Curriculum development itself occurs in the context of political, social, economic and technological change in cultures. It is the means used by institutions to address the educational experiences of learners (Mckernan, 2008). It is not a finite process, for curricula are subject to reform as those political, social, economic and
technological situations change. Curriculum development is, then, a process of making decisions for matching stakeholders’ needsand those thatdevelop out of wider community aims or goals. This is as well as being a process of determining
the contents and methods of teaching and learning, and assessments (Behar, 1994;
Brady, 1995; Richards, 2001; Uys, 2005b). As McKernan (2008) proposes, curriculum development is a systematic and decisive process within which a program plan for teaching and learning is made, and which is expected to achieve certain specified education goals. Mckernan (2008) further argues that curriculum development implies:
[D]eliberately planned activities involving the design of courses: their aims, content, methods and modes of evaluation and styles of organizing students in courses of study and patterns of educational activity, which have been offered as proposals for improvement (p. 32).
I have drawn on this sort of conceptualization of curriculum development to examine the concept of curriculum reform, as this sort of systematic and decisive processes is currently in play in China. Curriculum development in language teaching, as Richards (2001) argues, is a process which includes producing an appropriate syllabus, course structure, teaching methods and relevant materials, as well as evaluation. I have drawn on this idea when describing the reform under study. In doing so, I have focused on an investigation of curriculum and associated goals, syllabus, teaching methods and textbooks, as suggested by Hewitt (2006). I have also given consideration to issues of assessment as part of curriculum
implementation. I have further been mindful of the possibilities of the EFL curriculum reform as constituting another Great Leap Forward.
Goals
Goals, aims, objectives and purposes are terms that indicate educational intentions of nations, institutes, schools and teachers (Brady, 1995; Brandt, 2007; Richards, 2001; Tanner & Tanner, 2007; Uys, 2005a, 2005b). I have used the term, ‘goal’, as a general statement of a society’s intention for learners (Brady, 1995). Brandt (2007) argues that it is necessary to establish goals for any curriculum because they
determine what learners can learn within valuable and limited instruction time. In general, the establishment of educational goals in curriculum takes three key factors into account: the nature of knowledge; the nature of society; and the nature of learners (Brandt, 2007). In an ideal situation, these factors are equally balanced,
with none overemphasized (Brandt, 2007). Knowledge, society and individuals are three significant factors to be considered in a new curriculum such as in the reform of EFL curriculum in Chinese secondary schools. Such considerations have been evident in the statements of goals for the reform under study.
Chinese authorities’ policy statements stress the need to enhance students’
competence in using the English language, including students’ language knowledge, skills, concerns, learning strategies and cultural understandings (Ministry of
Education, 2001a; Wang, 2007). Articulating goals for the reformed EFL
curriculum in relation to these has been underpinned by the recognition of the role of English as a global language, especially in the Chinese context. China is
confronted with challenges of rapid economic development and its increasingly significant role in the world, as indicated by its entry to the WTO and its successful hosting of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. This has positioned the role of English in China as being of particular importance, as it requires the Chinese people in general and young students in particular to cope with the global language that is English in the face of challenges posed by globalization, as discussed in Chapter 2.
English is not only a subject required for students in Chinese secondary schools (Adamson, 2001b; Ministry of Education, 2001a); it is also regarded as a means by which students may achieve individual success in relation to job prospects
(Ministry of Education, 2001a; Wang, 2007). The goals set for previous EFL curriculum reform in the 1950s ignored equally balancing the three factors of knowledge, society, and individuals (Adamson, 2004). In the 1950s’ EFL
curriculum, the emphasis was on addressing identified political issues associated with The Great Leap Forward of the 1950s. The goals set for the reform under study, while it is still part of a movement to address issues identified as national concerns of the Chinese government and Chinese society, incorporate concerns for students as stakeholders in need of individual development as well (Hu, 2002b).
Wang (2007) quotes the Standards for EFL Curriculum document:
English, in particular, has become an important means of carrying out the Open Policy and
communication with other countries. Learning a foreign language is one of the basic requirements for 21st century citizens (p. 94).
This further indicates that the significant role of English in Chinese contexts of the 21st century as a means by which the country may develop the skills of upcoming workforce members to engage a wider world than China itself in relation to political and economic concerns.
