I’ve been writing this blog for years now, with varying degrees of frequency, and teaching ESOL for longer still. In fact, I made the shift from EFL to ESOL in 2004ish, which means I’ve been teaching ESOL for almost 20 years of a 24 year teaching career. Cripes. That’s a long long time.
By weird coincidence, I completed my first teaching qualification, the Trinity Cert TESOL, back in 1999, roughly the same time as the Moser Report was published, recommending a dedicated adult literacy and numeracy programme, along with Breaking the Language Barriers, which recommended a separate ESOL curriculum. Skills for Life, in fact, all fell into place around a year later, meaning not only that my only experience of ESOL is in the form of Skills for Life and after, but also that the current ESOL curriculum is coming up to 24 years old. Let that number sink in, and reflect on the fact that the underlying syllabus,, levels, curriculum model and even the exams which our students do, are based on a document which is almost a quarter of century old. 1
But hooray! Finally, after all this time, somebody has been thinking about ESOL at the department for education and they are planning to do some sort of update. The folks at the Bell Foundation have been tasked with writing up some recommendations which should bring the curriculum kicking and screaming into a post-covid, multi-modal, meme-tastic, second quarter of the 21st century. The document has been published, and they are looking for responses to the document as part of that consultation – you can find it here.
Me being me, of course, I wanted to think through my responses, so I thought what better place to do that than in a big public forum! Now, most of this will make little or no sense unless you read the document. Happily for you it’s at the bottom of this post!
I’ve written it section by section, and would gladly stand corrected, but this, essentially, is what I plan to put in the consultation.
Section 4:
“Independent ESOL standards… aligned to evidence based second language learning principles” – depends very much on which principles are intended here: the implication is that this is a sequence of acquisition such as those cited in Schellekens, 2011, from Lightbown & Spada, Krashen, Ellis, and others. These are descriptive sequences, and no current language learning syllabus suggests following these as they are impractical for adults (Krashen & Terrell’s “natural order,” for instance, has failed to be much more than a curiosity, and could hardly be counted as modern). Adults need to have access to other structures. Often, as well, a “natural order” includes stages where individuals use “inaccurate” forms, such as the acquisition of irregular past tense verbs and it would be a disservice to teach to these stages as students expect accuracy from their language models. It also ignores the reality of students’ lives in which they are exposed to a much wider range of language than these sequences would suggest. There would also be a pedagogical concern. Even assuming that we can have a diagnostic tool with which to assess where a student on that trajectory (costly in both time and effort), we are then presented with a need to balance the needs of a diverse range of learners – if student A is not currently ready for form X, but students B, C, D, and E are, do we choose not to teach that form? Or do we use heavy handed, workload intense, divisive and likely ineffective differentiation “No, I’m sorry, student A, you are currently not allowed to study this yet.” This, of course, would be in a class size of 15+ students.
Point 3: on listening skills. This makes some rather grand assumptions about learners’ listening abilities, especially the statement that “many never [develop listening skills] to a functional degree. That said, however, I do agree that listening should be a distinct element on the curriculum, rather than tied to speaking.
Point 4. Vocabulary. I do agree that vocabulary is lacking in the core curriculum, but the suggested wordlist presents a dangerous standard: the potential for negative washback from exams is enormous, with teachers becoming deeply conservative over which vocabulary items are taught, and exam boards having too much control over this. The impact of this would be negative and limiting for students. If the vocabulary were not assessed in exams except indirectly (for example “appropriate vocabulary for a task”) this might work, but this still seems needlessly prescriptive. A better suggestion would be guidance on developing vocabulary learning skills and strategies appropriate for different levels.
Point 5: Literacy Skills. This section is wrong (IMHO…). Students cannot and must not be denied literacy learning until higher levels of language have been achieved. The source for this is drawn from children learning to read and write, and ignores the very different contexts of language learning in adults. Adults need literacy skills at all levels, for living, working and indeed studying. To deny them this is discriminatory and unrealistic, much as it is with the notion of following a “natural order” of acquisition. Instead, more research and guidance is needed on alternative models for developing literacy with low level ESOL learners.
