Situation Analysis

ENGLISH CURRICULUM

Situation Analysis

A.    Introduction

            This chapter discusses the impacts of some situational factors toward the curriculum development. Curriculum is changing in line with the challenging of contemporary era. Curriculum as a set of education which should be prepared by considering some factors that influence the curriculum itself. Nowadays, school-based curriculum (KTSP) has been implemented by state schools in Indonesia. KTSP is an overflow of responsibility for schools (teachers) to plan, to develop, to implement, to evaluate, and to redevelop curriculum which they use. As what have been mentioned above, there are some situational factors that influence curriculum development, thus considering these situational factors, it is vital for the schools or teachers, particularly, as what becomes the interest of the writer, for the English teachers who are involved in the process of curriculum development, to pay close and thorough attention on the betterment of English subject curriculum. Related to KTSP, this topic is relatively crucial because teachers or curriculum developers need to know factors that influence their product, namely, in this case is curriculum. Those factors are societal factors, project factors, institutional factors, teacher factors, learner factors, and implementation factors. By referring to related references, this article provides comprehensible outlook on the issues of situational factors related to curriculum.

B.     Situation Analysis

            Situation analysis is an analysis of factors in the context of a planned or present curriculum project that is made in order to assess their potential impact on the project. The goal of need analysis is to collect information that can be used to develop a profil of the language needs of a group of learners in order to be able to make decisions about the goals and content of a language course. A language curriculum is a function of the interrelationships that hold between subject-specific concerns and other broader factors embracing socio-political and philosophical matters education value systems, theory, and practice in curriculum design, teacher experiential wisdom and learner motivation.

There are some situational factors that influence curriculum development:

1.      Societal factors

            Since English becomes international language, English learning has been part of education curriculum in every country in the world. English in some countries has status as second language and some as foreign language. Such status makes those countries treat English learning differently in terms of the curriculum. Regardless of this distinguishable status of English as second or foreign language, in terms of the English learning curriculum, societal factors which affect the curriculum need to be put into account.

            Countries are different in terms of the role of foreign languages in the community, their status in the curriculum, educational traditions and experience in language teaching, and the expectations that members of the community have for language and learning.

Some of societal factors that affect curriculum development are:

·      policy makers in government

·      educational and other government officials

·      employers

·      the business community

·      politicians

·      tertiary education specialists

·      educational organizations

·      parents

·      citizens

·      students

In the case of projects of community or national scope, questions such as the following may be relevant:

1.   What current language teaching process exist and now are they viewed?

2.   What are the underlying reasons for the project and who supports it?

3.   What impact will it have on different sectors of society?

4.   What language teaching experience and traditions exist in the country?

5.   How do members of the public view second languages and second language teaching?

6.   What are the views of relevant professional organizations such as academic and teachers trainer?

7.   What do professional organizations such as teachers’ unions think of the project?

8.   What are the views of parents and students?

9.   What are the views of employers and the business community?

10.  What community resources are available to support the innovations, such a radio, television, and the media?

2.  Project factors

            Curriculum project are typically produced by a team of people .  project are completed under different constraints of time, resources, and personal, and each of these variables can have a significant impact on a project. There should be sufficient members in the project team to do the job and they should represent a balance of skills and expertise. If the team members are highly committed to the project and share a common vision. It is likely to encounter fewer difficulties than one where the project team experiences internal feuds and power struggles.

The following project factors need to be considered:

1.   Who constitutes the project group and how are they selected?

2.   What are the management and other responsibilities of the team?

3.   How are goals and procedures determined?

4.   Who reviews the progress of the project and the performance of its members?

5.   What experience do members of the team have?

6.   How do members of the team regard each other?

7.   What resources do they have available and what budget to acquire needs resources?

8.   What is the time frame of the project? It is realistic, or is more or less time needed?

3.  Institutional factors 

A language teaching program is typically delivered in an institution such as a university, school, or language institute. Different types of institutions create their own “culture,” that is, setting where  people interact and where patterns emerge for communication, decision making, role relations, and conduct. Morris (1994, 109) observe:

Schools are organizations and they develop a culture, ethos or environment which might be favorable or unfavorable to encouraging change and the implementation of innovations.

A teaching institution is a collection of teachers, groups, and departments, something functioning in unison, or sometimes with different components functioning independently, or sometimes with components in a confrontational relationship.

In addition to the human side of institution, the physical aspects need to be considered. Institution factor thus relate to the following kinds of questions:

1.   What leadership is available within the school to support change and to help teachers cope with change?

2.   What are the school’s physical resources, including classroom facilities, media and other technological resources, and library resources?

3.   What is the role of textbooks and other instructional materials?

4.   What is staff morale like among English teachers?

5.   What problems do teachers face and what is being done about them?

6.   What administrative support is available, within the school and what is communication like between teachers and the administration?

