When the
second president of Turkey, İsmet İnönü, was woken by his aid in the small
hours one night in late June, after expressly demanding not to be woken on any
account , he was happier than he’d been for a very long time; ever since the
start of the second world war in fact. He and his government had been trying
desperately to keep the fledgling democracy out of the war and finally their
problems were over: the war wasn’t over as such but it had taken a turn for the
worse for Germany. The news İnönü was given was that Germany had attacked the
USSR. Inönü knew at once what that meant and history proved him right. This ill
fated plan was the beginning of the end. Who knows, perhaps if Germany had
formed an alliance with the Ukrainians, who desired freedom from the USSR, as
the Kaiser had done, The Soviets would have succumbed; however, arrogance and
contempt for the Slavs in general prevented this. It was all out conquest
Hitler was after, and he never doubted he would succeed. İnönü, as a student of
history, knew otherwise. Hitler was beaten by the Russian winter, at least to a
large part, as Napoleon had been before him. This event has gone down in
history as proof that nothing can be more devastating than an ill planned and
ill thought out strategy. The same is true in all walks of life. It is true
that the casualties of an ill thought out strategy in the case of teaching are
perhaps of a different ilk than those during that terrible Russian winter yet
they are just as serious. The road to hell is paved with ill planned syllabi
championed by curriculum planners who focus obsessively on that single ill
fated plan despite overwhelming evidence that “there is something very wrong in
the state of Denmark”. The wrack and ruin they leave in their wake in the shape
of destroyed lives is just as serious. Slight exaggeration you may feel, but
no; in Turkey, the best universities in the country are English medium
universities, which means that the students have a year of prep before their
freshman year. Failure at this stage of their education in a country where
thousands enter upon a cut throat competition for the few places in these top
universities spells disaster as they are not permitted to start their course
proper until they have passed the Proficiency exam, the TOEFL or the IELTS.
Getting it right becomes a moral imperative for any curriculum planner. The
dedication and diligence of those working in these departments is laudable yet
the fact that serious mistakes are made is none the less undeniable. It is the
three basic factors which spell doom for any syllabus to which we shall now
turn.
STEP ONE: COMPARTMENTALIZE
An Alice in Wonderland Moment
Any
intensive language course worth its salt will aim to cover basic grammar,
develop reading skills, provide listening practice, teach vocabulary and
provide writing practice. If, for the sake of argument, we were to imagine that
we had followed Alice through the looking glass into that wondrous yet topsy-
turvy land, all logic would go out the window and we would get a syllabus that
went something like this: we would have a reading program; i.e. a reading book
to which we would stick to like that veritable terrier, we would “teach”
vocabulary; i.e. we would have a vocabulary book which would rival the Bible,
we would endeavor to cover each and every grammar point in all the detail we
could manage; i.e. we would have, wait for it, a grammar book, which we would
revere and lastly we would try and teach the students to write well organized
and well thought out essays in faultless English; i.e. you have guessed it: we
would have a writing book. If we were to add Swift’s crazy scientists out of
the third book of Gulliver’s Travels to the mix, they would gather the above,
place it all in a hamper and hey presto, you would have a syllabus. The fact
that you could be covering the nature nurture controversy in your reading book,
while doing some completely different vocabulary, say environmental issues, in
your vocabulary book would seem fine provided you were still with Alice and
those scientists. The fact that while all this is going on, you cover listening
texts concerning management in business and simultaneously strive to teach the
past tenses and narrative structures is neither here nor there. At the end of the day, you would drown the students
in vocabulary – which would be completely disconnected and sort of hang there
in the ether – grammar, reading in short, EVERYTHING and surely most must
stick. The fact that it doesn’t – at least in our dimension – as proved by staggering
failure rates is a source of shock, horror and disbelief. What is amazing is
that the amount of proof required to persuade such individuals to get their
heads out of the sand is staggering. “All
truths are easy once you discover them; the point is to discover them”
(Galileo) so it is to the “discovery” that we shall now turn.