Point 6. Reading: On this I do agree, and the excessive importance granted to text type, purpose and features should be removed, especially from assessment.
Section 4.
I disagree with several sections here. The first issue is the claim that “The ESOL core curriculum currently focuses almost exclusively on language for survival, e.g., home and family, shopping, the use of public services and health care.” – this is patently false. The core curriculum materials have this focus, but the use of these is becoming more and more rare. Any implied topics in the core curriculum document are only hinted at in some of the contextualised components and graphics, but nowhere else. The review presents a very narrow view of ESOL and it doesn’t chime with my experience of teaching ESOL.
Another general concern here is the large focus on current government priorities. One of the causes of the swift dating of the current CC is the change in government.Ofsted too are prone to fads and changes – the current “knowledge-based” curriculum focus, for example, can be seen in the EIF, but this could and likely will change. There should be no explicit links to government or Ofsted in the curriculum in case the new CC becomes dated in line with future government priorities.
Point 1: Themes and topics for the syllabus often remain with the teacher, and/or negotiated with the students, and almost always involve work and employability in some way. To forefront these in a curriculum document sends a clear message that the primary purpose of ESOL is for students to gain work. While it remains an important consideration for many learners, even most, it is often alongside other areas of importance and value.
Point 2: the idea of focussed provision for learners with prior experience and qualifications is a good one, but would need to be thought through carefully. A large city FE college, for example, might be able to provide focused classes differentiated by level, but it would be difficult for smaller providers to find enough students at a similar level to ioffer this kind of provision. If it were to exist, it would need to be offered, and funded, alongside regular ESOL qualifications.
Point 3: as with Point 2, some form of bridging qualification or content for students progressing to study would be excellent, but again would be a challenge for a smaller provider for the reasoins outlined above.
Point 4: Agreed: education needs to happen not with ESOL providers but with employers, colleges and universities to ensure better parity with GCSE & FS.
Point 5: Ofsted already do this, but do it badly because ESOL is often inspected by non-specialists who fail to understand the complexity of ESOL. If any changes should be made to ofsted, it should be that ESOL is inspected by, or in partnership with, an ESOL specialist. Most employers, if asked, would only really say that they wanted their employees to have better English, which is already happening.
Section 5.
I agree with all of these points. Far better parity of qualifications is needed for ESOL learners to progress, but the onus should also be on working with employers and educating organisations (colleges, universities, etc.) to ensure that they recognise existing or future qualifications, rather than forcing, say, Level 2 ESOL students to sit GCSE or worse Level 1 FS.
Section 6.
FS English will always be more attractive to many ESOL students not because of any issue with the curriculum, but simply due to the lack of recognition of existing qualifications and more obviously funding. If there is funding parity between ESOL and Functional Skills, then the only issue would be the parity of recognition. Again, the solution to this has two elements: ESOL providers and teachers should of course be maximising opportunities for ESOL learning and signposting ESOL students to appropriate courses. However, more work could be done to develop awareness of the value of ESOL qualifications in vocational subjects, HEIs and, of course, employers. ESOL learners and their teachers are not the only answer to this two way problem, but the review fails to make recommendations outside of this. Any ESOL strategy needs to include training and awareness raising of employers.
Section 7.
The implication in the beginning of this section is that teachers are sadly not being successful because of the curriculum: “While ESOL teachers support their learners to the best of their ability, an out-of-date ESOL core curriculum and exams have affected the quality of teaching, assessment and subject specific knowledge and skills. This means that there is work to do to upskill the teaching workforce.” The AECC is not the problem with teaching, the problem is the reduction in ESOL numbers making ESOL teaching posts harder to come by. This makes it less attractive to new teachers, and the lower demand for teaching role reduces the need for subject specialist training. In West Yorkshire alone, for example, a region which has a massive demand for ESOL, there is just FE college offering one ESOL subject specialist training course. (Where universities offer TESOL qualifications, these are international in focus). A new curriculum is not going to improve this.
