CHAPTER
I
THE
ORIGINS OF LANGUAGE
CURRICULUM
DEVELOPMENT
Language curriculum development is an aspect of a broader
field of education activity known as curriculum development or curriculum
studies.curriculum development focuses on determining what knowledge, skills
and values students learn in schools, what experiences should be provided to
bring about intended learning outcomes,and how teaching and learning in schools
or educational systems can be planne, measured, and evaluated.
Historical
Backround
The history of
curriculum development in language teachingstarts with the notion of syllabus
design. Syllabus design is one aspect of curriculum development but is not
identical with it. A syllabus is a specification of the content of a course of
instructionand lists what will be taught and tested. Curriculum development in
language teaching as we know it today really began in the 1960s, though issues
of syllabus design emerged as a major factor in language teaching much earlier.
If we look back at the history of language teaching
throughout the twentiet century, much of the impetus for changes approaches to
language teaching came about from changes in teaching methods. The method
concept in teaching- the notion of a systematic set of teaching practices based
on a particular theory of language and language learning is a powerful one and
the quest for better methods has been a preoccupatio of many teachers and
applied linguistics since the beginning of the twentieth century. Many methods
have come and gone in the last 100 years in pursuitof the “best method”. As the
following chronology illustrates with dates suggesting periods of
greatestdominance:
Grammar
Translation Method (1800-1900)
Direct
Method (1890-1930)
Structural
Method (1930-1960)
Reading
Method ( 1920-1950)
Audiolingual
Method (1950-1970)
Situational
Method (1950-1970)
Communicative
Approach (1970-present)