A new term has come into use in China’s approach to EFL; ‘competence’, has been employed in relation to this reform, a departure from older curriculum document statements. The idea of competence represents a particular and new type of goal setting for EFL curriculum in China. Competence is the ability and readiness of learners to carry out a task or series of tasks. It can also be interpreted as the application of skills or abilities in a workable context (Moore, 2002). The goals established for the reform under study which focus on students’ competence in using the English language indicate that students are expected to have the abilities to use the English language effectively and flexibly in intercultural communication (Ministry of Education, 2001a). These specified abilities, while they are important for helping individual student development, are also pivotal in assisting China as a nation to meet the demands of its rapid economic development in relation to its own and other nations’ globalizing economies across the world.
Syllabus
In considering such developments in EFL curriculum reform, I have turned to a consideration of syllabus as an important factor. A syllabus outlines processes and procedures for instruction and lists what is to be taught and what is to be tested (Richards, 2001), which suggests that while the foci of syllabi are much narrower than those of curriculum, they are nonetheless within the domain of a curriculum.
The curriculum may be seen as part of big picture deliberations and documentation of what is to be taught and learned; the syllabus deals with the finer day-to-day details of how a curriculum is put into practice in education contexts. Marsh and Willis (2007) say that curriculum includes syllabus, syllabus referring to the content to be taught in one course, sometimes used to supplement curriculum statements with statements of general goals and student activities. Given this, I have accepted the distinction between curriculum and syllabus as two separate and
distinguishable terms as Green (2003) suggests. I have not focused on syllabus beyond these terms, as my research is concerned with the reform of the EFL curriculum in relation to the larger issues of globalization and Reconstruction as far as China is concerned. The minutiae of syllabus have not featured in my research.
I have taken up considerations of the official Curriculum Standards (Huang, 2004) documents in relation to my research. The Curriculum Standards documents are a description of what should take place programmatically in the process of formal schooling in general and EFL curriculum in particular in China. They offer a guide to new EFL curriculum and goals that are expected to be achieved as suggested by the National Council for the Social Studies (1994). The Curriculum Standards go beyond what might be expected to be contained in a syllabus, including as they do suggestions for teaching and learning as well as considerations of all planned teaching and learning experiences that may be expected in formal schooling contexts. As Chen (2006) argues, curriculum standards are the basis for textbooks designed for the reformed EFL curriculum, guiding teaching and learning as well as relevant evaluation and assessment processes and procedures. I have investigated the published Curriculum Standards as providing more information for teaching and learning than syllabi in school contexts. According to Vinson, in countries where national curriculum standards have been developed and published for a general use in national school systems, they have figured as an important component of any significant educational reform. What is more, he argues that where such standards exist, there has been an increase in curriculum research as such documents provide a mine of information to be explored by education researchers. Such an increase in education research has occurred in China, where since the publication of the English Curriculum Standards (ECS) that sit alongside the reform under study, a growing attention by educators and researchers has occurred (Chen, 2006).
ECS for Chinese secondary schools are the official education documents of instruction to be used nationally in China, specifying the content for English teaching and learning (Ministry of Education, 2001a). They are, as Vinson (1998) says:
[A]uthoritative policies seeking to prescribe curriculum or content to determine and limit what teachers can and should teach and what students can and should learn, for the entire country ( p. 4).
The ECS provide significant guidelines for English language teaching and learning in Chinese secondary schools. According to Chen (2006), curriculum standards are more flexible for teachers in relation to creative dimensions of their teaching than a syllabus. Embedding EFL curriculum reform in ECS indicates a progressive stance towards curriculum, which, as Vinson (1998) says, is also one of today’s most heated topics in research in education.
Textbooks
A discussion about textbooks is central to understanding the process of the development of EFL curriculum reform in Chinese secondary schools. Textbooks are one of the most influential factors in a study of curriculum development (Richards, 2001). Textbooks, as a part of curriculum materials, play a key role in everyday activities of teaching and learning (Marsh, 1992, 2004). Textbooks are used as tools by teachers to work with students to enable them to understand topics or problems (Marsh, 1992, 2004). Textbooks are also resources that can provide students with comprehensive and reasonable course contents (Uys, 2005a), the hub which links the processes of both obtaining and transmitting knowledge.
