strong in reality’ and can be presented in
such a way that readers can make judgements for themselves. The particular
strength of case studies lies in their attention to the subtlety and complexity of
the case in its own right (Lawton 1980).

Evaluation and Ethics

Evaluation is not without its problems, particularly ethical ones. These are
discussed by Simons (1979), who lists five factors which the evaluator must
take into account. It will take little imagination to see how these can apply to
the evaluation of any aspect of the language curriculum.

1 Impartiality;
2 Confidentiality and control over the data participants;
3 Negotiation among all parties involved;
4 Collaboration by all concerned;
5 Accountability by all levels in the organizational hierarchy.

What seems to be clear is that evaluation can be regarded as threatening, can

lead to misconceptions, and can be destabilizing because evaluations are, as
Adelman and Alexander (1982) argue, political: by definition they entail value
judgements, and there are a number of political danger-zones. Simons (1979)
raises a number of difficult questions here. One concerns whose views will
prevail in the reconciliation of irreconcilable judgements. Another concerns
the redistribution of resources (including people) which may be indicated by
evaluation. A third concerns confronting the consequences of appraising, both
for individuals and the institution.
What is vital is that evaluation should focus on issues and not on individuals.
Once individual teachers feel that they are being evaluated, problems are
likely to occur. Openness, clarity of aims in evaluation and preparedness to
collaborate are all, in Simons’ view, fundamental.
 An open model of evaluation
(from Bell 1982)
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PLANNING
 Innovation: Managing and Evaluating 151

Evaluation: a Sequence

Harlen and Elliott (1982) and Bell (1982) have provided checklists for
evaluation. Bell’s model (see figure 9.4) can be reformulated as a series of
questions, essentially the same as those provided by Harlen and Elliott, each
of which gives rise to a further set of questions:

1 What are the purposes of the evaluation?

2 What programme, instructional material or issues are being evaluated?
3 Who are the potential audiences of the evaluation?
4 What particular characteristics of the context may be relevant?
5 What are the particular questions to be answered in order to achieve
the purpose?
6 What types of information will be collected and from whom?
7 What techniques and instruments will be used for gathering the
information?
8 Who is to be involved in conducting the evaluation and in what
capacity?
9 How are time and funds to be allocated?
10 What is to be the form of reporting?
11 What difficulties, compromises, side effects do you anticipate?

In addition to these 11 questions, Bell outlines a series of principles of

procedure in the Doing stage. These include:

keeping everyone informed

being open and sensitive
cross-checking information
keeping an open mind
trying to influence things as little as possible
maintaining promised confidentiality.

Methods of Data Collection

There is no one ‘best’ method of data collection, although some methods are
better for some kinds of data than others. Some of these are summarized in
figure 9.5.
It should be noted that problems can occur with observation, as it is a
highly personalized form of evaluation and can affect the thing being
observed. It is important to obtain several viewpoints of the same event or
experience, and the use of triangulation is one means to this end.
152 Innovation: Managing and Evaluating

Finally, Harlen and Elliott give a list of 16 questions for evaluating

evaluations. They include:

1 Did the evaluation serve to inform the decisions or judgements for

which it was originally intended?
2 What decisions have been taken as a consequence of the evaluation?
5 What steps were taken to allow for bias, unrepresentativeness, and low
reliability in the information gathered?
9 Did those involved in supplying the information approve of the
methods used for collecting it?
15 Was the evaluation reported in a way which communicated effectively
with the intended audience?

They conclude that ‘In most cases it is necessary to follow up initial answers
with the further question, “If not, why not?”’ (1982:303-4)

Conclusion

The stages and reasons for action which have been reviewed in this chapter
are summarized below, followed by a summary of evaluation (LCD =
Language curriculum development.)

Action/Stage Reason
Clarify motivation for LCD Initiative for LCD will influence
or determine both process and
product of LCD
Defensive v. creative motivation
will reflect the state of the
organization
Accountability may be involved
Significance of initiative and
LCD may be judged from
motivation

Assessing soundness of proposed change

Clarify the purpose of LCD Must know where you are going,
why you are going there

Analyse the situation: Know where you are at, and who
(a) institutional is with you, what you hold
sacred, what your resources are,
what the organizational culture is
and how all of this constrains or
facilitates LCD
 Innovation: Managing and Evaluating 153

(b) wider environment Know who calls the tune (or who
would like to), what official
policies are, what resources are
likely to be available, who
controls them, and how access to
them is obtained, what the
cultural background is and how
this interacts with the institution
and LCD changes

Reconnaissance, especially of the history and track record for innovation of the system,
stake-holders attitudes
’

Consult with all stakeholders, Find out what attitudes are to

especially students and teachers current practices, discover what
works, what does not work and
how current practices can be
justified (or not); knowing above
will set limits to what is possible
or indicate where changes may
be intended
Identify specific problems These will be the points at which
change is needed and about
which care will be required

Describing the future

Define aims Make sure everyone knows (and

agrees on) where they are going
and why
Evaluate To be done at every stage as a
way of ensuring a match between
LCD and the situation and
participants’ requirements and
capacities; an extension of needs
analysis

Describing the present, environmental mapping

Establish appropriate structures, Nothing is done without people

organization to do it; must have a system to
support initiatives
Ensure appropriate forms of Support from up top essential for
support from top-down as well most initiatives to flourish
grass roots
154 Innovation: Managing and Evaluating

