Backward Design

The third approach to curriculum design is to begin with a specification of learning out-puts and to
use these as the basis for developing instructional processes and input. Following Wiggins and
McTighe (2006) and continuing with the analogy of forward and central design used above, the term
backward design will be used to describe this approach. Backward design starts with a careful
statement of the desired results or out-comes: appropriate teaching activities and content are
derived from the results of learning. This is a well-established tradition in curriculum design in
general education and in recent years has re-emerged as a prominent curriculum development
approach in language teaching. It was sometimes described as an ‘ends-means’ approach, as seen in
the work of Tyler (1949) and Taba (1962), who viewed instruction as the specification of ends as a
pre-requite to devising the means to reach them. The process consists of:

Step 1: diagnosis of needs

Step 2: formulation of objectives

Step 3: selection of content

Step 4: organization of content

Step 5: selection of learning experiences

Step 6: organization of learning experiences

Step 7: determination of what to evaluate and of the ways of doing it (Taba, 1962: 12).

The role of methodology was to determine which teaching methods were most effective in attaining
the objectives and a criterion-referenced approach would be used for assessment. There is no place
for individually-determined learning outcomes: the out-comes are determined by the curriculum
designer.

The following are examples of the use of backward design in language teaching.

Backward Design through Objectives. Tyler’s work had a considerable impact on curriculum
planning and helped establish the use of objectives as planning units in instructional design. An
objectives-based approach reflects the essential assumptions of backward design. As Tyler put it:

Educational objectives become the criteria by which materials are selected, content is outlined,
instructional procedures are developed, and tests and examinations are prepared. … The purpose of a
statement of objectives is to indicate the kinds of changes in the student to be brought about so that
instructional activities can be planned and developed in a way likely to attain these objectives (1949:
45).

From the 1950s, educating teachers in how to describe learning outcomes in the form of objectives
became a minor industry, and since then generations of teachers have been taught to write
objectives that fulfilled criteria such as the following:

1. They describe the aims of a course in terms of smaller units of learning.

2. They provide the basis for the organization of teaching activities.

3. They describe learning in terms of observable behaviour or performance.

Critics of the use of objectives in curriculum planning argued that they are linked to an efficiency
view of education, that is, one based on the assumption that the most efficient means to an end is
justified, that they run the danger of turning teaching into a technical and almost mechanical
exercise of converting statement of needs into objectives, and that in the process the broader goals
of teaching and learning – to provide meaningful and worthwhile learning experiences – are
forgotten. This criticism is often aimed at curriculum focused on narrowly defined behavioural
objectives. It is also implied by advocates of a central-based approach to curriculum planning. As we
noted above, teachers tend not to start planning instruction around outcomes but often focus their
planning on classroom activities, i.e. central design.

However, the use of classroom activities and processes as the starting point in instructional planning
is strongly criticized by Wiggins and McTighe (2006), who argue for starting with a clear description
of learning outcomes as the basis for curriculum planning. In backward design they recommend that
three steps are required:

1. Identify desired results.

2. Determine acceptable evidence of learning.

3. Plan learning experiences and instruction.

The planning process begins with a clear understanding of the ends in mind. It explicitly rejects as a
starting point the process or activity-oriented curriculum in which participation in activities and
processes is primary. It does not imply any particular pedagogical approach or instructional theory or
philosophy. A variety of teaching strategies can be employed to achieve the desired goals but
teaching methods cannot be chosen until the desired outcomes have been specified. From this
perspective many of the central-design methods or activity-oriented approaches discussed above fail
to meet the criterion of good instructional design.

The error of activity-oriented design might be called “hands-on without being minds-on” – engaging
experiences that lead only accidentally, if at all, to insight or achievement … activity-oriented
curricula lack an explicit focus on important ideas and evidence of learning. …[learners] are led to
think the learning is the activity instead of seeing that the learning comes from being asked to
consider the meaning of the activity … The shift, therefore, is away from starting with such questions
as “What book will we read?” or “What activities will we do?” or “What will we discuss” to “What
should [the learners] walk out the door able to understand [or do] regardless of what activities or
tests we use?” And “What is evidence of such ability?” and, therefore, “What texts, activities, and
methods will best enable such a result?” (Wiggins and McTighe, 2006: 16-17).

