Process-Oriented Pedagogy: Facilitation, Empowerment, or Control?

point and counterpoint
Process-oriented pedagogy:
facilitation, empowerment,
or control?
William Littlewood
Downloaded from http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/ at Ryerson University on December 3, 2014

A feature of language teaching in recent decades has been the development of
process-oriented approaches. This orientation towards processes encourages us to
facilitate learner choice and individual development. However, it is challenged by
the current educational climate, which prioritizes accountability and assessment.
In this situation, a new perspective on process orientation has emerged. This
perspective focuses not on the processes which occur as part of learning but on the
processes which are the intended outcomes of this learning. Discrete features of the
communication and learning processes become pre-specified ‘learning outcomes’,
which are to be observed and assessed. Outcomes-based education is promoted as
a means of empowering learners with the knowledge and skills required for living.
However, it is also a powerful instrument for effecting compliance with centralized
conceptions of education and can minimize the voices of learners and teachers in
the process of education.
Introduction An important feature of foreign language teaching over recent decades has
been increasing attention not only to the products that we expect learning to
achieve (for example control of selected grammatical structures or
communicative functions) and the pedagogy that might lead to these
products but also to the processes through which learning takes place. As
Hedge (2000: 359) expresses it, ‘the question has become not so much on
what basis to create a list of items to be taught as how to create an optimal
environment to facilitate the processes through which language is learned’.
This has led to increased interest in how learning is influenced by, for
example, affective factors, cognitive styles, and group dynamics. It has also
led to increased attention to students’ natural learning capacities and how to
stimulate these through strategies such as personalization and awareness
raising. At the planning level, it has encouraged teachers to organize their
courses around holistic learning experiences such as projects and tasks, in
the belief that the resulting ‘negotiation of meanings’ is the most effective
facilitator of individual learning.
Processes in the The literature is less explicit than it might be on the precise distinction
classroom between terms such as ‘process’, ‘skill’, and ‘state’. It is common, for
example, to find writing or listening referred to as ‘processes’ in one context
246 E LT Journal Volume 63/3 July 2009; doi:10.1093/elt/ccn054

ª The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press; all rights reserved.
Advance Access publication August 18, 2008
and ‘skills’ in another. Similarly, we find that motivation is discussed both as
an affective ‘process’ and as an affective ‘state’. The position taken in this
paper is that processes may be mobilized as part of a skill (for example as in
‘controlled and automatic processing’) or may cluster together to form
a ‘state’ (for example as in a connectionist account, where mental or affective
states are produced by processes within neural networks) but are present in
both. Thus, when mention is made of what may often be termed a skill or
state, reference is also made by implication to the processes which facilitate or
produce them.
Thanks to seminal work by investigators such as Allwright (1996), Breen
(1986), and Senior (2006), we have become strongly aware of the richness
of classroom interaction and the complexity of the processes within it. Any
analytical framework must be an oversimplification of this complexity, but
here I will distinguish four interconnected levels which figure prominently

in current discussions. Within each level, there are both facilitative and
inhibitive processes.
Affective processes
For example, a student’s learning is facilitated by feelings of self-confidence
and self-esteem, but inhibited by anxiety.
Cognitive processes
For example, learning is facilitated by the capacity to make inferences, but
inhibited by premature closure (in which a student does not consider
alternative answers).
Social processes
For example, learning is facilitated by group cohesion and cooperation but
inhibited by social loafing (when individual students do not contribute to
a group task).
Communication processes
For example, learning is facilitated by comprehension but inhibited when
one person is over-dominant in turn-taking.
A special category of process consists of the pedagogic processes by which the
teacher tries to influence the processes mentioned above. Thus, for
example, she/he may try to influence the affective level positively by creating
a relaxed environment; the cognitive level by asking challenging questions;
the social level by using effective grouping techniques; and the
communication level by creating opportunities for all learners to participate.
In these various ways, the teacher aims to stimulate developmental processes
leading to development at all four levels, for example, towards more positive
attitudes, better critical thinking skills, enhanced ability to cooperate, and
higher proficiency in the ‘four skills’. However, pedagogic processes may
also create negative effects (for example excessive criticism may damage
self-esteem and motivation), so that they may be either facilitative or
inhibitive of learning.
Process-oriented pedagogy: facilitation, empowerment, or control? 247