Transition management

Refer to academic and Reinventing the wheel is

professional authorities wasteful; LCD should be teacher
and theories developmental; new input
important, but should be in
response to an identified need

Developing a plan, gaining commitment

Choose appropriate syllabus type Content and aims should be

in consultation with all determined by aims, not vice
participants versa; consultation important as a
way of developing involvement,
commitment, ownership, under¬
standing
Choose appropriate methodology Methodology choice should be
in consultation with all informed by situational and
participants means analysis and especially
cultural and personal
characteristics of students and
teachers (plus other stake¬
holders); reasons for consultation
as above
Design teaching-learning Provides basis for concerted
programme with maximum action
consultation and formative
evaluation
Interpret and implement the Must be seen to get things done,
programme however trivial the outcomes may
seem
Evaluate Keeping an eye on things; pre¬
empting problems, making sure
that aims are being met and that
adaptations to procedures are
made according to feedback

Evaluation

Evaluation is concerned not with assessing individual achievement but with

making judgements about the curriculum. Formative evaluation, using a
variety of techniques similar to those of needs analysis, together with
ethnographic techniques of participant observation, acts as feedback to
curriculum developers. A wide variety of information sources is drawn upon in
 Innovation: Managing and Evaluating 155

Type of data Method

Methods, classroom procedures Observation, diaries, interviews, peer

appraisal, questionnaires, ranking and
rating scales

Content Questionnaires, interviews, document

analysis: text books, syllabuses, tests;
ranking and rating scales

Learning achievement Tests, assignments

Figure 9.5 Methods of data collection

such evaluation, including documentation and people from within and outside
the institution concerned.
Because evaluation involves making judgements, ethical and political issues
become associated with any evaluation process. Questions about ownership of
information and the use of this information for decision-making become
significant and must be acknowledged as important. Evaluation can be used
for purposes other than feedback to teachers, and the purpose and use of
evaluation are important considerations.
As with any procedure, evaluation can be carried out in a reasonably
systematic way, following a sequence of stages. Openness, clarity and good
communication assume importance in such an evaluation sequence, following
essentially the same principles of good management practice reviewed
elsewhere in this chapter.

Suggested Reading

Educational Management
Management has become a growth area in education, with the realization that
managerial skills are needed in running schools and education systems. A very
good, practical introduction to the field of educational management is
provided by Everard and Morris in Effective School Management (1985), which
can be supplemented by Bush, Theories of Educational Management (1986), and
Paisey, Organizational Management in Schools (1981). A stimulating view of
schools from an outsider is given by Handy in Taken for Granted?
Understanding Schools as Organizations (1984).
A collection which assembles case studies of educational management is
Case Studies in Educational Management, edited by Goulding,-.Bell, Bush, Fox
and Goodey (1984). Another collection, focusing on the research aspect of
156 Innovation: Managing and Evaluating

educational management, is Bell, Bush, Fox, Goodey and Goulding,

Conducting Small-scale Investigations in Educational Management (1984). This
collection includes papers by Cohen and Manion and Elliot on action
research, as well as a paper by Adelman, Jenkins and Kemmis on case study.
A collection devoted entirely to action research has been edited by Hustler,
Cassidy and Cuff (1986). There are also other papers on action research by
Elliot (1981 and 1985).

Evaluation
A very good introduction to educational evaluation appears in chapter 6 of
Rowntree’s Educational Technology in Curriculum Development (1982).
Collections of papers on educational evaluation are House (1986),
McCormick et al. (1982), Hamilton et al. (1977) and Skilbeck (1984b).
Some of the evaluation literature from management training (e.g. Bramley
1986) has much of relevance to ELT specialists and course providers. Not
surprisingly, in view of the significance of accountability in many ESP
programmes, evaluation has occupied the attention of ESP specialists: witness
Bachman (1981), ‘Formative evaluation in specific purposes program
development’, Mackay (1981), ‘Accountability in ESP Programs’ and
McGinley (1986), ‘Coming to terms with evaluation’.
Other more general discussions of evaluation in ELT include Candlin and
Breen (1979), and Alderson (1985). The 1981 Dunford House Seminar
(British Council, 1981) addressed itself to design, evaluation and testing in
English Language projects, while recent papers by Beretta (1986a and b) are
another expression of this burgeoning interest. Richards and Rodgers (1986)
put the case for comparing and evaluating methods. Meanwhile, some of the
issues involved in ELT project management have been addressed by Kennedy
(1988) in a paper on the evaluation of the management of change in ELT
projects.
Appendix
Follow-up Activities

These activities are intended to be done by groups, and they should involve
discussion. Some of the activities can also be done individually. They are
linked to the content of the chapters concerned, and provide some ‘hands on’
development of the points covered in the chapters themselves. You may find it
useful to skim the follow-up activities before reading each chapter.

Chapter 2

Activity 1
Review your own language teaching history.

In what tradition of language teaching were you initially trained?

How have your ideas of language teaching evolved as a result of experience
as a teacher?
How have your ideas evolved under the influence of writers or lecturers in
the field?
What is your current position on language teaching?

Discuss the answers to these questions with colleagues and compare and
contrast your experiences. Then consider

What generalizations emerge from your collective language teaching

histories?

