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Curriculum - Goal & Content

The document outlines the goals and content of language lessons, emphasizing the importance of vocabulary, grammar, and skills progression. It discusses different approaches to sequencing course content, including linear and modular methods, and highlights the need for effective assessment of learners' progress. Additionally, it addresses the significance of incorporating meaningful tasks and real-world applications in language learning.

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Duc Nguyen
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19 views30 pages

Curriculum - Goal & Content

The document outlines the goals and content of language lessons, emphasizing the importance of vocabulary, grammar, and skills progression. It discusses different approaches to sequencing course content, including linear and modular methods, and highlights the need for effective assessment of learners' progress. Additionally, it addresses the significance of incorporating meaningful tasks and real-world applications in language learning.

Uploaded by

Duc Nguyen
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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GOALS

CONTENT
SEQUENCING
GOALS AND CONTENT

Goals of a language lesson:


▰ Language
▰ Ideas
▰ Skills
▰ or Text (Discourse)
Some break goals down into smaller well-specified performance
objectives 🡪 easier to monitor and assess

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THE UNITS OF PROGRESSION IN THE COURSE

Classified into two types:


▰ Progress in a definite series (vocabulary levels)
▰ Represent a field of knowledge, in any order (topics)
*Note: A course in topics: check if vocabulary is at appropriate level and
if there is reasonable coverage of useful vocabulary
🡪 Hard to check 🡪 Teachers must decide which are most important
3
WHAT WILL THE PROGRESSION BE USED FOR?

▰ Set targets and paths to those targets


▰ check the adequacy of selection and ordering in a course.
▰ monitor and report on learners’ progress and achievement in the
course.

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UNITS OF
PROGRESSION

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VOCABULARY

▰ Ensure learners have good control of high-frequency vocabulary


▰ The first 1,000 words: 75 percent of the successive words in a text
▰ the second 1,000 words: 5 percent of the successive words in a text
▰ 570 academic words: 10 percent of the successive words in an
academic text.

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VOCABULARY

Low-frequency vocabulary (academic, not in the most frequent 2,000)


does not deserve teaching effort.
🡪 Teach strategies to deal with and learn this.
Learners need to meet the same vocabulary in a variety of contexts and
across the course.

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GRAMMAR

(George (1963b) A basis for Stage 1 of a course (1,500 to 2,000 words,


two years, five periods/week) consist of:
▰ Imperative
▰ Don’t + stem (Imperative)
▰ Simple Present Actual and Neutral
▰ Verb + to + stem
▰ Simple Past Narrative and Actual
▰ Past Participle

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GRAMMAR

Stage 2 of a course could add the following items:


• Simple Past Neutral and Habitual
• Past Perfect from Simple Past Narrative
• Stem+ing in Free Adjuncts
• Noun + to + Stem
• Simple Present Iterative and Future
• Verb + to + Stem (Stem dominant)
• Verb + Noun + to + Stem
• Noun + Preposition + Stem+ing
• Stem+ed = Adjective in a Noun Group
• Stem+ing = Adjective in a Noun Group
• Stem+ing = Noun
• Can + Stem (immediately and characteristically able)
• May + Stem (possibility and uncertainty)
• ’ll + Stem
• Must + Stem (necessity from circumstances) 9
FUNCTIONS

List of functions by Van Ek and Alexander (1980):


1 Imparting and seeking factual information
2 Expressing and finding out intellectual attitudes
3 Expressing and finding out emotional attitudes
4 Expressing and finding out moral attitudes
5 Getting things done (suasion)
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6 Socialising.
FUNCTIONS

Council of Europe (2001) add new emphases:


1 Imparting and seeking factual information
2 Expressing and finding out attitudes
3 Suasion
4 Socialising
5 Structuring discourse
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6 Communication repair.
DISCOURSE

Used in pre-university courses: recounts, information reports and


arguments

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SKILLS, SUBSKILLS AND STRATEGIES

Reading courses(for example)


▰ Finding the main idea
▰ Reading for detail
▰ Note-taking
▰ Skimming
▰ Reading faster
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▰ Reading for inferences
SKILLS, SUBSKILLS AND STRATEGIES

Three major ways of defining subskills:


1. look at the range of activities covered by a skill
▻ e.g. speaking: interactional speaking and transactional speaking
▻ Transactional speaking:monologue, dialogue

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SKILLS, SUBSKILLS AND STRATEGIES

2. Look at the skill as a process, divide into parts of the process. E.g.
approach writing: dividing the writing process into parts.
(1) having a model of the reader, (2) having writing goals, (3) gathering
ideas, (4) organising ideas, (5) turning ideas into written text, (6)
reviewing what has just been written, (7) editing the written text.