At this point our perspective goes beyond the classroom and considers the
outcomes of this development, which the student will carry from the
classroom into the future.
Table 1 presents a summary of the types of process mentioned above. Those
in columns 1–3 are processes which occur within the classroom and affect
learning. This is the domain addressed by process-oriented teaching as
understood in the discussion so far. Those in column 4 are the outcomes of
learning. This is the domain addressed by process-oriented teaching as seen
from the perspective of outcomes-based education, which is introduced in
the next section.
As mentioned above, the pedagogic processes (column 3) can in reality be
inhibitive as well as facilitative. Furthermore, the outcomes (column 4) can
be negative as well as positive (for example a student’s classroom

experiences may engender negative attitudes to learning). However, to avoid
a confusing proliferation of columns, only the facilitative and positive
processes are included in Table 1. These are also, of course, the processes
towards which we direct our pedagogical strategies.
1 2 3 4
Facilitative Inhibitive Pedagogic Processes as
processes processes processes outcomes
Affective e.g. self- e.g. excessive
e.g. creating positive
processes confidence anxiety a relaxed attiudes, etc.
environment
Cognitive e.g. making e.g. premature e.g. challenging critical
processes inferences closure ideas thinking, etc.
Social e.g. group e.g. social e.g. effective cooperation
processes cohesion loafing grouping skills, etc.
techniques
table 1
Communication e.g. e.g. dominance e.g. creating the ‘four skills’,
Main types of process in
processes comprehension in turn-taking space to etc.
the foreign language
communicate
classroom
In the next section, I will refer to the processes in columns 1–3 as ‘processes
in progress’ and those in column 4 as ‘processes as outcomes’. The terms are
clumsy but serve to make a necessary distinction in this paper.
Two perspectives on Following from the above, when we talk about ‘process-oriented language
‘process orientation’ teaching’, this may carry two distinct meanings. On the one hand, it might
in the classroom mean that we pay special attention to the processes-in-progress that go on
inside the classroom. This is the perspective taken in the quotation from
Hedge above and by the proponents of, for example, process writing, project
work, or other forms of experiential learning. It is the classroom-
methodological perspective taken by most practising teachers. On the other
hand, it might mean that we attend to the processes that are the intended
outcomes of learning. This is the case for curriculum designers and assessors
when they express the intended outcomes of learning in terms of processes,
skills, and states.
248 William Littlewood

An example of this process-as-outcome perspective is the Singapore English
Language Syllabus 2001 (Curriculum Planning and Development Division
2001). It lists intended outcomes from all levels presented in Table 1 (but
mainly of course from the communication level). For example, by the end of
Primary 2—in the confident can-do terminology featured in many such
documents—‘pupils will’:
n enjoy the creative use of language in, for example, similes, poems, and
jokes (affective level)
n infer and draw conclusions about characters, sequence of events
(cognitive level)
n follow agreed-upon rules for group work (social level)
n speak to convey meaning using intonation (communication level).
Similarly, the English Language Curriculum Guide (Primary 1–6) for Hong

Kong (Curriculum Development Council 2004) expects that by the end of
Primary 6, students should learn to ‘be confident of their own judgement,
performance, and capabilities’ (affective level), ‘question obvious bias,
propaganda, omissions, and less obvious fallacies’ (cognitive level), ‘work
and negotiate with others to develop ideas and achieve goals’ (social level),
and ‘present information, ideas and feelings clearly and coherently’
(communication level).
The two perspectives do not exclude each other but there is tension. The
process-in-progress perspective provides the underpinnings for liberal,
humanistic approaches which emphasize learner choice, individual
development, and autonomy. Its intention is to facilitate growth in
personally meaningful directions. The process-as-outcome perspective
provides the underpinnings for approaches which work with detailed prior
specifications of the directions that learners should follow. This second
perspective is an important move to empower learners by giving them the
skills they need in order to participate fully in future life. However, as we will
see later, it can also form a basis for totalitarian control over how students are
taught to act and think as a result of their education.
Three approaches to Having distinguished these two orientations towards process-oriented

integrating process language teaching, I will make a brief historical excursion into changing
and product in the approaches to integrating process and product over the past three or four
language classroom decades. These approaches overlap, of course, and an individual teacher
may integrate more than one into his or her own pedagogy.
Product-as-outcome The first approach, which is associated with the so-called ‘product-based’
oriented language syllabus underlying the audio-lingual, audio-visual, and early functional
teaching approaches, may be characterized as follows:
n The initial focus is not so much on processes as on the intended products
of learning, conceptualized, for example, as grammatical structures,
vocabulary items, or communicative functions.
n The products which are most appropriate for particular learners may be
determined through needs analysis.
n Classroom learning processes are designed to help learners acquire these
items, for example, through intensive practice, communication activities,
exercises, or writing tasks.

