The Language Teacher
02 - 2000

From Bluepnnt to Edifice
An Architectural Approach to Cumculum and Materials Design

Steven Gershon

Obirin University

Approaching the construction process

In the construction of an edifice--a large, split-level home, say--plans are drawn, the frame is assembled, the structure is built, the interior is decorated and the rooms are furnished. Many stakeholders give input and, ideally, collaborate toward a common vision. Architects, zoning officials, builders, electricians, plumbers, interior designers and occupants are all involved in the collaborative process. During each phase of the work, their decisions reflect an interplay of their aesthetic preferences, practical needs, physical resources, and external constraints. After that, regular maintenance and occasional large-scale remodeling is undertaken. The result is a fluid, sometimes spontaneous, often circular, process of decision-making, problem solving, negotiation, and compromise.

The edifice of a university-based coordinated language program similarly undergoes a kind of interactive construction process. The organizational goals, curriculum, content, materials, and mechanisms for maintenance inevitably reflect the interaction--at times smooth, at times not-- of various philosophical tensions, pedagogical dichotomies, institutional pressures, and practical constraints. (For a discussion of the many stakeholders involved in a university-based language program, see Lindsay, 1997.) The result, as for our home above, is a fluid, sometimes spontaneous, often circular, process of decision making, problem solving, negotiation, and, inevitably, compromise.

This article examines some of the competing issues that influence the builders of a language program to adopt certain perspectives over others in constructing the curriculum and materials. To illustrate the issues involved, examples are drawn from the Obirin University English Language Program (OUELP). Though it's certainly not the only "Model home" on the market, the Obirin program has proven itself to be a structurally sturdy abode containing well-appointed, coordinated "rooms" of core and elective courses to accommodate the 35 teachers and 1000 students who occupy them at any one time. More importantly, it has for a number of years relied primarily on its own in-house materials-writing "interior designers" to furnish and continuously refurbish its core rooms. The "interior designing" is not only the most time-consuming element of a program's management, but also, ultimately, the most visible manifestation of its distinctiveness.

Drawing the blueprints ---> Needs: EGP, EAP, GEAC

A large, multi-room home is designed for the needs of its future occupants. Since the builders may not know precisely who the future occupants will be or what they will need, however, they design a structure that can accommodate a variety of occupants over time.

A language program may incline its course offerings toward either English for General Purposes or English for Specific Purposes (EGP or ESP), or any of ESP's similarly abbreviated branches, such as EOP, EAP, EGAP, or ESAP--English for Occupational Purposes, English for Academic Purposes, English for General Academic Purposes, or English for Specific Academic Purposes aordan, 1997). The starting point for a university language program's curriculum and materials planning is an assessment of student needs.

The problem, of course, is determining those students' needs. Far from the narrowly identifiable needs of a homogenous group of airline pilots or nurses, unfortunately, university students' needs are often either broadly varied or essentially undefined. Many, in fact, are the proverbial TENOR students--Taking English for No Obvious Reason. A large program must attempt to accommodate them all.

To reflect this "open house" approach, the OUELP targets a fairly inclusive set of program goals, which incorporate

proficiency goals (extending language skills)
cognitive goals (understanding relevant cultural knowledge)
affective goals (achieving a sense of self-esteem and empowerment)
transfer goals (mastering generic learning skills for further study).

In the context of changing student population and this eclectic mix of design goals, we have seen the need to position the program midway between EGP and EAP. Perhaps the more embracing acronym GEAC, General English in an Academic Context, most aptly describes the OUELP's set of working blueprints--- plans that are realized both in the structural framework (curriculum) and the interior (materials) design.

Building the framework ---> Integrated skills

The foundation is prepared and the framework is put in place. The blueprints call for a split-level design. On the first floor is a large central multi-purpose living space for all. Along the hallway are smaller rooms set aside for various uses. The second floor shares the same floor plan, with a multi-purpose living room and separate smaller rooms down the hallway. Just as student needs determine the functional focus of English (General or Academic) adopted by a program, they also affect the structural framework within which the curriculum and materials reside. EAP courses often revolve around a common core of study skills divided into receptive and productive skills Uordan, 1997). English programs in Japanese universities often segregate the written and oral skills, offering a collection of skill-based coursesseparate rooms, each opening on the hallway, but none opening directly on another.

There are good reasons, logistical and pedagogical, for structuring a program upon a discrete-skill framework, with each of the language skills timetabled to a specific lesson. Likewise, a program may, for practical or philosophical reasons, integrate the skills, allowing the various language skills to flow through a course in an order dictated by the content. As well as offering the teacher the advantages of flexibility, an integrated approach offers the students variety, interest and, arguably, a more natural, authentic framework for the study of any content area (Brinton et al., 1989).

