Designing Language Courses: A Guide for Teachers by Kathleen Graves

(Book Review)

Started: October 22, 2019
Finished: March 6, 2020

Why I Read This Book
I read this book for the same reason that (I suspect) most people read this book--Delta Module 3.
I started it back in October when I was still working on Delta Module 3. I then set it aside to read Syllabus Design by David Nunan instead when I discovered that Syllabus Design was shorter and quicker to read (and easy to pull citations from.)  But then once I finished Syllabus Design, I returned to this book.  Even after I submitted my Delta Module 3 in December, I kept reading this book, because I was halfway through it at that point and I wanted to finish it.  And because I wasn't sure if I would need to re-submit Delta Module 3, so I thought I'd keep with this book just in case.  (Although, good news, it turned out that I passed!)

The Review
I regret that I discovered this book so late in my Delta Module 3.  I wish I had read this book right at the beginning.  Because a thorough knowledge of this book would have been a huge head start on Delta Module 3.  If I had to re-do my life over again, I would have read this book from cover to cover a month before starting Delta Module 3.  Everything would have gone so much smoother then.

This book contains pretty much everything you need to know for Delta Module 3.  Everything from the needs assessment to forming the goals and objectives to organizing the course to the assessment plan.  It's all in here.
Of course, you couldn't rely on only this book, because of the rules--they make you cite 5-6 different sources for each section of Module 3.  But if you could rely just on one book, then this book has just about everything you would need for Module 3.
When I did my own Module 3, I submitted it to my tutor section by section, and only thought about each section at a time.  Which in retrospect was not the best way to do it, because each section needs to be linked to the others.  So I was constantly caught of guard by this.  (What? I've got to use this needs assessment to actually create objectives for my course?  Well, I wish I had used a more manageable needs assessment then.  What? Now I've got to use these objectives to create a curriculum?  Well, I wish I had chosen more realistic objectives then... et cetera.)  If I had actually read and thoroughly absorbed this book before I had started Delta Module 3, I would have had a bird's eye view of where the whole thing was going, and I think that would have helped me a lot.

This book, published in 2000, is part of something called "A TeacherSource Book" series.
(I've googled them just now, and I can't find any website for this book series.  Which suggests that the publishers (Heinle & Heinle, Thomson Learning) are no longer actively promoting this series.  The best I could find was this review of the series from https://tesl-ej.org/.)
Donald Freeman, the series editor (and, according to the acknowledgements, spouse of author Kathleen Graves), does a very good job of illustrating the philosophy behind this series in the Series Editor's Preface, so I'll just quote him:

As I was driving just south of White River Junction, the snow had started falling in earnest. The light was flat, although it was mid-morning, making it almost impossible to distinguish the highway in the gray-white swirling snow.  I turned on the radio, partly as a distraction and partly to help me concentrate on the road ahead; the announcer was talking about the snow.  "The state highway department advises motorists to use extreme caution  and to drive with their headlights on to ensure maximum visibility."  He went on, his tone shifting slightly, "Ray Burke, the state highway supervisor, just called to say that one of the plows almost hit a car just south of Exit 6 because the person driving hadn't turned on his lights.  He really wants people to put their headlights on because it is very tough to see in this stuff."  I checked, almost reflexively, to be sure that my headlights were on as I drove in the churning snow.
How can information serve those who hear or read it in the same sense of their own worlds? How can it enable them to reason about what they do and to take appropriate action based on that reasoning?  My experience with the radio in the snow storm illustrates two different ways of providing the same message: the need to use your headlights when you drive in heavy snow. The first offers dispassionate information; the second tells the same content in a personal, compelling story.  The first disguises its point of view; the second explicitly grounds the general information in a particular time and place.  Each means of giving information has its role, but I believe the second is ultimately more useful in helping people make sense of what they are doing.  When I heard Ray Burke's story about the plow, I made sure my headlights were on.

I've gone through the trouble of quoting all that because I think it so perfectly illustrates the flavor of this book.  (And possibly the whole series, although this is the only book I've read.)  All throughout the book, some educational theory is given, and then it is illustrated by a personal story by a teacher.
And, I think Donald Freeman is right--the combination of theory with personal stories does exactly what he claims it does.   It helps the reader absorb the information more fully in a way that they never could have if it was only theory.  And it also makes the book much more enjoyable to read.
...for the most part.  Although in addition to including the personal narratives and reflections of teachers, this book also includes excerpts from curriculum made by real teachers.  And that aspect was really boring to read through.  (I tried my best to keep my mind focused when reading through the sample curriculums, but it was really difficult.)

The flipside, however, is that it takes the reader a longer time to get through each section than if it was just a "just the facts" account.  Which is why, when I was in a hurry to quickly get some theory under my belt so I could meet Delta Module 3 deadlines, I temporarily shelved this book and went to Syllabus Design by David Nunan instead.  (I remember back in October reading this book in a coffee shop for about 20 minutes, reading about different teachers and their contexts, and thinking to myself, "Man, I'm getting nothing out of this, and I've got a deadline coming up this week.")  But if you can carve out the time to slowly and methodically work your way through this book, I think it will be a huge help overall to Delta Module 3.  (And again, it would be ideal to absorb this book before you get started.)

