ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING CURRICULUM (ELT CURRICULUM)

I. INTRODUCTION

The terms curriculum and syllabus are often used synonymously as in The school's English curriculum/syllabus. However, in its normal use curriculum has a wider reach, e.g., the widely used term curriculum development refers to the research work in developing many courses of study. The term syllabus development is not so commonly used, if used is more likely to refer to the work within one subject only. (McArthur1996: 251) The term curriculum development, if used for a single subject, refers to the subject in question to the all classes of an institute. For example, The school's English curriculum refers to parts of the school's curriculum that deal with English language education in all classes of the school. The curriculum of a given institution can be looked at from a number of different perspectives (Nunan 1988). The first perspective is that of curriculum planning, that is, decision making, in relation to learners' needs and purposes; establishing goals and objectives; selecting and grading contents; organizing appropriate learning arrangements and learner groupings; selecting, adapting, and developing appropriate leaning materials, learning tasks, assessment and evaluation tools. Alternatively, curriculum can be studied 'in action' as it were. This perspective takes researchers into the classroom itself. Here they can observe the teaching/learning process and study the ways in which the intention of the curriculum planners, which were developed during the planning phase, is translated into action.

Yet another perspective relates to the assessment and evaluation. That is to see what the students had learned and what they failed to learn in relation to what had been planned. Finally, it is the management of the teaching institution that is looked at. This includes looking at the resources available and how these recourses are utilized, how the institution relates to and responds to the wider community, how constraints imposed by the limited resources and decisions of the administrators affect what happens in the classroom, and so on. All of these perspectives taken together represent the field of curriculum study, which is a large and complex one. In planning, implementation, and evaluation of a given curriculum all elements should be integrated, so that decisions made at one level are not in conflict with those made at another. For instance, in courses based on principles of communicative language teaching, it is important that these are reflected not only in curriculum documents or syllabus plan, but also in classroom activities, patterns of classroom interaction, and tests of communicative performance. (Nunan 1984, Johnson 1989)

II.

ELT POLISY It is the need of a national English language teaching policy that will address the practical needs for ELT and determine what and how much English should be taught and for how long. Making English study effective from primary to tertiary levels needs a lot of inputs and resources like trained teachers, communicative teaching materials and financial, infra-structural and management facilities. These resources are not equally available or favorable for learning English in all the educational institutions of the country. In some urban elite schools these inputs are mostly available and the school leavers can use English, more or less, in their further study or in jobs that they choose. But most of the rural schools lack in some or almost all these resources. As a result, teaching-

learning English in these schools cannot be done in the way it should be done. In most cases, learning English means rote learning of grammar rules and textbook contents even without understanding. Also students in these disadvantaged schools are not aware of the aims and objectives of studying English, except that they have to appear the examinations in this subject. Consequently, English often seems to be a heavy unnecessary burden to them. The time, energy and money spent on teaching-learning English at these schools are often wasted. Of all the students from class 1 to 14, some students have some benefits, no doubt, but some others do not need to study it all these years. Under National University, to which all the colleges (government and non-government) are affiliated, all the B. A., B. Sc. and B. S. S. pass and honors students have to study a compulsory English course - General English, of 100 marks. But Many students in this level do not need this General English. For example, students doing honors in history, philosophy, sociology, etc. need English - but not general, grammar-based English. They need the kind of English that will facilitate their studies. Similarly, the students studying medicine, science and technology, business, etc. will need English for specific purposes, viz., English for nurses, English for doctors, scientific English, business English and so on. This is because the general English courses cannot cater the specific needs of these specialized areas of study.

III.

THE ELT CURRICULUM The existing curriculum proved inadequate for the changed world situation in 1990s. Therefore, the necessities to make the curriculum appropriate for the present situation have been felt, and some efforts have been taken to fulfill these needs. In order to prepare a curriculum for the Secondary and Higher Secondary education and for the proper implementation of such a curriculum

a Curriculum Preparation and Implementation Task force was formed. This task force proposed a framework for the national curriculum. With the collaboration of National Curriculum and Textbook Board, the Higher Secondary Education Project, Technical Education Board, the Curriculum Committee prepared the new reformed curriculum. For the circulation for teachers, students, textbook writers and those related to teaching the reformed curriculum was published in December 1995. It included syllabus checklist and guidelines for all concerned with the teaching and learning of English and other curricular subjects.

