Colegio Gabriel García Márquez Las violetas

Once we understood the reality of the situation, we were able to make informed decisions. Other decisions could have been made. We could, for example, have made life easier for ourselves by complying with the specifications in the project design that we ‘select and procure’ materials and a ‘commercially available’ test. But these would not have addressed the English language needs of the Lao officials as we now understood them. This final part of the project implementation story tells of the decisions we made about the curriculum, materials and training in the light of our investigations, and as we endeavoured to meet the designated milestones, upon which on-going funding was reliant.

Curriculum

The milestones attracting regular injections of funding throughout the project were those attached to the development of benchmarked ‘General English’ courses for the government officials (see Table 1 on page 67). The LEFAP project design document also referred to Australia’s expertise in ‘the development of tracks of competency-based courses’ (AusAID, 1999b:25). My having previously developed nationally and state accredited competency-based language and teacher training curriculum for the Australian education context (Achren, 1995; Achren, 1995a; Achren et al., 2000) had resulted in my inclusion on the team. However, my previous experience of living and working in Laos caused me to have reservations about the practicality of implementing and sustaining a competency-based language curriculum

there. Such training has been developed to serve the workplace training agendas of Western nations well resourced in terms of skilled teachers, technology and printed matter. Even so, the considerable body of literature on the introduction of competency-based curriculum in Australia, as elsewhere, suggests that its introduction was not without controversy (e.g. Bamforth & Grieve, 1996; Brindley, 1994, 1998; Burrows, 1994; Sanguinetti, 1994), with prime concerns centred on issues of reliability and validity of the assessment outcomes, the cost of maintaining such systems, and the demands made on teachers’ time. Was it, then, an appropriate curriculum for a country with limited resources and a paucity of skilled teachers and administrators? Would it be possible to establish a practical, reliable and valid assessment system? In its impoverishment would Laos be able to sustain the systems demanded by a competency-based training model?

Our counterparts, however, were interested in a competency-based curriculum although they had little, if any, knowledge of what it entailed. Their interest stemmed, not from any notions of appropriateness, but from their anticipation that a competency-based curriculum was to be introduced into the primary school system through an upcoming World Bank project. Thus, both the primary sector and a program for government officials would embody the current ‘best practice’ in governance – accountability and transparency – not necessarily in their content but through their assessment systems. While I had my reservations about the wisdom of introducing such a curriculum, for the counterparts it was an opportunity to enhance their understanding of what they saw as the way of the future, thus increasing, in Bourdieu’s parlance, their symbolic capital (Bourdieu, 1977; 1979; 1990a; 1990b; Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992). In the early days, however, lack of counterpart knowledge meant that the decisions were led by the Australian advisors.

We decided that it would be necessary to develop a three-level curriculum pathway if the officials were to access the English for ASEAN course. As shown in Figure 1, below, the estimated minimum time to complete the first three levels of the pathway was 750 hours rather than the 500 recommended in the design. Thus, there was a 50% greater workload for curriculum and materials development. The curriculum pathway was adapted from the Australian nationally accredited curriculum ‘Certificate in Spoken and Written English’ (CSWE) (Manidis et al., 1992).

Figure 1: Curriculum pathway

English for Government Officials Course: Level 1 Entry benchmark: Beginner with knowledge of Latin script Broad band ESP course

with workplace and Lao content

→ Provincial teacher training colleges

→ Vientiane ministries Course length: minimum 250 hours

Exit benchmark: prescribed competencies

↓ ↓ ↓

English for Government Officials Course: Level 2 Entry benchmark: prescribed competencies Broad band ESP course

with workplace and Lao development content

→ Provincial teacher training colleges

→ Vientiane ministries Course length: minimum 250 hours

Exit benchmark: prescribed competencies

↓ ↓ ↓

English for Government Officials Course: Level 3 Entry benchmark: prescribed competencies Broad band ESP course

with strong Lao development content

→ Provincial teacher training colleges

→ Vientiane ministries Course length: minimum 250 hours

Exit benchmark: prescribed competencies

↓ ↓ ↓

English for ASEAN course: Level 4

Entry benchmark: prescribed competencies or in the region of IELTS 4.5 ESP course

with strong ASEAN content → IRTC (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) Exit benchmark: prescribed competencies

Source: Field notes

The CSWE is organised around the systemic-functional linguistic view of language and language learning (cf. Halliday et al., 1987; Halliday & Hasan, 1985; Halliday & Martin, 1981), which emphasises the interdependence of text and context. Consequently, its competencies are based on an analysis of the generic structure of the socially-situated spoken and written texts considered necessary for adults in Australia to participate in employment, further education and the community – contexts differing significantly from those in which government officials would be using their language. However, the systemic-linguistic focus of the CSWE would enable us to use the elements of the generic structures they shared to guide the development of levels of competence, while the materials we developed would provide the relevant social contexts. In practical terms, given the Lao teachers’ own language skills, time and effort would be needed to adapt the CSWE so that the curriculum document was

written in ‘Plain English’. The competencies for each of the three levels of the course can be seen in Appendix 4a, while Appendix 4b details the ‘Plain English’ used to describe one of the Level 2 competencies, and Appendix 4c shows the information presented in both the Level 2 Teachers Book and the Students Book about the relationship of the competencies to the learning in a unit. This example also demonstrates the contextualisation of the materials.

