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The curriculum compendium

My dictionary tells me that "deep dive" means an "in-depth examination or analysis of a topic." I've seen and heard the expression used a lot in recent months and always in a single context - curriculum planning in school. We all know why curriculum planning is in the forefront of school leaders' thinking at the moment: Ofsted. But actually, while in the past I always instinctively disliked agendas being set by Ofsted, in this case I think that the issue f curriculum is so fundamental to what teachers do that it's welcome to hear of so many schools talking about. For MFL teachers in particular it forces us to address some of the fundamentals of what we do. I'm not just talking about which vocabulary, topics and grammar we teach, the order we do things in, and so on, but the fundamentals of why we teach the way we do.

These fundamentals include issues such as the very nature of second language learning. If we have a clearer understanding of how acquisition occurs and how to help the process along most efficiently in a school setting, then we have the foundation of a curriculum. This forces us to reflect on issues such as the role of comprehensible input, the balance of skills we teach, the nature of skill acquisition and what cognitive science (the so-called science of learning) says about learning in general.

While it's true that many teachers instinctively teach really well, recognising the importance of target language input, repetition and spacing, the importance of self-efficacy and the need for regular practice, not all teachers have necessarily thought through exactly why they do what they do. My belief is that a better understanding of second language acquisition principles can help teachers refine their practice and improve.

Over the last few months I wrote four blogs about curriculum planning. I've put them together here, in one place, in case you missed them or would welcome some food for thought on curriculum planning.

This first blog was quite broad-brush and was about how I might have gone about looking at the question of curriculum were I still a Head of Department.

This second blog was based on Chapter 1 of a book by Nation and Macalister (2010) entitled Language Currivculum Design. It considers the basics of curriculum planning, including questions such as context, needs, general principles, monitoring and assessment and curriculum evaluation.

This third blog looked at how departments might go about adapting an existing coursebook to maximise its effectiveness. It considers why and how you might do this, along with fumdamental principles which might guide decisions.

The fourth blog focused on building assessment into the curriculum.  We know how important assessment is, both in terms of how it builds in retrieval practice, provides evidence of effectiveness of teaching, monitors pupil progress and tells us what needs to be reviewed and further practised. It discusses issues such as reliability, validity and practicality, along with backwash effect - where testing can positively or negatively affect teaching.

Finally, I'm adding this blog from 2017 into the mix. It's about Knowledge Organisers which are in vogue and which a good number of schools are using as the basis for their scheme of learning/ curriculum plan. They certainly aren't favoured by everyone, but those who use them have found they are a useful way to distill the key elements of the curriculum for each year group. My impression is that, in the most effective cases, these documents are not just lists of vocabulary and structures, but working documents which are the basis for lessons on a daily basis.

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