English Curriculum Reforminthe Philippines
English Curriculum Reforminthe Philippines
English Curriculum Reforminthe Philippines
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Jessie S. Barrot
To cite this article: Jessie S. Barrot (2018): English Curriculum Reform in the Philippines:
st
Issues and Challenges from a 21 Century Learning Perspective, Journal of Language, Identity &
Education, DOI: 10.1080/15348458.2018.1528547
ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
Recent developments in the region and in the Philippines have prompted 21st century learning;
the Philippine government to push for a new basic education curriculum. curriculum reform; English
Along with these changes is the adoption of the new English curriculum language teaching; K-12
curriculum; language
known as the Language Arts and Multiliteracies Curriculum (LAMC). This
curriculum
article, therefore, sought to examine the K-12 English Curriculum in the
Philippines from a 21st century learning perspective. The first section of this
article briefly describes the LAMC and 21st century learning in both general
and English language teaching-related terms. The discussion then reviews
the specificity and coherence of the LAMC, how it is consistent with the
principles espoused by 21st century learning, and how it is aligned to
established language teaching and learning principles. The findings
revealed that the current curriculum needs to improve its specificity, inter-
nal coherence, and integration of some essential principles of 21st century
learning and language teaching and learning. The article concludes with
the possible challenges in implementing the curriculum, suggestions for
future design and implementation, and implications for future studies.
Introduction
Globalization and rapid advancement in information and communication technology (ICT) are
continuously changing the landscape of our academic, professional, and personal lives. Recently, the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has approved a “blueprint” that will guide its ten
member-states on initiatives to achieve regional integration. This integration allows the member-
states to participate in the flow of goods and services, capital, foreign investment, and labor. It also
opens doors for regional job markets making the competition tougher and pushing the education
sectors to produce competent graduates who possess skills needed to actively contribute to this
knowledge-based society. The need to develop these skills gave rise to 21st century learning which
refers to a pedagogical concept that emphasizes skills and knowledge needed by learners in order to
succeed in work, life, and citizenship (The Partnership for 21st Century Learning, 2015). On top of
improving these skills, the ASEAN education ministers also declared the importance of English
language training in narrowing development gaps (8th ASEAN Education Ministers Meeting, 2014).
Locally, it has been observed that a 10-year basic education curriculum remains to be congested
and that students could not legally enter into contracts for employment and entrepreneurship when
they finish high school (Calderon, 2014). It was also observed that students lack maturity and
competencies in various subject areas when they graduate from high school. In fact, data shows that
the score of basic education students in the Philippines in the national achievement tests (NATs)
across subjects remained to be way below the 75-percent target of the Department of Education
(Department of Education, 2013; UNESCO, 2015).
These recent developments in the region and the need to develop ICT-literate individuals have
prompted the Philippine government to push for a new basic education curriculum which seeks to
provide a quality 12-year basic education program for Filipino students. One major feature of this
curriculum reform is the integration of 21st century learning framework in order to help students
succeed in the 21st century milieu (DepEd Order No. 55, 2015; SEAMEO INNOTECH, 2012). The K
to 12 curriculum lengthens schooling by adding a two-year senior high school that offers technical
and vocation courses. However, this education reform should not only focus on preparing students
for competitive employment and entrepreneurship, narrowing development gaps, addressing the
crowded curriculum, and integrating ICT. Equally important is transforming them into socially
critical and productive citizens and equipping them with skills necessary for resisting the exploitative
and oppressive features of globalization that benefits only the global elite (Jackson, 2014).
