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36 DAVID NUNAN AND CLARICE LAMBmuch more information about and by learncrs came to be incorporated into the curriculumprocess. Thc other major modification occurred with the emergence of the communicativetask as a central building block within the curriculum. Instead of being designed to teach aparticular lexical, phonological or morphosyntactic point, tasks were designed to reflectlearners’ communicative necds. I ,anguage focus cxerciscs \vere developed as a second-orderactivity.In summary, we can say that curriculum dcvclopmcnt represents a delicate juggling actinvolving the incorporation of information about the learner, about the language, and aboutthe learning process. Language content questions include what are we tcaching, why arewe teaching it, antl when ~ ’ arc e teaching it. Learning process qucstions, which aremethodological in character, include how are \vc arranging the learning environment.Among other things, when we focus on the lcarner, we must ask how well the learner hasdone and how well the curriculum has done in serving the necds of the learner.Wc can relate thcsc key qucstions to each other in terms of the central curricularelements of syllabus design, which has to do Lvith thc selection, sequencing and grading ofcontent; methodology, which is concerned with task selection and sequencing; andassessment and evaluation, which are concerned with determining how well students havedone, as well as evaluating how well the instructional process has met curricular goals.Theserelationships are set out schematically inTahlc 2.6.Table 2. h Kc! curriculum questions, prowdurcs, and arcasQuestion., ProceJirrcs , lrcusContcntWhat?Why?When?I’roccsscsEIO\V?When?OutconicsHo\v \vcll?How cffccti\c?SclcctingJustifyingGradingtnactingSequencingAsscssingE\ aluating11 Methotlolog!Asscssmcntk\ aluationOne vicw of “curriculum” has it that curriculum processes have to do with thcdc\-clopment of tactical plans for action. In this vicw, “curriculum” is taken to refcr tostatements about what should happen in the teaching and lcarning situation. According tothis vie\v, the curriculum specialist’s task ends when the ink is dry on the various documentsthat have been produced to guide teaching and learning. Wc believe that this vicw is simplisticand nai‘vc, that while “curriculum” includes the planning process, it also includes theprocesses of implementation antl evaluation .These three phasc-s are captured in Figure 2.1 .The final point we wish to makc is that the language curriculum should concern itself,not only bvith language content goals, but also with learning pro goals. Learners shouldbe focused on the processes through which lcarning takes place as well as on thc targetlanguage they arc learning. It is our contention that learners cvho haw developed skills inidentifying their own preferred learning skills and strategies \vi11 be more effective languagelearners.