The features of Teachersource series are Frameworks, Teachers' Voices, and Investigations.  Frameworks is the theory, Teachers' Voices is the personal story of teachers, and Investigations are reflection or discussion questions.
For example, here is Investigations question 2.1b (from page 16)

In the first part of Investigation 2.1, you completed the description of a context for a course.  Go back to the description . Discuss it with a colleague. Which factors listed on the chart in Figure 2.1 did you include in your description?  Did you include factors that are not on the chart?  How would you modify the chart to include your ideas?

Honestly, who actually does this stuff?  Like I have the time to write a complete description of my context!  And which colleague am I going to find to discuss it with?
These types of reflection questions are very common in ELT methodology books, but I have yet to find a real human being who actually does them.  I mostly just read over them, and then just continued reading.  (Hey!  Sometimes it's hard enough just taking the time to read through a whole book!  Don't ask too much of me!)

The opening chapter mentions all the different aspects of course design, which Graves puts into a flow chart:

Kathleen Graves, p.3

Each aspect of this flowchart is then it's own subsequent chapter.  (Defining the Context is chapter 2, Articulating Beliefs is chapter 3. et cetera).

Kathleen Graves, p.v

As Kathleen Graves explains in chapter 1, the chapters are meant to be read in any order that suits the reader.  So you're free to jump around from one topic to the next.  But Kathleen Graves says, they are also arranged in an order that makes sense to her.  So this is the suggested logical order.  First, defining the context.  Then articulating the beliefs.  Then conceptualizing content.  (Although, she also makes clear that it's not an entirely linear process.  You're constantly going back and forth to revise what you did earlier.  Hence the backwards and forwards arrows on her flowchart.)
Interestingly, Kathleen Graves doesn't get around to Assessing Needs until chapter 6, after she has already discussed Conceptualizing Content and Formulating Goals and Objectives.  This is different than the traditional view (espoused in The Language Teaching Matrix by Jack C. Richards) that the needs assessment should be the first step, and then the goals and objectives of the course should come after from the needs assessment.  This is because Kathleen Graves makes the point that teachers seldom have access to their students before the course starts, so it is usually impossible to do a needs assessment before you design the curriculum.  I thought this was a very good point. "Additionally," writes Graves "needs assessment is more effective if you have some idea of what you want to assess and why, which depends on how you've conceptualized the content of your course."  (p.7)
* Although, if you're using the book on Delta Module 3, take note that this is one area in which this book differs from the Delta Module 3 criteria.  Delta Module 3 wants you to start with the needs assessment first, as in the more traditional view.
* ...also there does appear to be a small discrepancy between her flow chart and the table of contents.  In the flow chart, needs assessment comes before the formulating goals and objectives.  In the table of contents, it is placed after.  I don't know why that is.

Other Notes:
* Page 148: "The second reason for not approaching the course design as a jigsaw puzzle is that you leave out the students.  When the course doesn't work, the tendency is to blame the students for 'not getting it' rather than adjusting the course to their needs."
...ah so true!  How often I've caught myself blaming the students, instead of adjusting my material!

* Very few teachers actually have the freedom to design their own curriculum and assessment from scratch.  Which means that for many teachers, much of this book won't be useful for their day-to-day work.  To be fair, Kathleen Graves does acknowledge this when she talks about different contexts, and she talks about adapting where we can.
Chapter 9, "Adapting a Textbook" is the section that most teachers will find most useful in their day to day work.  I know I did.
Chapter 9 is also one of the longest chapters in this book, which is probably for the best considering it is most useful for teachers.

* Chapter 9 also opens with Kathleen Graves' reflections on writing a coursebook herself, and going on author's tours to promote the book with the publisher.  It was, I thought, a very interesting way to open the chapter.  Typical of what this book does well--draw you in with personal stories.

* For the most part, this book does a good job of standing on it's own, and resists the urge to plug other books in the same series.
Except on page 207, when only half of a teacher's story is given, and in order to find out how the teacher resolved the problem, the reader is urged to consult another book in the series.

* Chapter 10, on assessment, starts out with a number of questions that the teacher must consider about assessment: Who assesses? What is assessed? Why?  How? When?  What is done with the purposes of assessment?
These questions are then analyzed one by one in more detail in the subsequent sections.  But it turns out, the answer to each one is "it depends on the context".  To the point where I started writing sarcastically, "Is the answer it depends?" in the margin at the beginning of each section.
I mean, fair enough, I'm sure it does depend on the context.  But it seems like a waste of time setting up those questions, and then writing analyses of each one.

* There's actually a lot more interesting tidbits in this book. But I'll leave the review here for now.

Video Review
Video review HERE and embedded below:



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