Issues in Second Language Education and ESL Program Evaluation

1. Issues in Second Language Education and ESL Program Evaluation Douglas Fleming Faculty of Education University of Ottawa

2. program evaluation began being defined as a distinct discipline within general education as a result of Johnson’s Great Society reforms and the space race in the 1960’s; • Most evaluation processes have been based on Tyler’s social efficiency framework (see my first lecture); • Judgments are made in terms of carefully defined concrete and measurable terminal objectives determined systematically and scientifically; • Beretta (1990) points out, however, that in terms of actual classroom behavior, innovative teaching programs are usually indistinguishable from those that are traditional. This is because processes of curriculum implementation (i.e. teaching and teachers) are not taken into account.

3. In program evaluation processes, Second Language Education lags behind general education (Beretta, 1986); • SLE program evaluation has focused on the viability of various methodological approaches; • Most of the examples cited in Alderson & Beretta (1992) authoritative text: • contain contradictory definitions of these approaches • ignore teachers as independent variables

4. The debates surrounding how to evaluate Prabhu’s (1987) Communicational Teaching Project (CTP) illustrate many of the difficulties associated with SLE program evaluation: • Bangalore (South-Central India), 1979-1984, large number of students, • project based on the premise that second languages can be learnt primarily on a focus on meaning rather than form (note similarity to Krashen’s claims), • achievement among CTP sts in the project was higher than that of sts enrolled in a neighbouring structure-based program, • resulted in a task-based syllabus

5. however, these claims were controversial: • considered historically significant by Howatt (1984); • dismissed as irrelevant by Richards (1984). • Beretta revisited the data in 1990 and through an elaborate procedure that involved retrospective interviews with the project’s teachers found that: • roughly half (generally the ones with more seniority) were not fully trained in communicative methods and never felt comfortable using them. • Did these teachers really use communicative methods?

6. Beretta (1986) argues that program evaluation should: • be thought of as applied research that is conducted in the field, • examine total programs rather than isolated components, and • bebased on long-term engagement with research sites. • Berettaalso notes that randomisation (usually associated with quantitative research) is not always necessary in program evaluation. • Beretta’s also work underlines the important and mutually supportive relationship between qualitative and quantitative research methods.