Along with these developments is the curriculum review and enhancement of the English
curriculum in order to gain the lead in producing a pool of talents who have an adequate command
of the English language. However, some textbook writers and classroom teachers reported that they
struggle in implementing K -12 English curriculum for various reasons (Pazzibugan, 2013; Valerio,
2015). For instance, teachers reported that they were confused on re-planning their lessons due to
the changes in the curriculum (Valerio, 2015). Regarding textbook writing, some authors reported
some difficulties in aligning the suggested competencies per week into one consolidated and unified
lesson. One reason for these challenges is the lack of clarity and specificity of the curriculum. Before
teachers can effectively implement a curriculum, they must fully understand its basic concepts and
implications for classroom practice (Carless, 1998; Rahman, 2014; Smit, 2005) as well as the
pedagogical principles it advocates (Wang, 2008). Thus, there is a necessity to make the new
English curriculum clear, specific, coherent, and aligned to the established pedagogical principles
such as 21st century learning. Note, however, that education is a complex system embedded in a
cultural, economic, and political context. Although clarity, specificity, coherence, and alignment of
curriculum to 21st century learning and language learning principles are crucial ingredients for a
successful implementation of a curriculum, they may not be sufficient conditions to advance
language education. Other factors that must be considered include the overall wellness of learners,
safe and healthy learning environment, pedagogical processes that facilitate learning (UNICEF,
2000), facilities (Chun, Kern, & Smith, 2016), roles and tasks of teachers (Kubanyiova & Crookes,
2016), implicit language practices, and level of how the curriculum is understood, valued, and
implemented (Wiley & Garcia, 2016). In short, these scholars point out the relevance of quality of
learners, learning environment, content, and processes as well as the sociopolitical, cultural and
historical contexts in the successful implementation of any curricula.
The purpose of this paper, therefore, is to analyze the Philippine K to 12 English Curriculum from 21st
century learning perspective. The first section briefly describes the current English curriculum in the
Philippines. The subsequent section describes 21st century learning in both general and ELT-related terms.
The discussion then reviews the specificity and coherence (i.e., sensible connection or coordination
between and among different components [Newmann, Smith, Allensworth & Bryk, 2001; Schmidt,
Wang, & McKnight, 2005]) of the new English curriculum, how it is consistent with the principles espoused
by 21st century learning, and how it is aligned to established language teaching and learning principles. The
paper concludes with the possible challenges in implementing the curriculum, suggestions for future design
and implementation, and implications for future studies.
government and businesses to adopt English as a language of trade. As a result, the government adopted
policies to ensure that Filipino students develop adequate proficiency in the English language. One of these
was the 1974 Bilingual Education Policy (BEP) which aims to use English language as the medium of
instruction in science and mathematics. The BEP was reaffirmed in 1987 as set forth in the 1987 Philippine
Constitution. However, recent research (e.g., Dekker & Young, 2005; Nolasco, Datar, & Azurin, 2010)
showed that Filipino pupils learn best through their mother tongues. These studies prompted the
Philippine government to institutionalize the Mother-tongue-based Multilingual Education (MTBMLE)
in 2009 through DepEd Order No. 74. MTBMLE refers to a formal and non-formal education in which first
language is used as a medium of instruction and as a subject from Grades 1 to 3 (DepEd Order 31, s. 2012).
This policy banks on the idea that learners’ multilinguality can be developed by introducing multilingual
education in the primary grades (Vez, 2009) and adopting a multilingual language education policy
(Dekker & Young, 2005; Hornberger, 2009). It is also based on the belief that multilingual development
is facilitated when learners use their linguistic resources in social contexts (Cenoz & Gorter, 2011; Kramsch,
2006), practice multimodal communication (Kalantzis & Cope, 2007; Shohamy, 2006), code-switch
(Ferguson, 2009; Lin, 2008), and use multilingual communication in various societal domains
(Hornberger, 2009).
these literacies and themes, when taken together, will enable learners to acquire and utilize various
skills they need to succeed in their personal and professional life.
Summarized below are the 21st century teaching and learning principles (The Partnership for 21st
Century Learning, 2015):
(1) Mastery of core subjects and 21st century themes is essential for 21st century learners.
(2) Creativity, critical thinking, and communication and collaboration are important in pre-
paring learners for the future.
(3) Learners must be able to display a range of functional and critical thinking skills related to
information, media, and technology to be effective 21st century citizens and workers.
(4) Learners must be able to develop adequate life and career skills to thrive in this globally
competitive information age.
(5) Curriculum should adopt 21st century standards that focus on 21st century skills, content
knowledge and expertise, developing deep understanding, building understanding across
subjects, engaging learners with real-world data, tools and experts, and allowing multiple
measures of mastery.
(6) Assessment schemes should strike a balance between formative and summative assessment,
emphasize useful feedback on learners’ performance, require a balance of technology-
enhanced assessment, and enable learners to develop their portfolio that demonstrates
their mastery.
The Philippines had a long history of educational reforms from the colonization period to
globalization era with the intention to provide quality and accessible education to Filipinos.
