For the chosen case, complete the following:
1 Identify the model
State which model (forward, central, or backward design) best fits the course described. Choose only one per case.
2 Justify your choice
Name at least two specific details from the case that point to your chosen model (e.g., "the course has no fixed syllabus and content emerges from learner talk").
3 Name risks
Identify 2-3 disadvantages or risks of applying your chosen model in that specific context, drawing on Richards' discussion of each model's limitations (e.g., the "mechanical" reduction of teaching to objectives in backward design).

Eight senior managers at a multinational firm, all confident B2–C1 speakers, sign up for a weekly 90-minute "English conversation club" with an experienced freelance trainer. They already have strong grammatical accuracy from years of prior study but feel their past lessons grew mechanical and want something that feels less like a course and more like genuine, useful talk.

No coursebook, syllabus, or test is provided; the trainer arrives with no fixed content and instead builds each session around whatever topics, problems, or language issues participants bring from their week, using the group's own talk as the raw material for feedback. Success is measured by whether sessions feel worthwhile, not by any external benchmark.

You are hired to help design a Grade 9–11 English course for a public school system with 40,000 students across 200 schools. The Ministry of Education has already published a national list of grammar and vocabulary points required at each grade level, tied to a mandatory end-of-year exam similar to a national leaving certificate.

Individual schools have class sizes of 30–35 students, and most teachers work from an approved textbook series purchased centrally. Teachers have limited say over content and little time for materials development, since they also teach several other subjects. The Ministry wants consistency of content across all schools so that any student, regardless of school, sits the same final exam on the same material.

A logistics multinational asks a training provider to design a 40-hour English course for 20 mid-level staff. HR specifies the required outcome clearly: by course end, participants must be able to negotiate shipping contracts by phone, write concise client emails, and deliver a 10-minute update in client meetings — competencies tied directly to upcoming performance reviews.

Budget is available for a proper needs analysis (interviews, sample email review, sit-ins on real client calls) before any materials are written. The provider is free to choose any classroom methodology, but must show, through a final performance-based assessment mirroring real work tasks, that each participant has reached the specified competencies.

A private language school runs a Saturday-morning English club for children aged 4–6, most of whom cannot yet read in their first language. Parents enroll their children mainly for exposure and enjoyment rather than measurable progress, and the school explicitly avoids formal testing at this age.

The teacher plans each 45-minute session around songs, games, stories, and craft activities chosen partly in response to what engaged the children the previous week, rather than following a fixed grammar or vocabulary list. Vocabulary and simple phrases are picked up incidentally as children participate, and which language points get covered varies from group to group depending on what the children respond to.

A private language school offers a "General English" evening course for working adults aged 25–55 who want to improve overall communication for travel, socializing, and general confidence — no exam, job, or academic goal drives enrollment. Class size is 15–18 mixed-level learners, meeting twice weekly for 10 weeks, using a globally published course book with workbook and audio materials.

The school markets the course as suitable for "intermediate learners" without further specification, and teachers rotate every term, so course continuity depends on shared materials rather than any single teacher's judgment. Learners expect steady, visible progress through grammar and vocabulary they can point to when they finish.

A university's international office runs a 12-week pre-sessional program for incoming exchange students who must reach CEFR B2 in reading, writing, listening, and speaking before starting degree-level coursework, per an agreement with partner universities. Admission depends on an external CEFR-aligned exam administered by an outside body, not by the teaching staff.

Class sizes are around 20, cohorts arrive with very different backgrounds and first languages, and the program has only one semester to close whatever gaps exist. The program director asks the teaching team to work from the B2 descriptors first and build everything else — materials, activities, practice tests — around getting students there.

An international ELT publisher is producing a new seven-level young-learners course book series for sale in 40 countries. A project team includes a syllabus designer who selects and grades grammar, vocabulary, and functions; a materials writer who develops activities and texts around that syllabus; an assessment specialist who writes unit tests and a placement test; and an audio producer who works last, once content is fixed.

Each specialist works largely independently, handing finished work down the chain, with a project manager coordinating deadlines rather than classroom input. The finished series will be adopted by teachers worldwide who had no part in creating it and who will follow the book's sequence as given.

As part of an in-service teacher-training program, a senior trainer leads a live demonstration lesson with 12 adult learners, observed by 20 trainee teachers. The trainer's stated aim is to model "learner-centered, emergent" teaching rather than to cover any pre-announced language point.

She begins with an open-ended prompt, then builds the lesson moment-to-moment from whatever the learners produce — correcting, expanding, and drawing out language as it arises in real time. Neither the trainees nor the learners know in advance which structures or vocabulary will be addressed; this is determined entirely by how the interaction unfolds during the 60-minute session.

A resettlement agency funds a 15-week English course for newly arrived adult immigrants and refugees with widely varying educational backgrounds and literacy levels. Funders require the program to demonstrate concrete, real-world competencies by course end — opening a bank account, understanding a lease, making a doctor's appointment, completing a job application — since renewal of funding depends on participants' documented ability to perform these tasks independently.

A structured needs analysis with community caseworkers identifies which situations participants most urgently need to handle. Class sizes are large (25–30) and teachers are mostly volunteers with limited ELT training, so the program needs a clear, replicable plan turning identified real-life tasks into lessons.