The OUELP framework, with its GEAC blueprint, supports both integrated skills and discrete skill areas. The integrated-skills first-year and second-year "multipurpose rooms" form the structural center of each floor, with students spending more of their time in this "core" area. The separate-skill elective course "studios" down the hallway provide students both the space and the opportunity to use other areas of the "house" to their own advantage.

The decision to erect an integrated-skills framework for its core courses has also led the OUELP naturally to a content focus. Although "content-based" methodology often implies extensive use of authentic materials (Brinton 1989), the program's GEAC bias has led it to adopt a "soft" version, with some authentic material and some adapted or simplified. Rather than attempting to produce subject-specific content for each department, the core courses offer a mix of vocabulary-rich materials appropriate for a range of student interests and general academic needs.

Designing the interior ---> Do-It-Yourself materials

With the framework and structure in place, electricity and plumbing are installed. It's then time to consider the interior design scheme. It's a big job and one must consider whether to tackle it oneself, as a major Do-It-Yourself (DIY) project, or to bring in interior design professionals. Why would the planners of a program choose to design its materials "in-house" over the far easier course of adopting commercially published material? Swales (1980) suggests two varieties of reasons: (a) The existing published textbooks are lacking in some way, either in designated level, cultural appropriacy, or match-up with program goals; (b) language teaching professionals' hubris or self-imposed need for status demands rejecting off-the-shelf books in favor of material displaying their own homegrown expertise. We may also add an equally relevant third reason: the market-driven demands on the institution to promote a "designer-label" course to attract more applicants. As Nunan (1998) points out, the teaching materials are "the tangible manifestation of the curriculum in action." Just as it's the interior design that gives a room its distinctiveness and usefulness, it's generally the materials that provide a language program's most direct effect on the students' learning.

Whatever the reasons for choosing DIY materials, once that decision is made at the program level, the in-house interior design team has committed itself to a very time-consuming, labor-intensive undertaking. Decisions at each level affect those of each level below, from syllabus down to unit, lesson and activity.

Decorating the space ---> Theme selection

Floor plans are rendered and the rooms, fitted with carpets, wallpaper, and curtains, take on distinctive styles in keeping with their intended uses.

For an integrated-skills content-based syllabus such as that of the OUELP core course, a useful organizing unit is the theme. Within each theme, the topics themselves can then be allowed to dictate a variety of language input and tasks (Brinton et al., 1989). However, questions of scope and sequence must follow: What criteria should guide the selection of themes? What principles should guide the order of themes?

In the OUELP we opt for first-year themes such as People, Education, Countries, and Global Issues. In the second year they are Film Culture, The Sixties, Youth Culture, and The Information Age. Within this selection, the order is guided by a loose, though consciously built-in, conceptual and linguistic grading. In the first year, the earlier themes focus on personal experience and the physical world around the students, and have a relatively low conceptual load, then progress toward more abstract and issues-based materials which require more linguistically-challenging responses. In this way, the students move to "higher-levels of language processing (e.g., comparison, distinguishing fact from opinion) through the variety of text types, formats, and activities to which they are exposed" (Brinton et al., 1989, p. 15), sharpening both their linguistic and cognitive processes.

Furnishing the rooms ---> Theme organization

With the floor, walls, and windows appropriately covered, one begins to visualize the central living space fully furnished. In deciding what will go where, maintaining a sense of unity and practicality become crucial issues which demand attention.

With appropriate themes in place, the question arises as to what principles will guide each theme's construction and organization. One considers theme length, the balance of skills, the flow of material, the internal cohesion of the material within the unit, and the desired balance of built-in consistency and variety.

Balance of skills: Maintaining an appropriate balance of skills within a theme demands vigilance, particularly within an integrated-skills framework. How much classroom time spent on a theme will be devoted to oral skills, to writing and reading? Should the tasks in a theme be sequenced from the least to the most challenging? Should the unit template incorporate a pre-determined mix of fluency and accuracy tasks? How varied or uniform should the theme's activities be in terms of pace and mode of interaction (group, pair, individual)? These are all decisions dependent on a program's goals and the pedagogical leanings of its materials design team.

Theme cohesion: Equally significant is the question of how much internal cohesion a theme should have. In terms of language processing, vocabulary, and content load, to what extent are the activities arranged so as to build on each other?

At one extreme, the activities may relate to one another in such a way that, to complete a given task, the students must have successfully completed the preceding ones, forming a kind of task dependency or task chain. The advantages of a unit that is cohesive in this way is that the students retain a sense of direction, being able to clearly see their competencies being built up along the way. However, one obvious disadvantage is that it is generally necessary to do the activities in the fixed order that they appear. More problematic is that a student having trouble with one activity may become further and further lost as the theme proceeds through more challenging activities.

