learnercentredcurriculum2

This is the most exciting, exhilarating but the most diffucult part of the curriculum plan. And since they will be the concrete models for the practice they should be chosen very systematically, carefully and by considering the learners’INTERESTS in a great sense.

To give concrete examples for the materials we can list the following items such as video, tape-recorder, book or books, O.H.P. and so on.Apart from these materials teacher sometimes is likely to came across to produce his own material if the instutition is not well-equipped. For example since I don’t appreciate the book which is proposed to be taught in my weekend classes I feel obliged to create my own materials in parallel with my Student’ interests. I will explain the situation in detail later while examplifying my own course plan.

What Nunan firstly and basically said about the material design is that ‘they should reflect the outside world’ It means the materials which are planned to be used should be:

should have an aim to be done otherwise it wouldn’t be logical to do any task on the subject.

What Nunan says is not only about the authenticity of the materials but also the ‘learner authenticity’, he says(1988i:102), ‘…the realization and acceptance of by the learner of the authenticity of a given text , task, set of materials, these needs , minimally, to fulfill two conditions. In the first place , they need to be recognized by learners as having a legitimate place in the language classroom , Secondly, they must engage the interests of the learner by relating to his interests , background knowledge and experience, and ,through these, stimulate genuine communication.’

In the light of these data we can say that the materials don’t reflect the unnatural teaching device only but they must have real purposes for learners to do it. Our main concern here will be performing this function. The material resources will be chosen from the real community to make them meaningful for the Ss.

The innovation which is brought by the learner-centred curriculum is that evaluation is not only made by the teacher at the last stage of the teaching-learning process but also at the each stage of the learner-centred curriculum and by the learners who are to be included in the process of evaluation.

When it comes to speaking about why we are evaluating; what benefits it’ll bring us we can look at Nunan’s ideas (1988i:118) saying, ‘the data resulting from evaluation assist us in deciding whether a course needs to be modified or altered in any way so that objectives may be achieved more effectively. If certain learners are not achieving the goals and objectives set for a course, it is necessary to determine why this is so…what measures might be taken. Evaluation is not only a process of obtaining information, it is also a decision –making process.’

According to Nunan (1988i:119), ‘any element in the curriculum process may be evaluated…The evaluater needs to consider which elements in the curriculum should be evaluated , who should conduct the evaluation, when the evaluation should take place, and by what means.’

To make it more clear I can infer that for learner – centred curriculum, every element can be evaluated; especially every stage of the curriculum process should be evaluated with coming-backs such as planning stage should be evaluated whether they provide useful and objective information or not and if the content is learnable or not if the learners can learn in this or that way or it needs to be changed or improved and so on. And answering ‘who’ question we can basically make the learners and the teacher involve in the situation apart from them, for example I ask for my colleagues to enter my lesson and evaluate me so that he makes me see the things that I am not aware of. For ‘when’ question we can say that every time , every lesson , every phase of the lesson and widely every stage of the curriculum process to make our curriculum cyclical and se what is deficient what is to be corrected what is going well and so on.And lastly ‘by what means’ I have preferred so far the more informal one as for my students to write what they like/ dislike; what they learn/can’t learn, what comes to them easy/ difficult and such things; as a formal activity the tests to see the development whether it is satisfactory or not. But of course there are more systematic ways of doing this by means of –as Nunan gives place in his book-‘of various sorts, along with questionnaires, observation schedules of classroom interaction, learners diaries and so on.’. This makes the learners to assess themselves, teacher and the process and according to these data teacher proposes solutions or goes on his way if it is working. Here are one of the samples which Nunan(1988i:131) offers for self-assessment for the learners:

And learners can keep diaries for themselves helping hem to see what they are doing. Here are the sample from Nunan(1988i:134):

These are only some examples and they can be varied according to the things or processes we are evaluating. And what about teachers,how will we evaluate ourselves? All of us are to accept that there is no perfect teacher and perfect teaching-learning process.For that reason-as I said earlier- we can ask for one of our colleagues to observe us and make his comments. Nunan offers more variable techniques for this matter as: ‘Techniques and procedures for self development include team teaching , recording (audio or video) and analyzing segments of classroom interaction, analysis of classes by outside observers and action research’.

Even after we and the learners evaluate or in a more specific manner assess ourselves, the process and so on we haven’t completed our mission yet. One more thing is to be done: What makes us to succeed ? / What are the causes of failure? For the first question we review all the things and note down the things which work ; however the second one requires more to be solved. Why the learners failed can be explained as due to the personal problems , luck of interest( it is valid for the obligatory courses that have to be taken in the schools), lack of attention, inefficicent learning strategies, lack of self-confidence, inappropriate material selection, deficient teaching techniques and so on. All these problems have to be taken into consideration to correct our process and reach a better one for the next time. But before ruining these learners who are getting failed something must be done before long ; Nunan says, ‘To prevent these failures interviews can be made with students from time to time .’ I think this is one of the most important thing that we should keep on our minds as teachers who are on the side of the learners indeed.