Several reasons have been identified that prompted the Philippine government to adopt 21st
century learning framework. First, the Philippines is still confronted with high numbers of out-
of-school youth despite the free basic education policy, more particularly among the poor and
conflict-ridden areas (Education for All Global Monitoring Report, 2014). Thus, the poor
remained disadvantaged in the Philippine basic education. Another reason for this adoption
is the quality of education in the Philippines. Based on international and national assessment
tests, the Philippines scored significantly lower than the international average (Mullis, Martin,
Gonzalez, & Chrostowski, 2004) and failed to achieve satisfactory scores (Department of
Education, 2013). These challenges would have negative impact on Filipinos as the world
becomes a global society with increasing cross-border movements. As the Philippines shift
from agricultural to service industry, there is a greater demand of producing graduates that are
globally competitive and possess competencies that match the demand of the labor market. By
formally integrating 21st century learning framework into its K to 12 program, it is hoped that
educational outcomes may facilitate social mobility and produce lifelong learners who are
socially responsible, problem solver, critical thinker, and effective communicator for “a pro-
gressive, just, and humane society” (SEAMEO INNOTECH, 2012, p. 12).
One model in ESL pedagogy that is anchored on 21st century learning is the sociocognitive-
transformative model which incorporates the 21st century themes into the materials and tasks. It
also puts greater emphasis on using language in authentic social contexts, interdependence
between cognitive and social aspects of language learning, and self- and social transformation.
Hence, it “aims to produce learners who are socially participative, multiliterate, communicatively
competent and lifelong learners” (Barrot, 2014, 2015). The model advances 17 established
principles in ESL pedagogy which were used as a reference point in analyzing the alignment
of the new English curriculum to language teaching and learning principles. These are as follows
in Table 1:
6 BARROT
Methodology
The theoretical framework draws on Vidovich’s (2002) adaptation of Ball’s (1994) policy cycle. This
framework acknowledges the various contexts of influences, practice, and policy text production to
fully understand policy change. Context of influence refers to the struggles among interest groups
over the construction of policy discourses while context of policy text production articulates that
texts represent policy despite their inconsistencies. Finally, context of practice emphasizes that any
policy is subject to interpretation of various stakeholders (Ball, 1994; Vidovich, 2002). Among these
three contexts, the main focus of this study was in the context of policy text production but situating
them in the context of influence and practice. On this note, the framework was used as a tool for the
analysis of the LAMC.
Data sources
Two data sources were used in this study. The first data source is the LAMC which provides the
pedagogical framework, key, content and performance standards, directions for the English courses
at different levels, and expected performance from the teachers. The LAMC’s most recent version
was published in May 2016. The curriculum has four components: language learning process,
JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE, IDENTITY & EDUCATION 7
effective language use, making meaning through language, and holistic assessment (Department of
Education, 2016). Component 1 (Language Learning Process) presents the six principles that guide
teachers in teaching the language: spiral progression, integration, interaction, contextualization,
learner-centeredness, and construction. Component 2 articulates how learners can better understand
culture and language as well as use processes and strategies by providing them opportunities to use
language in the following learning areas: (a) listening, speaking, and viewing; (b) reading, viewing,
and responding; and (c) writing and representing. Component 3 shows the interrelatedness and
interdependence among language macroskills and the development of thinking skills for the purpose
of helping learners make meaning through language. The last component deals with holistic
assessment which aims to provide quantitative and qualitative feedback for learner development.
Holistic assessment is characterized by the use of authentic performance, holistic view of language
(i.e., interrelatedness between and among macro and micro skills), integrative view of learning (i.e.,
total array of skills), consideration to the developmental readiness of learners, and multiple referen-
cing (i.e., assessment through different means).
Another data source used for the text analysis is the P21 framework for 21st century learning.
Although there are several versions of 21st century frameworks (e.g., Partnership for 21st century
skills, EnGauge, Assessment and Teaching of 21st Century Skills, National Educational Technology
Standards), Voogt and Roblin (2012) found a large extent of alignment among them. Hence, this
analysis is primarily anchored on the principles espoused by P21 Framework which is considered to
be the most recognizable 21st century learning framework (Shubert, 2011).
All of these documents are publicly available and were gathered through an online search using
relevant key words, such as 21st century learning, 21st century literacy, P21, K to 12 English
curriculum, English curriculum guide, and language teaching principles.