As discussed previously (see page 72), a commercial test as suggested in the project design document was out of the question – no commercial test having been designed to assess the communicative competence of people in the target situation and cultural context of Lao development. Therefore, we decided to devote time and effort to developing the context-specific criterion-referenced tasks required for a competency-based system. In view of the already considerable demands on Lao teachers’ time and their unfamiliarity with this form of assessment it would be impractical to expect them to develop tasks as is common in Australia. Moreover, this practice has led to the questioning of the reliability and validity of the assessment results (Brindley, 1998:70). Consequently, we adopted the strategy advocated by Brindley (1998:70) of developing ‘banks of assessment tasks … systematically linked to the achievement levels of whatever framework is being used’. Thus it was hoped to enhance validity and reliability by modelling the tasks we developed on the CSWE exemplar tasks (see Appendix 4d for an example). In an effort to enhance the security of these tasks, they were stored centrally at the English Language Resource Centre and their release administered by the Centre’s Director.

I was uncertain about how well competency-based assessment would be received by the teachers, the administrators and the government officials/students themselves. Not only is it a radical departure from the usual grammar-based approach used in Laos, but, more particularly, it emphasises the language learning needs of the individual in contrast to the group approach exemplified in the journal entry on page 79. How acceptable, I wondered, would this individualistic approach be in a country where education emphasises a cooperative group focus (Emblem, 1996; Ng Shui Meng, 1991). It is a view shared by others in the region as shown by Kramsh and Sullivan (1996) in their descriptions of class groups in Vietnam. My uncertainty was not allayed by the comment of an administrator that government officials had a ‘social club mentality’ when it came to their English classes – that they wanted to be with

their ‘friends’. He predicted that they would not accept an assessment system in which they were not promoted to the next level along with their class group.

Materials

We were on surer, but not firm, ground with the development of materials. The Lao stakeholders had been very clear about what they perceived as their needs in terms of topics and skills. Lao voices had confirmed my own observations, and suggestions in the literature (see pages 71-72) that the unfamiliar contexts caused teaching and learning difficulties and, moreover, that ‘foreign’ texts failed to provide relevant language such as the names of the jobs and workplaces of the students. Therefore, using authentic texts available locally (Vientiane Times – a twice-weekly English language newspaper with items translated from the Lao daily papers; UNDP reports), internationally (AusAID Focus magazine), and globally (development agency websites), we developed materials (students books, listening cassettes and a video) contextualised in Laos, Lao development and the working life of a Lao government official. This was not unproblematic. We were faced with the dilemma of what model(s) of English were both appropriate and possible. Ideally, the materials would be developed around a range of intercultural interactions utilising speakers from the region and from donor countries. This would have provided not only a range of accents, but also a more authentic representation of the officials’ working life; and an acknowledgement that when, for example, a Singaporean and a Lao meet, the communication norms they employ are not necessarily those of the dominant Western English-speaking nations (cf. Gonzales, 1995; Kachru, 1992a, 1995; Krasnick, 1995; Nelson, 1992). Ours was not an ideal world. Without access to a range of speakers, we presented authentic spoken communication through the interaction of Lao officials and Australian advisors. Mindful that the interaction was taking place in the Lao cultural context, we drew on our own experience and presented (we hoped) an interculturally competent Australian (cf. Lo Bianco et al., 1999) wanting to know more about Laos and hence enabling a range of social conversations to take place as well as work specific interactions.

Catering for teachers’ language proficiency was more problematic, not only at the third level (which was pushing the language limits of teachers within the network), but at all levels of the curriculum. We knew from our ministry audit and provincial visits that teachers had little idea of the language (such as the names of jobs

and ministries) that might be required in a ‘broad-band ESP course’ for government officials. Consequently, we wrote materials so that so they built the language skills, not only of the course participants (the government officials), but also of the teachers. Materials were also designed with an awareness of the limited preparation time available to teachers, who invariably worked two or three jobs to earn sufficient income.

Lao English language teachers were unfamiliar with a curriculum. For them, the curriculum is a course book. We wanted to raise awareness that the core texts related to the building of particular language competencies. In order to focus attention on these competencies, they were included in the front of the Students Book as well as in the Teachers Book, so that any student who looked through their course book would be aware of them even if the teacher did not draw their attention to them. They could then ask the teacher. In this way, it was hoped that the students’ demands to know (which they could make because of their social status) could help lead teachers to focus on the competencies.

The Ministry of Education held the copyright of the course materials which were printed at the Government Printing House and sold through the English Language Resource Centre. The project paid for initial print runs, which were sold at minimal profit and then the money used for the next print run. Administering this was the responsibility of the English Language Resource Centre. After some initial hiccups the system ran smoothly21. Establishing this system was a significant step for the Ministry of Education. When the previous AusAID project had attempted to initiate such a system for the reprinting of the English language course books for secondary schools, it had not been allowed.