Activity 2
This activity is probably best done collaboratively, with different members of
the group being responsible for collecting different information.

Collect syllabuses, textbooks and examinations over a period of 20 or 30

years.
Compare the material you collect.
158 Appendix: Follow-up Activities

How does it vary in

aims
content
methods
form of assessment?
What do the differences suggest about the traditions and development of
ideas in language teaching over the period concerned?
How rapidly have ideas changed?
Do some ‘old’ ideas linger on?
If they do, what does this suggest about the nature of change and
development in language teaching?

Chapter 3

Activity 1
Either individually, or with a colleague, complete the questionnaire on teacher
values. The questionnaire aims to reveal something of teachers’ values; it is
not to make judgements on whether some values are better than others. The
questionnaire asks you to choose between two extremes, since a rating scale is
not provided. This is because the questionnaire is not intended to be a survey
instrument, but a stimulus for thinking and discussion, and extreme choices
are more likely to provoke debate than bland statements upon which everyone
will agree. A slogan to keep in mind here is

‘When everyone thinks the same, nobody thinks.’

Even if you work with a colleague, your response to each item should be an
individual one.
When you have completed the questionnaire, give a title to each section.
If you can, use the questionnaire as the basis for a general discussion
among members of your department or group. Having completed the
questionnaire individually, or in pairs, form syndicates of two or three pairs,
and

discuss the tides which you have given to each section;

find six statements upon which you all agree;
report your consensus statements to the rest of the group;
from the discussion, clarify those statements upon which everyone agrees,
and those upon which you agree to differ.

What does the range of agreement/disagreement tell you about possible

 Appendix: Follow-up Activities 159

Figure A1 Questionnaire
The questionnaire is in 5 parts. Please complete all parts. Put a tick in the appropriate
part of the column for each statement, depending on whether you agree or disagree
with it.

Agree Disagree Part A

1 Language is a system of grammatical

rules.

2 Vocabulary is the most important part of

a language.

3 Language is basically a means of spoken

communication.

4 Language is a means of establishing and

maintaining social relationships.

5 Each language provides a unique way of

organizing experience.

Part B
6 Learning grammatical rules is essential
to learning a language.

7 Languages can only be learned by the

conscious application of grammatical
rules.

8 Language learning is best achieved by

being exposed informally to authentic
language in its native speech community.

9 Language learning is best when a teacher

provides a carefully controlled exposure
to the language.

10 Language learning is best promoted

through using the language in authentic
situations in the classroom.

11 Meaning is best conveyed through

translation between the target language
and the mother tongue.
160 Appendix: Follow-up Activities

Agree Disagree Part B

12 Language learning is best when the focus

is on something other than the language
itself.

13 There is no transfer from one skill to

another when learning a language.

Part C
14 A carefully graded structural syllabus is
the best way to organize a language
course.

15 Initial teaching should be based on a

careful contrastive analysis of the
grammatical differences between the
mother tongue and the target language.

16 A syllabus should be based on known

areas of difficulty in grammar and
pronunciation.

17 A syllabus should be based on the

students’ communicative needs outside
the classroom.

18 A syllabus should take students’ wants

and interests into account even when
these are different from their needs.

19 Where there is a choice, communicative

needs should take priority over
grammatical grading in organizing a
syllabus.

20 The best syllabus is one which doesn’t

focus on language at all.

Part D
21 It is the teacher’s responsibility to keep
things moving in the classroom.

22 It is the teacher’s job to provide a perfect

language model for his/her students.
 Appendix: Follow-up Activities 161

Agree Disagree Part D

23 The teacher should not control or

restrict his/her language in the classroom
as exposure to rich and varied authentic
language will help learning.

24 The teacher must correct students’

errors at all times.

25 The teacher must encourage

spontaneous student: student interaction
in the classroom.

26 The teacher must avoid deviating from

either the syllabus, the lesson plan or the
textbook.

27 The teacher should promote an

enjoyable, friendly and supportive
atmosphere in the class.

28 The teacher must remain in full control

of the class at all times.

29 The teacher should question his/her own

teaching with a view to constant
improvement.

30 The teacher should view his/her work in

the wider context of the school,
community and society.

Part E
31 There are no important differences
between students of different ages and
backgrounds.

32 Students need to be kept active and

interested by the teacher.

33 Students don’t usually know what’s good

for them.
162 Appendix: Follow-up Activities

Agree Disagree Part E

34 Students achieve best in a competitive

atmosphere.

35 Students should develop harmonious and

supportive relationships with one
another.

36 Students pick up mistakes from one

another, so all language in the class must
be controlled and checked by the
teacher.

37 Students can help each other by pooling

their collective knowledge.

38 Spontaneous interaction helps students

V
to learn to communicate.

39 Students only learn things which are of

interest or use to themselves.

40 Students in a language class feel very

vulnerable and sensitive.

Figure A1 Questionnaire

sources of strength and conflict within your department/institution?

How are values reflected in the choices people make over content and
method of teaching?

Activity 2

Here is a list of language learning goals. Some of them are stated as

behavioural objectives, some are not. Identify those which are stated in
behavioural terms, and try to modify some of those which are not so that they
are stated as behavioural objectives as defined by Steiner (1975).

