Causas de la ansiedad

Textbooks that are responsive to a particular national syllabus can reveal a great deal about the thinking behind a course. Textbooks, as Apple (1989) describes them, are regulated products and making meaning of them requires an understanding of the documents to which they are responsive. In this TESEP context, the 2002 English syllabus regulated the current textbooks. Syllabus design decisions are not always consciously made (Dubin & Olshtain, 1986), and ideologies are not necessarily

overtly stated. Syllabuses and textbooks reveal certain beliefs or positions, even if their originators are not consciously aware of their ideologies. Dendrinos (1992) notes that the “actual form of the curriculum and syllabus depends on specific educational theories which are underlined by particular value systems” (ibid, p.104), and links these to the resultant form and use of textbooks. She examines Clark’s (1987) three value systems based on Skilbeck’s (1982) framework and explores how Classical-Humanism, Reconstructionism, and Progressivism are encoded in EFL textbooks.

In the Classical-Humanist Approach (Dendrinos, pp.104-111), “knowledge is considered to be a set of truths which should be revealed by the authority (teacher or textbook) and mastered by the pupil” (ibid, p.104). The curriculum or syllabus sets out to specify the content of the subject from simple to complex and textbooks are designed to cover this content. Textbooks reflect idealized language, rather than language use in actual communicative encounters. In foreign language teaching, this approach is linked to Grammar Translation and the Cognitive Approach to language learning. In the former, the teacher applies the textbook unit by unit in a given sequence, and may use the L1 where necessary. In the latter, the teacher focuses on both meaning and form. Teachers and textbooks have authority, while learners are recipients with no room for negotiation. Classical Humanism is criticized for being top-down and focusing on mastery of vocabulary and grammar.

Reconstructionism (ibid, pp. 111-128) presents a shift from focusing on subject content, to a focus on the specific objectives. This promotes mastery learning, and the textbook is often presumed to encode these objectives, and becomes the de facto

syllabus in guiding the learner towards the desired behaviour. Teachers engage in detailed planning in order to meet these objectives, and frequently rely on textbooks to do so, while learners are expected to master certain knowledge. In foreign language teaching, reconstructionism is linked to audio-lingual and audio-visual approaches which have “conceptualized communicative ability in terms of good grammatical habits” (ibid, p.113). It is also linked to the communicative approach, specifically the Situational Approach and the Functional-Notional Approach, which, however, still present language as an inventory of units, although they include the context and language users. These approaches do not take into account the negotiated and interactive nature of communication.

The Progressivist Approach (ibid, pp.128-132) emphasizes the learning process, not particular knowledge. Learners’ affective, social, cognitive and educational needs are not “predefined”; they are evolving and constantly “discovered and rediscovered.”

For progressivists, education is not seen as a process for the transmission of a set of truths, but as a way of enabling learners to learn by their own efforts. Teachers are not instructors, but creators of an environment in which learners can learn how to learn (Clark, 1987, p. 49, cited in Dendrinos (1992), p.129-130).

This approach implies the teacher is a facilitator who enables learning-by-doing with the design of open-ended learning activities intended to develop the learner’s individual problem-solving capacity. The focus is on methodology, not content or objectives and outcomes. Psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic studies have contributed to this approach by providing information on strategies of learning and the effects of interaction and learning. This approach is linked to process oriented syllabuses, which require rethinking of traditional teacher-learner roles.

In this context, adherence to the laid-down syllabus is a significant factor in textbooks attaining approved status. Ministerial approval increases the possibility of selection and use in schools, and is a requirement for public schools. The values and resultant theories upon which the syllabus rests are perhaps not well articulated, interpreted or queried much beyond the circle of their originators. Where curriculum development, syllabus design and materials production are carried out within the same institution, there is perhaps the likelihood of higher fidelity of materials to the vision of the course planners. The greater the lack of overlap among individuals and institutions involved in preparation and use of policy documents and textbooks, the more important it is to prepare documents and materials with high levels of clarity, and to provide opportunities for communication across stakeholder groups. Syllabus interpretation is important, but textbooks forge a visible, accessible, researchable link among different stakeholders, ranging from learners to curriculum planners. In the circuit of culture, all moments feed back and forth into each other, and therefore each component should be explicated in order that agents in other moments can meaningfully engage one another.

I develop my description of the syllabus (Section 4.2) mainly along the framework of organising principles expounded by Breen (1987) as part of my preliminary work. In the regulation moment, I then include an interview with the syllabus designers (Section 6.2) in order to gain a deeper understanding of this document than what may be evident from content analysis; in so doing I present a syllabus-as-regulator perspective in this textbook biography.