Combining the old and the new: Designing a curriculum based on the taba model and the global scale of English

This paper explains the process of designing a curriculum based on the Taba Model and the Global Scale of English (GSE) in an intensive language education program. The Taba Model emphasizing the involvement of the teachers and the learners in the curriculum development process was combined with the GSE, a psychometric tool measuring language proficiency in a granular structure to develop a context specific curriculum. The decisions made, the steps taken and the impact of the new curriculum were explained with their rationales in the paper. While the developed curriculum is a context specific one, how the Taba model and the scale were adopted depending on the needs of the context in a bottom up approach can be used as a model for similar language teaching contexts. There might be lessons and strategies to be taken from the experience here, which might be followed in the curriculum processes in other institutions.