Curriculum Deliberation by Experienced EFL Teachers (A Case Study in the Indonesian College EFL Context)

Abstract

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to investigate the processes of English as a foreign language (EFL) curriculum deliberation as carried out by six experienced EFL teachers in the Indonesian college EFL context. In particular, the study examined how these teachers defined curricular problems within this EFL context, how they addressed the elements of curriculum commonplaces, and how they expressed and used their knowledge in dealing with those problems. The data for the study were collected through the teachers’ participation in six sessions of curriculum deliberation, their six reflective journals, and their one-time individual interviews. The researcher and the participating teachers collaboratively paraphrased the collected data into English statements for relevant analytic procedures. Results of this study showed some important findings in several respects. First, in a more general perspective of the deliberative processes, the study found that although the participants were involved in the exchanges of views and insights in addressing the identified curricular problems, there was very little evidence of their engagement with debates or arguments of their potential solutions and their alternatives. Second, regarding the problem identification phase, the study indicated that the participants mostly identified and defined curricular problems in their concrete and immediate sense by constantly referring to their actual classroom instances and experiences. The curricular problems also proved to be emergent in scope and intensity in the sense that they continued to come and take shape as the participants were more and more immersed in the deliberative processes. Third, the study revealed that the participants brought to their attention the five elements of curriculum commonplaces (teachers, students, subject matters, contexts, and curriculum making), and their approach in addressing these commonplaces was also immediate and practical. Moreover, the study also indicated that the context commonplace, which was found elusive in a number of previous studies, was extensively addressed by the participants of this study. Fourth, the study clarified that all the participants intensely expressed and utilized seven categories of teacher knowledge: knowledge of learners, educational contexts, educational ends, purposes, values, and philosophies, general pedagogy, contents, pedagogical contents, and curricula. Three of these categories, namely the participants’ general pedagogical knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge and curricular knowledge, were found dominant. Moreover, the participants expressed and used their knowledge to respond to something situational, personal, experiential, theoretical, and social, and the first three of these orientations were found prominent. Finally, the study revealed that teacher knowledge in the forms of teaching principles (originating in formal education and professional training), teaching maxims (originating in practical experiences), and teaching norms (originating in moral and ethical reasoning) were all represented in the participants’ data. In particular, the expression and use of teachers’ knowledge in the form of teaching maxims were found considerable.