Have you ever done a blog post that totally leads people down the garden path – then promises to make up for it by saying that Part 2 will be more focused, useful and better-written?
Have you ever forgotten to write that Part 2?
Whoops!
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So, as I was saying – ELT has been using this ridiculous, ‘best practice’ model for curriculum-developing and syllabus-making for over 40 years (teachers have also incorporated it into their lesson-planning)!
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It just don’t work…and we have (in our heart of hearts) known this for years!
Why not?
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Well, it ain’t that hard to work out:
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OK, OK – I get that when we look at our ‘content’, we get pretty scared:
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We can panic about much of this ‘content’ we have to ‘cover’ in the limited time we have available with our learners – especially, if we are also working in an EGAP or EAP context:
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Academic Literacy is a total bi’ach to plan for!
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But, the solution is NOT to ignore the learner…it is to make sure we put the learner at the heart of our decision-making.
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We have to recognise that more of the same is not the solution…
Indeed, we just have to listen to some of the ELT Jedi Masters (although they may be few in number)…
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Recognising the power of questions…
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Wiggins and McTighe gave use a new planning model with 3 phases:
OUTCOMES
ASSESSMENT
IMPLEMENTATION
…and gave use us 3 disarmingly-simple questions to help us get it right!
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The first of these drew attention to the fact that learner outcomes (not teacher inputs) are here to stay – and, if we are to have a hope in hell of expanding and improving student learning and success, we have to begin with the end in mind or recognise that curriculum-developing needs to begin where it ends – with the learning of individual students.
That’s the essence of the job, guys – always has been!
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The second phase has frequently raised a few eyebrows – because we, so often, just tag on assessment at the end of the learning process. We forget that, for students, assessment IS the curriculum!
Come on! How many times have you heard a student say:
“Hocam, that was a great lesson! I loved the way you combined the 21st century skills of critical thinking and collaboration with a truly communicative, task-based activity based on a meaningful information gap…and the way you supported us with just-in-time instruction and helped with all that emergent vocabulary and lexis – you are a great teacher…I love you”!
How many times have you heard this one?
“Hocam – will this be on the test…or what”?
You get the point…
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The fact is that if a teacher really knows and understands the nature of the assessment processes and tools that students need to engage with (and these are more than simplistic, high-stakes, multiple-choice tests) they can create lessons that promote more of a learning-driven culture…where learners welcome the type of formative feedback that helps them grow and succeed.
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The final phase is where teachers can get creative – developing a lesson (or series of lessons) that both meets student needs and is engaging and, dare I say it, useful! Rather than starting with a textbook (and following up with content-driven and activity-driven lessons), we design learning opportunities and tasks that can make a difference…and be fun!
Surely, I do not have to sell this any harder…it just makes so much sense!
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OK, I may have simplified things a wee bit – but just jump back to Part 01 and tell me this is not an improvement…that this approach can’t help us deal with the challenge identified by Rogers…over 35 years ago!
allthingslearning 
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