Training

So far our decisions and actions had not been queried by AusAID as they did not affect the achievement of the milestones as they were stated. It was a different matter with our decision to eschew the separate training for the two types of teachers – provincial and ministry-based – in favour of a combined three level training pathway linked to the course levels, as shown in the following table.

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For example, although Lao is a signatory to the international copyright laws, copyright is not a well understood concept and, once printed, copies were for sale in the Government Printing House Bookshop when the intention was that the ELRC would be the sole outlet. The Ministry of Education successfully resolved this situation.

Table 4: Training and curriculum pathway Curriculum Pathway Teacher Training Pathway Training

Duration Training participants Training conducted by: Central Workshop 2 weeks Combined Advisors and

counterparts In-venue follow-

up workshops 3 days All Counterparts Level 1 Course

In-venue assessment workshops

6 days All Advisor (initially) and counterparts Central Workshop 2 weeks Ministry teachers Advisors and

counterparts Central Workshop 2 weeks Provincial

teachers Advisors and counterparts In-venue follow-

up workshops 3 days All Counterparts Level 2 course

In-venue assessment workshops

3 days All Advisor (initially) and counterparts Certificate in

Teaching ESP (Government Officials)

6 weeks Combined Advisor and counterparts Planned Level 3 course In-venue assessment workshops

3 days All Advisor (initially) and counterparts Added Level 2 course Certificate in

Teaching Government Officials

7 weeks Ministry teachers Counterparts

Source: Field notes

The deliberate linking of training to the courses and accompanying materials was in response to both the teachers’ needs and to criticisms of the certificate training delivered under the previous project that training needed to relate more closely to assisting teachers with the materials they would be using (Lachanthaboun, 1998:49). Our reasoning for combining the training, clearly articulated in a number of reports to AusAID, was that:

ƒ all teachers would be teaching the same courses

ƒ all teachers would need training to teach these competency based courses and all teachers would need to come to terms with the unfamiliar content and unfamiliar language items

ƒ only 25 teachers in the whole network had language skills potentially high enough to teach Level 3 of the curriculum

ƒ there were not 40 line ministry teachers (cf. Table 1, Output 2) with a high enough English language competency-level to attend a certificate level course. Despite our plans and despite the rationale being repeated in a number of reports, as can also be seen from Table 4, we eventually added a ‘certificate’ level course for ministry teachers. This was not of our own volition. Just when we thought we had completed the bulk of the training, AusAID suddenly realised there were not the specified number (and the number was the important factor, not the appropriateness of the training) of ministry teachers with a certificate. Our schedule was already gruelling. To prepare and deliver another course22 put great pressure on the team.

This training pathway inevitably had a strong focus on training in competency-based assessment, with teachers attending ‘certificate’ training experiencing this new form of language assessment first hand through actually being assessed in the exit competencies of the course they would be teaching their students. These teachers then assessed their completed tasks according to the criteria and analysed their own language learning needs. This had the advantage of giving them hands-on experience of competency-based assessment as well as focusing their attention on where their own language needed up-grading. As an indication of those needs, at the beginning of the course only one teacher achieved all the competencies of the Level 3 course. Fortunately, this number rose significantly by the end of the course but still not everyone was competent in all the target language of the course they would soon be teaching. Those attending shorter courses could only do this on a much modified scale. In addition, workshops were held at each ELT unit at the time of each level of assessment. Thus, teachers who attended certificate training or Vientiane-based workshop training, and those teachers who were teaching the courses without any training, were mentored through pre-course assessment, Level 1 assessment, Level 2 assessment, and Level 3 assessment. In this way, teachers got specific, and highly relevant, assistance with their own students in an assessment system that differed markedly from their previous practice.

It also differed markedly to the previous practice of program administrators, who were accustomed to choosing and inviting the exact number of students for a

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The teachers who had attended the Certificate in ESP (awarded by the Ministry of Education) were well aware that they were the only teachers with the language level to train for, and then teach, the Level 3 course, and were proud of this. The Ministry could not award this second group a certificate of the same name – so, to differentiate, the lower standard was given another name.

class from selection criteria which did not include their facility in English. Administrators attended only one centrally organised information session and the changing of this practice relied on the teachers reporting back to them after training and on counterparts meeting with each administrator on monitoring visits to each location. The first session in the initial round of pre-course assessments was hearteningly successful. A greater number of candidates than places available had been assembled. A counterpart, talking to these candidates before starting, told them that if they did not have ‘English’ script then the course was not suitable for them. Two people got up and left. “Well that was easy”, I thought. “I wonder if they’ll accept things as easily as that everywhere” (Journal entry, May 2000). As it turned out, the initial change was smooth in most places. However, one provincial and two ministry administrators selected their classes in the usual manner, i.e. without a pre- course language assessment. In another, administrators, intending to conduct two classes of 20 people per class, invited 40 people to attend the pre-course selection and were then worried about not having the requisite number per class when not everybody fitted the language criteria for the class level.

Teachers’ understanding of the interrelation of the assessment and the course content gained new strength at the time of the first round of post-course assessments. Each venue, for reasons of expediency, selected one day for the assessments rather than conduct multiple and on-going assessments in accord with one of the underlying