This section is also disappointingly dismissive of the efforts of teachers, and the entire section lists no evidence for the claims made. It’s deeply disingenuous to argue for “evidence based” practice and then not cite evidence for a supposed claim. Even a meta-analysis of ESOL inspection reports could at least begin to provide some grounding of this, although given the rarity of specialist ESOL inspectors, such evidence would be unlikely to prove anything.
Point 1. Assessment literacy in ESOL is vital, although I would suggest that you be careful what you wish for. Effective knowledge of assessment will likely lead to criticisms of curriculum structures, exam board offerings, and more. That said, one of the issues with the current core curriculum process is the obsession not simply with assessment but with evidencing that assessment. There was never any guidance in the initial documents as to effective teaching and learning methods, never mind assessment.
Point 2. Again, be careful what you wish for. A highly trained and well informed workforce is no bad thing, but given that there is plenty of research which argues against “best practice” in ESOL, then this could easily lead to questioning, for example, the demands of Ofsted and the knowledge-based “grammar mcnuggets” curriculum. More generally, as well, it is important that any teacher development emphasis exploration and reflective practice, rather than the rote training of specific methods, however “evidence based” they are. Overall, however, I would applaud a research-literate, trained and experienced workforce, but perhaps not for the reasons the DfE or the authors of this review might want.
Point 3. If this is an issue in ESOL, then it would be nice to know what the evidence base for the claim that this is needed. Is there significant evidence that stretch and challenge is insufficient in the ESOL teaching community? Such a comment implies a rather savage dismissal of the efforts of teachers and offers no support.
Point 4. And who will train the ESOL teachers in these subjects? When will this content be brought into the curriculum? How? This also assumes that this isn’t happening; a better recommendation would be to investigate current practice to identify what is working well, and is popular with students, as well as to identify gaps.
Section 9. A “cost-benefit analysis” of ESOL provision is a somewhat depressing concept, but every government and government department I have had experience of only really recognises £££ so fine.
Section 10. I agree with this section entirely, except for the weary “informed by research evidence” which throughout this document seems to emphasise “yes research, but not that research.”
General Comments
Running throughout the recommendations and reporting are references to “evidence-based” and “research-informed” practice. However, the notion of the evidence base throughout this is very much “my evidence, not yours”; cherry picking from some fairly well worn writers on ELT and a book on teaching children to read. It not only ignores large swathes of research being done at the moment, but also some fairly well established research into ESOL (rather than simply second language acquisition) such as the Effective Practice Project from 2007 which argues against one size fits all in favour of a flexible and agile approach to teaching.
In fact, the biggest issue with the old Skills for Life Curriculum is not so much the datedness of the sequencing, but rather the refusal to consider a revision to the curriculum process. There is no evidence, for example, that ESOL students understand or “own” SMART targets, or that diagnostics in the current format are unlikely to “diagnose” anything of value or use to students or teachers. (Again, be careful what you wish for with educating teachers in assessment, with notions of validity and reliability being more or less absent in every formal assessment, up to and including final exams.)
There is no suggestion of alternative curriculum models which might more accurately reflect the learning processes, such as task-based language teaching, dogme ELT and participatory ESOL. Indeed, the fact that the report is roughly concurrent with the publication of EFA’s Participatory ESOL: Taking Stock report, and ignoring their well known and widely documented work entirely seems more than a little insulting. There is little in the recommendations by way of significant curriculum improvements, only of syllabus changes. I would call for an overhaul of the entire curriculum process, from initial assessment to final exam, and push for something genuinely innovative, like the recent Welsh strategy for ESOL.
So there you go. I hope you enjoyed that, and as I said, here is the document on which I was commenting.
Sam Shepherd 