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SKILLS, SUBSKILLS AND STRATEGIES

3. use levels of cognitive activity


Bloom’s taxonomy: divides cognitive activity into six levels of
increasing complexity:
(1) knowledge, (2) comprehension, (3) application, (4) analysis, (5)
synthesis, (6) evaluation.

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IDEAS

A good language course: learners in contact with ideas that help the
learning of language and are useful to the learners
Imaginary happenings (adventure)
An academic subject (agriculture, tourism, commerce or computing)
Learner survival needs (shopping, going to the doctor, etc.)
Interesting facts (discovery of penicillin, whales)
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IDEAS

Culture:
▰ explicit knowledge of native and non-native cultures (housing,
eating, school)
▰ different conceptualisations between cultures (notions of
cleanliness and politeness)
▰ insider’s view and distanced view.
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TASK-BASED SYLLABUSES

▰ Using language to convey a message


▰ Attention given to the use of tasks in the classroom
▰ what is a task?
“A task is an activity which requires learners to use language, with
emphasis on meaning, to attain an objective” (Bygate et al., 2001)

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TASK-BASED SYLLABUSES

▰ Using language to convey a message


▰ Attention given to the use of tasks in the classroom
▰ what is a task?
“A task is an activity which requires learners to use language, with
emphasis on meaning, to attain an objective” (Bygate et al., 2001)

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TASK-BASED SYLLABUSES

Questions to determine:
1. Does the activity engage learners’ interest?
2. Is there a primary focus on meaning?
3. Is there an outcome?
4. Is success judged in terms of outcome?
5. Is completion a priority?
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6. Does the activity relate to real world activities?
SEQUENCING THE CONTENT IN A COURSE

How units of a course can fit together


▰ material in one lesson depends on t previous lessons (a linear
development)
▰ each lesson separate from the others → done in any order and need
not all be done

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LINEAR APPROACHES TO SEQUENCING

Most language courses involve linear development.


begin with simple frequent items that prepare for later more complex
items.
Disadvantages: absenteeism, learning styles, speeds of learning, need
for recycling material

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LINEAR APPROACHES TO SEQUENCING

Spiral curriculum: major items to cover, and then covering them several
times at increasing levels of detail.
(a) lexical sets with less frequent members occurring later in the spiral;
(b) high-frequency grammatical patterns occurring later in the spiral;
(c) groups of language functions with less useful alternative ways occurring later in the spiral;
(d) genres with longer and more complex examples of the genre occurring later in the spiral.

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LINEAR APPROACHES TO SEQUENCING

Spiral curriculum

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LINEAR APPROACHES TO SEQUENCING

▰ A matrix model: diversity rather than complexity.


▰ One unit of progression varied against another →same items in
different contexts. E.g. same grammatical items in a variety of
topics

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LINEAR APPROACHES TO SEQUENCING

▰ Revision units: an addition to a linear model.


▰ time is spent revising previously met material
▰ amount of time given to revision should increase as the course
progresses.

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LINEAR APPROACHES TO SEQUENCING

▰ a field approach: sequencing material involves


▻ deciding what items need to be covered i.e. make up the field,
▻ providing a variety of opportunities to meet these items,
▻ checking that each important item will be met sufficient times

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A MODULAR APPROACH TO SEQUENCING

▰ breaks a course into independent non-linear units


▰ units may be parts of lessons, lessons or groups of lessons
Each unit or module is complete in itself and does not usually
assume knowledge of previous modules.
▰ accompanied by criterion-referenced testing

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SUMMARY OF THE STEPS

1 Describe the goals of the course.


2 Decide on the unit of progression for the course.
3 Choose and sequence the content of the course.
4 Check the content against lists of other items to ensure coverage.

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