Video: What is a TBLT curriculum
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Key Elements of the video:
Now let's talk about what a language curriculum is from the two main approaches to design. Let's also look at the structure of a TBLT curriculum, which you can use in your design.
What is a language curriculum?
It is a document that gives information about lesson content, and explains how this content should be selected, ordered, taught, and reviewed or evaluated.
There are 2 different approaches to building a curriculum.
- One is based on the selection of specific elements to be learned and is what we have all experienced in school. In this traditional approach, the curriculum is based on grammatical and lexical structures and has language learning objectives.
- The other approach determines first how and why students learn and then creates the content. A TBLT curriculum follows this second line.
How does a TBLT curriculum work?
It is based on a series of tasks put in a row (sequence of tasks), within different topics and lessons.
Let's look at a chart to see what elements are important in a TBLTL curriculum:
1. Before designing the TBLT curriculum, we need to do a student needs analysis, which will be the basis for noticing any difficulties and explaining the course tasks.
2. Some of the most important elements are:
- The goal of your lessons (What are the goals of my lesson(s)? What tasks are important for my class(es)?)
- The sequence of tasks (How can they be sequenced? Is one task related to another? If so, which task comes first?)
- The materials you will use (What is needed for students to do a task? Should I ask them to bring something? Do I need to bring a cookbook?)
- Other factors (How much time do I have? Do students work individually, in pairs, in groups? At what point should students practice each language skill)?
3. After the curriculum has been designed, you can do the lesson. The communicative outcome of the task will define whether students have achieved the goal, which is to perform the task and use the language to do so.
4. In TBLT, the assessment process is continuous. In the traditional approach, student assessment is based on form, grammar. In contrast, in TBLT, assessment is done by examining the communicative outcome of the task. This is why language objectives that focus on form may not be the primary objectives of the TBLT curriculum.
A TBLT curriculum can be developed with some goals in mind. However, the different parts need to be redesigned and reevaluated during the course to further adapt them to the needs of the students; therefore, it is not a linear and fixed procedure.