Data analysis
The current study used policy text analysis (Alahiotis & Karatzia-Stavlioti, 2006; Jarvis, 2000) to
examine the specificity and coherence of the new curriculum, and its alignment to 21st century
learning and established language teaching and learning principles. It should be noted that the
conduct of a text analysis of a curriculum document is influenced by the relevant concepts related to
effective pedagogy and curriculum design (Alahiotis & Karatzia-Stavlioti, 2006). Thus, major ped-
agogical concepts related to Philippine K to 12 curriculum and English language teaching were
investigated. These include 21st century literacy, curriculum policy, and English language teaching
and learning principles. After identifying these major concepts, the LAMC was examined to
determine its alignment with the principles espoused by the identified pedagogical concepts.
Moreover, the analysis extended to the documents that are connected to the LAMC such as
Department Orders from the Department of Education.
Findings
Criticisms towards the English curriculum in the Philippines have grown since the implementation
of BPE. In fact, numerous discussions and suggestions have been made on how the English
curriculum and English proficiency of students can be improved to make them relevant in their
respective contexts. As a response to the repeated criticisms, the LAMC was introduced. In light of
this development, this paper analyzes the new English curriculum in the Philippines from a 21st
century learning perspective and offers some suggestions for its future design and implementation.
The following discussion focuses on these three areas: the alignment of the new English curriculum
with 21st century learning principles, its adherence to the established language teaching and learning
principles, and its specificity and coherence. The analysis was limited to grades 1 to 10 since only
these levels are covered by the LAMC.
8 BARROT
there could have been a more extensive discussion on how teachers can practice principled assess-
ment (e.g., reliability, validity, practicality, consequences, and authenticity) in their respective class-
rooms using both the traditional and alternative forms of assessment. Learners can also be provided
opportunities to develop their portfolio to showcase their mastery of skills and knowledge and to use
technology-enhanced assessment.
Beyond the notion of alignment and consistency, it is equally important to emphasize how 21st
century learning is reflected in the LAMC considering the context in this point in time. Filipino
learners are currently living in a global society where diversity impacts language education. Such
context also requires language educators to have deeper understanding and appreciation of the
various learning needs of the 21st century learners. Thus, teachers and educators must recognize that
they are not teaching a static discipline. Despite this reality, the LAMC is silent on how this diversity
will be addressed and how the teachers should change their understanding of the approach to
language education. One way to genuinely succeed in implementing a 21st century language
curriculum is that teachers must understand the work and study habits of the learners and use
this awareness in creating supportive instructional contexts.
The essence of 21st century learning is not merely about the knowledge and skills the learners
possess but on what they can do with these knowledge and skills. Although the LAMC specifies
various competencies and language facts (e.g., proper grammar) that learners need to master, the
curriculum lacks provisions on how these competencies can be used in authentic or real-life contexts
and how learners can process these sets of information. This rigid classroom practice makes learners
uncritically ingest information and accept information as they are without question. Because of this,
the LAMC has the tendency to produce compliant learners instead of competent multiliterate ones.
To address the issue, the LAMC may provide real-life tasks in which these target competencies can
be applied. As a culminating activity, these tasks need to be carefully selected and be reflective of the
trends, issues, and needs of the present society.
Though 21st century learning is a viable pedagogical concept, it is also worthy to recognize its
limitations. In the context of English language teaching, 21st century learning may need to recognize
not only technological changes but also the changes that linguistic and cultural diversity bring. In
this way, the emphasis is not just on multiliteracies but also on multilingual literacies. While it is
desirable that the LAMC inherit all the features of 21st century learning, it might be necessary to find
a tailored way of implementing the English curriculum based on the educational culture of the
Philippines because not all students in the country have access to well-rounded education.
result, there was a disconnect between and among the learning competencies set for each of the
macroskills in the LAMC. For instance, a disconnect was observed in the learning competencies for
reading and vocabulary (p. 103, week 8), listening and speaking (p. 103, week 8), reading and writing
(p. 110, weeks 8 and 9), reading, viewing and responding (p. 87, week 2), and listening, speaking and
viewing (p. 92, week 1). Because of this lack of coherence between and among these learning
competencies, teachers and materials developers might struggle on how to link these competencies
into one cohesive lesson. To realize the principle of integration, the LAMC learning competencies
could be listed per cluster of skills (e.g., writing-representing, listening-speaking-viewing, reading-
viewing-responding). For example, a set of learning competencies could be specified for listening-
speaking-viewing cluster.
