Defininig Syllabus Design

Defininig Syllabus Design

1. Product-oriented syllabus

   • Product syllabuses are those in which the focus is on the knowledge and skills which learners should gain as a result of instruction.
   • Analytic and Synthetic syllabus planning
     • A synthetic language teaching strategy is one in which the different parts of language are taught separately and step by step so that acquisition is a process of gradual accumulation of parts until the whole structure of language has been built up. Analytic syllabuses are organised in terms of the purposes for which people are learning language and the kinds of language performance that are necessary to meet those purposes.
   • Grammatical Syllabuses
     • The most common syllabus type was, and probably still is, one in which syllabus input is selected and graded according to grammatical notions of simplicity and complexity. The most rigid grammatical syllabuses supposedly introduced one item at a time and required mastery of that item before moving on to the next. The assumption behind most grammatical syllabuses seems to be that language consists of a finite set of rules which can be combined in various ways to make meaning.
   • Criticizing grammatical syllabuses
     • One early criticism was that structurally-graded syllabuses misrepresented the nature of that complex phenomenon, language. They did so in tending to focus on only one aspect oflanguage, that is, formal grammar. johnston argues that decisions on whether syllabuses should be sequenced or not can only be settled one way or another by more research into the relative effects of structurally-graded and non-structurally-graded syllabuses. Research by Pienemann and Johnston has led them to conclude that the acquisition of grammatical structures will be determined by how difficult those items are to process psycholinguistically, rather than how simple or complex they are grammatically, Thus the difficulty is created, not by the grammar, but by the constraints of short-term memory.
   • Functional-notional syllabuses
     • Functions may be described as the comunicative purposes for which we use language, while notions are the conceptual meanings (objects, entities, states of affairs, logical relationships, and so on) expressed through language.
   • Criticizing functional-notional syllabuses
     • The two central issues for the syllabus designer concern " the selection of items for the syllabus and the grading and sequencing of these items. Syllabus planners find that when turning from structurally-based syllabus design to the design of syllabuses based on functional-notional criteria, the selection and grading of items become much more complex. The designers need to include items which they imagine will help learners to carry out the communicative purposes for which they need the language. In order to determine what these purposes are, also necessary to carry out some form of needs analysis.
   • Analytic syllabuses
     • We consider functional-notional syllabuses as basically synthetic. Analytic syllabuses, in which learners are exposed to language which has not been linguistically graded, are more likely to result from the use of experiential rather than linguistic content as the starting point for syllabus design. Such content might be defined in terms of situations, topics, themes or other academic or school subjects. Hutchinson and Waters developed a model combining the four elements of content, input, language, and task. The task component is central, and from it are derived relevant language and content. The LANGUAGE and CONTENT focused on are drawn from the INPUT, and are selected primarily according to what the learner will need in order to do the TASK. In other words, in the TASK the linguistic knowledge arid topic knowledge that are built up through the unit are applied to the solving of a communication problem.

2. Process-oriented syllabuses

   • The planning, implementation, and evaluation of the curriculum.should be seen as an integrated set of processes. If such a view is adopted, it becomes unnecessary to think in terms either of a productoriented or a process-oriented approach. While relative emphases will vary depending on the context, environment, and purposes for which language teaching is taking place, both outcomes and processes will be specified.
   • Procedural syllabuses
     • Both task-based and procedural syllabuses share a concern with the classroom processes which stimulate learning. They therefore differ from syllabuses in which the focus is on the linguistic items that students will learn or the communicative skills that they will be able to display as a result of instruction. In both approaches, the syllabus consists in the specification af the tasks and activities that learners will engage in in class.
   • Task-based syllabuses
     • "Task is a piece of work undertaken for oneself or for others, freely or for some reward". Long offers the following procedure for developing a task-based syllabus, the steps in this process are as follows: 1 Conduct a needs analysis to obtain an inventory of target tasks. 2 Classify the target tasks into task types. 3 From the task types, derive pedagogical tasks. 4 Select and sequence the pedagogical tasks to form a task syllabus.
   • Content syllabuses
     • The content syllabus is yet another realization of the analytic approach to syllabus design. It differs from task-based syllabuses in that experiential content, which provides the point of departure for the syllabus, is usually derived from some fairly well-defined subject area. Mohan argues for content-based syllabuses on the grounds that they facilitate learning not merely through language but with language; develops a knowledge framework which can be used for organizing knowledge and learning activities. The knowledge framework consists of a specific, practical side and a general, theoretical side. The specific side is divided into description, sequence, and choice, while the general side is divided into classification, principles, and evaluation.