n In general, there is separation of syllabus (what is to be learnt) and
methodology (how it should be learnt).
The main impetus to revise this approach has been the argument that it
neglects both the complexity of the processes involved in using language
and the range of processes that can contribute to language learning (see for
example Nunan 1988).
Process-in-progress The second approach attempts to compensate for this perceived neglect and
oriented language is what most people probably think of when they talk of a ‘process-oriented
teaching approach’. It is the approach summarized in the quotation from Hedge (op.
cit.: 359) above and is associated with humanistic language teaching,
experiential learning, task-based language teaching, and other
communicative approaches. It may be characterized as follows:

n There is a shift from emphasizing what we want students to learn to the
processes by which they learn, leading to a focus on processes such as
creative construction, personal learning strategies, and developmental
processes leading to autonomous performance.
n There is a shift from teaching discrete language items towards focusing
on the processes that are involved in using language for communication
and the need to develop active skills for negotiating meanings in real
contexts.
n There is a move from a ‘transmission’ approach in which the teacher
passes on predetermined knowledge and skills to an ‘interpretative’
approach which facilitates learners’ individualized development.
n This development is recognized as involving not only cognitive aspects
but the ‘whole person’ of the learner in whom cognitive, social, and
affective aspects are inseparable.
n The need to facilitate the learners’ processes of development leads to an
emphasis on creating learning contexts which stimulate motivation and
provide opportunities for personal growth.
For many, this learner- and learning-centred approach represents an
educational ideal. It goes back to the seminal educational ideas of Dewey and
Bruner, and underpins the constructivist approach to education in which,
as Williams and Burden (1997: 51) put it, ‘education becomes concerned
with helping people to make their own meanings’ (emphasis added).
The first approach (product-as-outcome) was challenged predominantly on
the grounds of its conceptions of learning and communication. The second
is challenged mainly from outside the learning context itself. The current
educational climate puts high priority on assessment, control, and
accountability. But if the focus is on the process of learning and each
individual can work towards his or her unique personal outcomes and
meanings, how can the effectiveness of learning be assessed in terms
recognized by the various stakeholders? Or looking at it another way, how
can the stakeholders exert their control over the educational process and
make clear not just what students will study but ‘how they will be able to act
and think as a result of their education’ (Riordan 2005: 56)? This is where
the third approach, oriented towards process-as-outcome, enters the scene.

Process-as-outcome Outcomes-based education has been an educational ‘buzz-word’ in many
oriented teaching places for well over a decade and is now promoted by educational planners
in several countries, including the USA, Australia, UK, Hong Kong, and
Singapore (see for example Stone 2005, on the policy of funding its
introduction into all tertiary institutions in Hong Kong). In the field of
language teaching, we saw above how it has influenced the English
language curricula of Singapore and Hong Kong. It is a fusion of the two
approaches already discussed:
n Like the ‘process-in-progress’ approach, it starts from an initial focus on
processes. But processes are seen now from the second perspective
discussed earlier: processes as the outcomes of learning.
n Like the ‘product-as-outcome’ approach, it is outcome oriented. But these
outcomes are now process outcomes rather than content outcomes.
n Also like the ‘product-as-outcome’ approach, there is an emphasis on the

observable and measurable. Intended learning outcomes are usually
stated with ‘a verb to describe the behaviour which demonstrates the
student’s learning’ (Carroll 2001: 3).
n On the basis of these predetermined learning outcomes, we design the
curriculum backwards, ‘using the major outcomes as the focus and
linking all planning, teaching and assessment decisions directly to these
outcomes’ (Acharya 2003: 8–9).
We saw that the process-in-progress approach has a strong interest in
classroom methodology and the conditions that stimulate learning. This is
not the case with the process-as-outcome approach, many of whose
proponents have a lot to say about the outcomes of learning but little about
the learning and teaching that lead to these outcomes. For example, the
guide to curriculum development by Posner and Rudnitsky (1997) contains
seven chapters on outside-classroom procedures involving learning
outcomes (for example how to write them and design units around them)
but only one on classroom teaching strategies, in spite of recognizing that
‘even the most elegantly organized course, designed for the most
worthwhile learning, can fail if the teaching strategies are inappropriate or
insufficient for the desired learning’ (p. 163). The 2001 Singapore English
syllabus contains well over 100 pages which cover the learning outcomes,
text-types, and grammar to be included in a course, but less than a page on
the six ‘principles of language learning and teaching’ which ‘form part of the
framework and spirit in which this syllabus is to be implemented’
(Curriculum Planning and Development Division 2001: 4). It contains no
equivalent to the suggestions for classroom activities included in the 1991
syllabuses which it superseded.
Where are we now? With respect to process-oriented teaching we stand at a crossroads.

