CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION
Preamble
The so-called “English talented programs” or “language talented programs” are quite a new development in high school curriculum in Taiwan, compared with science and mathematics gifted and talented programs, which came into existence in the early 1980s (Wu, 2000). The English talented programs or language talented programs were not officially established and conducted until 2003. Each school has taken pride in their own programs of this kind, claiming that high efficacy has been reached, and that the programs have been very successful. But how is success and worth of such programs judged and measured? Many of the programs have been evaluated by evaluators commissioned by the Ministry of Education, mostly for summative purposes to determine the worth of the programs evaluated. Evaluations of this kind mostly belong to expertise-oriented evaluation (Worthen et al., 1997). Given the characteristics and limitations of such expertise-oriented summative evaluation of program, such kind of evaluation is not the one that proves to be the most constructive.
For a program to be improved, there is more to tackle and explore than conducting a summative evaluation (Simons, 1981).
The present research aimed at developing a set of principles that can serve as a reference norm for program developers to apply in developing English talented curriculums for gifted students. Meanwhile, the study also aimed to develop a set of criteria for evaluating programs for English talented students, so that not only school authorities, but also program developers and teachers would have something to rely on when developing English talented curriculums for the gifted. Besides, when it comes to evaluating such English talented programs, they will be able to evaluate programs of this kind on their own without commissioning experts to conduct the
evaluative task, and more importantly, with both summative and formative information derived for the program in question, the worth and merit of the program can be determined and the program itself can be improved as well (Scriven, 1967;
Simons, 1981).
A Description of the Current English Talented Programs
English has long been a required subject in the education of high schools in Taiwan, at both the junior and the senior levels. Students in junior high schools are required to take English courses for three years, and so are students in senior high school. Accordingly, before a student attends college, he will have already learned English for at least six years at school. Given the increasing importance of the English language as the most widely used lingua franca internationally, both in spoken and written forms, the teaching of English in public schools in Taiwan has been incorporated into the elementary school education since the year of 2001. Before the turn of the millennium, the teaching of English was restricted to the level of secondary education in public schools. At first, the new course was introduced to fifth and sixth graders. Then in the following years, the grade when English was first introduced to students extended downwards to the fourth and the third grades. Some schools even start teaching English as a foreign language as early as in the first grade.
Almost at the same time, in secondary education, there have been enriched English programs conducted, first in sporadic schools, and then in more and more schools, which are aimed at providing intensive and enriched English courses for students who have a better command of English than the average student. The purpose for establishing programs of this kind is supposedly to enhance students’ learning of English. Some of the programs are called “language talented programs” and some are called “English talented programs.” Despite variation in names, most of the programs
share at least one feature in common, that is, a focus on the enhancement of the learning of English.
To be qualified to enter these special language programs, students would have to pass a series of tests, which are meant to assess students’ competence of language, English in particular, and then to further select the most qualified students for the English talented program1. Most schools at the senior level would arrange a different curriculum from the regular ones for these students who are identified as “English talented.” However, due to the limited time available, modifications of such different curriculums are usually quite limited. In many schools, curricular difference made for such curricula is to offer extra hours of English classes, ranging from two to six hours, including courses like novel reading, English conversation, an introduction to English or American literature, news English, translation, writing, second foreign languages, etc. The extra hours for English are offered at the expense of classes like music, and fine art. Some schools would arrange Saturday programs on an optional basis.
Students are encouraged to take part in these programs, but they will not get credits required for graduation from these programs. Mostly Saturday programs include speeches by published writers or professionals in various fields, and language courses, like conversation, writing, or second foreign languages. The gifted students take what the regular students are taking, and at the same time, they also take extra courses in English so arranged to highlight their special gift and talent. In other words, as is
1 In the past years, there have been some modifications on the identification procedure. The greatest change would be a requirement of identification by the Commission of Identification and Counseling of the city government starting from the year of 2007. Generally speaking, the series of tests begin with the Basic Competence Test held nationwide in late May and mid July. English is one of the five
required exams in the test. (The other four exams are Chinese, math, natural science, and social studies.) Those who score in the ninety-seven percentile or above on English or Chinese would be qualified to take a second stage of tests, which would be held in mid August. The second stage of tests includes two proficiency tests on English, given on two different days. Besides these tests, there is also inspection on students’ prior achievements. Nomination by teachers, parents, and professionals is also taken into account. With all these being measured and weighed, a list of candidates is made and sent to the Commission of Identification and Counseling of the city government, which will decide the final list of
always the case, the gifted and talented students shoulder a heavier academic burden than their non-gifted counterparts (Wu, 1986, 2000).