In language teaching a number of curriculum approaches and procedures have been advocated that
reflect the principles of backward design.

Needs Analysis. Identifying learning outcomes or objectives is often seen to depend upon a
systematic analysis of the learners’ communicative needs, and emerged in the 1960s as part of the
systems approach to curriculum development – an aspect of the prevalent philosophy of educational
accountability from which the use of objectives was also derived (Stufflebeam et al., 1985).

The need for convincing precision in educational needs assessment was also reinforced during this
period by the behavioural objectives movement in educational planning, particularly in North
America, which insisted on specifying in measurable form all goals of importance in an educational
system. The emphasis on precision and accountability clearly influenced the appearance of needs
assessment as a form of educational technology and its diversification into a collection of educational
research methodologies (Berwick, 1989: 51).

Needs analysis is part of the process by which aims and objectives are determined:

Informal needs assessment deals with the informal negotiation that takes place between class
teachers and students in the form of chats with either individual students, groups of students, or the
whole class in order to select a focus for the class … [It] is a necessary component of information
retrieval on students’ learning needs and should be recorded. It can subsequently be used as input for
aims and objective setting and for devising course outlines (Shaw and Dowsett, 1986: 47-49).

The steps involved are:

1. Identify learner’s communicative needs.

2. Develop statements of learning objectives.

3. Identify linguistic content and skills needed to attain the objectives.

4. Prepare course plans.

5. Select materials and teaching methods.

Task-based Language Teaching (Version 2). Needs analysis is also the starting point for curriculum
development in some versions of Task-Based Language Teaching and is used to determine an
inventory of target-tasks learners need to be able to master in the target language.

The design of a task-based syllabus* preferably starts with an analysis of the students’ needs. What
do these students need to be able to do with the target language? What are the tasks they are
supposed to perform outside of the classroom? Using different sources and different methods (such
as interviews, observations, and surveys) a concrete description of the kinds of tasks students will
face in the real word is drawn up. This description, then, serves as the basis for the design and
sequencing of tasks in the syllabus (Van den Branden, 2012: 134). [*i.e. ‘curriculum’ as used in this
paper].

The methodology of this approach to TBLT is then built around activities or tasks that require
communicative language use, from which the learners’ need for particular aspects of language is
derived:

In TBLT, students do not first acquire elaborate knowledge about language then face the daunting
challenge to translate all the acquired knowledge into spontaneous and natural language use. In a
task-based approach, students are confronted with approximations and simulations of the kinds of
tasks they are supposed to be able to perform outside the classroom and learn about relevant forms
of language while trying to understand and produce the language that these communicative tasks
involve (Van den Branden, 2012:133).

Thus in this model of TBLT the sequence is:

1. Identify target tasks through needs analysis.

2. Design classroom tasks.

3. Apply TBLT methodology.

4. Identify language and other demands of the tasks.

5. Follow up language work.

This can be represented as:

Competency-based Instruction (CpBI). Competency-Based Instruction is another widely used

example of backward design. With CpBI the starting point of curriculum design is a specification of
the learning outcomes in terms of ‘competencies’ – the knowledge, skills and behaviours learners
involved in performing everyday tasks and activities and which learners should master at the end of
a course of study. Curriculum development with CpBI starts from a similar stage as TBLI in the
version described above. The characteristics of CpBI are described by Schenk (1978: vi).

Competency-based education has much in common with such approaches to learning as

performance-based instruction, mastery learning and individualized instruction. It is outcome-based
and is adaptive to the changing needs of students, teachers and the community… Competencies
differ from other student goals and objectives in that they describe the student’s ability to apply basic
and other skills in situations that are commonly encountered in everyday life. Thus, CBE is based on a
set of outcomes that are derived from an analysis of tasks typically required of students in life role
situations.

The process can be represented as:

An example of how this approach was used in developing a vocational curriculum for refugees and
immigrants in the US is given in Mrowicki (1986). The process consisted of:

1. Needs analysis.

2. Identify topics for the survival curriculum (e.g. banking, health, shopping).

3. Identify competencies for each topic.

4. Group competencies into instructional units.

5. Identify the language knowledge and skills needed for each instructional unit (e.g. the 4 skills,
vocabulary, grammar).

