Course design and syllabus

Editor's Notes

• #3: Have you ever designed a course for English language learners? Did you design it from scratch, or you reworked someone else’s course? Can you recall of some of the steps in the process of course design? What did you have to take into consideration, when you designed your course? What were your challenges?
• #12: A number of different syllabuses foreign language teaching. A list of these is available here, but it not exhaustive.
• #13: A grammatical syllabus is based on the structures of a language. Grammatical (or structural) syllabus: one that is organized around grammatical items. ExampleA grammatical syllabus may start with the present simple, then the present continuous, then the past simple, and so on. Learners are not usually exposed to more difficult structures before they have mastered simpler ones. Dates back to the grammar-translation method. Traditionally, grammatical syllabuses have been used as the basis for planning general courses, particularly for beginning-level learners. In developing a grammatical syllabus, the syllabus planner seeks to solve the following problems: to select sufficient patterns to support the amount of teaching time available to arrange items into a sequence that facilitates learning to identify a productive range of grammatical items Grammatical syllabuses have been criticized on the following grounds: They represent only a partial dimension of language proficiency. They do not reflect the acquisition processes. They focus on the sentence rather than on longer units of discourse. They focus on form rather than meaning. They do not address communicative skills. Learners learn grammatical structures in a sequence that reflects their complexity, rather than their use in communication, leading to many artificial contexts for practice, and perhaps an inability to transfer learning to real communication. These objections are true for traditional grammar-based courses and few language courses today are planned solely around grammatical criteria. Indeed, it is doubtful if they ever were. However, grammar remains a core component of many language courses. There are several reasons for this: Teaching a language through its grammar represents a familiar approach to teaching for many people. In many parts of the world, teachers and students expect to see a grammar strand in a course and react negatively to its absence. Grammar provides a convenient framework for a course: grammar can readily be linked to other strands of a syllabus, such as functions, topics or situations. Grammar represents a core component of language proficiency: communicative competence includes the ability to use grammar and therefore deserves a place in the curriculum. Grammatical syllabuses thus continue to be widely used in language teaching. In the classroomTeachers may find it useful to blend a grammatical syllabus with other elements. For example, it may be suitable to teach verb times explicitly but structures such as the use of ‘would' in requests and advice in a functional framework instead.
• #14: One that identifies a target vocabulary to be taught normally arranged according to levels such as the first 500, 1,000, 1,500, 2,000 words. Vocabulary syllabuses were among the first types of syllabuses to be developed in language teaching. Today there is a large degree of consensus in English-language teaching concerning targets for vocabulary teaching at different levels and textbook and materials writers tend to keep materials within target vocabulary bands. Typical vocabulary targets for a general English course are: Elementary level: 1.000 words Intermediate level: an additional 2,000 words Upper Intermediate level: an additional 2,000 words Advanced level: an additional 2,000+ words Because vocabulary is involved in the presentation of any type of language content, a lexical syllabus can only be considered as one strand of a more comprehensive syllabus.
• #15: Functional syllabus A functional syllabus is one where the course content is comprised of functions, such as the ones mentioned by Wilkins and White (1988, p.75) Main assumption: mastery of individual functions will result in overall communicative ability. A function is some kind of communicative act: it is the use of language to achieve a purpose, usually involving interaction at least between two people. Examples would be suggesting, promising, apologizing, greeting, inviting, requesting, complaining, suggesting, agreeing etc. Because they often focus on communication skills, functional syllabuses are particularly suited to the organization of courses in spoken English. Functional syllabuses have proved very popular as a basis for organizing courses and materials for the following reasons: They reflect a more comprehensive view of language than grammar syllabuses and focus on the use of the language rather than linguistic form. They can readily be linked to other types of syllabus content (e.g., topics, grammar, vocabulary). They provide a convenient framework for the design of teaching materials, particularly in the domains of listening and speaking. Functional syllabuses have also been criticized for the following reasons: There are no clear criteria for selecting or grading functions. They represent a simplistic view of communicative competence and fail to address the processes of communication. They represent an atomistic approach to language, one that assumes that language ability can be broken down into discrete components that can he taught separately. They often lead to a phrase-book approach to teaching that concentrates on teaching expressions and idioms used for different functions. Students learning from a functional course may have considerable gaps in their grammatical competence because some important grammatical structures may not be elicited by the functions that are taught in the syllabus.
