PLANNING GOALS AND LEARNING OUTCOMES
A.
INTRODUCTION
There
are some crucial dimensions of decision making in curriculum planning. The curriculum
planners should know what language is, what teaching is, why learners study,
how they learn, in what condition they learn, how their teachers help them,
what material used, etc. Therefore, the planners need to collect the
information that can be used to develop learners’ need and analyze the
contextual factors where language is taught.
After
all of information is completed, the planners start to determine the goal and
outcomes of a program. Several key assumptions about goals characterized the
curriculum approach to educational planning. These can be summarized as
follows:
1.
People are
generally motivated to pursue specific goals.
2.
The use of
goals in teaching improves the effectiveness of teaching and learning.
3.
A program
will be effective to the extent that is its goal are sound and clearly
described
Richard (2001)
Language
programs describe their goal in terms of aims and objectives. Aims reflect the
ideology of curriculum and show how curriculum will seek to realize it. Aims
statement are generally derived from information gathered during a need
analysis, and objective in language teaching are based on understanding of the
nature of the subject matter being taught (e.g. listening, speaking reading,
writing).
If
we use the analogy of a journey, the goal is the destination, the different
points we pass through the journey to the destination are the objectives, the
kinds of transportation we use are the enabling activities, how to manage the
journey to arrive at the destination is the classroom management, and the
course or program is the journey.
A.The Ideology
of the Curriculum
An ideology is a set of ideas that constitute one's goals, expectations, and actions. An
ideology is a comprehensive vision, a way of looking at things (compare worldview) as in several philosophical tendencies (see political ideologies), or a set of ideas proposed by the
dominant class of a society to all members of this society (a "received
consciousness" or product of socialization) (Wikipedia)
There are five curriculum ideologies
that shape the nature of the language curriculum and the practice of language
teaching in different way: academic rationalism, social and economic
efficiency, learner-centeredness, social reconstructionism, and cultural
pluralism.
1.
Academic
rationalism
This justification of aims of
curriculum stresses the intrinsic value of the subject matter and its role in
developing the learners’ intellect, humanistic, value, and rationality. A discipline is accomplished through the transmission of
its knowledge and ways of thinking to students. Academic rationalism is
sometimes used to justify of certain foreign languages in school curricula,
where they are taught not as tool of communication but an aspect of social
studies.
2.
Social and
economic efficiency
The Social Efficiency ideology
believes the essence of learners lies in their competencies and the activities
they are capable of performing. Learners achieve an education by learning to
perform the functions necessary for social productivity. Socioeconomic ideology
stresses the economic needs of society as a justification for the teaching of
English
This educational philosophy emphasizes
the practical needs of learners and society and the role of an educational
program in producing learners who are economically productive.
3.
Learner-centeredness
Learner Centered educators
believe people contain their own capabilities for growth, are the agents who
must actualize their own capabilities, and are essentially good in nature. Therefore, learner-centeredness
philosophies stress the individual needs of learners, the role of individual
experience, and the need to develop awareness, self reflection, critical
thinking, learners’ strategies, and other qualities and skills that are believe
to be important for learners to develop.
4.
Social
reconstructionism
Social Reconstructionists
assume that education is the social process through which society is
reconstructed. They have faith in the ability of education, through the medium
of curriculum, to teach people to understand their society in such a way that
they can develop a vision of a better society and act to bring that vision into
existence.
Thus, the curriculum derived from this
perspective focuses on developing knowledge, skills and attitudes which would
create a word where people care about each other, the environment, and the
distribution of wealth, tolerance, the acceptance of diversity and peace will
be encouraged. Social injustices and inequality would be central issues in the
curriculum (Morris, 1995)
5.
Cultural
pluralism
This philosophy argues that schools
should prepare student to participate in several different cultures and not
merely the culture of the dominant social and economic group. Banks (1988)
argues that students in multicultural societies such as the United States need
to develop cross-cultural competency or what is sometimes termed intercultural communication.
