Page 72 - Linguistically Diverse Educational Contexts

LINGUISTICALLY DIVERSE EDUCATIONAL CONTEXTS
learning, humanistic concepts116, cognitive psychology117, or constructivism118. It is common to move away from one approach or towards another using some of these concepts, as curriculum developers often employ more than one approach when planning school curricula. Nevertheless, these three concepts provide a starting point for the design of educational programmes.
3) Problem-centred design
Based on reconstructionism and reconceptualism119, this takes into account learners' life situations and social problems (inequality and social injustice). Educational programmes based on this model are prepared in advance and are adapted to the problems and (life) situations of the learners/students once they have started. This theory is also reflected in critical language pedagogy (Auerbach, 1987, 1990; Crawford, 1978; Crawford-Lange, 1981, 1982; Shin & Crookes, 2005; Crookes, 2012).
With the above in mind, let us now turn to the design of language education programmes.
4.3 Designing language education programmes
Curriculum planning in language/second language teaching usually involves a similar sequence of activities of focusing on a topic or content, that is, moving from the content of learning (input) through the organisation of the learning process (process) to the outcomes and the measurement of their achievement (output) (Richards, 2013, p. 6). This is the most common way of planning the language learning process.
Input Process Output
When planning the first stage, educational designers consider how learners can achieve fluency in the language (taking into account elements such as vocabulary, grammar, language functions, word frequency, usefulness, and authenticity). Then, when designing the second stage of learning, language teaching methods, activities/exercises and materials are taken into account. When considering the final stage, we deliberate on how the learner will present what has been learned and how we will test it. The course is always planned in advance and is not negotiable. The role of the teacher is to transmit knowledge. This is the so-called linear way of planning the learning process (the Forward Design Process) (Richards, 2013, p. 6). Language learning approaches and methods that can be included in this procedure are the Audiolingual method, Communicative Language Teaching, and Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) (Richards, 2013, p. 12).
However, the process of planning language learning can also be approached in a different way, by starting the design of learning from the centre (central design) (Richards, 2013, p. 6). This planning mechanism starts with the organisation of the learning process and then moves on to the subsequent stages (Richards, 2013, p. 12).
116 Maslow (1943, 1970), Rogers (1969, 1980).
117 Part of psychology defining its object of interest as the study of the mechanisms that control human behaviour; Bruner (1977, 1996).
118 It has its origins in the sociological stream; Vygotsky (1962, 1978), Piaget (1959, 1969, 1975).
119 Reconceptualism, derived from radical critical thought, is an extension of reconstructionism (Richards, 2013, p. 63).
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