1 Seeking information from a fellow student.

2 Exchanging information with a partner so as to gain a full picture of
events reported in two different news broadcasts from which each
student has taken notes.
3 Given a recorded news report from a BBC Radio 4 news broadcast,
 Appendix: Follow-up Activities 163

played on a cassette player in the classroom, the student will

summarize in writing the sequence of events in correct chronological
order, state the identity of the people involved, and state the location
and time of events within a period of 15 minutes.
4 Reading magazines for comprehension of details, meanings, inferences.
5 Indicating possession of an object.
6 Checking that the principal colours are known.
7 Asked by a stranger in the street for directions to one of a number of
places, the student gives directions in spoken form, using nominated
structures and vocabulary with 90 per cent accuracy.
8 Learning the first conditional pattern with the function of warning.
9 Writing narrative compositions in the past tense.
10 Given a picture sequence not exceeding 6 pictures in number, the
student will write a narrative of 6 or more sentences, using correcdy
formed regular and irregular past tense forms to 90 per cent accuracy
within 15 minutes.

Activity 3
Review the three curriculum models which have been described:

The Taba-Tyler Means-ends model

The Stenhouse Process model
The Skilbeck Situational model

Which model most closely matches the preferred way of operating within your
own institution?
What benefits could you predict would arise from adopting each model? Be
specific.
What difficulties could you predict would occur in trying to adopt the
procedures oudined in each model? Be specific.
Which model most closely matches your own preferred way of working as
regards language curriculum?

Chapter 4

Activity 1*

Below is a summary of the contents of the first 15 steps in a structural

syllabus (Alexander et al. 1975). They are given here in random order. Try
putting them in sequence, keeping in mind the various grading considerations

#Original Order of items in Activity 1 12, 10, 6, 11, 7, 4, 8, 13, 2, 15, 3, 1, 9, 5, 14.
164 Appendix: Follow-up Activities

that have to be taken into account. When you have ordered the items in
sequence, compare your sequence with that of the original syllabus, which is
given at the foot of page 163.

1 Do you know X?
Short answers with do, does, don’t, doesn’t.
Negative statements with don’t, doesn’t.
2 Please listen.
Object pronouns: me, him, her, us.
Verbs with two objects: give, write, tell.
3 Do you want + uncountable noun?
Yes/no questions with do and does.
4 Are you X?
Affirmative short answers with be.
5 Where’s my + noun?
Possessive adjectives: my, your, his.
Possessive form of nouns: John’s brother.
6 Pm a + noun.
Forms of be: am, is, are.
7 Are you and X brothers?
Forms of be: you are, they are, we are.
Personal pronouns with am, are, is.
Plural of nouns: students, teachers, classes.
8 Who is he?
Information questions with be: who, what, where, how
9 What’s this?
Is this + noun?
Demonstratives this, that, these, those.
Numbers 1 to 20.
Irregular plurals: men, women, children.
10 Is X + preposition phrase?
Yes/no questions with is.
11 Are you X?
Negative statements and negative short answers with be.
12 This is + Proper Name (X).
Affirmative statements: X is a + noun.
13 Is X a + adjective + noun?
The articles a, and the, a and an.
Articles with singular and plural nouns
Position of adjectives
14 Subject questions with who and what.
 Appendix: Follow-up Activities 165
15 X speaks English.
Third person singular -s of regular verbs.

Activity 2
Take a selection of three or four structure-based course books. Search
through the books to find the unit or stage at which the following structural
items are introduced. (For languages other than English, appropriate
adaptation can be made so as to focus on analagous structures.)

Structure Unit of Course Book

A B C D

NP + have + NP, e.g. I have a book.

NP + Transitive Verb + NP + to + NP
e.g. I am giving these pens to Mary.

Present simple tense for repeated or

regular actions

Past simple tense of ‘be’

Past simple tense of lexical verbs, e.g.

live, stay

Uncountable nouns with ‘some’ and

‘any’

Can = ability e.g. I can swim.

Adjectives used attributively, e.g. It’s a

red car.

Adverbs of manner

Adverbs of frequency

have got
166 Appendix: Follow-up Activities

Chapter 5

Activity 1
Take a number of related situations (e.g. those involving public or
occupational settings) and describe them in terms of

Where: location
Type: occupational, recreational, domestic, religious, etc.
Relevant objects: equipment, merchandise, money, etc.
When: time of day
Participants: Clerk/Customer; Stewardess/Passenger; Stranger/Local in¬
habitant, etc.
Activities: serving a meal, cashing a cheque, etc.

Then attempt to predict the language which would occur in each situation.
When you have done that, compare your predictions with the way one of
the situations is realized in a language course book.
What do the similarities and differences suggest as to the stereotypic nature
of some situations as compared with others?

Activity 2
Below is a list of topics taken from Syllabus Guidelines 1: Communication by
Clark and Hamilton (1984). In this CILT publication, they oudine a graded
communicative approach for school foreign language learning, and among the
communicative objectives they specify is the list of topics given here.
Study the list and discuss the entries with colleagues and students. Which
topics are relevant to your students’ interests and needs? Are there other
topics which would be more relevant? Elaborate some of the topics, by adding
sub-topics and different aspects. Finally, make up a topic list appropriate to
your students’ needs or interests.

