Planning
goals and learning outcomes
- The Ideology of The Curriculum
In developing goals for educational program,
curriculum planners draw on their understanding both of the present and
long-term needs of learners and of society as well as the planners’ beliefs and
ideologies about school, learners, and teacher. Each of the five curriculum
perspective examined here emphasizes a different approach to the role of
language in the curriculum.
- Academic Rationalism
This justification for the aims of curriculum
stresses the intrinsic value of the subject matter and its role in developing
the learners’ intellect, humanistic value, and rationality.
Academic rationalism is sometimes used to
justify the inclusion of certain foreign language in school curricula: where
they are taught not as tools for communication but as an aspect of social
studies.
The role of school is to provide access to the
major achievement of a particular cultural tradition and to know the insights
gain from studying enduring fields of knowledge.
The basic educational aim was the assimilation
of British culture through the medium of English literature.
- Social and Economic Efficiency
This educational philosophy emphasizes the
practical needs of learners and society and the role of an educational program
in producing learners who are economically productive.
In language teaching, this philosophy leads to
an emphasis on practical and functional skills in a foreign language.
Socioeconomic ideology stresses the economic
needs of society as a justification for the teaching of English.
Learners’ need can be identified with
predetermining set of skill and objective.
The curriculum focuses on knowledge and skill
that are relevant to the learners’ everyday life needs that the curriculum
should be planned to meet the practical needs of society.
- Learner –centeredness
This term groups together educational philosophies
that stress the individual needs of learners, the role of individual experience
and the need to develop awareness, self reflection, critical thinking,
learners’ strategies, and other qualities and skills that are believed to be
important for learners to develop.
Ø Reconceptualist emphasize the role of
experience in learning.
Ø Constructivist emphasize that learning
involves active construction and testing one’s own representation of the world
and accommodation of it to one’s personal conceptual framework.
Ø Progressivism- learning is envisaged as a
continuum which can be broke up into several broad development stages. Growth
through experience is the key concept.
Marsh (1986, 201) points out that issue of
child-centered or learner-centered curricula reappears every decade or so and
can refer to any of the following:
Ø Individualized teaching
Ø Learning through practical operation or doing
Ø Laizzes faire-no organized curricula at all
based on the momentary interest of children
Ø Creative self experience by students
Ø Practically oriented activities directed
toward the needs of society
Ø A collective term that refers to the rejection
of teaching-directed learning.
In language teaching, Clark sees this
educational philosophy as leading to an emphasis on process rather than
product, a focus on learner differences, learner strategies, and learner self
direction and autonomy.
- Social Reconstructionism
This curriculum perspective emphasizes the
roles of school and learners can and should play in addressing social injustices
and inequality.
Teacher must empower their students so that
they can recognize unjust systems of class race, or gender, and challenge them.
One of the best-known critical pedagogues is:
a. freire (1972) : teachers and learners are
involved in a joint process of exploring and constructing knowledge. Students
are not the “object” of knowledge. They must find ways of recognizing and
resisting various forms of control.
b. Aurbach’s (1992) : that teaching must seek to
empower students and help them bring about change in their lives. That teachers
and students may not be able to change the structure of the system in which
they work and that other channels are often available to address such changes.
- Cultural Pluralism
This philosophy argues that school should
prepare students to participate in several different cultures and not merely
culture of the dominant social and economic group.
Cultural pluralism seeks to redress racism, to
raise the self esteem of minority groups and to help children appreciate the
viewpoints of other cultures and religious.
In the USA the American Council on the
Teaching of Foreign Language (ACTFL), there are 3 dimensions:
a. The need to learn about cultures
b. To compare any cultures
c. Engage in intercultural exploration.
The philosophy of the curriculum is the result of political judgment
in that it reflects a particular set of choice about curriculum options.
B.
Stating
Curriclum Outcomes
1.
Aims
An aim refers to a statement of a general
change that a program seeks to bring about in learners. Aim is broader than
objective.
The purposes of aim statements are:
·
To provide a clear
definition of the purposes of a program
·
To provide
guidelinesfor teachers, learners, and material writers
·
To help provide a focus
of instruction
·
To describeimportant
and realizable changes in learning
Aims statement reflect the ideology of the
curriculum and show how the curriculum will seek to realize it.
2.
Objectives
An objective refers to a statement of specific
changes a program seek to bring about and result from an analysis of the aim
into different components.
Objectives generally have the following
characteristics:
·
They describe what the
aim seeks to achievein terms of smaller units of learning.
·
They provide a basis
for the organization of teaching activities
·
They describe learning
in terms of observable behaviour or perfomance.
