Backward Design at the Curriculum Level

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What is backward design at the curricular level? 🧠

Richards (2013) discusses backward design only at a curriculum level, as a recent alternative to the more traditional forward design and to central design, which was a reaction against it. 

In forward design – typical of grammatical and most communicative syllabuses – one first develops a syllabus of elements to be taught – in the order of supposed complexity – then selects teaching methods and finally adds assessment. There are several problems with forward design: Firstly, there is no definition of what students should be able to do at the end of the course and often little relationship to real world needs. Secondly the assessment, added at the end separately, may very well not reflect the teaching methods – or even the syllabus. Finally, forward design assumes that all students will follow the same pathway, implying that they all have the same needs, and imposes a rigid programme for the teacher to follow.     

Central design is a reaction against the rigidity of forward design. It is activity-based, without a formal syllabus. The teacher improvises, in theory responding to the strengths and weaknesses of the group of students they have.  One interesting example of central design is ‘Teaching unplugged’  which proposes throwing away syllabuses and textbooks and using students’ stories and experiences as the basis for teaching.

Backward design, by focusing on the end point to be reached rather than the pathway to be followed, gives teachers more leeway to adopt different teaching approaches – including those like Teaching Unplugged or activity-based syllabuses such as with a series of action-oriented scenarios. At the same time, by defining the competences students should have at the end, it sets the direction and thus provides a clear framework for the course.  

As North et al. (2018) state:

“backward design is a reaction against the potential arbitrariness that central design can lead to, with learning aims – if there are any – determined through short-term thinking by the teacher. The essence of backward design is that, like the CEFR, it sees the learner as a language user and not as a language student. It is interested in what the learner will be able to do after the course, and what they will need to learn or become accustomed to in order to reach their goals. Hence, it tends to focus on real world outcomes. These may be encapsulated in a series of needs-based tasks, especially in the context of the linguistic integration of adult migrants (e.g. van Avermaet & Gysen, 2009), but it is convenient to express them in CEFR-style can-do descriptors.” (p. 31)

As Richards points out, there are several approaches to curriculum design that reflect the principles of backward design, including task-based language teaching and competence-based teaching as well as approaches based on frameworks like the CEFR.

North et al. (2018) state that: “The CEFR, as the most sophisticated framework currently available for backward design, can be exploited to solve the four issues that were discussed earlier in the chapter [of their book]: the lack of coherence or ‘constructive alignment’, both internally (in the programme) and externally (with other programmes); the difficulty of finding good, research-based starting points for defining content; the lack of attention to the needs of individuals in group programmes; and the tendency for language learning, especially in mainstream education, to consist of closed scholastic systems unconnected to the demands of real world language use” (p. 31).

The steps below are common to all approaches to curriculum design using backward design. The CEFR helps curriculum designers and teachers with steps 1 and 2:

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.” (Richards, 2013. p.3)

Backward design at the level of the class ⬅️📐✏️

The same fundamental steps can also apply at the classroom level, when one is designing a scenario. After choosing the thematic area for the scenario (or the scenario itself if it is being used ‘off-the-peg’), on the basis of your knowledge of the class:

  1. Identify what the learners need to be able to do in order to complete the culminating task.
  2. Develop statements of learning objectives.
    a) general educational objectives (“At the end of the scenario, learners will be able to …”)
    b) CEFR descriptors, adapted to context, for language activities, language competences and communicative strategies
  3. Identify the general competences and the language competences (linguistic, pragmatic, sociolinguistic) content and skills needed to attain the objectives.
  4. Prepare sub tasks to help learners develop these competences and strategies.
  5. Select materials and teaching methods for the different subtasks. Plus
  6. Select which descriptors you will use for assessment and prepare (a self-assessment and) teacher assessment rubric.

Constructive alignment 🏗️📏

This process of aligning planning, teaching and assessment is sometimes called ‘constructive alignment’. This expression also comes from mainstream education and refers to the fact that, rather than having knowledge poured down their throats, learners need to ‘construct’ this knowledge in order to acquire it. In practice, this often involves co-construction in small groups in which learners collaborate to construct meaning, that is a ‘socio-constructivist’ approach.

Read this article, Aligning teaching and assessment to curriculum objectives: Imaginative curriculum project, (Biggs, 2003) which is the origin of the concept and explains the ideas behind it well. Two key quotes from the article are the following:

  • Alignment:  “teaching methods used and the assessment tasks, are aligned with the learning activities assumed in the learning outcomes.” (p. 2)
  • Constructive: “refers to the idea that students construct meaning through relevant learning activities … meaning is not something imparted or transmitted from teacher to learner but is something learners have to create for themselves.” (p.4)

This is closely related to the construction of meaning in the CEFR concepts of Mediation and the Action-oriented Approach, on which other information sheets are available.

Now think of your own teaching practice and context. How do you usually plan your courses? Do you think you generally adopt a backward design? If yes, do you recognize the steps and ways of proceeding described in this document and in the readings? If not, what steps would you take to start adopting a backward design in your class?

Try and reflect based on your own experience and then possibly discuss your notes with a colleague.

You might want to jot down some notes for an action plan.

References 📝

Here is the direct link to the English version of Pathways through assessing, learning and teaching in the CEFR and to the French version Parcours d’ĂŠvaluation, d’apprentissage et d’enseignement Ă  travers le CECR

Byram, M., & Parmenter, L. (Eds.). (2012). The Common European Framework of Reference: The globalisation of language policy. Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters.

Richards, J.C. (2013). Curriculum approaches in language teaching: forward, central and backward design. RELC Journal, 44(1), 5-33.

American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages

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