The development of an experience-centred curriculum in the language arts for temperamentally handicapped intermediate pupils
Date
1974
Authors
Horridge, Geoffrey
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Abstract
The purpose of the study was to describe the theoretical basis, operational de velopment and practical application of a language-arts curriculum based on shared experiences, and designed to meet the needs of intermediate grade pupils whose achievement level has been depressed by temperamental factors.
There exists a growing body of research evidence that the disorientation of many children from school learning activities and their lack of success in school are mutually stimulating factors. These appear to operate via the individual pupil's perception of himself in the school situation, particularly his assessment of his capability, adequacy and worth. At the same time, the science of psycholinguistics is providing information regarding the way in which language is acquired by young children, which points to a highly successful process of self-teaching by means of the repeated use of language in cycles of communication with others. Language, in fact, appears to be learned by the repeated, and progressively more precise, use of language, while the self-system develops parallel with, (and partly as a function of), the growing language capability.
The function of language is seen as the translation of experience into communication and thought. The exercise of this function by persons participating in communication transactions with others would seem to offer both a starting point and a basic pattern to follow in elaborating and expanding the language skills of the participants. Their existing state of language development, as ascertained by scrutinising their current language performance, would seem to be the logical data-base upon which to plan learning activities, while the normal cycle of communication would seem to be a process into which activities designed to extend and elaborate language might be inserted. If, in addition to being made the vehicle for language enhancement, the communication cycle could produce positive evidence, satisfactory to the participants, of their capability to produce language, the degenerative cycle of disorientation, lack of success, and further disorientation might be slowed, halted or even reversed.
The study, which attempts to meet the above conditions, is in two parts. The first outlines the formulation of a theoretical basis for the proposed curriculum development from a study of pertinent literature, going on to describe the way in which language may be stimulated by experiences and examined by comparison with specially assembled criteria, having appropriate learning activities planned as a result of the examination. After describing the design of learning activities, the first part concludes with a consideration of the implications of the proposed curriculum development for learners, teachers, administrators, and the public, and of the limitations likely to operate upon its implementation.
The second part of the study is devoted to the practicalities of applying an experience-based curriculum. The proposed method of language examination is explained and a series of check-lists, assembled from criteria derived from a wide variety of studies of children's language, is presented. This part of the study concludes with a series of specimen stimulus events and the learning activities arising out of them. The final pair of this series, having been fully implemented in the classroom, is accompanied by brief tape recordings of children's oral responses and an individual sample of reading assessment. Typewritten transcripts accompany this material, together with a sample of the written language output of a class using the system.
Appendices include an analysis of the equipment, materials and services which would be required to implement the system, and a further series of suggested stimulus events ready for the development of suitable learning activities.
The proposed curriculum development would remain experimental until such time as trial implementation, evaluated by controlled empirical procedures, became possible.