Hidden curriculum by Auerbach and Burgess

Reading the article reminded me of a class I taught before I came to America. It was one of the required courses in English department of a Korean college and the title was "Practical English". I think most of non-native English speaking countries' colleges have a similar course. Honestly I still have no idea of what "practical English" is. Unlike the curricula in the article, what would be the practical in EFL setting? At a glance, the problem is that it is hard to testify or verify the "practicality" of what the students will learn in EFL settings. What I did in the class was just introducing how to settle down into American community as a foreigner, just like in the article - arrival at the airport, housing, getting a driver's license, buying a car, shopping, American holidays, etc., all of whose expressions are hardly used in Korea. I was deceiving the students by forcing them to take that English is real, authentic, useful, therefore practical.

According to the authors, students' roles outside the classroom should be taken into consideration of English teaching curriculum, but if students' roles outside the classroom in EFL settings is different from those in ESL settings, more specifically, if students' English usage outside the classroom is rare, then the consideration of the role should be taken into another aspect, for example, what they want to learn in English class in general.
Extremely speaking, a real practical English could be a business English, for example, if we suppose the practicality is about what students need in English learning.

The problem is, to what extent do we follow their needs as a teacher?

I don't know...