An alternative approach might be called the activity bank model. Here the activities are independent and autonomous; each one can stand alone and be taken on its own terms, without assuming the content, vocabulary or grammatical structures of the previous activity. Though the disadvantage of this task independence may be a lack of clear direction through a unit, the great advantage is flexibility. One can skip around the activities in a theme more easily, altering the order to better suit the needs and interests of the learners. Perhaps a more significant advantage is that the students are offered a fresh start each time they face a new activityan important consideration with mixed-level classes. It may also be a good model for highly coordinated programs in which classes proceed through the same material at equal speed, as it is one way to give teachers a degree of latitude to follow their own instincts and interests, if not in the material's content, then at least in its order.

In fact, one rarely sees a multiple-lesson unit in which the activities are either wholly chained or wholly autonomous. This is certainly true of the OUELP core course: A three-week, multi-lesson unit on the theme of Countries, for example, will feature chained activities, offering a clear, logical flow, and stand-alone activities as well.

Assembling the furniture ---> Activity construction

Pieces of furniture are assembled and arranged to fit in with the overall interior style. In considering the design features of each piece, attractiveness is weighed against purpose, simplicity, functionality, and sturdiness.

Just as each piece of furniture in a well-appointed room serves a purpose and fits in with the general interior scheme, each activity in a unit benefits from certain design features that give it both aesthetic and functional value. In keeping with these principles, the materials designers then craft their tasks. In the OUELP, the design team aims for tasks which display the features of transparency, do-ability, surrender value, and robustness.

Transparency: The task type, whether dialogue, information-gap, role-play, or vocabulary exercise, should have an intended outcome that is transparent. Both the learners and the teacher need to know why they are doing the activity and where it is leading. In OUELP materials, this often means stating on the page the objectives for the activity. Transparency also guides the rubric, heading the activity toward concise, bulleted instructions, clear contexts, as in role-plays, and explicit, numbered procedural steps for longer, more complex tasks.

Do-ability: All of these concerns make an activity more doable for the students. More importantly though, is the assurance that they will have the necessary language to complete the task as requiredin English. This can only happen when the designers build into the task the language support the students will need, both for the topic and for the necessary task language to negotiate meanings, spellings, requests for repetition, turn-taking, and group-formation.

Surrender value: Do-ability also involves logistical simplicity, especially in relation to the surrender value of an activity, i.e. the functional skills the learner will acquire from an activity in relation to the time it takes. In other words, does it produce enough solid language practice to make it worth the time and energy involved? Building into the core activities a variety of interactive groupings is essential. However, our in-house designers are also encouraged to anticipate realistically both the time investment and the possible logistical complications that may affect the surrender value of an activity.

Robustness: Just as a shoddy or flimsy piece of furniture will before long fall apart or be left unused, an activity without a certain well-proportioned robustness will soon leave students uninterested and demotivated. This robust quality comes from various features the design team builds into the activity's structure. A well-conceived pre-task lead-in, for example, serves the dual purpose of introducing necessary vocabulary and pricking the students' interest and expectations. To this end, quizzes, interviews, and surveys feature prominently in OUELP materials. Likewise, task follow-ups prompting personalization of the topic afford the students a real sense of completion. Accountability for information gained about a topic or a partner in the form of reporting back also puts students in the authentic position of being able to relay their findings to an interested group. Whatever the task, its strength, then, comes from the clear sense of its being a well-proportioned whole that allows students to say they know or can do something meaningful that they didn't know or couldn't do before.

Maintenance and Renovation

The house (program) has been fully occupied for some time, providing the occupants (students) an attractive, productive space for their needs. Some areas, however, have begun to show signs of wear and tear. Perhaps an additional room (course) is needed. The new room needs furnishing. Blueprints, hammers, saws, paintbrushes, and wallpaper come out once again. The work continues . . .

References

Brinton, D., Snow, M., Wesche, M. (1989). Content-based second language instruction. Boston: Heinle and Heinle.

Jordan, R. (1997). English for academic purposes: A guide and resource book for teachers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Lindsay, A. (1997). Designing and riding a camel: Some questions of balance in a co-ordinated language program, Obirin Review of International Studies 9, 35-102.

Nunan, D. (1988). The leaner-centered curriculum. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Swales, J. (1980). ESP: The textbook problem. The ESP Journal, 1(1), 11-23.

The Language Teacher02 - 2000

From Bluepnnt to Edifice An Architectural Approach to Cumculum and Materials Design