Khari’s Reviews > Language Curriculum Design > Status Update

First part of the chapter was good, second, not so much.

Ideas on how to adapt textbooks are great, they are useful for new teachers. Evaluating a text book is usually something they can't do because they are chosen by committees at the school, state, or national level and are required from the teachers. I don't think that's a good thing, but it is the way things are.

On the other hand, every class is negotiated. You cannot teach the same exact lesson to any two groups, you are constantly analyzing feedback and reactions to the lesson and adjusting accordingly. I think that aspect, plus the choice that learners have in how they do their projects and self-reflections is enough of a negotiation. It maintains structure while still providing creative outlet.

On the one hand I am sharply predisposed against negotiated syllabi. It has been my experience that when students take too much control of the class the learning experience suffers. Mostly because humans are inherently lazy. Or because the students themselves don't know what they want. What they want and what is effective do not necessarily match. All of those things make a negotiated syllabus something I don't like.

Well, according to these guys, a process syllabus is a negotiated syllabus. A syllabus that the most important aspect is how it is made and developed, not what it contains. A process syllabus is a syllabus that grows and takes time to develop and the students are involved in the decision making.

My uni said a process syllabus was a syllabus that taught using six predefined processes.....

Oh for heaven's sake.

Did I just discover that the school I taught at for six years using a process-syllabus completely misunderstood what a process-syllabus is?

I might have. I shall finish the chapter and see.

And that chapter was a very practical examination of the reality of curriculum design and the constraints upon the designers. No idealism here, pure practicality and how to deal with it.

It wasn't included in the course by the other professor, but I shall include it, because it's so true.

What a singularly unhelpful chapter. I won't include that chapter in the class.

I'm slowly starting to like this book. I'm actually finding it very practical. I think the author's made a classic mistake in the first chapter of front-loading too much vocabulary and just confusing their readers. I think they should just present everything from Chapter 2 onward and then move the first chapter to the end, because people can understand it after reading everything else. I will reread it at the end.

"The worst kind of linear development assumes that once an item has been presented in a lesson, it has been learned and does not need focused revision."

Yes, this is the worst kind of teaching style and is my primary beef with pop science books like "Drive" that decry homework as 'busywork'. Yeah, it can be, but it can also be an absolutely necessary form of practice and review.

I don't want to read this book today.