• #16: One that is organized around the language needed for different situations such as at the airport or at a hotel. A situation is a setting in which particular communicative acts typically occur. A situational syllabus identifies the situations in which the learner will use the language and the typical communicative acts and language used in that setting. Situational syllabuses have been a familiar feature of language teaching textbooks for centuries and are often used in travel books and books that focus on mastering expressions frequently encountered in particular situations. Situational syllabuses have the advantage of presenting language in context and teaching language of immediate practical use. However, they are also subject to the following criticisms: Little is known about the language used in different situations, so selection of teaching items is typically based on intuition Language used in specific situations may not transfer to other situations. Situational syllabuses often lead to a phrase-book approach. Grammar is dealt with incidentally, so a situational syllabus may result in gaps in a student's grammatical knowledge.  
• #17: It is rather like situational syllabus, only the headings are broadly topic-based, including things like food, the family, travelling, jobs etc. Also often found in the courses where teachers teach subjects (like Science, History, Geography) via the English Language - CLIL All language courses, no matter what kind of syllabus they are based on, must include some form of content. In a typical lesson in a grammar-based course, for example, a structure is selected and then content is chosen to show how the item is used and to provide a context for practicing the structure. In a topic-based syllabus, in contrast, content provides the vehicle for the presentation of language rather than the other way around. You study family – and then you study articles and the verb to be. You study Food – and the grammar of countable/uncountable nouns and articles is introduced. Claims made for the advantages of courses based on content-based syllabuses are: They facilitate comprehension Content makes linguistic form more meaningful. Content serves as the best basis for teaching the skill areas. They address student needs. They motivate learners. They allow for integration of the four skills. They allow for use of authentic materials. Issues that arise in developing a topic-based syllabus are: How are themes, topics, and content decided on? What is the balance between content and grammar or other strands in the syllabus? Are ESL teachers qualified to teach content-based courses? What should be the basis for assessment — learning of content or learning of language?
• #18: One that is organized around the different underlying abilities that are involved in using a language for purposes such as reading, writing, listening, or speaking. Approaching a language through skills is based on the belief that learning involves mastery of a number of individual skills or microskills that together make up the activity. (On the slide – Inside track to successful academic writing, Pearson, 2009) Examples of skills that relate to different types of language use are: writing: creating a topic sentence, distinguishing between main ideas and supporting sentences, self-editing listening: recognizing key information, using discourse markers to identify the flow of discourse following rapid speech speaking: recognizing turn-taking signals, introducing a topic, using communication strategies reading: reading for gist, guessing words from context, reading and making inferences Claims made in support of skills-based syllabuses are: They focus on behavior or performance. They teach skills that can transfer to many other situations. They identify teachable and learnable units. Skills-based syllabuses have the advantage of focusing on performance in relation to specific tasks and therefore provide a practical framework for designing courses and teaching materials. They may be more relevant to situations in which students have very specific and identifiable needs (such as preparing for university-level studies in English). Skills syllabuses have been criticized, however, on the following grounds: There is no serious basis for determining skills. They focus on discrete aspects of performance rather than on developing more global and integrated communicative abilities.  
• #19: One that is organized around tasks that students will complete in the target language. A task is an activity or goal that is carried out using language such as finding a solution to a puzzle, reading a map dad giving directions, or reading a set of instructions and assembling a toy. Tasks are activities which have meaning as their primary focus. All teaching makes use of tasks of different kinds. A task-based syllabus, however, is one based on tasks that have been specially designed to facilitate second language learning and one in which tasks or activities are the basic units of syllabus design. While carrying out these tasks, learners are said to receive comprehensible input and modified output, processes believed central to second language acquisition. The basic claims made for a task-based syllabus are: Tasks are activities that drive the second language acquisition process. Grammar teaching is not central with this approach because learners will acquire grammar as a by-product of carrying out tasks. Tasks are motivating for learners and engage them in meaningful communication. Two kinds of tasks have been proposed as a basis for syllabus design: pedagogical tasks and real-world tasks. Although the notion of task appears useful as a component of methodology, it has yet to be widely adopted as a unit of syllabus design.
• #20: Decisions about a suitable syllabus framework for a course reflect different priorities in teaching rather than absolute choices. In most courses there will generally be a number of different syllabus strands, such as grammar linked to skills and texts, tasks linked to topics and functions, or skills linked to topics and texts. In arriving at a decision about which approach to syllabus planning to take, the course planners need to decide between macrolevel and microlevel planning units in the course. For example, a reading course might first be planned in terms of reading skills (the macrolevel planning category) and then further planned in terms of text types, vocabulary, and grammar (the microlevel planning category). A syllabus might be organized grammatically at the first level and then the grammar presented functionally. Or the first level of organization might be functional with grammar items selected according to the grammatical demands of different functions. In practical terms, therefore, all syllabuses reflect some degree of integration. For almost all instructional programs, it is clear that some combination of types of instructional content will be needed to address the complex goals of the program.