Perspective on and
understanding of curriculum ideologies can have several benefits.
a. When educators understand
their own conceptual frameworks and the range of ideological options available
to them, it can help them to more effectively clarify and accomplish their own
curriculum and instructional goals
b. When educators have
perspective on and understand the range of philosophical beliefs that
colleagues can hold, this can enable them to better understand the nature of
curriculum disagreements that inevitably take place in schools, be more
accepting of others, and more effectively work with people of differing
opinions
c. When educators understand
the way in which language is used differently in each of the five ideologies,
it can assist them in more effectively communicating and negotiating curriculum
decisions with colleagues, curriculum committees, school boards, and their
communities.
d. When educators have
perspective on and understand the differences between the curriculum frameworks
influencing the current public dialogue about education, it can facilitate
their ability to more effectively contribute to the public debate about educational
issues.
e. When educators have an
understanding of the ideological pressures exerted on them by society and
colleagues, this can help them put those pressures in perspective and
minimize—as warranted—their influence.
(Cotti
& Schiro, 2004 at www.sagepub.com/schiroextensionactivities).
B. Stating
Curriculum Outcomes
I.
Aims
The terms of aims and objectives in
curriculum design are two different things. Goal and aim are used
interchangeably to refer to a description of general purposes of a curriculum
while objective refers to a more specific and concrete description of purpose.
An aim refers to a statement of a
general change that a program seeks to bring about in learners. The purposes of
aim statements are:
a.
To provide
a clear definition of the purposes of a program,
b. To provide guidelines for teachers,
learners and materials writers,
c.
To help
provide a focus for instruction, and
d.
To describe
important and realizable change in learning.
Generally, some aims of teaching English
in Indonesia, as follows:
1. For the elementary stage:
a.
Learn the
basics of the English language that would form the foundation for its mastery
in the future.
b.
Use the
basic structures of English sentences.
c.
Learn the
core vocabulary assigned for this stage.
2. For the intermediate stage:
a.
To develop
the learners’ ability to listen, read and understand English.
b.
To train
learners’ ears to understand English uttered by speakers.
c.
To teach learners
to practice important writing techniques.
3. For the secondary stage:
a.
To enable learners to survive in the real world using
English.
b.
To enable learners speak good English.
c.
To teach the basic tenses of present, past and future.
In developing aim statements, it is
important to describe more than simply the activities that students will take
part in. In other word the aim statements need to focus on the changes in
learners that will result. For example:
“The students will enable to develop to
the full all their special abilities and talents.”
II. Objectives
Aims are very general statements of the
goals of a program. They can be interpreted in many different ways. Objective
refers to the specific purpose statement of aim in order to give a more precise
focus to program goals. An objective is a statement of specific changes a
program seeks to bring about and results from an analysis of the aim into its
different components.
Generally,
the characteristics of objectives, as follow:
Ø They describe what the aim seeks to
achieve in terms of smaller unit of learning.
Ø They provide a basis for the
organization of teaching activities.
Ø They describe learning in terms of
observable behavior or performance.
The
advantages of describing the aims of a course in terms of objectives are:
F They facilitate planning, once
objectives have been agreed on, course planning, materials preparation,
textbook selection, and related processes can begin
F They provide measurable outcomes and
thus provide accountability given a set of objectives, the success or failure
of a program to teach the objectives can be measured.
F They are prescriptive; they describe
how planning should proceed and do away with subjective interpretations and
personal opinions.
For
example:
Aim: “The students will enable to
develop to the full all their special abilities and talents.”
Objectives:
a.
Children will
enable to express themselves creatively and imaginatively as they become
enthusiastic and critical readers of stories, poetry and drama, as well as of
non-fiction and media texts.
b. Children will learn how to use their knowledge,
skills and understanding in speaking and writing across a range of different
situations.
The
characteristics of objective statements are:
® Objectives describe a learning outcome.
Avoid to use some expressions like ‘will study, will learn about, will prepare
students’ because they don’t describe the result of learning but rather what
students will do during a course. Some phrases that describe objectives are
‘will have, will learn how to, will be able to’
® Objective should be consistent with the
curriculum aim.
® Objective should be precise. For
example: ‘students will use conversation expressions for greeting people,
opening and closing conversation.’
® Objectives should be feasible.
Objective should describe outcomes that are attainable in the time available
during a course. For example: ‘students will be able to get the gist of short
conversations in simple English on topics related to daily life and leisure.’
In
developing language objectives one is doing more than creating a wish list off
the top of one’s head (though is real world this is what often happens). Sound
objectives in language teaching are based on an understanding of the nature of
the subject matter being taught (e.g. listening, speaking, reading, writing),
an awareness of attainable levels of learning for basic, intermediate, or
advanced- level learners, and the ability to be able to describe course aims in
terms of logical and well-structured units of organization.