The lack of appropriate integration is not exclusive to macroskills; it is also observed in the
teaching of grammar and vocabulary. Although the curriculum claims that the receptive skills,
productive skills, and grammar and vocabulary will be taught in an integrated way (Department
of Education, 2016, p. 8), the details of the curriculum fail to reflect such a claim. The reason for this
is that the chosen vocabulary and grammatical items are not essential to the target productive and
receptive skills. For example, the writing task (i.e., writing a short story) in week 4 of the second
quarter for grade 4 requires the past verb tense; however, the target grammatical item used is the
present form of verbs. Aside from being inconsistent, a mismatch between the selected grammatical
item and the target macroskill also adversely affects the form-meaning connection. In terms of
effectively integrating vocabulary to speaking, common oral expressions of idioms may be included.
Other important principles in language teaching and learning that the curriculum fails to
integrate are reflective learning, computer-assisted language learning, balanced emphasis on various
communicative competencies particularly strategic competence, process orientation, and intercul-
tural competence.
competencies across grade levels and to show how one key stage standard progresses to another key
standard. This lack of clarity may have contributed to some observed incoherence between and
among key stage standards, grade level standards, content standards, and performance standards. To
address this concern, a more specific version that specifies the standards per domain (e.g., speaking,
reading, writing, and spelling, vocabulary and grammar) which the students are expected to know,
apply, and understand may be developed. As noted by Schmidt et al. (2005), standards should
progress in terms of depth and not merely a repetition of the same standards.
A weak coherence was also observed in the learning competencies listed under each domain.
Some learning competencies and topics are introduced before a pre-requisite knowledge that can
provide scaffolding for the understanding of these topics and learning competencies. For example,
grade 2 students were required to summarize information without developing first their skills in
getting main ideas. Another example is the mismatch between the selected grammatical forms and
productive skills (i.e., speaking and writing). As shown on page 94 of the LAMC, the topics under
grammar are prepositions, but these grammatical points are not essential to the assigned writing and
oral tasks. A similar situation is observed in the competencies listed on page 111. In this section, the
target grammar is sentences for following and giving directions but the required writing and oral tasks
involved writing a feature article and keeping the discussion going, respectively. It can, therefore, be
supposed that the LAMC fell short in maintaining the interconnectedness of its components. One
possible reason for this is that the LAMC is developed using a specialist approach. A specialist
approach is employed when a group of specialists are responsible for decision making and producing
the curriculum and treats teachers solely as implementers of the curriculum. The lack of inter-
connectedness arises from the fact that these specialists operate from different beliefs and assump-
tions (Graves, 2008). Thus, future revisions of the LAMC may focus on selecting and sequencing
topics and competencies—both within each grade and across grade levels—that are consistent with
the set standards.
Teachers are crucial in the successful implementation of the curriculum because they carry a
significant responsibility for curriculum change. However, teachers are facing challenges on how
they can properly implement the new curriculum because of lack of specificity on processes,
strategies, and approaches that they can use at the classroom level (Hardman & A-Rahman, 2014).
The LAMC may need to detail how the lessons will be planned and delivered, how each of the
macroskills can be taught, how texts and materials should be selected, and how culminating tasks
should be designed. To address this issue, a special section devoted to teaching approaches and
teaching means may be added to help teachers in translating the curriculum into classroom practices
(Xu & Fan, 2016). In addition, a sample culminating task that incorporates GRASPS (goal, role,
audience, situation, product, and standard) could be specified at the end of each quarter. This
culminating task can be an in-class or out-of-class activity that allows learners to use technology.
Each culminating task per quarter needs to integrate the learning competencies covered during
weeks 1 to 9 of each quarter. And to make the learning competencies for each week aligned to one
another, the performance task per week could focus on productive skills (speaking, writing, repre-
senting) using the receptive skill tasks as enabling tasks. The target subskills of all macroskills can
also be made consistent with one another. For instance, if reading focuses on getting main ideas, the
same subskill should be the focus of listening and viewing. If writing focuses on informative text, the
same text type may be used during oral tasks.
While the curriculum claims that various text types will be taught (Department of Education,
2016, p. 10), the types or genres of reading, listening, and viewing texts that students need to process
as well as writing fluency are not well specified. Furthermore, there seems to be the absence of a
definition of some important terminologies such as key stage standard, content standard, grade level
standard, performance standard, oracy, processes, and strategies. This absence of a definition for key
terms may lead to lack of uniform interpretation of these concepts (Paterson, 2010), consequently
broadening the gap between the intended and the implemented curriculum.