According to Hewitt (2006), a textbook is a product of curriculum development designed to match the requirement of a particular curriculum. Richards (2001) argues that a textbook can ideally only be used in one situation as it has to match the requirements of that situation perfectly, and if the situation has changed, the same textbook may be considered unsuitable. This indicates that a textbook should be constantly revised in line with situational contexts, in similar vein as curriculum development discussed above. In processes of EFL curriculum development, the textbooks that are created aim to match learners’ needs and goals of that EFL curriculum, reflecting learners’ utilizing EFL in present or future practices
(Cunningsworth, 1995, cited in Richards, 2001). Textbook improvement is a mark of the development of curriculum (Bloom, 2007). Such considerations underpin textbook improvement undertaken in the development of EFL curriculum reform in
Chinese secondary schools, on the understanding that they need to be revised and reformulated to meet the demands of 21st century political, economic, cultural and social contexts. These considerations correspond with the perspectives derived from a reconstructionist perspective as part of my research. I have discussed this aspect in further detail in Chapter 4
EFL textbooks in China have undergone significant changes since 1949. According to Adamson (2004), in the early 1950s there were no English textbooks produced in China, which banned the importation of books from English-speaking countries.
Such policies were influenced first of all by the USSR, at a time when Russian was identified as the main foreign language in China, and second of all, by China itself reacting politically to its not being recognized by a number of English-speaking countries such as the USA, who strongly supported the Nationalist Party at that time (Adamson, 2004). This situation lasted until 1956, when the first of three series of English textbooks were published between that year and 1960, two of which textbooks attempted to maintain an alignment with concepts of the ‘red’ and
‘expert’ with teaching and learning grounded in reading-based, teacher-centred pedagogy with strong political contents: ‘politics to the fore’ with political tracts written by or about national leaders (Adamson & Morris, 1997, p. 10). The phrase,
‘red and expert’ was a popular slogan in the late 1950s in China used to describe the combination of politics and economics (Zhu & Dowling, 1998). When applied to the consideration of textbooks, the political needs of the state and the demands of the economy were both foregrounded in textbook contents in ways suggested by Paine (1995).
With an emphasis on economic modernization in the early 1960s, another two series of English textbooks were produced. They were designed with a view towards politicization of students and attempted to improve pedagogical quality in Chinese education (Adamson, 2004). The Cultural Revolution, a political
movement of ideological extremism of the mid-1960s to the mid 1970s, resulted in chaos in and isolation of China. EFL curriculum development was conducted by subordinate agencies (Adamson & Morris, 1997), when provincial and municipal governments were commissioned to produce English textbooks (Tang and Gao, 2000, cited in Hu, 2002b). The textbooks produced at that time were full of
politically charged texts which were used to serve the then political requirements of the nation (Hu, 2002b). Hu (2002b) further points out that these textbooks were not designed with a basis of relevant theories of language teaching and learning as they had an ulterior political purpose.
According to Adamson and Morris (1997), in the pre-reform and the reform era of the late 1970s, with the softening of political rhetoric and the Open Door Policy supporting the Four Modernizations Program, another two series of new textbooks were produced. They were considerably revised in the 1980s in response to changes in the Chinese context, including changes in curriculum (Adamson & Morris, 1997).
These new textbooks began to focus on English skills and reading passages on the culture of foreign countries (Adamson & Morris, 1997). Diversity of regional needs and developments also began to emerge as areas of concern with accompanying political moves to decentralise decision making and regional autonomy in relation to the production of textbooks. Since 1993, a new series of EFL textbooks has been produced for the nine years’ compulsory education (the primary and junior schools) with a new series of textbooks for senior high schools in 1999 (Huang, 2004). They were issued by the State Education Committee and the Ministry of Education respectively and distributed throughout China (Huang, 2004). The new textbooks are of good quality production and show traces of Western pedagogical trends, as well as a synthesis of traditional approaches associated with the four macro skills of Listening, Reading, Speaking and Writing and new approaches such as
Communicative Language Teaching (Adamson, 2001a).
The textbooks have incorporated more current EFL language teaching and learning principles, increasing the amount of EFL language input and emphasizing learner independence (Hu, 2002b). Hu (2002b) also states that the textbooks in the new EFL curriculum provide teachers with more flexible intellectual space to conduct a more creative form of teaching in accordance with students’ diverse abilities and needs. These changes embodied in the new textbooks signify a remarkable progress in curriculum materials in EFL curriculum development in China.
The new EFL textbooks employed in the reform under study have addressed modern pedagogical concerns in their content and approaches as they have been
designed to address the requirements of Chinese economic, political, cultural and social as well as individual development (Ministry of Education, 1998). Their designs have also taken into account diverse areas in the broad context that is China, suggesting that they can meet different students’ requirements and promote student development. The new EFL textbooks designed for this reform are comparatively progressive in the development of EFL curriculum reform in Chinese secondary schools.