At this part, I will present you a sample of syllabus design that I made for my own class considering into the procedure above. Let’s have a look at it.

In line with the initial step, the students were grouped according to the age and proficiency level. They are 13 year- old students (One of them was 9, so I offered to change his class and I did; otherwise he would be lost even before beginning to learn a foreign language.) and their proficiency level is the same since all of them are grouped according to the school they are attending: they are all secondary school learners. Now I will give more detailed information by utilizing from the table I have given before(table3.1.1.):

DATA WHEN COLLECTED? BY WHOM? PURPOSE?

Proficiency level elementary before the course C. Grouping

Age 13 before the course C “

Educational primary before the course C “

background school

Previous courses variable same T learning the level

Nationality Turkish same C no

Marital status Single same C no

Time in country None during the course T no

Occupation Student already known C no

First language Turkish before the course C no

Other languages None during the course C personal inf.

Preferred course 8 months already set C no

length

Preferred learning in a class already known C no

arrengement

Prefferred Communicative during the course T to know learners

methodolgy

Learning style Variable during the course T “

Languge goals Variable same T “

Life goals Variable same T “

After having these initial data, to compensate their needs and making a syllabus in parallel with their interests I make them write their own preferences by giving them the subject –matter such as ‘What are your aims for learning English?; For what purposes will you use it? What is the most dominant language skill do you want to improve; reading/ writing/speaking/listening; which one?…’ and I asked for them to do it in Turkish to make them express themselves freely and I said ‘You aren’t obliged to write your names on the paper ; it is up to you!’ since I know that If I had forced them to write their names ,they wouldn’t have been able to tell the truth. Afterwards, I evaluated the papers.

I was surprised but pleased with the results that most of the students are away from having traditional minds , which I have come across with frequently. Most of them preferred the domimancy of speaking activities and they wanted to do it by pair-work.( I explained them what the pair-work is and we made a lesson by pair-work and they liked it; in other words they had an idea about what it means .)There were students who wanted me to explain the grammatical rules;but the dominant desire was on speaking, making conversations, taking turns. So I inferred from their notes that they fundamentally need developing their speaking abilities ;rest of it was about the desire to learn English in order to make higher their notes ,helping in the school in other words.

Through the procedure I explained before I will step by step explain how I made my content:

In other words even the Ss exhilerate with real life activities. In this class I have experienced it. For a time I tried to study the subject on our course book and the situation of the dialogue was as follows:

Setting is airport and the participants are the porter and the passenger . The activitiy is designed to teach ‘demonstrative pronouns and adjectives by means of the conversation like that: ‘Excuse me is this suitcase yours?/ No that is mine.’ Here the students found it meaningless and are aware of what is artificial and what is real and when I am bored of some artificial activities they are also in the same situations so I decided not to follow the book again.

It is the style which reflects the curriculum goals. Having started with asking the Students’ ideas and preferences, I kept on following their preferences which tend towards the ‘conversation studies’, which means to communicate . So the method is basically communicative but with some improvements which we see on the task based one. In the light of learner-centred approach which also leads to our curriculum, I decided to make my lessons ‘task-based’. After doing the task, Ss encounter with the linguistic items if necessary. And group-work, pair-works, listening the tape-recorder are the mediums which aid the teaching.For example I sometimes make them listen to a tape-recorder and make their own dialogues by hearing the natural language use. What they appreciate much is the closeness of the dialogues to the real life situations when we compare it with conversation between the porter and the passenger in an airport where they haven’t been before

Since our course book is not parallel with learners’needs and interests I have to make use of my own materials. Culturally appropriate, authentic materials are key to our learners’success. Being conscious of the fact that they can’t stand on the long reading texts I am trying to present the subjects by means of wall charts and pictures.

Pictures are their favourite , they like talking about pictures. For example we made ‘present continuous with the help of a picture of a ‘park’ where they can also involve in a real world.And there is/ are with a picture of ‘classroom’ firstly , showing the picture and then after removing it we spoke about what they remembered from it.(Before doing this we also spoke about our own class).Here I firstly emphasized lexical items and then by focusing where the items are we experienced linguistis ones.

Apart from pictures and wall-charts , I use cassettes and video to give exposure which is authentic. But when compared they prefer taking turns, working in a pair and speaking as much as possible. I also tried to work on computer but it was not very enjoyable due to the fact that the number of the computers were not enough .