The process-in-progress perspective, which has led teachers to explore
methodological innovations in domains such as process writing, project
work, task-based instruction, and other forms of experiential learning,
continues to attract and inspire teachers. In the minds of many planners
and curriculum designers, however, attention has shifted mainly to the
process-as-outcome perspective, which focuses on the observable results of
classroom processes. The motivation appears to be four-fold, with varying
emphases in different contexts and by different people. Here I rank the

motives according to the closeness of their relationship to actual classroom
learning:
1 The first motive is to ensure that learning has clear directions. Teachers
and course-developers decide what they would like students to learn in
terms which enable participants to clarify objectives and determine to
what extent these have been achieved.
2 Information about whether or to what extent learning has taken place can
be gathered not only at the end of a course but also during the course.
Thus, the second motive is to facilitate formative ‘assessment for
learning’.
3 As Brindley (2001) shows, the wider system can subvert the second
motive and transform information gathered to support learning into
information used for reporting and grading. This is the third motive. It
reaches outside the classroom and may involve purposes of gate keeping

(for the student) and accountability (for the teacher and/or institution).
4 The fourth motive is an extension of the third. When the system itself, for
example, via government education bodies, (a) specifies expected
learning outcomes, (b) measures whether they have been achieved,
and (c) makes student progression and institutional funding contingent
upon the results, tools are in place for people at the centre to exercise top–
down control over the goals and implementation of the educational
process.
The first and second of these motivations are directly beneficial to student
learning. Indeed, they may be integrated with the process-in-progress
approach and make it more purposeful and needs-related. The third
motivation introduces the dimension of accountability and no longer
focuses on the conditions for effective learning, but rather, it focuses on how
the results of learning can be demonstrated. This is also the case with the
fourth perspective, with the added factor that the learning to be
demonstrated has been predetermined by people in authority, whose own
expertise and experience in teaching may be superficial.
With the fourth scenario, then, the wheel of curriculum planning comes full
circle. From the focus on detailed definitions of products of learning that
characterizes the product-as-outcome approach, through the focus on ways
of facilitating individual processes of learning that characterizes the process-
in-progress approach, the focus moves to detailed definitions of processes
themselves as assessable products of learning. The approach is again product
oriented but now the defined products of learning are described not in terms
of discrete language or functional items but in terms of discrete processes.
These definitions prescribe in detail, in words quoted earlier, ‘not just what
[students] will study but also how they will be able to act and think as a result of
their education’ (Riordan op.cit.: 56, emphasis added).
In the context of a totalitarian system (for example as in George Orwell’s
novel 1984 or pre-1989 communist regimes in Europe), the words just
quoted would have sinister implications. Even outside a totalitarian system,
the more detailed and far-reaching these specifications for acting and
thinking become, the stronger is their potential (when underpinned by
assessment, rewards, and sanctions) to become a powerful instrument for
exerting control and imposing the policies and values of those in authority.

The prescriptions can easily form the basis for what Alexander (2004: 29),
in his biting critique of the target-and-performance based National
Curriculum in the UK, describes as a ‘highly centralized and interventive
education system’ in which ‘those who have the greatest power to prescribe
pedagogy’ may be precisely those who have ‘the poorest understanding of it’.
Such a system encourages a ‘culture of compliance’ in which teachers are
merely ‘technicians who implement the educational ideas and procedures
of others’ (p. 11) and attention to outcomes deflects attention from the
classroom pedagogy that should produce them.
Conclusion The question contained in the title of this paper is central to how we conceive
the development of language teaching. The origin of process-oriented
language teaching lies firmly in the desire to facilitate. To the extent that the
processes which we want to facilitate are individual, we cannot—indeed

