actually happens, a curriculum cannot be coherent as, according to Nunan (1988a:
138), a disparity arises between what was planned and what is actually implemented .
Especially in the case of curriculum renewal, such as the one under consideration, it is
essential that the beliefs and practices of the people who are called upon to implement
it are in accordance with its stated aims and objectives. Hayes (1995: 253),
investigating the way teachers responded to a new curriculum in Malaysia, which
involved a radical departure from previous teaching methods such as lockstep
teaching and a heavy emphasis on formal grammatical exercises found that, although
teachers were teaching the content of the new curriculum, they were doing so in the
old style and lessons continued to be teacher-fronted. Finally, Karavas-Doukas (1995)
emphasizes that, when an innovation is incompatible with the teachers’ existing
attitudes, certain misconceptions are likely to arise which contribute to negative
perceptions of the innovation.
The book consists of three chapters, which, briefly, refer to the following:
Chapter 1: How children think and learn, and how they learn languages
This chapter discusses some influential theories which attempted to explain
how Young Learners think and learn, and how they learn languages, in order to
provide a theoretical framework for the research which was carried out. Within this
context, reference is made to behaviouristic theories, as well as to the theories of
Piaget, Vygotsky and Bruner. Proceeding, the theories which attempt to explain how
languages are learnt are presented, according to whether they emphasise the
contribution of external factors (behaviouristic theories), of the innate ability people
possess (innatist theories), or of that of interaction (interactionist theories) for the
acquisition of language.
Chapter 2: The methodology of the research
The aim of this chapter is to present the reader with the methodological tools
of the research. Within this context, the methods for collecting and analyzing
evidence are presented in detail, and a justification for the choice of the particular
methods is provided. Finally, there is reference to the ethical issues which were taken
into consideration, and to the limitations this research is subject to.
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