Kathleen Graves

The language curriculum: A social contextual perspective

This article examines curriculum from a social contextual perspective in which enactment – teaching and learning – is the central process, to which planning and evaluation contribute. It looks at the ways two kinds of contexts, target-language embedded and target-language removed, influence language curriculum planning and enactment. It provides a brief history of syllabus design and a rationale for moving beyond syllabus as the primary construct for curriculum planning. It then explores the classroom as the context of enactment and the role of the teacher as catalyst for curriculum change. It reconceptualizes the classroom as a learning community with potential links with real, virtual and imagined communities. It briefly explores integrated approaches to evaluation and assessment and concludes with examples of promising directions and suggestions for further research. Examples of practice that illustrate concepts are provided throughout the article.

Materials in ELT: Current Issues

Materials in general, and commercial materials in particular, play a central role in language learning and teaching. As Richards (2001: 251) notes ‘Much of the language teaching that occurs throughout the world today could not take place without the extensive use of commercial materials.’ Yet, until relatively recently, this was a neglected area in English Language Teaching (ELT) research and publication. Tomlinson (2012) identifies the early nineties as the decade in which serious attention began to be shown towards materials development. Fortunately, the last few years have seen an increase in this attention with a number of new publications, including Harwood (2010), Tomlinson (2008), Tomlinson and Masuhara (2010a), Tomlinson (2013), as well as new editions of previous publications (McDonough and Shaw, 1993, 2003; McDonough, Shaw and Masuhara, 2013; Tomlinson, 1998, 2011). An important contribution to the field has also come from Tomlinson’s (2012) state-of-the-art review of materials development.

Materials in ELT: Looking Ahead

The chapters in this volume have been written against the background of the growth of English as a global language. Nine of the fifteen contributors, representing Albania, Algeria, Argentina, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Brazil, Ghana, Japan, and Thailand, point out that English is being taught in these countries because globalisation has made it the language of economic and social access and participation. Although the role of English in people’s actual access to economic and social opportunities is highly problematic (see Coleman, 2011), its status as an international language (EIL), or global lingua franca (ELF), is well established. As such, the importance of English has resulted in policy decisions in countries around the world such as: lowering the age of compulsory English in schools; the provision of school subjects in English; and the required use of materials that may not match the teacher’s background. These policies have created huge challenges to their implementation from the standpoint of materials development, of teaching and teacher preparation, of learner-readiness, and of available resources, particularly technology. These challenges are a cause for concern, since difficulties in implementing the policies undermine the teaching workforce and simply do not produce the desired results. As Wedell puts it, national policy makers seem generally to have given insufficient thought to existing socio-economic and educational/cultural realities, when considering hoped-for curriculum outcomes. Teachers have thus often failed to enable learners to achieve them. (2008: 635)