Back to Reality: Reading into Grammar
Abraham
Lincoln famously said “Whatever you are, be a good one” so the first thing to
be done is to do as Scot McNealy recommends and “get the best people and train
them well”. Provided this is accomplished, the scenario described above will be
shelved pretty promptly. The hamper will be burnt, the looking glass smashed
and the crazy scientists will be packed off where they came from. The BOOKS
will most likely also go for the simple reason that they are so completely cut
off from each other. The reason for this is simple: a good syllabus centers
round a good reading program; everything else leads off from it and towards the
writing task, which rounds things off. Grammar is introduced with a well
selected reading task, then practiced, not out of a soporific book that gives
the students the rules in a neat little chart and then demands that they
complete the sentences, but with a carefully selected exercise that leads the
students to deduce the rules and reach their own conclusions – thus keeping
them mentally engaged and focused. This exercise, in turn, leads on to the
inevitable grammar related writing task the latter being the culmination of all
the learning. Thus, the day is done. One
word of caution at this point: for effective learning to take place, the
writing task must, on no account, be considered an optional extra. Doing so
would be a fatal mistake as it is the writing task that clinches everything.
Pay back comes for the teacher in the form of brilliant pieces of writing which
become the envy of the rest of the school later on in the year. Those pesky
grammar points are also consigned to the long term memories of students, where
they stay.
Back to Reality: Reading into Writing
The reading
activity can lead in another direction too; it doesn’t have to be grammar. The
reading passage is the font in which the vocabulary items reside and the best
way to grasp their full meaning is to observe them in context and then practice
them in context: in the form of a reading related writing activity – an essay,
a reaction essay or a summary exercise. The latter will also help students
develop those invaluable cognitive skills so vital if one is to become a
proficient reader. The reading into
writing activity is, in fact, the ultimate reading activity as well. So you
have your syllabus which resembles an intricate web starting with reading and
ending with writing where everything is linked together, overlaps, joins up and
leads to a new reading activity, which leads to the whole process being
repeated ad infinitum. There is no end to learning in this way contrary to what
some may think. If one were to decide, for instance, to overhaul the writing program
in a language school, one would be hard pressed indeed to accomplish the task
without dealing with the reading program. That such an overhaul on its own
reminds one of Swifts scientists who wished to construct a building from the
roof down to the foundations need hardly be mentioned. Any revision of a
syllabus starts with and revolves around the reading program, and when that is
in place, so will everything else be. The fate of a writing program which is
completely cut off from everything else and is sort of floating feely cannot be
imagined. The writing program needs to be tethered to something; this being the
reading program. When such isn’t the case, it gets tethered to something else
with disastrous and bizarre consequences. This type of writing program can best
be explained with the following “outline for a sample essay”:
CAUSE ANALYSIS ESSAY: THE CONSEQUENCES OF HAVING A WRITING PROGRAM WITH NO
CONNECTION TO READING
Use the thesis statement, the concluding
statement and the points below to write a causal chain. Remember to provide
examples to support the points you have been provided with.
Thesis Statement: Essays with no grounding in
reading are in danger of becoming devoid of all meaning and sense.
1.
Pat
phrases, clichés, transition words and formulas
as a substitute for English proper
2.
The
extensive use of fixed formulas for writing essays as a substitute for
reasoning
3.
The
consequent emergence of the “essay writing grid” a template to fit all essays
to be filled with relevant terminology to complete a formulaic, empty piece of
writing.
4.
The
posting on websites, mass production and sale of the above by websites or
photocopiers.
5.
The
purchase and memorization of the above by a student body who have been honing
their memorization skills since the age of six.
Concluding Statement for the development: As is
obvious from the arguments thus far, the pieces of writing resulting from such
an approach bear no resemblance to essays as we know them; a problem that needs
to be remedied forthwith.
