Secondary level foreign languages curriculum guide: Opportunities and challenges in its development and implementation

The communicative approach in teaching foreign languages which was first introduced as an alternative against the traditional Grammar Translation and Audio-lingual Methods overcame its limitations and has been reinforced in its process of development. Now it has the status of the dominant approach in teaching foreign languages in many countries especially in Asia and the Middle East. The numerous researches which have studied the secondary level curriculum of foreign languages in our country have all confirmed its inadequacy and most of them have attributed the inadequacy to its traditional approach. In 2006, with the aim of improving the foreign languages curriculum, the Curriculum Centre in Organization for Educational Research and Planning formed a committee of curriculum experts and University professors with the mission to develop a Guide to curriculum of the three foreign languages: English, French and German. The committee’s work over one and a half years led to the development of a guide to the above mentioned curriculum. In May 2007, the framework was evaluated in a one-day meeting in which the managers and curriculum experts from almost all subject departments participated. The present article intends to introduce the major themes of the the guide to curriculum of foreign languages and its critique. Also, through discussing the required bases for its implementation, the paper intends to set forth the opportunities and challenges ahead of the implementation phase. Since success in making positive changes in the curriculum depends on the public discussion of relevant issues with the aim of convincing all the stake-holders, the present article intends to set the scene for this purpose through its discussion of the issues.