IV. THE SCOPE OF STUDY Curriculum development is viewed as a continuous process, e.g., teacher development as a component of curriculum development continues throughout the entire career of some teachers and for years in some other instances. As curriculum is a large and complex concept and though the term curriculum can be used in a number of different ways (see Nunan 1989a: P14), the work will view curriculum development from a broader perspective to refer to all aspects of planning, implementation, evaluating and managing a language education programmed. A rational curriculum is, however, developed by first identifying goals and objectives, then by listing, organizing and grading the learning experiences, and finally by determining whether the goals and objectives have been achieved or not (Nunan 1989a from Tyler 1949). This work will look at the issues related to learners' needs -actual and desired, in terms of the social strata they belong to. Their attitudes towards English and proficiency levels will also be addressed. The proficiency levels of the teachers from different backgrounds and their attitudes to English will also be

discussed. These issues are, in many ways, the determinants of what is intended in the planning level. The existing English language curriculum will be looked at in some details to see what happens in the planning level. Curriculum guidelines National Curriculum and Textbook Board including the syllabus checklist provided in it will be discussed. It will also look in the curriculum and syllabus . But prior to all these a theoretical framework will be proposed incorporating the findings of modern development in the field of linguistics, applied linguistics and language teaching. Insight from other related and interrelated disciplines like sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics and discourse analysis will also be taken into account. These are rather the abstract levels of curriculum process. Turning more specifically to the concrete levels of curriculum process. In fact, these are the people who are the consumers of other people's syllabus and are presented with curriculum guidelines and sets of syllabus specifications. Once having been presented with the curriculum guidelines or syllabus specifications, the classroom teachers are required to develop their courses and programmed form these guidelines (Nunan 1989a, p.17). As their immediate focus is day-to-day schedule within the learners in the classrooms, they tend to see lessons and units as the basic building blocks of their programmed. Different institutes translate the intentions of curriculum planners into actions that is, the teaching methodologies adopted in different institutions. Prior to that, it will explore different approaches and methodologies of language teaching conceived so far as on a theoretical basis and employed throughout the history of language teaching. In the same way, the textbook writers have to write each unit as guided by the curriculum designers. Teachers' immediate preoccupations are with learning tasks and with integrating these tasks into lessons and/or units (Nunan 1987, 1989a-17; Shavelson and Stern 1981). Teachers and textbook writers are, in fact, the consumers of other people's syllabus. Another consumer of syllabus specifications is the

examiner who will set an end- course-examination. However, traditional examination system has failed to assess students' progress and attainment in terms of their ability to use English in real life. So, there is a need to develop appropriate evaluation tools and concerned parties should interpret and use them successfully. For the successful operating of any programme, it should be installed rightly before. For a thorough study of the infrastructure, resources available, teacher community and the students, who are the ultimate beneficiaries of the programme, chapter 2 will look in the social strata and proficiency levels of learners and teachers in an ethnographic manner. Chapter 2 of this work is furnished with the information about the proficiency levels of the two parties in relation to social stratification. A syllabus checklist is something that illumines others' way to proceed. In recent years, however, curriculum development has been viewed as a collaborative effort between learners and teachers. This gave rise to the learner-centred approaches to language teaching. In this approach, information by and from learners is used in planning, implementing, and evaluating language programmes (Nunan 1989a P-17). However, no curriculum can be totally learner centred or subject centred. This study stays somewhere in the continuum.

SEMINAR ON ELT
ELT CURRICULUM

Members :
IKHWANUDDIN ( 53.06.0140 ) NURUL HIDAYATI ( 53.06.0164 ) NILAWATI ( 53.06.0162 ) YULIANA ( 53.06.0132 ) PARAMITHA AMARY S. ( 53.06.01XX ) SANTY SETYOWATI ( 53.06.01XX )

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION FACULTY 17 AGUSTUS 1945 UNIVERSITY BANYUWANGI

OCTOBER, 2009