PET 225Curriculum

Development
for TESOL
LECTURE 1 OVERVIEW
2ND MARCH, 2015

Introduction
The curriculum is often thought of as the framework or
structure upon which instruction is built. Unfortunately,
there are many factors which vie to shape or control a
schools curriculum, including individuals; local, state and
national governments; independent agencies; and
professional associations.

Isa: Teachers make curriculum?

Ridiculous! Students, frameworks,
courses of study, and textbooks
determine what is to taught, learned, and
tested.
Izu: Well, I make curriculum by giving my
students opportunities to envision lives
they want to live and the people they
want to be.

Curriculum from different

vantage points
Policymakers the curriculum goals are the
body of educational offerings that should be
available to different populations of students
and schools.
Specialists & publishers curriculum as
packages of instructional material, including
texts software with learning activities and
items for teaching and learning.
School schools educational programme
Area os studies
Co-curricular activites

Teachers curriculum is what they hope students will acquire

or their expectation of what student might become.
Students curriculum is what they have to do.
Curriculum scholars curriculum is a field that studies the
philosophical, political, and technical processes for determining
what and how to teach. Do schools foster cultural reproduction
or promote social transformation?

What is curriculum?
Difficult to define
French course of study
Some just relate it to timetables
A narrow definition would be curriculum is content, subjects on
the timetable and topics taught under the subject heading.
Extreme definition wide; what is taught, how it is taught and
why. It includes curriculum evaluation, control and classroom
interaction.

Most of the standard definitions of curriculum can be placed on

this continuum narrow or wide definition;
(a) limit to the content
(b) include the whole educational studies.
Elizabeth Maccia (1965) presented instructional content.
(narrow)
Jack Kerr (1968) all the learning which is planned and guided
by the school, whether it is carried on in groups or individually,
inside or outside school.

Some writers believes that a wide definition should be known

as Curriculum Studies
-It should involve a whole range of discussions about content,
justification for the content, the translation of the plan into
practice by teachers and reception of the plan. It is necessary
to draw upon the disciplines of philosophy. sociology,
psychology and history.

Theory does not precede

practice.
C. D. takes place, for a variety of reasons
- teachers or groups are dissatisfied with what is being
taught.
Wants improvement
Top down decisions
*bridges were built long before engineers and physicists
got involved

Teachers, education administrators and politicians all operate

with some kind of social theory in the sense of sets of
assumptions, value positions, and ideas about the purpose of
society, however, these views may lack coherence, and some
assumption may contradict others.
Curriculum Studies should relate to ideologies and concern
with theories rather than a curriculum theory.

Educational Ideologies that

generates a diff. type of
curriculum theory.
Classical Humanism
Progressivism
Reconstructionalism

Ideologies are ideal types in the

sense that they rarely, if ever, exist
in the pure form.

Classical Humanism (knowledge-centred)

Oldest educational ideology, 4th century BC Plato
developed the idea of cultural heritage a class of
guardians
It associates traditional culture and values with a
small minority group the elite- men of gold (Plato),
receive different type of education from others.
20th century literary education for a small minority
and popular culture education for the masses
Cultural heritage literature, music, history and more
recently science.
Rejected bcause against democracy & social justice
The relevance is questionable
Has lost its appeal
However it must be defined different for the new
generation.

Progressivism
Child-centred education (Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile (1762)
Rejects traditional approaches to education
The need for the child to discover for itself & follow his own
impulses.
Freedom was more important than social order.
Curriculum concerned with experiences and discovery.
The difficulties of accepting progressivism in its entirety as an
ideology is that it is based on over-optimistic view of human nature.
Children and society are complex mixtures of good and evil. Ed.
Encourage the good and eliminate the evil.
Progressivism was advanced by Piaget on a more scientific
approach to childrens learning.
The motivational advantages in allowing children some choice is
now clearly established.

Recontructionism (society-centred)
Individual and society harmoniously integrated.
Social reconstruction in education improves society, John Dewey
(US), Bertrand Russell and Kurt Manheim (UK)
Education should distinguish itself from politics, commerce, and
advertising.
Rationalize democratic processes
Elevation of teachers
Over-optimism and Utopianism are features of some
reconstructionists.
Utopianism likely to lead to totalitarianism anyone who knows
what is the best will eventually be tempted to impose what is best
on others whose views differ from his.
A reconstructionist curriculum will be a common curriculum based
on a selection from the culture of a society.