Topics

Personal background
Hobbies and sports
Pop scene: records/music, pop stars, clothes
Fashion
Entertainment and Personalities
TV
 Appendix: Follow-up Activities 167
Cinema
Clubs/ societies
Holidays
Travel/school trips, etc.
Bikes/cars
Discos and dances
Relationships with parents
Relationships with others/other sex
Pets
Shopping/prices
Pocket-money
School world
Teenage reading
Personal experiences
Comparisons of own country/foreign country
Jobs and careers
Events in the media
Topics of general interest

Activity 3
Which skills (reading, writing, listening, speaking) are most relevant and
important for your students?
What level of proficiency should they aim to reach in each skill?
How will you define proficiency levels in the skill concerned?
Take one of the four skills and specify those sub-skills which the students
will need to develop in order to operate proficiently. Grade these sub-skills in
increasing order of difficulty.
Discuss how you would match a graded skills syllabus with other elements,
such as structures, topics and situations.

Chapter 6

Activity 1
Something which a syllabus designer has to consider is how best to present
the syllabus so that it can provide a readily interpreted guide to the people
who will use it. Some syllabuses follow a convention such that the vertical axis
represents time, while the horizontal axis represents the main categories of
168 Appendix: Follow-up Activities

components, with the leading component on the left and the subsidiary
components to the right, thus:

Time Component 1 ^ Component 2^ Component 3 etc.

e.g. Functions Situations Topics etc.

Make up separate lists of each component in a syllabus, and then attempt to

match them horizontally and vertically in the way shown above. Do you find
that you have a conflict between items, e.g. a given structure does not match a
given function at any particular stage? What compromises do you have to
make to produce a reasonably coherent ordering and matching of elements?
What does this exercise tell you about the constraints which affect organizing
a syllabus consisting of several major components?

Activity 2
Peter Shaw (1982) presents a procedure for ad hoc needs analysis which
could be adapted for use before and during a course.
The students complete a form, arranged as follows:

In this course I want to: 1 2 3

1. understand English grammar better.

2. write English more fluently and correctly.

3. write technical and scientific English fluently

and correctly.

etc., etc.

The form is completed individually (column 1), by small groups (column 2)

and by the class as a whole (column 3).
Individually, the students rank the objectives in order from most to least
important by writing 1 for the most important, and succeeding numbers in
descending order to the least important.
In small groups of three or four, students then agree a rank order for their
group, and individuals write the group rankings in column 2 of the grid.
The teacher, having drawn a grid on the blackboard, then asks each group
to enter their rankings in the grid when they have reached consensus. At this
point, students circle any objectives of their own which differ greatly from the
 Appendix: Follow-up Activities 16?

group decision. The teacher draws attention to such differences.

When the grid is completed for the groups, a class ranking can be
established by discussion and compromise by summing up the group totals
and ranking the objectives accordingly, with the smaller totals receiving the
higher rankings. Individual students then enter the group rankings in
column 3 of their grid.
Individual students can then identify where their priorities differ from those
of the group. The teacher can use this information for advising students or
providing individual work. Meanwhile, those objectives which have common
priority can form the basis of general work with the class as a whole.
Prepare a similar questionnaire for a group of your students and use it,
following the procedures outlined above.
When you have completed the exercise with your class, plan ways in which
you can use the information to plan your next phase of teaching or to give
individual work to students.
Consider how you could use this technique to elicit feedback from your
students during the progress of a course.

Chapter 7

Activity 1
The process syllabus depends on negotiation between the teacher and
learners over content and activities and even, to some extent, as to aims. I
have suggested that there are similarities with individualization of learning.
Needs analysis also provides some procedures which can be adapted to
negotiating a process syllabus with learners.

Step 1 Outline the ways in which you could enlist the learners’ views on the
content and method of learning for one week’s work. To do so, adapt Peter
Shaw’s ad hoc needs analysis.

Step 2 When you have planned how you are going to do this, plan how you
will administer the choices revealed in the survey.
You will have to consider how you will organize the class to ensure some
sort of consensus among sub-groups (if not among the class as a whole), since
accommodating the individual requirements of 20 or so students is not really
feasible.

Step 3 After the planning and choosing stage, the actual operation of
learning activities in the classroom should involve some discussion by learners
and teachers of (1) why they chose the activities they did; (2) what they gained
170 Appendix: Follow-up Activities

from the learning activities; (3) whether they would choose similar activities
again, and if not, why not; and (4) what they plan to do next as a result of
completing the activities in question.
If you can, try out the procedures you have planned with an actual class.
Make sure that you explain to them why you are asking for their collaboration
in planning the programme and activities, otherwise they may think you are
simply trying to opt out of your role as teacher. You may find it useful to
experiment with such a student-led period of work once a term or semester. It
would also be a good idea to keep notes on the experience, including notes on
observation of the students at work, what they did, and how involved they
were. If possible, review the experiment with a colleague who can assume the
role of ‘friendly outsider’ to help you clarify your thinking on what you have
done.