In your conclusion, it is suggested that you
use the following solutions:
- The existing writing program should be
scrapped
- Reasoning should be emphasized rather than
formulas
- Reading into writing should be the norm
rather than unconnected titles
- Only titles should be provided on tests
Concluding Statement for the conclusion: Such
solutions, were they to be implemented, would provide the added bonus of
raising the standard of writing and consequently the grades and the pass rates.
It would also help address the suspected problem of purchasing essays to place
in portfolios.
When writing your conclusion, remember to
justify the points you make. For instance, you could explain that native
speakers don’t use transition words the way our students do as evidenced by all
the texts they read. You might also explain that this isn’t physics and there
is no one (or two!) way to plan, say, argumentative essays so long as the
reasoning is correct – i.e. supporting your own view while refuting the counter
arguments.
The
prevalence and championing of such formulaic writing is truly surprising as
most institutions will state vehemently that their goal is to endeavor to
develop students’ cognitive skills. Yet no reading activity can be said to be
truly exploited unless it is followed by a reading into writing activity to
clinch matters. That those all important reading skills thus also fail to be
adequately developed hardly needs to be mentioned. Compartmentalization on its
own will do immense damage to a syllabus but the damage would be far more
extensive were we to add another key ingredient.
STEP TWO: CLUTTER
Think Oliver Twist
When Oliver
Twist asked for more porridge, he wasn’t guilty of gluttony; far from it; he
was famished. On consideration though, can one honestly say that this is always
the case? Most often “need” has nothing to do with it; one just covets it ALL.
This is precisely why greed, in all its forms, is deemed one of the seven
deadly sins. In all its forms includes coveting every obscure grammar point and
every outlandish vocabulary item as well. In short, it applies to curriculum
planners as well. One point we as a species need to come to terms with – and
sooner rather than later – is the fact that we never have and we never shall
have it ALL. Again, this is also true for anyone planning a syllabus. There is
no point in pushing and shoving and stuffing things in here and there; it just
won’t do. EVERYTHING will never fit and efforts to do so will lead to disaster.
I remember going on vacation with a family friend once. The idea was to go away
for a week in midsummer. She arrived with six suitcases and a carry on; I just
had the carry on. As things transpired, since we spent most of our time in
bathing suits, we never needed the wraps, the jackets, the best dress, the
matching shoes and so forth. Consider
another example if you will: imagine you are heading for the summit of Mount
Everest with the famous climber Nasuh Mahruki and you included leafy greens and
broccoli in your back pack, for example, on the assumption that the latter is a
wonder vegetable. What do you think Nasuh Mahruki would have to say about? You
would never be able to live it down. And here is the crunch: this is true for
items stuffed into syllabi as well.
What to Pack: Grammar
You may be
forgiven for thinking that students need it ALL. The truth is that they don’t;
not really. What they need and consequently what goes into the syllabus is
determined by the aim of the program and the time allowed in order to complete
the task. A weekend language course for young businessmen where the purpose is
to enable them to converse does not need to cover phrasal verbs for example –
the book I have in mind actually has 38 in one unit. Nor does it need to
include that weird structure the subjunctive – the same book. The students actually asked me whether I
thought they could get by without this structure and were greatly relieved when
I replied that they could. They were too polite to go on to enquire why the
book included it. Consider the prep school of a reputable university where the
purpose is to equip the students with the necessary skills an average
university student needs. The students in such a program need to be able to
listen to a lecture, follow it and take notes, read and annotate reading
material and base papers on the said notes, write term papers, dissertations
and do projects. With this in mind, take a look at the average grammar
syllabus: two weeks on average are spent on noun clauses, including reported
speech and quoted speech, for instance. This is one unit of grammar that serves
no useful purpose in such a program and can be omitted quite safely. What about
“what clauses” I hear you enquire. “What” can be contrasted with “which” and
included in the feedback provided on written work very early on in the year. In
fact, since one can’t write descriptions without relative clauses – which
students invariably confuse with “what” – I really fail to see how one can
avoid doing so. This will take care of relative clauses as well. A multitude of
issues like this can be laid to rest during feedback on essays. In the
institution I work in, it is Betty Azar’s “ Understanding English Grammar “that
is used, and two weeks are assigned to each of these subjects. Four weeks can
easily be shaved of the grammar syllabus thus but this isn’t all.
