ENG519 Most Wanted

Q1. What are included in Grave Model?

Monitoring and assessment and evaluation in the Language Curriculum Design model are included in one part of the Graves Model (2000) i.e. designing an assessment plan.

Q2. What are the weaknesses Murdoch’s Model?

Principles, monitoring and assessment, and evaluation are not included in Murdoch’s Model (2010). These are possible weaknesses of his model.

3. Describe waterfall model.

According to Tessmer and Wedman (1990) “waterfall” model, is where one stage of curriculum design (for example environment analysis) is done thoroughly and then the next stage of needs analysis is done thoroughly and so on. It is in the same way as the flow of water fills one container in a stepped-down series and then flows over to fill the next.

Q4. What an existing bank of materials can include?

(1) Copies of activities prepared by themselves or other teachers for other courses or for previous deliveries of the course (2) published supplementary materials such as graded readers, grammar activity books, conversation texts, speed reading courses and so on, (3) clippings from newspapers or magazines, recordings from the radio or TV or photocopied material from texts or course books. The curriculum designer or teacher chooses the bits and puts them together to make a course. The curriculum designer or teacher thus takes most responsibility for content, sequencing and goals.

Q5. What is Focused Opportunistic Approach?

In a focused opportunistic approach, the format and presentation part of the curriculum design process is typically done first. That is, material is gathered or prepared to teach the course. Then, with each reteaching of the course, one part of the curriculum design process is done thoroughly. Thus, it might be that a proper needs analysis is not carried out until the third or fourth re-teaching of the course.

6. Describe three curriculum approaches.

Forward design starts with syllabus planning, moves to methodology, and is followed by assessment of learning outcomes. Resolving issues of syllabus content and sequencing are essential starting points with forward design, which has been the major tradition in language curriculum development.

Central design begins with classroom processes and methodology. Issues of syllabus and learning outcomes are not specified in detail in advance and are addressed as the curriculum is implemented. Many of the innovative methods of the 1980s and 90s reflect central design.

Backward design starts from a specification of learning outcomes and decisions on methodology and syllabus are developed from the learning outcomes.

7. Define Input, Process and the Curriculum.

In language teaching, input refers to the linguistic content of a course.

Process refers to how teaching is carried out and constitutes the domain of methodology in language teaching.

Curriculum can be both written and unwritten. Essentially, curriculum is what the school is attempting to teach, which might include social behaviors as well as content and thinking skills.

8. Describe criteria for the selection of syllabus units.

Criteria for the selection of syllabus units include frequency, usefulness, simplicity, learnability and authenticity.

Q9. What is methodology?

Methodology encompasses the types of learning activities, procedures and techniques that are employed by teachers when they teach and the principles that underlie the design of the activities and exercises in their textbooks and teaching resources.

Q10. What is Forward Design?

Forward design is based on the assumption that input, process, and output are related in a linear fashion. In other words, before decisions about methodology and output are determined, issues related to the content of instruction need to be resolved. Curriculum design is seen to constitute a sequence of stages that occur in a fixed order – an approach that has been referred to as a ‘waterfall’ model (Tessmer and Wedman, 1990) where the output from one stage serves as the input to the stage that follows.

Q11. What is Corpus Analysis?

A linguistic approach to analyzing a corpus – a set of systematically or randomly collected and electronically stored ‘real-life’ language samples such as speeches, magazine articles, and texting messages – with a goal to discern certain rules of language use, grammatical or lexical patterns.

Q12. What is Discourse analysis?

It is a procedure that is used to study the nature of different text types, the ways they are used, and their lexical, grammatical, and textual features.

13. Write some examples of forward design methods.

The audio-lingual method, the audio-visual method and the structural situational method are some examples of forward design methods. More recent examples include Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) and content based teaching/CLIL.

14. Explain ‘specialist approach’.

In some contexts the planning and development of each stage in the curriculum development process is carried out by different specialists who have expertise in each process, such as specialists in syllabus design, methodology and assessment. Graves (2008) describes this as a ‘specialist approach’.

Q15. What is ‘progressivism’ according to Clark?

A progression from input, to process, to output and then to planning and delivery of instruction, it is only one route that can be taken. With central design, curriculum development starts with the selection of teaching activities, techniques and methods rather than with the elaboration of a detailed language syllabus or specification of learning outcomes. Issues related to input and output are dealt with after a methodology has been chosen or developed or during the process of teaching itself. Clark (1987) refers to this as ‘progressivism’ and an example of a process approach to the curriculum.

Q16. What is Backward Design?

The third approach to curriculum design is to begin with a specification of learning outputs and to use these as the basis for developing instructional processes and input. Backward design starts with a careful statement of the desired results or outcomes: appropriate teaching activities and content are derived from the results of learning. It was sometimes described as an ‘ends-means’.

Q17. What are the three steps recommended by Wiggins and McTighe in backward design?

They recommend the following three steps:

•  Identify desired results.
•  Determine acceptable evidence of learning.
•  Plan learning experiences and instruction.

Q18. What is Needs Analysis?

Needs Analysis (identifying learning outcomes or objectives) is often seen to depend upon a systematic analysis of the learners’ communicative needs. It emerged in the 1960s.

Q19. What is Informal needs assessment?

Informal needs assessment deals with the informal negotiation that takes place between class teachers and students in the form of chats with either individual students, groups of students or the whole class in order to select a focus for the class. It is a necessary component of information retrieval on students’ learning needs and should be recorded. It can subsequently be used as input for aims and objective setting and for devising course outlines (Shaw and Dowsett, 1986).

Q20. What are the steps involved in informal needs assessment?

•  Identify learner’s communicative needs.
•  Develop statements of learning objectives.
•  Identify linguistic content and skills needed to attain the objectives.
•  Prepare course plans.
•  Select materials and teaching methods.

Q21. What is Competency-based Instruction within Backward Design Approach –I?

Competency-based Instruction (CpBI) is another widely used example of backward design. With CpBI the starting point of curriculum design is a specification of the learning outcomes in terms of ‘competencies’ – the knowledge, skills and behaviours learners involved in performing everyday tasks and activities and which learners should master at the end of a course of study.

Q22. What is the process of Competency-Based Instruction within Backward Design Approach II?

Needs analysis. Identify topics for the survival curriculum (e.g. banking, health, shopping). Identify target tasks, design tasks. Identify competencies for each topic. Group competencies into instructional units. Identify the language knowledge and skills needed for each instructional unit (e.g. the 4 skills, vocabulary and grammar). Choose instructional materials.