- Title
- The process writing approach in Bhutan: a case of cross-national policy borrowing
- Creator
- Zangmo, Dechen
- Relation
- University of Newcastle Research Higher Degree Thesis
- Resource Type
- thesis
- Date
- 2014
- Description
- Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
- Description
- Borrowing policy from one national context to another by merely copying a practice has been described as largely superficial and unsuccessful. Evidence has shown that countries who carefully studied the appropriateness to and suitability of borrowed policy in the local context have been more successful in implementing it. Bhutan uses writing in English for assessing students at the secondary level, notwithstanding the country’s strong commitment to maintaining its cultural integrity. Failure in examinations written in this foreign language will result in student retention at the same level or departure from school. Grade seven seems to have the highest rate of failures and school dropouts in Bhutan. The Process Writing Approach (hereafter referred to as PWA) was proposed as a part of the Bhutanese revised English curriculum in 2006. It was originally developed for native speakers of English but was introduced in Bhutan to address internal dissatisfaction with student writing. PWA involves active participation of the students in writing multiple drafts in contrast to the old practice where students simply wrote answers to questions from textbooks or made notes from teacher presentations. This sequential qualitative study examined the alignment between stated intentions, suggested activities and, assessment practices in the 2006 English curriculum documents for grade seven. The study involved interviews of school principals and video recording of classroom lessons, which subsequently provided stimulus for interviewing teachers regarding cultural influences on implementation of PWA. The field work took place six years after implementation of the borrowed policy. The comparative documentary analysis revealed extreme misalignment within the different sections of the English Teachers’ Guide for grade seven and other supporting curriculum documents for teaching PWA. The interviews and observations exposed numerous challenges to implementation. These challenges mainly related to teachers’ training, their understanding of the new practice and Bhutanese cultural and contextual factors. However, the study also revealed positive teacher attitudes towards PWA and on-going commitment to implementation that led Bhutanese teachers to take a variety of initiatives. The study suggests that curriculum planners should work towards the consistency of objectives, activities and assessment in curriculum development. Use of longer and more appropriate training during the process of curriculum development may anticipate cross cultural mismatches between foreign methodology and existing local context and help teachers to accommodate the cultural shifts involved in cross-national policy borrowing. This research in Bhutan may benefit educators working in English as Second Language (ESL) cultural contexts similar to Bhutan. The main issues discovered in this particular study may also assist in developing curriculum in either small project or aid-based educational jurisdictions.
- Subject
- cross-cultural curriculum; curriculum alignment; imported approaches and methodologies; Process Writing Approach; ESL teachers' challenges
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1041996
- Identifier
- uon:13983
- Rights
- Copyright 2014 Dechen Zangmo
- Language
- eng
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