The Smith's "Curriculum"

The Smith's "Curriculum"

I owned a Smith's School of English franchise for 4 years.  I know the truth.  I know the scam.

Let's take a brief look at the Smith's "curriculum":
If you check the Smith's School of English website, they claim to have an ever-evolving curriculum. This brings up two questions:  Is it "ever-evolvoing"?  And, is it a "curriculum"?

When you think of a curriculum, what images come to mind. Something well planned and researched, professional, encompassing development in all language skills, providing practice with the 4 language systems, with textbooks and workbooks that have units and lessons based on modern TEFL methodology, and which addresses the needs of students from beginner to advanced. Well, Smith's "curriculum" is none of those things. 

Mark made up his first "curriculum", and since he has no TEFL certification, it is based on a dreadfully outdated teaching method (that no respectable English teacher should still be employing) called "Audio-lingualism".  It comprises of a few short texts, which students are to memorize and then drill by substituting words, and through this memorization Mr. Smith expects them to become good English speakers.  Here is an excerpt from Jeremy Harmer's book "The Practice of English Language Teaching" about Audio-lingualism: 

In the first place, language is de-contextualized and carries little communicative function.  Second, by doing its best to banish mistakes, so that students only use correct language, such teaching runs counter to a belief among many theorists that making and learning from errors is a key part of acquisition.  Indeed Audio-lingual methodology seems to banish all forms of language processing that help students sort out new language information in their own minds.

Whoa!  Do you really want to pay $15k for a franchise which uses this terrible teaching method?  Mark Smith, proving his worth as a marketing genius, calls this the "core curriculum".

A few years later he decided his "curriculum" wan't enough, so he paid someone to make him a new "curriculum".  This "curriculum" is made of 5 "textbooks", each about 12 - 16 pages in length.  On each page is a single-point grammar lesson based on the PPP model of teaching, which again is dreadfully outdated.  Here is another excerpt from Harmer's book, about the PPP method:

The PPP procedure came under a sustained attack in the 1990s.  It was, critics argued, clearly teacher-centered, and therefore sat uneasily in a more humanistic and learner-centered framework...  ...Michael Lewis suggested that PPP was inadequate because it reflected neither the nature of language nor the nature of learning.  And one trainer, Jim Scrivener, even wrote that 'it is fundamentally disabling, not enabling'.

Actually, the lessons Smith's uses are even worse than the original PPP method.  When using the PPP approach, the teacher will show a picture to set a context for the presentation of grammar.  However, Smith's lessons don't have any picture, so there is no context in which to begin a lesson!  Each lesson usually has a few activity pages and some flash cards.  These are all made using a clip art CD-ROM that came with Windows 98, then printed out on from a normal PC printer.  I know because I have the disc, and all the pictures are the same.  There is one final book which is made of 16 graded news articles and questions, and is intended for high level students.  Graded material means it has been edited to make the English simpler.  How this will benefit high level students, I don't know.  Again, showing his prowess as a deceptive marketer, he calls this his "expanded curriculum".

Wow!  "Core Curriculum."  "Expanded Curriculum."  Those sound pretty awesome!  What you get is 7 "textbooks" of 12 - 16 computer print-outs stuck in a ring binder using outdated methods that are scorned by the modern TEFL community. There are no units, so there is no textbook cohesion or context.  There are no CD's, so listening skills development is non-existant. There is very little text, so reading skills development is virtually non-existant. There is no writing skills development beyond note-taking, so writing skills development is virtually non-existant. That means 3 of the 4 English skills recognized by modern TEFL methodology are NOT represented in the Smith's 90 page curriculum. Does that even sound like a curriculum to you? Do you want to pay hundreds of dollars for something that neglects 75% of language skills development?

Now for the second question, is the Smith's School of English curriculum "ever-evolving"?
You see, Smith's has no R&D department. No text-book making staff. First, Mr. Smith made his own "curriculum", which, since he has no TEFL qualification, was based on the communicatively debilitating Audio-lingual method. A few years later, he paid someone to make some generic, single-grammar point PPP method rip-off lessons complete with cards and activity pages.  And that's it. There is no one making new lessons. There are no plans to make new lessons. He started with his own made-up lessons, founded on bad methodology. Then he paid someone once, only once, to beef-up his ring-binder using more bad methodology. Now tell me, does that sound "ever-evolving" to you?

The site also mentions that they don't charge students for textbooks, and that a well-kept notebook will actually become a good tool for review and development. Tell me, if you took a language course, how much would you pay for a 16-page, computer printed, clip-art-made, ring-binder "textbook"? That's why they don't charge for textbooks, because they couldn't sell them if they tried.