7.   What kind of reputation does the institutions have for delivering successful language programs?

8.   How committed is the institution to attaining excellent?

4.  Teacher factors

            Other factor which affects the curriculum development is teachers in which the curriculum will depend on. Institution or school consists of administrator and teachers. In a school, there are teachers having different characteristics, language proficiency, teaching experience, skill and expertise, morale and motivation, teaching style, beliefs and principle.

Some teachers perhaps do not object to the change of curriculum because they are well trained before or rich of experience, but there is uncertainty for some untrained teachers.

Some teachers who have time for teaching will not object when they get additional class but some busy teachers perhaps object because it will be heavy loads for them.

The following questions help us to identify teachers’ factors which affect the curriculum development process:

1.   What kinds of teachers currently teach in the target school or institution? What is their typical background, training, experience, and motivation?

2.   How proficient are they in English?

3.   What kinds of beliefs do the teachers typically hold concerning key issues in teaching?

4.   What teaching loads do teachers have and what resources do they make use of?

5.   What are the typical teaching methods teachers use and believe in?

6.   To what extent are teachers open to change?

7.   What opportunities do they have for retraining through in-service or other kinds of opportunities?

8.   What benefits are the proposed new syllabus, curriculum, or materials likely to offer teachers?

Some institutions which disregard teachers who play the important role in the curriculum practice often develop a curriculum without involving teachers. They also do not respect the teachers factors that have impact to the curriculum. After curriculum is developed or changed, the teachers are given the new curriculum. It is possible that the curriculum is ready, but the teachers are not. Some experienced teachers can make adaptation soon, but untrained or inexperienced teachers may need longer time. They perhaps do not master the materials or textbooks used in the curriculum. Some teachers may complain because they do not have more time and lesson loads which are very heavy for them (if the curriculum also changes the lesson load). The students or learners may ignore these problems without realizing that they are “sacrificed”. However, this cannot be happened, because the institution or school must be responsible on the students or learners future.

5.  Learner Factors

Learners are the key participants in curriculum development projects and it is essential to collect as much information as possible about them before the project begins. Here the focus is on other potentially relevant factors such as the learner’s backgrounds, expectations, beliefs, and preferred learning styles. The project designers may be operating from a set of assumptions about education, schools, teachers, and students that is culturally bound and at odds with the beliefs and assumptions of the learners.

Learners may affect the outcomes of a project in unexpected ways. For example: a textbook or set of materials may be engaging. At a suitable level and provide a lot of useful practice but not be appreciated by students because they fail to see any links between the book and an examination they are working toward. A program in business English for company employees sensibly predicated on the assumptions that the students really want to be able to discuss business topics English may turn out to be off target because what the employees really want is an hour’s escape from the pressures of their jobs and the chance to practice social and conversational English.

These questions will give us a view about the learner or student factors:

a.    What are the learners’ past language learning experiences?

b.   How motivated are the learners to learn English?

c.    Are they homogeneous or heterogeneous group?

d.   What type of learning approach do they favor ?

e.    How much time can they be expected to put into the program?

f.    What learning resources will they typically have access to?

6.  Adopting factors

Adoption factors are factors which exist when the curriculum is adopted by teachers. It is closely related to the teachers factors explained above. When the curriculum is offered to the teachers, by considering the changes in the curriculum, some teachers may be ready to accept the changes while others might resist it, because the changes in the curriculum perhaps affect the teachers’ beliefs and their principles in teaching students.

Some following questions should be considered:

1.   What advantages does the curriculum change offer? Is the innovation perceived to be more advantageous than current practices?

2.   How compatible is it? Is the use of the innovation consistent with the existing beliefs, attitudes, organization, and practices within a classroom or school?

3.   Is the innovation very complicated and difficult to understand?

4.   Has it been used and tested out in some schools before all schools are expected to use it?

5.   Have the features and benefits of the innovation been clearly communicated to teachers and institution?

6.   How clear and practical is it? Are the expectations of the innovation stated in ways which clearly show how it can be used in the classroom?

            Although curriculum planners might provide many compelling reasons for adopting a communicative teaching methodology, teachers might feel that it makes testing more difficult compared with a more traditional grammar-based approach. Hence it is perceived as offering few relative advantages for teachers. A language teaching approach that requires teachers to adopt new roles in the classroom, such as needs analyst, resource person, and language tutor, might not be compatible with learners’ expectations for the role of teachers. The complexity and clarity of a curriculum change might also be crucial in its successful adoption. 

