Browsing by Subject "IB"

This thesis compares the extent to which instruction and assessment in the Finnish National Curriculum (FNC) and International Baccalaureate (IB) at one Finnish high school align with the pedagogical approach to language instruction recommended in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR; Council of Europe 2001, 2018). Comparison of the two curricula will be used to inform curriculum development at the school, where the aim is to combine pre–Diploma Program (DP)—i.e., instruction of first-year students who have been provisionally accepted to the DP program—and FNC instruction in the first year of high school. Action-oriented language is envisioned in CEFR as a pedagogical approach that (1) treats language as a tool rather than an object for mastery and (2) recommends the instruction, assessment, and learning of the broad range of social contexts in which communication occurs. The first point draws largely on Focus on Form (FonF) approaches, developed in SLA research, while the second point draws largely on task-based language teaching (TBLT), developed in pedagogical research. While CEFR is regularly used today for benchmarking student language mastery, its uneven application in curriculum, course instruction, and course and exam assessment in the IB and FNC leave much to be desired, calling into question whether CEFR benchmarking can really be used for EFL students graduating from the IB and FNC. This thesis uses a school in Espoo, Finland as a case study to compare the IB and FNC instruction of first-year students, the assessment practices of EFL teachers based on the marking of a common essay and a subsequent interview, and quantitative analysis of IB and FNC exam results and essay scores for first-year pre-DP and FNC students in academic year 2019–2020. The mixed methods research (MMR) approach of the thesis is designed to account for the broad set of data (i.e., curriculum, European language policy, academic literature, local needs) that are taken into consideration when developing curriculum at the school level. The results of this thesis indicate that FNC assessment is more closely aligned with CEFR but that both FNC and IB in Finland, especially pre-DP education, are still lagging behind in implementing the framework developed already two decades ago. At least some of this lag, as indicated in the qualitative data, seem to originate from the continuation of outdated practices of language assessment (esp. in its focus on language mastery rather than action-oriented language use) regardless of changes in CEFR and the Finnish curriculum. In the case of assessment in FNC, the mixed use of continuum criterion-referenced assessment of written production in an exam designed for mastery norm-referenced assessment is an already imperfect combination that is further undermined by lack of transparency around how to apply criterion-referenced assessment to written production as well as how essays marked by teachers have been moderated by sensors. While the IB is much better at enabling communication between moderators and teachers, EFL instruction in the IB offers a very limited set of communicative language activities, partly due to the broad language profile of students in the international program. For the purposes of students in Finland, however, especially at the school studied, EFL instruction in IB omits an alarmingly wide range of communicative activities in course and exam assessment, an absence that should threaten to invalidate CEFR benchmarking of students graduating from EFL courses, given that most communicative language activities are never taught or assessed. Many of the issues that arise in this thesis are indicative of systematic issues in the curriculum and examination process, which have a negative washback effect on instruction and assessment at the school level. Nevertheless, some suggestions are made at the end of the thesis for how teachers can mitigate problems with validity in the FNC and IB curricula, though changes in FNC assessment is difficult without transparency from the Finnish Matriculation Board. The results of the thesis also indicate that areas of action-oriented language missing in one curriculum are often well explored in the other, such that serious consideration should be given to closer alignment of pre-DP and first-year FNC English instruction at Finnish schools that offer both programs, an effort towards which this master’s thesis is intended to contribute. The comparative weaknesses of EFL instruction and assessment in FNC discussed in this thesis can also be used to inform curricular development of the FNC.