Let us now
turn our attention to those infamous gerunds and infinitives and before you
throw your hands up in horror and accuse me of trampling under foot all that
teachers hold most sacred, hear me out. In “Understanding English Grammar” this
subject is covered in two deadly chapters of about two dozen pages each. The
poor victims – the students – are required to commit to memory the interminable
lists in the book on which they are tested mercilessly. Done and dusted you may
feel; dusted certainly but done? I somehow doubt it. Those lists, so painfully
committed to the “for test purposes” compartment of the brain (every student
has one) are pretty promptly deleted. Where is the harm in just picking up
these structures and sort of absorbing them (through osmosis) while reading,
the way native speakers do? This is the view I have always held and feel most
apologetic when I have to tackle them in the aforementioned way. One word of
caution though: this approach presupposes a good reading program and plenty of
writing; the first to introduce all the various aspects of the language and the
latter to provide practice.
Another
subject that could face summary justice as far as I am concerned is transition
words. The perverse obsession of most grammar books with these words is
extraordinary as native speakers don’t use them. My personal view is that many
feel it is easier to teach students to use one of these words to signal a cause
effect relationship than it is to teach basic reasoning skills. This is
probably why they opt for these words rather than cognitive skills. Lately, I
have been reading and relishing a set of essays written by the CEO of Stratfor:
George Friedman. The essays analyze the strategies of various countries and are
intellectual and linguistic masterpieces. There is not a transition word in
sight yet the texts are all about relationships of cause and effect. The
brilliance with which the main thesis is introduced and developed stage by
stage and the beauty with which the conclusion ties back to the main thesis
will make any teacher feel that s/he has reached nirvana. The essays can be
viewed on the Stratfor website or on http://finance.townhall.com
. I would recommend them to anyone who feels opinion essays cannot be written
without transition words. The take home point from all that I have stated thus
far is that one has to be disabused of the idea that there is one universal
grammar program which amounts to a prescription: you do it all and leave no
stone unturned. The grammar program will vary according to the purpose of the
program.
What to Pack: If Vocabulary is Involved, Think
Gollum
Those of
you who have read Lord of the Rings will recall that odious creature Gollum
crooning for ever to his “precious”. The attitude of most us – members of the
teaching profession – to vocabulary items is very much the same. English is
probably one of the languages with the largest vocabulary with about 490.000
words and about 300.000 additional technical terms. The educated native speaker
probably uses, on average, 5000 words in conversation and about 10.000 in
writing. But English teachers, in their heart of hearts, set their sights much
higher than this. Shakespeare is said to have used over 30.000 words. If you
feel that this is, perhaps, high enough, you would be mistaken. The guilty
secret of most of us is the fact that ideally, we would like students to be
able to use all 750.000. This fact will never be mentioned at staff meetings as
it sounds deranged, but it is an ideal that is cherished by one and all. This
dream has spawned vocabulary books as the answer to all our prayers. I have
written at length about vocabulary in previous papers so I won’t repeat myself.