Compare the following pairs of items, for example, and consider which would be easier to explain to the group of teachers:

·      computer-based learning versus cooperative learning

·         communicative pair work versus consciousness-raising activities

·         a functional syllabus versus a task-based syllabus

·         a product syllabus versus a process syllabus

·         a content-based curriculum  versus a negotiated curriculum

·         audiolingualism versus the Natural Approach

·         the Structural Approach versus Communicative Language Teaching

Practically is also a significant issue. A methodology that can readily be turned into teaching materials and textbooks will generally be easier to adopt than one that exist only as a set of guidelines. For this reason Communicative Language Teaching is much more widely adopted as a teaching approach than the Natural Approach. The support networks available in promoting or explaining an innovation may also be crucial.

C.    Profiling the factors identified in the situation analysis

The goal of situation analysis is to identify key factors that might positively or negatively affect the implementation of a curriculum plan. The factors are sometimes known as SWOT analysis; S=Strengths (the factors have positive impact to the curriculum), W=Weakness (the factors have negative impact to the curriculum), O=Opportunities (the factors give opportunities for improvement), and T=Threats (the factors should be reduced). These can be summarized in the form of a list and the profile developed for discussion within the project team, ministry, funding body, or institute (see Appendix 1). Rodgets (1984) describes elaborate matrix that can also be used for estimating the difficulty of implementing new programs (see Appendix 2).

Way of addressing the negative factors that were identified can then be considered. Alternatively, the goals of a project might need to be modified to reflect the realities of the situation in which the curriculum will be implemented. Situation analysis thus serves to help identify potential obstacles to implementing a curriculum project and factors that need to be considered when planning the parameters of a project. The next step in curriculum during needs analysis and situation analysis as the basis for developing program goals and objectives.

Appendix 1 Situational analysis profile

Societal factors	Positives     ……………………………………………………….                                                                     Negatives   ……………………………………………………….
Project factors	Positives     ………………………………………………………                                                                          Negatives   ………………………………………………………
Institutional factors	Positives     ………………………………………………………                                                                         Negatives   ………………………………………………………
Teacher factors	Positives     ………………………………………………………                                                                         Negatives   ………………………………………………………
Learner factors	Positives     ………………………………………………………                                                                         Negatives   ………………………………………………………
Adoption factors	Positives     ………………………………………………………                                                                         Negatives   ……………………………………………………… Append

Appendix 2 Matrix for identifying factors in curriculum renewal process

The matrix includes an estimate of the difficulty in fulfilling the requirement of the factors. (from Rodgers 1984):

A. The educational requirement sought:

		Low difficulty			High difficulty
1.	The subject matter is familiar or unfamiliar.	………...	……...	……...	………...
2.	The knowledge domain (skill, or other) is simple or complex.	………...	……...	……...	………...
3.	The learning group is relatively easy to teach or difficult to teach.	………...	……...	……...	...………
4.	The instructional design is simple or complex.	……...…	……..	…...…	……..….
5.	The instructional design is familiar or unfamiliar.	……..….	……..	…...…	...………
6.	The curricular and instructional design are well or inadequately researched.	………...	……..	……...	...………
7.	Instructional materials are “of the shelf” or nonexistent.	………...	……..	…...…	…...……
8.	The instructional materials are to be technically simple or sophisticated.	………...	….….	……...	…...……
9.	The renewal is to be made in an individual or local arena or in a nation-wide (worldwide) arena.	………...	……..	……...	…...……
10.	The proportion of concern with the “full renewal process” (from theory, through design and development, publications, training, and support) is partial or complete.	………...	……..	…...…	…...……

B. Renewal activities and resources required:

		Low difficulty			High difficulty
1.	Time available is extensive or limited.	………...	...……	...……	……..….
2.	Funds available are extensive or limited.	………...	…...…	...……	……..….
3.	Professional resources are extensive or limited.	…...…….	...……	…...…	…..…….
4.	Professional resources are experienced and accomplished or in experienced.	………...	……...	……...	..……….
5.	The “standing” of the renewal agency/person (status, reputation, track record) is excellent or poor.	………...	...……	...……	…..…….
6.	The role or position in the “system” of the renewal agency(ies) – (individual, school, system, university, publisher, etc.)	……….	...……	...……	..……….
7.	The theory and practice of curriculum renewal adequate to nonexistent.	………...	…...…	……...	………...

C. The content of the renewal program:

		Low difficulty			High difficulty
1.	The target school system(s) is (are) well organized or unorganized.	………...	…...…	…...…	…..…….
2.	The competing renewal programs are few or many.	………...	……...	…...…	..……….
3.	The target school system(s) has (have) simple or profound educational problems.	………...	…...…	……...	………...
4.	The idea of curriculum renewal is well or poorly accepted.	………...	……...	……...	………...
5.	The idea of the renewal effort is consistent with or inconsistent with the current view.	…..…….	…...…	…...…	………...