Curriculum renewal and INSET in difficult circumstances

Abstract

The article supports the idea that curriculum innovation should involve the participation of everyone engaged in the teaching process. This is particu- larly so for those teachers who are working in what the article describes as difficult circumstances. A discussion of the context for teacher training in Burkina Faso is used to illustrate a proposal for curriculum renewal, and reactions to it. The example is intended to show how some of the current thoughts on curriculum innovation can inspire specific action in other cultural and educational contexts. Introduction The idea that classroom teachers should be given a more active role in all aspects of curriculum renewal (syllabus design/revision, methodological innovations, implementation, evaluation, development of teaching materials, INSET) is a current theme in educational literature. Participa- tion is thought to prevent resistance to innovations and to allow a smoother negotiation of the gap between - on the one hand - the idealization of the syllabus (particularly the pre-specified one in common use in institu- tionalized EFL teaching), and - on the other hand - the methodology used by the teacher to materialize it in the classroom. The calls for an 'extended professionalism' and for teachers to be more involved at the highest level of the 'decision-making pyramid' (Brumfit and Rossner 1982) are also justi- fied in the literature by the belief that teaching is not just a set of mechan- ically learnable skills, but is rather an art acquired and improved by the teacher through self-initiated, self-sustained growth and development. This explains the trend towards new approaches allowing for a constant negotiation through bottom-up, top-down, and sideways interaction between the main parties, with the practising teachers given a key role in the process. The GLAFL project in Scotland (Clark 1984) and the Graded Objectives Movement in general (Harding et al. 1980, Buckby et al. 1981, Page 1983) are examples of how teachers are encouraged to participate in the revision, implementation, and evaluation of second-language sylla- buses. New approaches to supervision are also being used which do not seek to impose on teachers the views and the techniques of the expert, but which encourage instead the former to make the best use of their own resources, to share their experiences with peers, and to promote their own development. In the same way, in-service teacher education is tending to be more decentralized, and change and innovations are spreading through gradual networks rather than being imposed from strongly centralized institutions. Rudduck (1982), Hopkins and Wideen (1984), and Day (1981) report on cases of school-based teacher-development programmes. The administra-