12 BARROT
Conclusion
The Philippines has initiated English curriculum reforms to respond effectively to the demands of
21st century education and the current educational problems of the country such as low achievement
test scores and congested curriculum. Overall, the current curriculum may need to improve its
clarity, specificity, and internal coherence as well as the integration of some essential principles of
21st century learning and language teaching and learning.
Given these findings, teachers may encounter various challenges in implementing the curriculum.
First, the teachers may not be able to fully practice principled teaching in their respective classrooms
because of the lack of integration of essential principles of 21st century language pedagogy. The lack
of specificity and clarity of the curriculum may also contribute to the mismatch between what
teachers want to teach and what learners want or need to learn. Moreover, the gap between the
intended and implemented curriculum is more likely to happen if the curriculum is not clear to the
teachers. This is because teachers tend to interpret curriculum in a way that it conforms to their own
teaching style and beliefs (Rahman, 2014). As such, policy makers may need to clarify some
provisions in the LAMC and specify ways on how the new English curriculum can be translated
into specific classroom practices. It may be necessary to incorporate examples of classroom practice
after each outcome statement to show how various components can be linked with one another.
Another potential challenge that might be encountered is the changing of teachers’ views on their
role as a facilitator of learning (not merely as a knowledge transmitter), on the role of their students,
and on the teaching-learning process including assessment. Thus, teachers’ skills and knowledge
need to be upgraded and enriched through teacher training to match the demand of the new
curriculum. Training and orientation must be given as early as pre-service training and teacher
education courses. These trainings should be continuous and developmental to provide them
sufficient support and knowledge in implementing the changes (Malderez & Wedell, 2007). Since
teachers interpret curricula in the light of their own teaching style and embedded framework,
training should also focus on helping teachers embrace new ideas in teaching English. As empha-
sized by Kırkgöz (2008), in-service and pre-service trainings have a positive impact on the teacher’s
ability to embrace and implement curricular innovations.
Finally, there is the issue of very limited instructional time. In total, students spent about 160
hours of instruction in the LAMC over the 40-week academic year. This meant four hours per week
contact time. Unless out-of-class activities that expose students to L2 samples are explicitly provided,
the reduction in the English subject makes the contact hours fewer than what is needed to see a
measurable progress; that is at least 200 hours per year (Nunan, 2003). Thus, future revisions of the
curriculum may require the inclusion out-of-class activities that will reinforce and supplement in-
class contact hours. Moreover, with only four instructional hours per week, teachers might struggle
to cover eight to ten different learning competencies in one week. To address this issue, English
curriculum for lower grade levels may focus mainly on fostering positive attitudes towards commu-
nication rather than treating it as a means of starting English language education (Butler & Iino,
2005). It might be necessary also to integrate some of the related learning competencies and/or focus
on the essential ones. In other words, the LAMC should aim to provide quality rather than quantity.
The above findings highlight the need to develop an evidence-based curriculum. This can be
realized through a series of studies that will provide useful information for curriculum revision. For
instance, future studies may go beyond simple analysis of curriculum by conducting empirical
studies on how the curriculum, teaching, learning, and assessment are realized in Philippine context
from the perspective of teachers, students, parents, and school administrators who bring their own
knowledge, perspectives, experience and values to the task. Note that the term used is ‘realized’ and
not ‘implemented’ because the notion of ‘implementation’ remains problematic and puzzling among
researchers (Marsh & Willis, 2007). Since teacher beliefs are crucial to embracing curricular
innovations (Wagner, 1991), future studies may examine the pedagogical framework that language
teachers use and bridge the gap between their beliefs and the new English curriculum. Further
JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE, IDENTITY & EDUCATION 13
research also needs to be directed toward examining the capacity of English language teachers in
implementing the curriculum at a classroom level and design appropriate training programs. Finally,
future researchers may conduct a multidimensional qualitative research using classroom observation,
teacher interview, and lesson plan analysis to determine the actual challenges that English language
teachers encounter in implementing the new English curriculum.
It is hoped that through the proposed course of action, the new English curriculum will be firmly
established, teacher- and student-friendly, and balanced in reconciling the macro-level policy and
micro-level implementation. No curriculum innovation would be successful without the concerted
effort of its three key stakeholders: the policy makers, the teachers, and the students.
ORCID
Jessie S. Barrot http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8517-4058
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