History of revisions of the achievement standards in English national curricula

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to compare and analyze the achievement standards of the national primary English curriculum from the 7th national English curriculum to 2007, 2009, and 2015 revised English national curriculum in order to provide future directions for the development of the national curriculum. The analysis discusses the additions, revisions, and deletions of achievement standards during the history of the development of the national curriculum. The results of the study were as follows: First, the achievement standards have been changed quantitatively rather than qualitatively. The number of achievement standards were reduced whenever the national curriculum was revised, although the actual contents of learning and teaching does not seem to have been reduced. Second, the achievement standards in the 2015 revised national curriculum relied heavily upon the achievement standards in the previous national curriculum without properly addressing frequently mentioned issues such as ambiguous meanings of some achievement standards, neglect of the affective dimension of English learning, and the lack of intercultural competence. Future directions of the national primary English curriculum were suggested based on the findings of the study.