The advantages of describing the aims of a
course in terms of objective are:
·
They facilitate
planning: once objectives have been agreed on, course planning, materials
preparation, textbook selection, and related processes can begin
·
They provide measurable
outcomes and thus provide accountability: given a set of objectives, the succes
or failure of a program to teach the objectives can be measured
·
They are perpective:
they describe how planning should proceed and do away with subjective
interpretations and personal opinions.
Statement of objectives has the following
characteristics:
·
Objectives describe a
learning outcomes
·
Objectives should be
consistent
·
Objective should be
precise
·
Objectives should be
feasible
3.
Criticisms
of the use of objective
·
Objectives turn
teaching into a technology
Objectives are linked to an efficiency view of
education. Based on the assumption that must efficient means to an end is
justified.
To ensure that the curriculum addressed additionally
important goals, objective should be included.
·
Objectives trivialize teaching
and are product-oriented
By assuming that every purpose in teaching can be
expressed as an objective, the suggestion is that the only worthwhile goal in
teaching is to bring about changes in student behavior.
Objectives need not be limited to observable outcomes.
They describe processes and experiences that are seen important focus of the
curriculum.
·
Objectives are unsuited
to many aspect of language use
Objectives may be suitable for describing the mastery
of skills, but less suited to such things as critical thinking, literary
appreciation, or negotiating of meaning.
Objectives can be written in domain such as critical thinking and
literary appreciation but will focus on the experiences the curriculum will
provide rather than specific learning outcomes.
4.
Competence-based
program outcome
Competence-based
education has much in common with such approaches to learning as
performance-based instruction, mastery learning and individualized instruction.
It is outcome-based and is adaptive to changing needs of students, teachers,
and the community.
Competencies
differ from other student goals and objectives in that they describe the
student’s ability to apply basic and other skills in situations that are
commonly encountered in daily life.
5.
The
nature of competency
Competencies
refer to observable behaviors that are necessary for the successful completion
of real-world activities. Competency
descriptions are very similar to statement of objective. They can be regarded
as objective that are linked to specific domains or activities.
E.g. topic: housing
1. Identify
common household furniture/ room
2. Answer
simple questions about basic housing needs
3. Ask
for simple information about housing, including rent, utilities, and date
available
4. Report
household problems and emergencies
5. Request
repairs
6. Arrange
time for repairs
6.
Criticism
of the use of competencies
The
use of competencies in program planning is not without its critics.
These
criticisms focus on the following issues:
Definition
of competencies Tollefson (1986) argues that no valid procedures are available
develop competency specifications. Although lists of competencies can be
generated intuitively for many areas and activities. Criticisms such as these
essentially argue for a different curriculum ideology.
7.
The
standards movement
The
most recent realization of competency perspective in the United States is seen
in the “standards” movement, which has dominated educational discussions since
the 1990s.
Standards
are descriptions of the largest students should be able to reach in different
domains of curriculum content, and throughout the 1990s there was drive to
specify standard for subject matter across the curriculum. These standards are
states in the form of competence.
Each
standard is further explicated by descriptions, sample progress indicators and
classroom vignettes with discussions.
C.
Nonlanguage
Outcomes And Process Objectives
A language curriculum
typically includes others kinds of outcomes apart from language-related
objectives of t kinds described above. If the curriculum seeks to reflected
values related to learners centeredness, social reconstrutionism, or cultural
pluralism, outcomes related to these values will also need to be included.
The categories of
nonlanguage outcomes:
- Social,
psychological, and emotional support in the new living environment
- Confidence
- Motivation
- Cultural
understanding
- Clarification
of goals
- Access
and entry into employment, further study, and community life
Objectives in these
domains related to the personal, social, cultural, and political needs and
rights of learners. If these are not identified, they tend to get forgotten or
overlooked in the curriculum planning process. Examples of objectives in
on-arrival progress:
- To
assist students to identify local providers
- To
assist students to identify the main functions of the above
- To
assist students to ascertain relevance of above services for themselves in
terms of eligibility and accessibility.
Objectives in the
category of learn how to learning to strategies. Learning strategies that effective
learning involves:
·
Selecting strategies appropriate to
different tasks
·
Monitoring strategies for their
effectiveness and replacing or revising them if necessary
The numbers of
categories of process objective:
1.
Thinking
skills
At
the end of the course, pupils be able to :
·
Explore an idea, situation, or suggested
solution for specific purpose
·
Think creatively to generate new ideas
·
Analyze or evaluate an idea, a
situation, or a suggested solution for a specific purpose
2.
Learning
how to learn
At
the end of the course, pupils should be able to :
·
Appreciate that there are varieties of
English reflecting different cultures and use this knowledge appropriately and
sensitively in communication
·
Adopt a critical, but not negative,
attitude toward ideas , thoughts, and values reflected in spoken and written
texts of local and foreign origin
The
planning of learning outcomes for a language course is closely related to the
course planning process.
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