Continuing change after the innovation

Focusing on the implementation of a task-based curriculum at a Thai university, this paper examines the continuation stage of the innovation by looking at how and why the curriculum has changed in its first four years. Based on course documentation and teacher interviews, the major changes to the curriculum were a reduction in the number of tasks, a greater emphasis on the explicit teaching of language, and an increase in the importance of examinations. The teachers were most concerned with methodological issues and the process of curriculum revision, and teachers’ beliefs were very influential in decisions to change the curriculum. The findings highlight the need to consider context-specific issues when judging the effectiveness of immanent innovations and to set up appropriate systems to guide curriculum revisions.