Activity 2

The procedural syllabus is task-based, that is, students are given things to do
from which there is an outcome or product of some sort. The tasks are
conceptually graded.
The grading of tasks can be done on several bases:

how difficult it is to complete the task itself

the quantity and complexity of thinking required
the quantity and complexity of language needed

Plan several tasks, each one to consist of a teacher-led or teacher-modelled

task and a parallel task which the students themselves perform. Grade the
tasks in terms of the three criteria listed above.
Plan a lesson, using one of the tasks. You will need to consider how you will
present and demonstrate the task, how you will guide the students, and how
you will hand over the parallel task to the students. Consider, too, how you
will evaluate the success of both the task and the lesson.
If you can, teach the lesson to a class. Explain why you are doing it and
what you hope the students will get out of the lesson.
During the lesson, carefully observe student behaviour in terms of what
they do and what they say.
In particular, take note of any ‘critical incidents’ - examples of behaviour
(involving individuals or a number of people) which represent an important
event in the learning activity. The animation and involvement of learners will
be a good guide to such incidents - or the reverse, since the task may prove
not to be engaging.
At the end of the lesson, discuss what has been done with the students.
How did they feel about it? What did they learn? How did it promote language
use? What improvements could they suggest?
 Appendix: Follow-up Activities 171

If you can, discuss the lesson with a colleague, in the manner suggested in
Activity 1. Better still, work together with a colleague and observe each other’s
lessons.

Chapter 8

Activity 1

Think of an example of innovation in a school or organization with which you

are familiar.

What was the innovation? Was it an innovation in materials, hardware (e.g.

video, computers), organization, assessment, syllabus or methodology?
Why was the innovation introduced?
Who first suggested the innovation?
How was it introduced?
What factors promoted or inhibited the implementation of the innovation?
What was the effect of the innovation on yourself and other people
involved?
If you could run through the implementation of the innovation again, what
changes or improvements would you make? Why?

From your answers to the above, list three points you would like to make to
anyone concerned with introducing an innovation.

Activity 2
Each stage in an innovatory process raises a series of questions. Here, for
example, are some such questions. They are in no particular order.

Can we justify dealing with the problem?

How can we find out what the reactions of stake-holders will be?
What effects will the innovation have on the people concerned?
How can the problem be dealt with?
What is the problem?
How has it arisen?
Who will be involved in dealing with it?
How did we first become aware of it?
Can we justify the resources required to solve the problem?
Who is affected by the problem?
172 Appendix: Follow-up Activities

What are their feelings about it?

Will the consequences of solving the problem be supported by other stake¬
holders?
Who is best qualified to deal with the problem?
Can we get outside advice?

Use these questions, those oudined by Skilbeck in his Situational Model

(chapter 3), and, if you can obtain the article, the questions listed by Bowers
(1983). Work out

1 sets of questions which should be asked at each stage in an innovatory

process
2 who you would ask these questions of
3 what you would hope to do with the information so obtained

Chapter 9

Activity 1
Take Bell’s questions and add sub-questions to which they would give rise.
Apply Bell’s questions (and your sub-questions) to the evaluation of a
curriculum innovation in a known situation.

Activity 2
Outline why and how you would go about evaluating one of the following:

a new technique suggested by a colleague

a new textbook
a new syllabus proposal
a new examination
a new language curriculum

Activity 3

Needs analysis and evaluation form a continuous sequence of information

gathering. Needs analysis provides information as a basis for planning, while
evaluation gives information needed for adaptation during implementation.
Both needs analysis and evaluation use similar techniques, including
questionnaire, observation and interview.
Consider how to adapt some of these techniques for both needs analysis
and formative evaluation.
 Appendix: Follow-up Activities 173

Activity 4
Evaluate what you have learnt from this book, and how it will affect your
actions as a language curriculum developer and teacher.
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 Index 189

Index

action research, 123-4 and vocabulary selection, 50

adults change, see innovation
foreign language needs of, 86 Chin, R., 128, 130
aims, 26, 102 Chomsky, N., 15-16
Alexander, L. G., 17 combinability
assessment and grading of structures, 53
evaluation v., 40 communication
audio-lingualism, 13-15 in innovation management, 138-9
availability Communicational Teaching Project
and structure selection, 49 (CTP), see Bangalore/Madras
and vocabulary selection, 51 Communicational Teaching Project
communicative competence, 16-17
Baldwin, R., 66 Munby’s model for specifying, 87-9
Bangalore/Madras Communicational communicative language teaching, 17
Teaching Project competence, see communicative
(CTP), 102-9 competence
evaluated, 109 comprehensive schools
tasks used in, 104-7 and teaching traditions, 9-10
Barrow, R., 136 content-type syllabus, 45-6, 47, 91-2,
behavioural objectives, see objectives, 75-94
behavioural context
Bell, M., 151 and functions, 76-7
Bell, R. T., 84 see also situational syllabus
Benne, K. D., 128, 131 contrast
Beretta, A., 108 and grading of structures, 55
binary values contrastive analysis, 51
of functions, 77-8 Council of Europe
Bloomfield, L., 14 adult learner project, 86, 90
Bobbitt, F., 30 Threshold-level project, 17, 28, 122,
Bowers, R., 138 123
Breen, M., 35, 97, 98-101 coverage
British Council, 20 and structure selection, 51
Broughton, G., 17 and vocabulary selection, 51
Brumfit, C. J., 3, 35 CTP, see Bangalore/Madras
Bruner, J. S., 34 Communicational Teaching Project
curriculum
Candlin, C., 35, 97-8 distinguished from syllabus, 4
centres of interest evaluation, 148-9, 152-5
190 Index