Up to now I haven’t used tables and charts for this purpose; But similar to that one I made them write in Turkish what they wanted expected at first and whether they could/can find it or not. What are the reasons of enjoying the activity and not enjoying it.To leave them express their feelings freely I said that they don’t need to write their names; otherwise I know that they would write down all the positive things for me and the lessons

As for me,I regularly write comments about the aim of the lesson and if it is succeeded or not; if I can make the similar activity again ; if it worked in that group and if it can work in the other one that compose of students in their age and proficiency, and so on.( But it cannot be understood unless we meet the learners ,their interests may differ.)

What I like much on assessment of a lesson is to make my lesson listen by one of my colleagues and make comments on it. By this way I can understand what is going on my lesson, what the deficiencies are and what can be done much to improve my lessons.Moreover it provides ‘objectivity’ by means of observation .

Apart from this recording the lesson can be very useful for us since later we can listen it in detail and can find out all the good and bad things of ourselves. Up to now I haven’t done such a thing but I am planning to do it in these days. This recording may also help learners to check their own process.

Since you also have a knowledge about my class, I’d like to examplify it by presenting a sample of one of my lessons to make clear how a lesson can be planned according to the learners’ needs and desires and displaying their activeness.

I didn’t make any explanation about the structure before beginning to the activity , I just informed them about what kind of task they would do.And let’s look at what they did:

Listing:Firstly they listed the names of the meals that they like much.Here while we were studying on Turkish meals we had some problems in finding the equivalence of the meals such as ‘karnıyarık’, to express in the best manner.

Comparing: In a pair, they compared their favourite meals to find out the common one by asking each ather ‘what is your favourite meal?’ (In that phase it was just a review ,since they had already known this subject.)

Planning their task in a pair:Then in a pair, they began to write recipes for the meal that both of them like.At this stage, there was a great deal of interaction both between the Ss and me. They used dictionaries where necessary they shared their ideas and asked me some questions where necessary.

Reporting:Then they presented their works.In that phase I did not correct their mistakes.

Language focus: In fact even at this stage I did not give the grammatical structures at first; they were successful although they had some problems in grammar.After they ‘d done the activity, I ,as an example, gave the recipe of milkshake which they like and without making explanation on the ‘imperatives’,I examplified it and realizing some of the Ss had some troubles putting the verb at the beginning I explained the structure and give more familiar examples which we use in a class.

Having seen the structures, they reviewed their works and after correcting the mistakes they present their works again. For example, one of the groups wrote down the recipe for spagetti(since they know only to make such easy meals -normally- they preferred to give the recipe for spagetti, French fries, chicken and so on.); I will here write two of the sentences as a sample:

Here the problem was trying to translate it into Turkish word by word and the students became successful for one of the sentence a by chance ; but since it was made before the grammatical explanation it was normal and I did not interfere at the first stage due to the fact that it didn’t prevent us from getting the meaning.

Seeing the sample they corrected it and read their samples again after they completed their corrections.They had a little problem; with small corrections on some of them they succeeded to learn how to describe a recipe as a communicative goal and how to make ‘Imperatives’ by developing their lexical knowledge in a great sense:
At the end of the lesson ; since we had a short time, I asked whether they enjoyed it or not they said they found it both very useful for a vocabulary work and very enjoyable and I see no sign of getting bored on their faces ; it was also enjoyable for me.

What I realized is the thing that in the classes where I talked much more than the students , students were telling me about their school after a time and –since most of them come from the same school –they spoke about their teachers and what they were doing and told me how nice I behaved unliked their nervous teachers. However we weren’t able to make our lessons as fully as and as enjoyable as the lessons where I made a little speaking and leave the children act freely and speak much more . At first I was supposing that they couldn’t succeed to do it without my examples; but I realized that they are clever enough and capable of coming over it. I can understand now why they did talking unrelated with the lessons:since they were passive but due to their age they needed performance they were revealing this activeness by speaking while I was trying to give them more but get less.

So there is no one –to- one correspondence between the teacher’s presentation time and the Students’understanding and learning. In a learner-centred class -as my class - ,they speak more ,they practise the language much more, they learn much more than we ,the teachers expect. My prejudice that if I don’t present more they will call me as a passive teacher and they would suppose that I wasn’t interested with them very much and they won’t like me as much as they did before was contradicted. I pay much more attention on them than I do on a board: they ask me questions ,we interact ,they use language and their love doesn’t lessen for me and my love for being teacher has increased. I love this game! BIBLIOGRAPHY

Lopez,C.L.C. (1989) ‘The role of the Teacher in Today’s Language Classroom’, English Teaching Forum 3, vol 27(July issue),pp.2-4

Learner diary