Page 151 - Getting of the fence

The relevance and usefulness of the Comprehensive Approach
year 1 and 2 can be considered minor. Nevertheless, even though the average deviation from the assumed even distribution was 15% in year 1 and 14% in year 2, there was a balance between the Text-, Context-, and Reader approach. In other words, regarding these three approaches, Fred’s curriculum was already quite comprehensive. Furthermore, similar to Doris, not including the Language approach element ‘Language skills’ was also considerably important in our understanding of Fred’s lessons. Although Fred argued that implementing the Language approach was rather complicated, he did emphasise his students’ English language development in year 2 by really enforcing the use of the target language by his students, by asking them to write poetry in English, and by connecting his lessons to can-do statements from the CEFR.
Harry (School D, 32 years teaching experience)
The Comprehensive Approach offered Harry a framework through which he could analyse his current practice in terms of requirements and how he works with his students (assimilation). Keywords in his sensemaking process include self-awareness and self-evaluation. Through the lens of the Comprehensive Approach, he was able to critically analyse his current curriculum and, more specifically, his intentions with this curriculum. Similar to Fred, working with learning objectives as a starting point helped him improve the structure and direction of his lessons. Although Harry was explicit in his learning objectives that students were allowed to use the Dutch language, in year 2 he did integrate writing skills in his literature lessons by asking students to write a composition based on Hamlet. Furthermore, Harry was also one of the teachers who was extremely conscious in using the target language, believing that the literature lessons are just another way of improving the students’ English language skills. Interestingly, the time Harry spent on the Language Approach decreased from 18% in year 1 to 12% in year 2. Again, this could be the result of not including the ‘Language skills’ element. Nevertheless, on the whole, the balance in time spent on the four approaches increased slightly in year 2, visible in a decrease in deviation from the assumed even distribution from 22% to 16%.
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