BOOK REVIEW:
CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT IN LANGUAGE TEACHING Jack C. Richards. Cambridge: Cambridge University Univers ity Press, 2001. xiv + 321 pp.
By: Saidna Zulfiqar bin Tahir
Curriculum Development in Language Teaching is part of the Cambridge Language Education series edited by Richards. In this book, Richards has set out to provide in service teachers with a resource and teachers in training with a review of language program planning, implementati implementation, on, and evaluation evaluation approaches. approaches. Overall Overall,, he has achieved this this goal and has accomplished the difficult task of writing a text that is informative and balanced in terms of scope and utility. This book seeks to describe and examine the processes of curriculum development in language teaching in order to acquaint language teachers and teachers-in-training with fundamental issues and practices in language curriculum development. Curriculum development is an essentially practical practical activity since it seeks to improve the quality of language teaching through the use of systematic planning, development, and review practices in all aspects of a language program. The book tries to provide as many examples as possible possible of how some of the practical practical problems problems in language program development have been addressed by practitioners in many parts of the world. The book was organized into nine chapters covering language teaching history, methods, needs analysis, situation analysis, goals and outcomes, course design, the teaching and learning process, materials design, and evaluation. Each chapter ends with discussion questions and activities, an appendix, and chapter references. The chapters follow a chronological sequence that matches the development of a typical curriculum, which progresses from an initial needs analysis ultimately to program evaluation. Aspects that receive the most attention are needs analysis, learning outcomes, and syllabus frameworks.
Chapte I: deals with the origins of language curriculum development relating to its brief
and precise historical background specifically on changes in teaching methods and approaches. With respect to the author’s notions of curriculum development and syllabus design, he explains that “curriculum development is a more comprehensive process than syllabus design. It includes the processes that are used to determine the needs of a group
of learners, to develop aims or objectives for a program to address those needs, to determine an appropriate syllabus, course structure, teaching methods, and materials, and to carry out an evaluation of the language program those results from these processes (p. 2). On the other hand, “syllabus design is one aspect of curriculum development but is not identical with it. A syllabus is a specification of the content of a course of instruction and lists to what will be taught and tested” (p. 2). This chapter also focuses on vocabulary and grammatical selections and gradation that can be accomplished through different approaches to support language teaching formerly used until the 1950s, and leads to the development of the language curriculum development in the next phase as presented and discussed in Chapter Two.
Chapter II: refers to changes and approaches from syllabus design to curriculum
development in relation to the quest for new methods “in order to meet the changing needs of the learners” (p. 24), developing from the Structural-Situational Approach to Communicative Language Teaching (CLT). In addition, the needs and goals of Englishlanguage teaching in terms of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) implemented through the ESP approach are also presented.
Chapter III: provides a basic assumption of curriculum development based on an
analysis of learners’ needs, specifically in terms of communicative needs. This chapter discusses the important aspects of needs analysis, the purposes, the definition, the courses, and the target population, administrating needs analysis, different procedures for conducting needs analysis, and designs and examples of needs analysis.
Chapter IV: relates to “situation analysis” that provides several key factors to be
essentially considered: social factors, project factors, institutional factors, teacher factors, learner factors, and adoption factors. The goal of the situation analysis is “to identify key factors that might positively or negatively effect the implementation of a curriculum plan” (p. 105).
Chapter V: focuses on the procedures for using the information collected during the
needs analysis and situation analysis to develop program/ planning goals and objectives that result in the learning objectives. The author proposes the key assumptions about the goals in curriculum planning namely: “People are generally motivated to pursue specific goals; the use of goals in teaching improves the effectiveness of teaching and learning; and a program will be effective to the extent that its goals are sound and clearly described” (p. 112).
Chapter VI: deals with "course planning and syllabus design” including developing a
course rationale, describing entry and exit levels, choosing course content, determining the scope and sequence, planning the course structure, and preparing the scope and sequence plan. The syllabus including major elements used in planning a language course and providing the basis for its instructional focus and the content could thereby be based on several options: situational syllabus, topical or content-based syllabus, functional syllabus, task based syllabus, and grammatical or structural syllabus.
Chapter VII: involves in creating conditions for effective teaching of a course by
considering from four main factors: the institution, the teachers, the teaching process, and the learning process. Additionally, each factor is discussed as to its influence as well as implementation to effective teaching and learning in a language program.
Chapter VIII: deals with the role and design of institutional materials as a key
component in most language program. Several topics regarding teaching materials that normally play a role in the current curriculum planning are delineated and discussed in relation to authentic versus created materials, textbooks, evaluating textbooks, adapting textbooks, preparing materials for a program, managing a materials writing project, and monitoring the use of materials.
Chapter IX: provides approaches to evaluation dealing with purposes of evaluation:
formative, illuminative, and summative evaluations; issues in program evaluation; and procedures used in conducting evaluation.
Regarding the discussion questions and activities included as the final topics of each chapter, they seem likely to stimulate further discussions and can be incorporated as part of cooperative learning in pairs, in groups, or within the whole language classroom for teachers intraining. Also, at the end of each chapter are Appendices that seem to provide functional and excellent tools as guidelines or for applications in language curriculum development. Furthermore, the advantages and disadvantages provided for different modes under several topics (such As. procedures for conducting needs analysis in Chapter Three) are obviously helpful for appropriate selections of the key elements for a language-teaching curriculum. On the whole, this book under review seems to offer a great deal to language teachers, practitioners and program administrators with regard to planning and implementation processes for developing or reviewing a curriculum. Most of the book is easy to understand and only rarely becomes overly simplistic, as in the description on p. 161 of a task-based syllabus: “Tasks are activities that drive the second language acquisition process.” While axiomatic definitions such as this are present, they are infrequent and do little to detract from Richards’ efforts “to acquaint language teachers and teachers-in-training with fundamental issues” (p. xi). Curriculum Development in Language Teaching presents lists, forms, and brief descriptions that provide an understandable, albeit limited, background to the issues involved in course design, as well as offering some related resources.
References
Richards, J. C. (2001). Curriculum development in language teaching . New York: Cambridge University Press. Richards, J., & Rodgers, T. (2001). Approaches and methods in language teaching : A description and analysis (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
