The Fact-finding Stage :

Assessing Societal Factors

Adapted for Course Design and Materials – Javier Alexander Rivera

Taken from: https://www.slideshare.net/Djatmika1/the-fact-finding-stage-assessing-societal-factors
Presentation Outline
• Introduction of the paper 4-11
• The Curriculum Development Process (Graphic) 7-16
• Societal Factors
The Language Setting 1- 12- 15
Patterns of Language Use in Society 3– 8-10
Group and Individual Attitudes Toward Language 2-6- 14
The Political and National Context 5- 9-13
• Discussion
• Conclusion
Introduction
• Focal Point: in developing a curriculum/a syllabus,
we need to consider the societal factors which come
from the society.
• Besides societal factors, there’s another factor called
‘stakeholders’ (learners, teachers, schools, parents,
finance, ministry of education, etc.).
• Materials development – Socio-cultural
appropriateness, link between syllabus and audience.
The Curriculum Development Process

The language
curriculum includes
specifications for
providing inputs to
syllabus design and for
measuring outcomes of
syllabus-based
instruction
Robert Keith Johnson (1989:28)
The Fact-finding Stage: Assessing Societal Factors

THE
LANGUAGE
SETTING

The answers to these questions

determine an educational policy

1. Who are the learners?

GROUP AND 2. Who are the teachers? PATTERNS OF

LANGUAGE
INDIVIDUAL
ATTITUDES
3. Why is the program necessary? USE IN
SOCIETY
4. Where will the program be
implemented?

5. How will it be implemented?

POLITIICAL
AND
NATIONAL
CONTEXT
The Language setting

IN NEED OF SURVIVAL SKILLS SETTLING IN A

NEW COMMUNITY

Who are the

COME FOR A LIMITED TIME, FOR A WELL-
learners? DEFINED PURPOSE

EFL / ESL and LWC

The Language setting
TL
English is spoken natively (US/UK)

ESL/EFL
English is taught as one of several foreign languages. (Indonesia,
What are the China, Japan, etc)

factors?
LWC
1. English is one of two or more official languages (OL) in a
country

2. English is the only official language but is not a native

language.

3. English is neither NL or OL, but is given a special status

because of historical factors.
 Patterns of Language Use in Society

The Roles of LWC or ESL/EFL in society.

ROLES OF LANGUAGE ROLES OF LANGUAGE ROLES OF LANGUAGE

LANGUAGE USE

LANGUAGE USE

LANGUAGE USE
IN EDUCATION IN THE LABOR MARKET IN MODERNIZATION

Technological and
Which profession needs scientific advancement
Means to further
education the language and to Instructions and
what extent? catalogues
To what extent have Overseas training and
Effectiveness of
people required the exposure
curriculum and materials
knowledge of the
Dependency on foreign
language?
experts
 Group and Individual Attitudes towards Language

Group Attitudes
Attitudes towards the language, people who
speak it, and the culture it represents.

Individual Attitudes
Attitude towards the learning process itself,
individual needs, teachers’ efficacy, materials, and
school system.
The Attitudes towards the Language

The positive attitudes will reflect a high regard

and appreciation to language and culture, high
personal motivation, feeling of self fulfillment,
success, and enthusiasm.

The negative attitudes are often related to

historical factors, political and national
trends, social conflicts. They create
psychological distance affecting learning-
teaching process.
The Political and National Context
POLITICAL CONSIDERATIONS
The administration in power and its views of the
language

NATIONAL CONSIDERATIONS
Promoting nationhood, patriotism, development of
national language

QUESTIONS TO ASK
a. local languages for early education,
b. the preferred national language for intermediate
education,
c. an international language for government and
higher education
 Let´s Discuss

1. What are Colombian learners’ language needs?

2. What are their attitudes towards English

and the learning of English?
3. Can learning English or other foreign languages
lessen the significance of Spanish?
4. Are there English courses offered in Colombia sufficient for our
students?
Conclusion To make a good design for a new language
program, as a planner (teacher), we should know
all the information about the program and
gather it all in one. The process of it is called
Fact-finding Stage: Assessing Societal Factors
which consist of four major sections:

a) The language setting

b) Patterns of language use
c) Attitudes towards language
d) Political and national context
 Authentic Vs. Created
Materials

Authentic materials refer to the use in teaching of

texts, e.g. photographs, video selections and other
teaching resources, that were not specially prepared for
pedagogic purposes.

 Created materials refer to textbooks and other

specially developed instructional resources.
 Advantages claimed for authentic materials are (Phillips
and Shettlesworth, 1978; Clarke, 1989; Peacock, 1997)

They have a positive effect on learner motivation

because they are intrinsically more interesting and
motivating than created materials. There is a huge
source of authentic materials for language learning in
the media and on the web, and these relate closely to
the interests of many language learners.
 They provide authentic cultural information about
the target language. Materials can be selected to
illustrate many aspects of target culture, including
culturally-based practices and beliefs and both
linguistic and non-linguistic behavior.

 They provide exposure to real language rather than

the artificial texts found in created materials, that have
been specially written to illustrate particular
grammatical rules or discourse types.
 They relate more closely to learners’ needs and
hence provide a link between the classroom and
students’ needs in the real world.

 They support a more creative approach to teaching.

Teachers can develop their full potentials as teachers,
developing activities and tasks that better match
their teaching styles and the learning styles of
students.
 However, critics of the use of Authentic Materials point out that:

 Created materials can also be motivating for learners.

Published materials are often designed to look like teenage
magazines and other kinds of real-world materials and
may be just as interesting and motivating for learners.

 Authentic materials often contain difficult language and

unneeded vocabulary items. Since they have not been
simplified or written based on any lexical or linguistic
guidelines, they often contain language that may be beyond
the learners’ abilities.
Created materials may be superior to authentic materials
because they are generally built around a graded syllabus,
and hence provide a systematic coverage of teaching
items.

 Using authentic materials is a burden for teachers. In

order to develop learning resources around authentic
materials, teachers have to be prepared to spend a
considerable amount of time locating suitable sources for
materials and developing activities and exercises to
accompany the materials.
Reference

Taken from:

http://www.docfoc.com/download/documents/the-
fact-finding-stage-assessing-societal-factors
 QUESTIONS
FOR OUR FIRST
INDIVIDUAL
TEST
 * Please respond the following
questions based on your insights
from class discussions and all slides
shared
1. Provide minimum three characteristics
of Authentic versus Created materials
 2. Explain the relation between
Approach, Design and Procedure.
3. Provide and explain minimum
four types of Syllabus.
4. Explain three phases of the Curriculum
development.
5. What are the patterns of Language
Use in Society? Explain them briefly
6. Provide and explain minimum two
types of instructional materials.
7. What should be mentioned concerning
Group and Individual Attitudes towards
Language?
8. What five societal questions should
be posed to design a course? Explain
them briefly
 9. Provide and explain minimum three
characteristics of instructional materials.
 10. Provide and explain minimum
three benefits of instructional
materials and who gets this benefit.
11. Explain in detail the curriculum
development process.
12. Explain the difference between
Syllabus and Curriculum.
13. Explain the contextual factors which
intervene when designing a curriculum.
 14. What factors are influential in
the language setting for designing
a course?
15. Provide and explain minimum four
factors to consider to create materials