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Teaching situations and implications for the notional-functional syllabus

How do we define teaching situations?

Institutional variables

Socio-cultural variables

Status of English in locality

Learner variables

We will assume the language being taught is English. We will also assume that the teacher is a native speaker of English. Finally, we will only consider variables which have both the power to define teaching situations and also a bearing on the decision of whether or not to adopt a notional-functional syllabus.

The formal teaching of English necessitates an educational environment in which such teaching can take place and the chande of adopting a notional-functional syllabus.

Status refers to whether an institution is a private “for profit” institution or a public “not for profit” institution. The former category might include private language schools or freelance English teachers; the latter might include state-run elementary schools, high schools and universities.

Notional-functional syllabuses work best either where there is no formal assessment, or where formal assessment recognizes the goals of a notional-functional syllabus.

Any such generalization or utilitarian compromise is bound to neglect some of the specific needs of individual members. A large class – particularly a diverse one – may not be a suitable target for a notional-functional syllabus.

Status

Assessment

Class size

Hofstede’s research allocated the cultural norms of fifty different countries into four categories of “individualism”, “power distance”, “uncertainty avoidance” and “masculinity”.

Gender bias

Uncertainty avoidance

Power-distance

Individualism

Gender bias represents a spectrum which ranges from masculine to feminine perspectives on norms of behavior. A notional-functional syllabus which introduced the functions of “negotiating”, “interrupting” or “ordering”, for example, would present particular difficulties with respect to the inegalitarian roles assigned to women and men in masculine cultures.

Notions and functions are not linguistically concrete, that is, many different forms can be utilized to express the same function, and there is particular sensitivity to context and speaker status. This characteristic may present difficulties for uncertainty intolerant cultures, and be more easily dealt with by members of uncertainty tolerant cultures.

Communicative approaches employing notional-functional syllabuses often emphasize the notion of the teacher as “facilitator”. This would seem to suit cultures where power-distance is low, and a more equal, reciprocal or cooperative relationship is recognized between teachers and students.

In individualist cultures, learners are more open to new methods which focus on exposure to authentic language and the negotiation of meaning leading to demonstrable communicative competence. Notional-functional syllabuses would therefore seem more suited to individualist cultures.

Motivation

Learner styles

Language level

Motivation is of paramount importance in deciding whether to adopt a notional-functional syllabus, and it is intimately linked with needs analysis.There are two major categories of motivation: instrumental (an instrument to achieve purposes) and integrative (integrate into activities or a culture).

Four styles identified by Willing such as convergers “prefer to avoid groups” and conformists “emphasize learning ‘about language’ over learning to use it. Besides, concrete learners “are interested in language use and language as communication” and communicative learners are “interested in social interaction with other speakers of the language”.

The language level of students has implications for both the language and methodology employed in the classroom. The linguistic equivocality associated with the notional-functional syllabus may also present problems for beginners.

This includes localities where English is the native language; localities where English is an official language; and localities where English is a foreign language. It can hugely influences by depending on the locality where students are learning, the context, the surrounders, and so on.