ideologies, 24-6, 132 fig., 133 and vocabulary selection, 49

innovation, see innovation Fries, C., 14
objectives model of, 5, 6, 26-33, 132 functions
fig; 133 binary values of, 77-8
process approach to, 5, 6, 33-6, 132 combination with structures, 79-81
fig; 133 definition and interpretation, 76-8
rational planning model of, 5, 6, grading and selection of, 48, 82-3,
26-33, 132 fig., 133 75-6
situational model of, 5, 6, 36-41 and structural grading, 78-9
curriculum studies
isolation of ELT from, 19-20 George, H. V., 51-2, 54
modem language teaching and, 21 goals, 26
and reappraisal of ELT methods, Graded Objectives Movement, 10
20-1 grading, 11, 12, 47-50
cyclical syllabus, 80-1 in communicative syllabus, 58, 59
fig-
data collection, 146-7, 151, 155^g. of functions, 48, 75-6, 82-3
Davies, A., 108 ‘natural’, 56-8
Davies, I. K., 31 of structures, 14, 15, 48, 53-9, 78-9
dialogue, 25 of topics, 48, 66-7
diffusion/ dissemination of vocabulary, 48-50
of innovation, see research, grammar, see structures
development and Greenwood, J., 108-9
diffusion/ dissemination grouping
(RD and D) and grading of structures, 54

Eisner, E., 31 Halliday, M. A. V., 48, 125

Elliott,J., 151, 152 Handy, C. A., 137, 138
empirical-rational innovation strategy, Harlen, W., 151, 152
128-9, 133 Havelock, R., 125, 126
English heterophily, 123
as a world language, 8-10 homophily, 123
English for General Purposes (EGP), 19 Homby, A. S., 13, 62
English for Specific Purposes (ESP), 19, humanism, classical, 24-5
125 Humanities Curriculum Project, 35
errors, learners’, 95-6, 106 Hymes, D., 16-17
evaluation
assessment v., 40 ideologies
Bell’s model of, 150/jg., 151 curriculum, 24-6, 132 fig., 133
and curriculum innovation, 145, information gathering, see data collection
147, 148-52, 154-5 innovation
and ethics, 149 adoption curve, 139-40
evaluation of, 152 adoption rates, 140-1
models, 149 characteristics of, 140-1
context of, 136 fig., 137-9
curriculum as, 113-15
Fein, D., 66 data collection and, 146-7, 151, 155
frequency fig-
and structure selection, 51-2 defining aims of, 144-5
 Index 191

defining results of, 144—5 structural, 14

empirical-rational strategy for, transformational-generative, 15-16
128- 9, 133 literature
evaluation of, 145, 147, 148-52, as source for language work, 67-8
154-5
McIntosh, A., 48
extemal/intemal proposals for,
Mackey, W. F., 47-8, 50
141-2
MACOS (Man - A Course of Study), 34
ideology and, 132 fig., 133
Mager, F. F., 26
leadership and, 145-6
management
management and, 141-3
innovation and, 141-3
normative-re-educative strategy for,
rationality and, 143-4
129- 31, 133, 138
system in, 143-7
organizational cultures and, 138
meaning-based syllabuses, see
problem-solving model of, 123-5,
notional-functional syllabuses
132-3, 138
means analysis, 84, 88, 91-2
process of, 118-20
means-ends model, 26-30, 41
research, development,
methodology, 110
diffusion/dissemination model of,
syllabuses based on, see methods-
120, 121-3, 132, 138
based syllabuses; procedural
social interaction model of, 125-6,
syllabus; process syllabus
133
methods-based syllabuses, 94-5
stages in, 139-40, 146-7, 152-4
compared with content syllabuses,
strategies for, 126-133
44-7
systematic approach to, 143-7
see also procedural syllabus; process
Trump’s five-step sequence of, 141
syllabus
within systems, 115-17
Miles, M. B., 140
modern language teaching
Kelly, A. V., 33
and comprehensive school system, 9,
Kelly, L. G., 7
10
Krashen, S., 12
and curriculum studies, 21
modern language tradition
language acquisition studies, 82, 83, 91,
v. ELT tradition, 7-8, 9-10
95-6
Munby, J., 70-1
languages for specific purposes (LASP),
model of communicative
18-19, 84
competence, 87-8
leadership
in innovation management, 145-6 needs analysis, 12-13, 17-18, 69, 83-92
leamability negotiation
and structure selection, 50 in curriculum development, 119, see
and vocabulary selection, 51 also normative-re-educative
learners strategy
errors of, 95-6, 106 teacher-learner, see process syllabus
involvement of, in syllabus design, Nicholls, A., 131, 139
see process syllabus normative-re-educative strategy
learning process, 95-6, see also language for innovation, 129-31, 133, 138
acquisition studies notional-functional syllabus, 17-18,
linguistic competence, see communicative 75-92
competence noun phrase
linguistics frequency analysis of, 52
 192 Index

