Part One : English Curriculum

Purpose of this chapter is to enable students

a. To understand the definition of curriculum.
b. to understand what is meant by English curriculum
c. to understand the parts it involves
d. to understand the model of curriculum design process.
Understanding theories and aspects of curriculum, students of PBI and teachers will be aware of
what should be there in the curriculum, how a curriculum should be developed. If they deal with
a curriculum which does not meet the requirement of a good curriculum, at least they can discuss
it with their fellow friends and report the result of the discussion to the school principle and let
him pass it to the authority of the curriculum designer. Students of PBI will possibly become a
curriculum designer. In this case this knowledge is a kind of light in how they have to do the job.

This section will discuss about English curriculum. It will cover the definition of English
curriculum and what factors compose

English curriculum and the design of English

curriculum. The design will adopt the one of Nation and Mc Calsiter (2010).
What is curriculum? The curriculum represents a set of desired goals or values that are
activated through development process and culminate in successful learning experiences for
students (Wiles and Bondi in Wiles 2009). Accordingly, a curriculum is supposed to have the
goals or values which are desired or wanted by the users, that are the learners. The goals
should be possibly activated through the process of development, implying that the goals
must be developed and generated into a learning process carried out by the students
successfully. It implies that a curriculum must enable the students to undergo a good learning.
A good learning must be carrried out in such a way that learners feel at ease. They have to
enjoy the learning and feel that they can do the learning. Besides, they also have to feel
that they make improvement.

Brown (2000) states that English curriculum is a design for carrying out an English language
program in an educational institution. The program will be characterized by several features
namely specification of linguistic factors, subject matters, such as topics/themes, sequencing
and materials to meet the needs of the learners. It needs to present the linguistic factors such
as the scope of the vocabulary, structure and language functions. In short, in the English
curriculum there is the specification of :
a. the topic
b. the scope of vocabulary
c. the scope of structure
d. the scope of language function.
e. Another scope is the types of texts
An English curriculum is supposed to have those factors as the criteria of instructional
material development. A curriculum need to limit the learners tasks in English learning. The
limit is to be confirmed in order that the teacher and learners know for sure which language
features they have to master for each level of study. Every one involved in education
understand the learners time limitation. The demand to the learners must be based on some
consideration.
The curriculum model proposed by Nation and Macalister (2010) consists of three outside
circles and a subdivided inner circle. The outside circle posses principles, environment and
needs which contains practical and theoretical considerations that will have a major effect in
guiding the actual process of course production ( Nation and Macalister, 2010). In the centre
of the inner circle, it has the goal. After the goal, the inner circle has (a) content and
sequencing of the material (b) format and presentation (c) monitoring and assessing. The
following is a model of the parts of the curriculum design process.

Figure 1. A model design of a curriculum adopted from Nation and Mc Calister

( 2010)
The environment will give an effect on the development of curriculum. The environment
refers to the learners, the teachers, the situation. The environment is viewed from the
constraints. Regarding the learners, the curriculum designers have to take into account about
some pointers such as their age, their special need, their preference of ways in learning etc.
About teachers constraints, some consideration must be taken. They are such as whether the
teachers are trained teachers, confident and have time for preparing and marking. Some
points about the situation will give some effects for the development of curriculum too. They
are whether there is suitable classroom, is there enough time, are there enough resources, do
English learners meet English outside the class. These constraints

must be taken into

consideration to curriculum development.

Learners needs is also a resource which must be considered in curriculum development ( this
will be dealt with again in the next chapter). Needs are categorized into (a) wants, desire,
expectation (b) what learners know, (c) learners lack of knowledge. It is the learners lack of

knowledge which becomes the aim of language learning in an English curriculum. It is what
the learners have to learn.
Principles refer to philosophical stance in language learning and teaching. They are such as
the nature of language, the nature of learning and the nature of culture
( Nation, 2010). The principles will color the development of curriculum.
Evaluation is on the effectiveness of the course. It is about whether the course are good for
the students, teachers, sponsors and are respected by local or international community and
meet the criteria in developing good curriculum. The course is expected to support the
students in getting good scores from external test.