Suffice to say that vocabulary items are the building blocks of the language,
as is grammar, and for the same reasons, are best studied in the context of the
reading material assigned for that week. A reading text which is properly
exploited will enable vocabulary to be learnt painlessly and efficiently. The
disjointed, free floating vocabulary books are universally detested by
students, which in itself should be reason enough to discard them. When this is
suggested, most curriculum planners will throw their hands up in despair and
exclaim “But they need to learn the academic word list!” I don’t dispute that;
what I do have issues with is how the
vocabulary is taught. Should the amount of time devoted to the vocabulary book
be spent reading and studying a greater number of well targeted reading texts,
more vocabulary would be learnt and remembered. The take home point from all
that I have said thus far is that we need to be less ambitious about the amount
of vocabulary we try and teach students and we have got to teach vocabulary in
context. A good syllabus at an intensive language course like the prep year at
our university needs to have a well thought out reading program with one good
reading task every day. The vocabulary acquired by means of such a program will
be a pleasure to learn will be remembered and will, eventually, surpass, in
quantity, anything a vocabulary book could achieve. More efficient use of time
is within our control as teachers.
What to Pack: If Reading and Writing are
Involved, Think Skills Rather than Endless Activities
Another
area of the syllabus where precious time can be needlessly wasted with time
consuming and fruitless endeavors is in the teaching of the skills. The aim of
any half decent reading program is to enable the students to master those all
important cognitive skills any proficient reader has at his finger tips; this
is an aim which no one would disagree with. It is the methods applied to
achieve those aims where controversy occurs. You would be forgiven for assuming
that “reading skills” are best learnt through “reading” and “writing” skills
are best perfected through “writing practice”. In a cluttered and
compartmentalized syllabus there are books that profess to “explain” all the
intricacies of these skills. The reading book, for instance, has a short little
text followed by pages and pages of time consuming and deadly exercises. I
remember voicing the concern on such an occasion that the students were not
doing nearly enough “actual reading” – with one single- page text a week – to
be told that they were “learning the skills”. I remember the frustration I felt
at not being able to make some of my colleagues see that one can’t teach
reading skills without plenty of reading. I have also watched with concern the
proliferation of such “reading material” on the market. There is one guaranteed consequence of such
books: they will teach students that reading is one of those things that you
have to put up with, like a visit to the dentist, and can forget about once the
test is over. For such people, reading will remain a chore and never be
transformed into a truly pleasurable activity. Such books clutter the syllabus
and are ineffective due to the inordinate amount of time it takes to cover a
unit with a minimal amount of actual reading of a text. That those all important
cognitive skills also remain elusive need hardly be mentioned. My personal view
is that a good reading syllabus in an intensive program such as our own should
involve one decent reading activity a day rather than a one page text a week,
and a lot of the activities should be in the teacher’s notes only to ensure
focus on the actual text and the lesson. For more on how to teach reading,
refer to my papers on the teaching of the said skill.
I remember
discussing the teaching of writing with two colleagues, Mr. Waterhouse and Mr.
Gilchrest, many years ago now and how we agreed that the only way to teach
someone to write decent essays is to provide plenty of opportunity for practice
and constructive criticism. We all believed in effective feedback and at least
two drafts. More, I feel, could defeat the purpose as it could get boring.
There is one itsy bitsy problem with this method: it involves a lot of work for
the teacher. It is worth it many would think since it works very well and after
all, paperwork is part of the job description. Why, in that case, is the market awash with
books that “talk about writing”? In a compartmentalized and cluttered syllabus,
the writing activity has been severed from its natural companion, the reading
task, and confined within iron clad formulas. The essay writing template rivals
the Ten Commandments in terms of the rigidity with which it is applied. Nobody
would disagree with the fact that essay writing involves reasoning and that
logic is universal, but formulas? Writing books championing these formulas and
sprinkled liberally with “sample essays” have flooded the market and been
snatched up by one and many. As indicated in the sample essay plan earlier,
“essays” written along these lines look as if they have been written by zombies
rather than human beings and could easily be mass produced by means of, say, a
computer program, and in fact are. They contain very little original thought
and are sprinkled liberally with pat phrases, clichés and transition words.
This is the kind of writing that has taken the language learning community by
storm; at least where the teaching of English is concerned. That the ABITUR and
the MATURA are a completely different kettle of fish need hardly be mentioned.