would not want to—predict their direction and outcomes. There is
a significant shift in emphasis and intention when we say that some
outcomes are more desirable than others, so that we should guide learning
towards them with the desire of empowering students for their future life.
There is an equally significant shift when these desirable outcomes are
determined not by those directly involved in the pedagogical processes that
should lead to them but from outside, often by government appointees. It is
at this point that process-oriented teaching becomes an instrument of
control.
At the current stage we are at, then, a key task is to use what means we have
to ensure that the voices of teachers and learners are not drowned in the
name of accountability; that control stays in the hands of those who also
have expertise; and that we draw benefits from process-oriented teaching
while avoiding its dangers.
Final version received June 2008
Note Breen, M. P. 1986. ‘The social context for language

This paper is a revised and reworked version of a learning—a neglected situation?’ Studies in Second
plenary paper presented at the CLaSIC 2006 Language Acquisition 7/2: 135–58.
Conference held in Singapore in December, Brindley, G. 2001. ‘Outcome-based assessment in
2006. practice: some examples and emerging insights’.
Language Testing 18/4: 393–407.
Carroll, J. 2001. ‘Writing learning outcomes: some
References suggestions’. Learning and Teaching. Oxford Centre
Acharya, C. 2003. ‘Outcome-based education (OBE): for Staff and Learning Development, Oxford
a new paradigm for learning’. C DT Link (National Brookes University. Available at: http://
University of Singapore), 7–9 July. Available at: www.brookes.ac.uk/services/ocsd/2_learntch/
http://www.cdtl.nus.edu.sg/link/nov2003/obe.htm writing_learning_outcomes.html (last accessed
(last accessed 7 June 2008). 7 June 2008).
Alexander, R. 2004. ‘Still no pedagogy? Principle, Curriculum Development Council. 2004. English
pragmatism and compliance in primary education’. Language Curriculum Guide (Primary 1–6). Hong
Cambridge Journal of Education 34/1: 7–33. Kong: Education Bureau. Available at: http://
Allwright, D. 1996. ‘Social and pedagogic pressures www.edb.gov.hk/index.aspx?langno¼1&;nodeID¼
in the language classroom: the role of socialization’ 2770 (last accessed 7 June 2008).
in H. Coleman (ed.). Society and the Language Curriculum Planning and Development Division.
Classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge 2001. English Language Syllabus 2001 for Primary and
University Press.

Secondary Schools. Singapore: Ministry of Education. Polytechnic University, December, 2005. Available
Available at: http://www.moe.gov.sg/cpdd/ at: http://www.ugc.edu.hk/eng/ugc/publication/
syllabuses.htm (last accessed 7 June 2008). speech/2005/sp171205.htm (last accessed
Hedge, T. 2000. Teaching and Learning in the 7 June 2008).
Language Classroom. Oxford: Oxford University Williams, M. and R. L. Burden. 1997. Psychology for
Press. Language Teachers: A Social Constructivist Approach.
Nunan, D. 1988. Syllabus Design. Oxford: Oxford Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
University Press.
Posner, G. J. and A. N. Rudnitsky. 1997. Course Design: The author
A Guide to Curriculum Development for Teachers (Fifth William Littlewood was involved in language
edition). New York: Longman. teaching and teacher education in the UK for many
Riordan, T. 2005. ‘Education for the 21st century: years before moving to Hong Kong in 1991 to join
teaching, learning and assessment’. Change a project in E LT curriculum development. He is
37/1: 52–6. currently a Professor in the Department of English,
Senior, R. 2006. The Experience of Language Teaching. Hong Kong Institute of Education, Tai Po, Hong

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kong. He has published widely in the areas of
Stone, M. V. 2005. Opening remarks at the language teaching methodology and language
‘Symposium on Outcome-based Approach to learning.
Teaching, Learning and Assessment in Higher Email: blittle@ied.edu.hk
Education: International Perspectives’. Hong Kong

Process-Oriented Pedagogy: Facilitation, Empowerment, or Control?

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Process-Oriented Pedagogy: Facilitation, Empowerment, or Control?

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

point and counterpoint

Downloaded from http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/ at Ryerson University on December 3, 2014

246 E LT Journal Volume 63/3 July 2009; doi:10.1093/elt/ccn054

Downloaded from http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/ at Ryerson University on December 3, 2014