Objectives
are therefore normally produced by a group of teachers or planners who write
sample objectives based on their knowledge and experience and revise and refine
them over time. That’s why objectives cannot be regarded as fixed. In
developing objectives, it is necessary to make use of variety of sources, such
as diagnostic information concerning students’ learning difficulties,
descriptions of skilled performance in different language domains, information
about different language levels as is found in the ACTFL proficiency
guidelines, as well as characterizations of the skills involved in different
domains of language use.
Criticisms of the use of
objectives.
The major criticisms of the objectives
use are:
1.
Objectives
turn teaching into a technology.
There
is a danger that curriculum planning becomes a technical exercise of converting
statements of needs into objectives. In the process, the broader goals of
teaching and learning may be lost. To ensure that the curriculum addresses
educationally important goals, objectives should be included that address
‘meaningful and worthwhile learning experience.’
2.
Objectives
trivialize teaching and are product-oriented
By
assuming that every purpose in teaching can be expressed as an objective, the
suggestion is that only worthwhile goal in teaching is to bring about changes
in student behavior.
Objectives
need not be limited to observable outcomes. They can also describe process and
experiences that are seen as an important focus of the curriculum.
3.
Objectives
are unsuited to many aspects of language use
Objectives
may be suitable for describing the mastery of skills, but less suited to such
things as critical thinking, literary appreciation, or negotiation of meaning.
Objectives can be written in domains such as
critical thinking and literary thinking but will focus on the experiences the
curriculum will provide rather than specific learning outcomes.
C. Competency
based Program Outcomes
An alternative to use objectives in
program planning is to describe learning outcomes in terms of competencies, an
approach associated with Competency-Based Language Teaching (CBLT). CBLT seek
to make a focus on the outcomes of learning a central planning stage in the
development of language programms (Schneck 1978; Grognet and Crandall 1982).
CBLT shifts the focus to the ends of learning rather than means. CBLT seeks to
improve accountability in teaching through linking instruction to measurable
outcomes and performance standards.
The characteristics of CBLT:
a.
It has much
in common with such approaches to learning as performance-based instruction,
mastery learning and individualized instruction
b.
It is
outcome based and is adaptive to the changing need of students, teachers and
the community
c.
Competencies
differ from other students goals and objectives in that they describe the
student’s ability to apply basic and other skills in situations that are
commonly encountered in everyday life
d.
It is based
on a set of outcomes that are derived from an analysis of tasks typically
required of students in life role situations
Schneck (1978)
The
nature of competencies
Competencies refer to observable
behaviors that are necessary for the successful completion of real-world
activities. These activities may be related to any domain of life, though they
have typically been linked to the field of work and social survival in a new
environment.
Competency can be defined as any
attribute of individual that contribute the successful performance of a task,
job, function, or activity in academic setting and/or a work setting. This
includes specific knowledge, thinking process, attitudes, and perceptual and
physical skills (Docking, 1994)
Example of competences
Topic: housing
1)
Identify common houesehold furniture/rooms
2)
Answer simple questions about basic housing needss
3)
Ask for simple information about housing, including rent, utilities, and
date available
4)
Report household problems and emergencies
5)
Request repairs
6)
Arrange time for repairs
Topic: Job-seeking
1)
Can inquire about an employment opportunity
2)
Can read and interpret advertisements for employment
3)
Can prepare a job-aplication letter
As the examples above
illustrate, competency descriptions are very similar to statements of
objectives. they can be regarded as objectives that are lined to specific
domains or activities.
D.Conclusion
Teaching English Language have some
purposes that based on level of learners or other word based on learners’ need.
Therefore the curriculum planners should collect the information about it.
In designing of curriculum, the
planner also state the goals of program and learning outcomes. The terms of goal
in curriculum encompasses aims and objectives. Aims are very general statements of the
goals of a program. It refers to a statement
of a general change that a program seeks to bring about in learners. Aims
reflect the ideology of curriculum and show how curriculum will seek to realize
it. Aims statement are generally derived from information gathered during a
need analysis.
Whereas objective refers to the
specific purpose statement of aim in order to give a more precise focus to
program goals. It describes a learning outcome which is expected the learners
has competencies. Objective in language teaching are based on understanding of
the nature of the subject matter being taught (e.g. listening, speaking
reading, writing).
REFERENCES
Richard,
J.C. 2001. Curriculum Development in
Language Teaching. United Kingdom: Cambridge
sagepub.com.
_______.Curriculum Theory. Accessed
on October 17th, 2012
Very nice article, totally what I needed.
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