Besides limited time allocation, there is another barrier to differentiated curricular arrangements. That is, both parents and the gifted students themselves are preoccupied with idea that entering the best university is after all the most important mission school should help the gifted students to accomplish (Wu, 2000). If differentiated curricular arrangements take up too much time as to sacrifice time for the core courses which are important in preparing entrance exams for college, they would feel extremely anxious (Wu, 2000). Both parental and student anxiety impose tremendous pressure on the schools and the teachers. Very often there must be a compromise between the two concerns, one being for diplomatism and the other for talent development. When such a compromise slants toward diplomatism too much, which is often seen, the essence of gifted education fails to fulfill and the whole curriculum may turn out to be a false English talented curriculum.
English Talented Programs in Senior High Schools
It is generally agreed that to render the greatest efficiency in learning, there should be special curriculums for students with special needs, such as the English talented programs designed exclusively for English talented students (Marland, 1972;
Renzulli, 1978; Maker, 1982; Javits, 1988; Ho, 1998; Feldhusen and Jarwan, 2000).
These students may have different needs in learning, given that their command of English is much better than the average student. If theses students with special needs are treated undifferentiatedly as ordinary students and given the regular language programs, it is very likely that their level of English proficiency remains where it is, not moving ahead along with their learning of other subjects. What is worse, the students may lose motivation and interest to learn the target language provided that
they are not given input of i+1 level (Krashen, 1981).
Programs of this kind being unprecedented, at least in the secondary education in Taiwan, it surely will take more efforts on the part of program developers to develop a suitable language program just for language gifted and talented students. In developing English talented programs, program developers will have to make sure what differences there are between English talented students and ordinary students, what learning traits gifted and talented students possess, and what the processes for developing a English talented program would be. However, to develop a curriculum for English talented students is a formidable task. It requires professional expertise not only in TESOL, but also in gifted education, and curriculum development. For most high school English teachers, however senior they may be and whatever teaching experience they have, they do not have much experience of developing a curriculum, let alone developing a curriculum for language gifted and talented students.
Oftentimes, they take whatever curriculum given to them and teach accordingly. But in developing a curriculum, more than the subject of English is involved. How to allocate time among subjects and what courses to offer besides what is already offered to ordinary students will be a key issue to ponder when developing a special curriculum for English talented students (VanTassel-Baska, 1994a, 1994b, 1994c, 1996b).
Besides, a curriculum will not be complete without evaluation being carried out to ensure the worth of the program in question or to improve it to arrive at a better result (Lynch, 1996). Thus, program evaluation will be indispensable to make a full-fledged curriculum. However, conduction of program evaluation, especially an English talented program evaluation, involves complicated and comprehensive knowledge on the part of program evaluators, including professional expertise of TESOL, gifted education, curriculum development, and program evaluation. This may
explain why so far the evaluations of programs of this kind have been done solely by commissioned teams of experts, instead of program developers from the schools, who may know the programs better than outsiders (Worthen et al., 1994). On the other hand, if there were some set of evaluation procedures for school staff to follow, high schools would be able to evaluate their own talented programs periodically to ensure that the programs in question are put in the right track. With such self-administrated evaluation being conducted, both school authorities and teachers would feel less anxiety than being evaluated by commissioned evaluators (Worthen et al., 1994;
Brown, 1995). Besides, they do not have to rely solely on commissioned evaluators to evaluate their programs to know the worth of the programs or to improve them. As McCormick and James (1990) put it, “the evaluation as the result of the school’s own initiative usually stimulates a commitment among staff,” and this very fact “is perhaps the best guarantee that findings and recommendations will be acted upon” (p. 148).
Such being the case, it appears to be necessary and important to develop a set of principles for curriculum development, based on which high school teachers come to develop an appropriate curriculum for English talented students. Equally important is a set of evaluation criteria, based on which such English talented programs will thus be evaluated, so that the worth of the programs can be measured and the programs themselves can be further improved (Simons, 1981; Stufflebeam and Shinkfield, 1985;
Stufflebeam, 1974, 1990; McCormick and James, 1990; ).