6. Choose instructional materials.

Advocates of CpBI suggest it has similar advantages to the backward design approach proposed by
Wiggins and McTighe (2006).

Competency-based approaches to teaching and assessment offer teachers an opportunity to

revitalize their education and training programs. Not only will the quality of assessment improve, but
the quality of teaching and student learning will be enhanced by clear specification of expected
outcomes and the continuous feedback that competency-based assessment can offer (Docking,
1994:15).

Like other backward design approaches, CpBI makes no assumptions about teach-ing methods, since
any set of classroom activities can be used that enables students to master the desired
competencies. However, since student learning is assessed on the basis of performance and the
ability to demonstrate mastery of pre-specified skills and behaviours, teaching is generally based on
helping learners acquire the communicative skills needed for specific situations, tasks and activities.
As with other backward design approaches, needs analysis is the starting point in curriculum
development.

Standards and the Common European Framework of Reference. A related approach to backward
design is through the use of standards (also known as benchmarks, core skills, performance profiles
and target competencies). Standards are descriptions of the outcomes or targets students should be
able to reach in different domains of curriculum content, including language learning, and are
generally specified in very general terms. For example standards related to the use of both oral and
written language could include:

Students will develop knowledge and understanding of:

• The relationship between texts and contexts

• Cultural reference in text

• The relationship between purposes and structures of texts

• Language forms and features of texts (McKay, 2000).

Katz and Snow (2009: 67) offer the following explanation of standards:

Standards may be described as tools that can be used to improve outcomes. The kind of outcomes
desired depends on the goals for improvement – whether they target teachers, teacher trainers,
educational leaders, students, programs – and so on. The major benefit of standards is that they set
out clear expectations for all involved in the educational enterprise, including the public. They provide
a “common language” for talking about the process of teaching and learning. For teachers and
administrators, they provide guidelines for designing instruction, curricula, and assessment.

The primary motivation for an increased emphasis on statements of learning out-comes in the
design of language programs and particularly the use of ‘standards’ as ways of identifying learning
targets across a curriculum is described by Leung (2012):

the prominence of outcomes-based teaching in the past thirty years or so can be associated with the
wider public policy environments in which the twin doctrines of corporatist management (whereby
the activities in different segments of society are subordinated to the goals of the state) and public
accountability (which requires professionals to justify their activities in relation to declared public
policy goals) have predominated.

In order to assist in the planning process, standards are generally accompanied with more specific
‘indicators’ that ‘describe assessable, observable activities or behaviours that may be performed to
show the standard is being met’ (Katz and Snow, 2009: 67). These are often described in terms of
competencies. The following is an example of a standard with related indicators in the domain of
oral language use:

Standard: the learner can participate in casual conversation

Indicators:
•Can use strategies to open and close conversations.

• Can initiate a topic in casual conversation.

• Can select vocabulary appropriate to the topic.

• Can give appropriate feedback responses.

• Can provide relevant evaluative comments through back channelling.

• Can take turns at appropriate points in the conversation.

• Can ask for clarification and repetition.

• Can use strategies for repairing misunderstanding.

• Can use appropriate intonation and stress patterns to express meaning intelligibly (Adapted from
Goh and Burns, 2012: 180).

The use of standards in curriculum planning thus involves the following sequence of activities:

• Identify the domains of language use the learners need to acquire (e.g. reading, writing, listening,
speaking).

• Describe standards and performance indicators for each domain.

• Identify the language skills and knowledge needed to achieve the standard.

• Select teaching activities and materials.

Perhaps the most widespread example of backward design using standards in cur-rent use is the
Common European Framework for Reference for Languages (CEFR) (Council of Europe, 2001), which
is designed to provide a ‘common basis for explicit description of objectives, content and methods of
the study of modern languages, within a wider purpose of elaboration of language syllabuses,
curriculum guidelines, examinations, textbooks’ etc. across Europe’ (Council of Europe, 2001:1). It
describes six levels of achievement divided into three broad divisions from lowest (A1) to highest
(C2) which describe what a learner should be able to do in reading, listening, speaking and writing at
each level.

Basic user – A1, A2

Independent user – B1, B2

Proficient user - C1, C2