There, still, the norm is a reading into writing activity of about 1200 words.
There has been a shift in the TOEFL and IELTS too with the move towards
reaction essays and similar reading into writing activities; this trend is yet
to hit the market though. Another very important point: there is very little
actual pleasure involved in writing formulaic essays. When an activity is
deadly, learning will be minimal too. It is impossible to fault such essays
provided you are concerned with the actual language but that they are not, in
the real sense of the word, essays should also be noted. Another point: they do
not fulfill their duty of helping to develop cognitive skills in reading either
as they have been cut off from the reading task. There is one last nail in the
coffin that we should turn our attention to at this point:
STEP THREE: AN ERRATIC PACE
Among the
three fundamental problems a syllabus can be crippled by, an erratic pace is
probably the most deadly. There is a very good reason for this: getting the
timing wrong often means that the syllabus falls short of the target leaving
the students to face a proficiency exam for which they haven’t been prepared –
through no fault of their own. My personal view is that if one considers all
the factors external to the program as well, one will find that in fact one
doesn’t have as much freedom in determining the pace as one would like to
think. It is very rare, in this modern world, for someone to set about learning
a language purely for his own pleasure with no end in sight. In such a case,
one can make the pace as erratic as one likes. A prep year before the freshman
year is a very different kettle of fish: there is a proficiency exam at a fixed
date in June, the school year starts on a fixed date as well, holidays are
clearly marked in the academic calendar, which means the number of weeks one
has each term are also predetermined. Given that students sit a placement test
at the start of the year to determine their levels, I fail to see what the
problem is. The pace of such a program is set in stone rather like that sword
set in stone in the legend of King Arthur. All one has to do is to determine
the weekly pace so as to meet the yearly target. A syllabus designer who knows
what h/she is doing needs to be like a good chess player thinking many steps
ahead about the consequences of what h/she decides to include in the week’s
program and can never be off the clock. As someone once said, he who fails to plan,
plans to fail and this is certainly true when designing a syllabus.
Course Books and Pace
One factor
that often has an adverse effect on the pace as it should be is a course book
dominated program. Handing over the reins to an author and a publishing company
both of whose knowledge of the particular circumstances of one’s institution is
nonexistent is very unwise. Most course books envision a much longer time frame
than the syllabus in a country like our own where the students need to be ready
for a proficiency exam in eight months. They have an elementary book, a pre
intermediate book and an intermediate book. Sometimes they even have an
advanced book. If you sit back and allow yourself to chug along at twenty miles
an hour with such a program, the students will be ready for their test in two
years time, which won’t do at all. What, then, is the answer? Do we abandon
course books? Naturally not; but we do reduce the time allocated to them in the
syllabus. In the institution where I teach, at intermediate level, we use Betty
Azar’s Understanding English Grammar as a grammar reference book and build our
syllabus round grammar related reading and grammar related writing. We have
been unable to find any other way out of the predicament described above. It is
very difficult to have such a program at pre intermediate and beginner level
right from the word go but what one should do is revert to it as soon as
possible. A pre intermediate program should start with the pre intermediate
course book say, Language Leader – the book we use at that level – and revert
to the intermediate program briefly outlined above as soon as it is completed.
Going through the whole series would mean that come June, students would be
nowhere near ready for that famous test. The same logic can be applied at
beginner level by starting with the beginner book, moving on to the pre intermediate
book and then changing to the intermediate program. In the institution I work
in, the number of hours students have a week increases as the level drops
making such a syllabus feasible. One reminder though: it is very important to
remember everything else that has been said about syllabus design up to this
point: reduce the clutter, eliminate compartmentalization and have one reading
task, one listening task and one writing task a day (the assumption is that all
these activities are linked thematically to enhance learning).
