An overview of the primary English curriculum development: Mismatches and implications

The primary English curriculum has shifted from an emphasis on oral proficiency in the 70s’ through a focus on functional competence in the 80s’ to a goal of developing learners’ ever-improving capability to use English in the 90s’. This paper describes the changes in the aims, objectives and methodology of the primary English curriculum in the past two decades in an attempt to capture the theoretical and methodological developments in the primary English curriculum. The focus of the paper is to analyze the gaps and mismatches between the aims set and the implementation of the ‘mandatory’ approach to classroom teaching through classroom observation, interview and questionnaire data. Such neglected mismatches are detrimental to successful implementation of any curriculum innovation. Therefore, it concludes with recommendations for ELT teacher education programmes in order to facilitate effective curriculum implementation at the classroom level. Copyright © 2000 The Hong Kong Institute of Education.