Purposes and Significance of the Study
As stated in the previous section, a set of principles for developing English talented curriculum and a set of criteria for conducting English talented program evaluation will be of great help for high school educators. Therefore, the purposes of the study are twofold. First, the researcher aims to establish a set of principles for
English talented curriculum development in the context of senior high school in Taiwan. Second, given the interrelated relation between curriculum development and program evaluation (Pratt, 1994; Brown, 1995; Lynch, 1996), it is also the purpose of the present study to transform as much as the curriculum development principles into criteria for program evaluation. With such principles and criteria available, school authorities and school teachers will not have to rely on commission of experts outside of school to develop curricula or conduct program evaluation for them. Instead, they are able to accomplish such demanding tasks of developing a most appropriate curriculum for English talented students and conduct an accountable and informative evaluation of the program of their own by applying the principles for curriculum development and criteria for program evaluation. The results of the present study will be the first of its kind to establish principles for English talented curriculum development and criteria for English talented program evaluation in the context of Taiwan. Principles of great importance will help program developers to include elements that should not be overlooked in the programs they design. Likewise, evaluation criteria of great importance will remind program evaluators to focus on elements that are critical both in “identifying and remedying problems during the developmental stages of a program” (Scriven, 1967) and in deciding the worth of a program (Worthen et al., 1997).
Research Questions
Given the purposes of the study, the research questions of the present study are as follows:
1. What should be the principles for developing a curriculum for English talented students?
2. What is the relation between principles for curriculum development and criteria
for program evaluation?
3. What should be the criteria for evaluating programs for English talented students?
Once these questions are clarified and elucidated, high school teachers or school authorities will have a standard to rely on in developing their school-based curriculum for English talented students, and a standard to rely on in conducting evaluation of their programs on their own, without having to counting on outsider experts as evaluators.
Definition of Terms
The following terms are crucial in the study and it would be essential to provide clear definitions of them.
1. Program
Weir and Roberts (1994) define program as “any organized educational activity offered on a continuing basis” (p. 1). Lynch (1996) contends that program “evoke the image of a series of courses linked with some common goal or end product” (p. 2).
Accordingly, a program can be defined as “any organized educational activity which is implemented on a continuing basis with a view to reaching some common goal or end product.” In this study, a program refers to an organized educational arrangement in a school milieu on a continuing basis with certain goals and objectives to achieve.
2. Curriculum
According to Richards (2001), curriculum development “focuses on determining what knowledge, skills, and values students learn in schools, what experiences should be provided to bring about intended learning outcomes, and how teaching and learning in schools or educational systems can be planned, measured, and evaluated” (p. 2). In this study, a curriculum referrs to a more comprehensive educational activity concerned with the planning, implementation, management,
administration and evaluation of educational programs.
3. English talented curriculum
Article 14 in The Enforcement Rules to the Act of Special Education (Ministry of Education, 2003) articulates that “school shall develop individualized program for individual gifted student based on the student’s needs.” English talented curricula in the present study refer to high school curricula different from the regular ones, with an emphasis on the learning of the English language, developed for high school students who are identified as English talented to fulfill their special needs. The whole enterprise should include English talented program planning and program evaluation.
4. English talented students
English talented students refer to junior high school graduates who pass a series of screening tests, are identified as having exceptional potential and talents in learning English as a foreign or second language, and are placed in a self-contained class in senior high school.
Organization of the Study
In this chapter, the background and motivation for the present study, and a description of the current English gifted programs implemented in senior high schools have been described. Meanwhile, the purposes of the study have been stated. Besides, the potential contributions made by the results of the study have been profiled as well.
To answer the research questions proposed, the whole study is organized as follows.
Chapter Two provides a thorough literature review on the development of curriculum, both for general learners and for gifted learners, approaches to program evaluation and evaluation models. Accordingly, one most appropriated evaluation model is proposed for the present study. Chapter Three explicates the research methodology of the study, which is a qualitative-quantitative research—the Delphi survey, including a
detailed description of the research instruments, participants, data collection procedures and data analysis procedures. Chapter Four delineates the results of the surveys and presents findings from the surveys. Chapter Five presents a thorough discussion of the results and findings from the study. Chapter Six contains a summary of the study and proposes answers to the research questions. Meanwhile, more insights from the study, pedagogical applications and suggestions for future studies are also provided in Chapter Six.