objectives and changes to curriculum, 129-31

affective, 28 Reform Movement, 10-11
behavioural, 26-33, 90, 102 research, development,
cognitive, 28 diffusion/dissemination (RD and D),
definition of, in situational analysis, 120, 121-3, 126, 132, 138
38-9 Richards, J., 2
terminal course, 29-30 Richterich, R., 18
opportunism Rogers, E. M., 2, 123, 140
and vocabulary selection, 50 role cultures, 137, 138
organizational cultures, 137-8
organizations school-based curriculum, 36-40
innovation in, 116 innovation in, 118-19
schools
Palmer, H., 11-12, 53 organizational culture in, 137
person culture, 137 second langauge acquisition (SLA), 16,
phonemes, 14 82, 83, 91
phonetics, 10-11 selection
Piaget, J., 34 of language, criteria for, 48
pidginization of structure, 50-3
and grading of structures, 55-6 of vocabulary, 48-50
Pienemann, M., 55, 56-8 sequencing, 48
power-coercive innovation strategy, Shaw, A. M., 21
127-8, 133, 138 Simons, H., 149
power culture, 137, 138 situational approach (Hornsby), 13
Prabhu, N. S., 45, 94, 102-9 situational model
praxis, 25 of curriculum, 36-41
private language schools, 20 situational syllabus, 62-5
problem-solving model Skilbeck, M., 32-3, 36-41
of innovation, 123-5, 132-3, 138 skills, language, 70-3
procedural syllabus, 94, 95 skills-based syllabuses, 68-9, 72-3
process curriculum, 33-6 Skinner, B., 15, 25
process syllabus, 94—5 social interaction model
professional organizations, 20 of innovation, 125-6, 133
progressivism, 24, 25, 41 Sockett, H., 30
proportional syllabus, 81 source/target languages
contrastive analysis of, 14-15
range spiral syllabus, 80-1
and structure selection, 51 staging, 48
and vocabulary selection, 49 Steiner, F., 28-30
rationality Stenhouse, L., 30, 32, 35, 125
and innovation strategy, 128-9, 133 Strevens, P., 48
in management, 143-4 structuralism
rational planning model v. notional-functional approach, 17
of curriculum, 5, 6, 26-33, 132 fig., structure drills, 15
133 structure
reconstructionism, 24, 25, 41 grading of, 14, 15, 48, 53-9, 78-9
recycling selection of, 50-3
in syllabus construction, 80-1 surrender value, 12-13
re-education Sweet, H., 11
 Index 193
syllabus tenses
bases for design of, 46 fig., 95 frequency analysis of, 52
choice of, 109-11 Threshold level project (Council of
content-type, 45-6, 47, 91-2, 75-94 Europe), 17, 28, 75, 122, 123
content v. procedural, 45-6 topic-based syllabus, 65-8
defined by Brumfit, 3 traditions
distinguished from curriculum, 4 English language v. modem
functional, see notional-functional language, 7-8
syllabus Reform Movement and British
learner-led v. teacher-led, 44—5 ELT, 10-11
methods-based, 94-5, see also training programmes
procedural syllabus; process model for design of, 85 fig.
syllabus Trump, J. L., 141
notional-functional, 47, 75-92 Tumposky, N. R., 30, 32
procedural, 94, 95
process, 33-6, 94—5, 96-102 Valdman, A., 55-6
proportional, 81 value systems, 24—6, 132 fig., 133
situational, 62-5 verbs
skills-based, 68-9, 72-3 frequency analysis of, 52
spiral, 80-1 vocabulary selection, 48-50
structural, 47
structural grading in, 58-9 United States
topic-based, 65-8 language teaching tradition in,
Type A, 91-2, 75-92 13-15
Type B, 94-113
Types A and B compared, 44—7 Waystage syllabus (Council of Europe),
for writing, 72 75-8
systems West, M., 12-13
innovation within, 115-17 Widdowson, H. G., 18, 26, 35, 36
systems-behavioural approach, 25 Wilkins, D. A., 18
writing syllabus, 72
Taba-Tyler curriculum model, 26, 27 fig.
task-based teaching, 103-9 Yalden, J., 81
task cultures, 137, 138 Index by Justyn Balinski
• S .

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‘Ron White approaches ELT curriculum issues by making the case that
however desirable curriculum renewal/change within the financial and
administrative constraints of existing educational systems might be, the
reality is frequently problematic. This book seems particularly aimed at
educational administrators and teachers who want to expand their
rudimentary knowledge of the subject, and ample background is provided
via the author’s thorough historical overview of the development of ideas on
language teaching.’ Leslie F. Sheldon, Times Higher Educational
Supplement

‘It makes fascinating reading ... I couldn’t put it down . . . The synthesis
of the field is excellent and the treatment is very clear so that it really is the
kind of book that our students need to have. It is going to be one of those
fundamental texts which we will all be referring to in the future.’ Ken
Cripwell, ESOL

Ronald V. White is Associate Director of the Centre for Applied Language

Studies at the University of Reading.

Applied Language Studies

Edited by David Crystal and Keith Johnson

This new series aims to deal with key topics within the main branches of
applied language studies - initially in the fields of foreign language
teaching and learning, child language acquisition and clinical or remedial
language studies. The series will provide students with a research
perspective in a particular topic, at the same time containing an original
slant which will make each volume a genuine contribution to the
development of ideas in the subject.

Also in this series

Chomsky’s Universal Grammar

An Introduction
V. J. Cook
Analyzing Children’s Language
Methods and Theories
Tina Bennett-Kastor

ISBN D-L31-1S1SE-M
JAMES THIN
Cover design by B
£16-99
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