Skills and Pace
Postponing
these skills since the students are beginner or pre intermediate in level would
constitute a grave mistake. There is this surprisingly common view that reading
skills and writing skills cannot be acquired at beginner and pre intermediate
level. This means that these skills are postponed until quite late in the year,
so much so that students are not prepared for that famous test in June. It
should be remembered that writing of some sort can and should be done from the
word go. The same goes for reading, which can also start quite early on and be
linked to writing, listening and grammar. Cognitive skills can be taught with a
simple text at beginner level just as well as with more advanced material. Summary
writing activities, paraphrasing, sentence squeezing activities and the like
can and should start very early. The teaching of basic reasoning, especially to
the modern youth, who has been reared on a diet bite of sized chunks of
information and multiple choice questions, is time consuming. This is why the
earlier one starts the better. With a syllabus of the kind I have attempted to
describe, it will just be the context (the reading activity, the related
listening activity and the writing task) that will get progressively more
challenging; work on the cognitive skills, which will start as of day one, will
run very smoothly.
Teachers and Pace
The last
factor that can adversely affect the pace and the one that the curriculum
planner finds, by far, the hardest to combat is teacher resistance to the
required pace. The problem is
twofold. Firstly, we need to come to
terms with the fact that in the modern world, things do happen a lot faster
than we would like and there is precious little we can do about it. As yet,
physically slowing down time is not possible and pretending that one can is, in
the case of teaching, the eighth deadly sin. Endeavoring, with the best of intentions, to
allow students to take their little baby steps, to have as many breaks and
rests as they like and generally holding them back bodes ill for any syllabus
as tight as our own. In an institution such as our own – and there are numerous
others in Turkey alone – students need to be pushed to the limit. The correct
determination of that limit requires experience and know- how.
There is a
second point: we teachers as a species have remarkably strong convictions which
we have great trouble letting go of despite overwhelming evidence to the
contrary. Preserving a much loved book becomes a matter of life and death,
which can bode ill for any syllabus designer trying to reduce clutter or
address issues of compartmentalization. This instinct to cling, tenaciously, to
cherished material and methodology needs to be resisted. After all, it is an addiction like any other. Herein
lies the most important negative impact of teacher resistance.
IN CONCLUSION: LOOK, LISTEN AND LEARN
It is very
easy to avoid the pitfalls discussed above provided one is truly desirous to
change current applications for the better. Doing so involves keeping on the
lookout for any clues that provide feedback. Student dissatisfaction is one
such clue. Students who don’t see the benefits of what is being done are not
going to learn. There is nothing like an overall negative attitude to kill
learning. Sometimes the students need to be made to understand the reasons for
a certain activity. I am a firm believer in justifying the way I do things and
making my students understand the underlying reasons for what I do and how I do
it. However, often they are right and the teacher is wrong. The teacher or
curriculum planner needs to be able to see this. Huffing and puffing in class, not just one
day but every time a book is produced, is a dead giveaway. Low grades that reach epic proportions are
also an irrefutable clue that something is very wrong indeed. Insisting on the
same course of action despite high failure rates is very unwise indeed as such
an attitude will lead the already existing negative attitude to what is being
done to become yet more firmly entrenched, thus aggravating the situation. Very
rarely, there are exceptional circumstances leading an obvious clue like
failure rates to be disregarded. Something of this kind happened in Turkey some
years ago when lycée education was raised to four years and there were no
graduates to enter the university entrance exam one specific year. Those who
entered that year were failures from the previous years and we ended up getting
a very inferior bunch of students to the ones we usually get in terms of
educational background. I remember remarking at the time that taking that
specific year as a yard stick would be a mistake. This doesn’t happen very
often though; only once in a blue moon. Curriculum planners also need to listen
to teachers. After all, they all share a common goal of desiring high success
rates. For more on syllabus design, check my previous papers on my blog or my
academia site. Suffice to say that provided one looks, listens and then learns,
there is no hurdle that can’t be overcome.
