2. What didn’t you like about the course?
3. Did the course cover what you wanted to study?
Very much ——- Yes ——- Kind of ——- Not really ——- Not at all ——
GIVE REASONS FOR YOUR ANSWER:
Appendix 3
TABLE 13.3
Course Content
Teachers – “Students become more involved/Students can make the most of the learning experience.”
– “Students do not want to/Not so much with less able or less motivated students/I am too busy/It is not allowed at my institution.”
Students – “We are university students, so we want to decide ourselves/If the teacher always decides, it is boring, but we need some good examples.”
– “Students usually have no idea/Teachers have more expertise than students so it is better that they decide.”
Lesson Aims
Teachers – “When students give an explicit request/It makes everyone engaged and infl uences group dynamics.”
– “It could get tedious for each lesson and take up too much time/Students are too disinterested/Even when I offer small choices the answer is the teacher should decide.”
Students – “I like to decide/We decide but it depends on students’ levels.”
– “If decided for us, we can see what we really need to study/I’m lazy to decide lesson aims/Students cannot decide and this is not good to change after registering for the class.”
Sequencing
Teachers – “I especially like to do this to accommodate students (responding to topics, questions that arise)/Students are often grateful that the teacher is responsive to students interests.”
– “Students do not have knowledge in this area/Students want a ready-made package.”
Students – “Teacher should decide but accept what students want if requested.”
– “Teachers know better how to carry on the class, if students decide it would be a mess/Teachers are experts/We can feel comfortable if it is already decided.”
Material
Teachers – “I would like students to bring in their own materials/Students choose topics of own interest to discuss in class.”
– “Not really as I develop my own materials on a weekly basis/Ordering and time requirements to obtain material make it impossible/I would like to but my school says no.”
Students – “It is a good class if we discuss materials and resources between teacher and students/I would like to choose by myself, if I could/Textbooks without color decreases my motivation.”
– “Students do not know what material is good/I decide the course by who is going to teach it and the materials that are going to be used.”
176 Andrew Boon
Homework
Teachers – “Yes as this gives ownership to students/Students need to work around a schedule/I give two tiers of compulsory and optional homework.”
– “I think students would probably say ‘no homework’/This is the domain of the teacher as students will minimize what they say they need.”
Students – “Students have different time available. We need to discuss this otherwise we can hate the class and the teacher. If the teacher gives us too much, it is not good/I would like the teacher to listen to the students’ opinions.”
– “If students decide, they never study/If students choose it, we would choose the easy way/The teacher should decide so that it links to the next lesson.”
Evaluation
Teachers – “To some extent as in getting students to say what aspects they think they should be evaluated on/Yes as it becomes less about the grade given and more about where the students are.”
– “This must stay within the teacher’s control/This is dictated by the university/I cannot change the assessment criteria once the course is under way.”
Students – “Teacher assessment is important but we can also assess each other as this is important, too.”
– “This is NOT what students can decide/If students do it, we would try to give each other a good score/The teacher is the expert, students cannot judge the level.”
Methodology
Teachers – “I would welcome student ideas/I take this into consideration after students’
evaluation of the fi rst term.”
– “Students have limited knowledge of methodology/If they wanted me to teach grammar-translation, I could not bring myself to do it/No, we are experts.”
Students – “We can have fun if both teacher and student discuss this/It is boring if it is always decided by the teacher.”
– “We have no idea/We choose our classes based on teachers’ styles we like or do not like so I want the teacher to do it his or her own way and we will follow.”
Groupings
Teachers – “I give students the option of forming their own groups in accordance with their wishes.”
– “No as this can cause problems if there is a student that nobody wants to work with/It takes too long and takes away the suspense/Students need to learn to communicate with a variety of people.”
Students – “We can gain skills if we make groups ourselves/I prefer a group I know rather than strangers.”
– “If students decide, we always sit in the same groups/If we make groups with our friends, we start using Japanese.”
Error Correction
Teachers – “Yes as this encourages autonomy/It is necessary in my context as students want the teacher to correct every mistake. If you delay feedback, they think you are not doing your job.”
– “Students would like me to correct every error/It is too much work/I have a large number of students.”
Students – “It is not always best if the teacher tells us our mistakes.”
– “I would like to know the right answer.”
Negotiated Syllabuses: Do You Want to? 177
Comment
The situation that Andrew Boon describes in this chapter will be familiar to many teachers – the class is about to meet for the fi rst time, you know very little about the students . . . what will the course look like? In this case study, elements of negotiation have been introduced into three different types of course, most strik-ingly perhaps in the university context. Very often, however, we fi nd in the language classroom that it is a matter of the students needing to fi t the course rather than the course fi tting the students. One challenge for the teacher is to fi nd the balance between what the subject or curriculum requires and what the students want. This balancing act recalls the divisions of the needs analysis circle – lacks, necessities, and wants.
Tasks
1. Consider the elements of negotiation introduced into the university course in this chapter.
a. In terms of the curriculum design model, where is negotiation being introduced?
b. Can you suggest other negotiable elements that could be introduced into a course like this?
2. Andrew Boon has discussed negotiation in three different contexts. For each context, identify the factors that favored negotiation, and any constraints that made it diffi cult.
TABLE 13.4
Business course Extension center University Factors in favor of
negotiation
Factors working against negotiation
3. In your own teaching/learning context, or one that you are familiar with, do any of the factors you have identifi ed in Task 2 exist? What potential for negotiating elements can you identify in this context?
Introduction
The school-based ESL curriculum project, which is the focus of this chapter, was part of a university-school partnership in which we, as university researchers, worked with teachers to develop curriculum units that were responsive to the needs of students. The project was carried out in two broad phases: (a) an analysis of the environment in which English was taught; and (b) the development of curriculum units based on the environment analysis. The rationale for this project stems from concerns that students in rural Malaysia were not motivated to learn English because they did not see the need for the language in their daily lives.
This curriculum project was carried out in the township of Banting, which was undergoing economic transformation. Banting, located about 20km from Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia, has historically been an agricultural area with rubber, oil palm, and tea plantations. However, economic development resulted in the establishment of a number of small and medium-scale industries as well as multinational palm oil processing and electronics factories. These develop-ments resulted in higher incomes for people in the community, and with this came changes in consumerist literacy practices and lifestyles.
The curriculum project aimed to develop units that were relevant to the literacy practices of the community. In order to understand how literacy is used in communities, Street (2001) suggests the use of “fi eld work methods and sensitized ways of discovering and observing uses and meanings of literacy practices.” (p. 1).
He notes:
. . . before launching into [the design of] literacy programs . . . it is necessary to understand the literacy practices that target groups and communities are already engaged in. (p. 1, italics added)