1

Curriculum and Syllabus

Curriculum (n)
1. Curriculum is an overall plan for a course or programme, as in the freshman
composition curriculum. Such a programme usually states;
a the educational purpose of the programme, in terms of aims or goals
b the content of the programme and the sequence in which it will be taught, (also known
as the syllabus)
c the teaching procedures and learning activities that will be employed (i.e.
methodology)
d the means used to assess student learning (i.e. assessment and testing)
e the means used to assess whether the programme has achieved its goals ( i.e.
evaluation)
2. Curriculum is the total programme of formal studies offered by a school or institution,
as in the secondary school curriculum
Curriculum Alignment n
The extent to which the different elements of the curriculum (goals, syllabus, teaching,
assessment) match. For example if a curriculum is organized communicatively, but
assessment procedures are based on grammatical criteria or if teaching materials in a
course did not reflect the objectives there would be a lack of curriculum alignment.
curriculum guide n
a written document describing the academic curriculum of a school and usually
containing a description of its teaching philosophy, its goals and objectives, and its
methods of teaching and assessment.
curriculum ideology n
The beliefs and values which provide the philosophical justification for educational
programmes and the kinds of aims they contain. An ideology represents a particular
point of view concerning the most important knowledge and value from the culture.
Common curriculum ideologies in language teaching are:

1 academic rationalism: the view that the curriculum should stress the intrinsic value of
the subject matter and its role in developing the learners intellect, humanistic values
and rationality. This justification is often used for justifying the teaching of classical
languages.
2 social and economic efficiency: the view that the curriculum should focus on the
practical needs of learners and society and the role of an educational programme in
producing learners who are economically productive. This is the commonest aim
associated with the teaching of
English.
3 learner-centredness: the view that the curriculum should address the individual needs
of learners, the role of individual experience, and the curriculum development need to
develop awareness, self-reflection, critical thinking, learner strategies and other qualities
and skills believed to be important for learners to develop.
4 social-reconstructionism : the view that schools and teaching should play a role in
addressing social injustices and inequality. Education is not seen as a neutral process,
and schools should engage teachers and learners in an examination of important social
issues and seek ways of resolving them. This is the ideology of critical pedagogy.
5 cultural pluralism: the view that schools should prepare students to participate in
several different cultures and not merely the culture of the dominant social and
economic group.

2. The Syllabus
There is a kind of disagreement over what a syllabus is. According to Nunan
(1988:5) syllabus design is approached in two different ways: a narrow traditional
one and a broad more recent view .The first approach considers syllabus and
methodology as two different things. Thus, syllabus is more a question of selecting
and grading the content [the what], whereas methodology implies the selection of
learning tasks and activities [the how].Richard and Rodgers (1986:21) came out
with the conclusion that traditionally the term syllabus has been used to refer to the
form in which linguistic content is specified in a course or method. In this line of
thought, a syllabus would serve the aim of selecting and grading items of language
providing accurate data on what is to be taught and what is to be learned by a given
group of learners in a given situation.
On the other hand, within the broad view, it seems quite difficult to cut a clear
line between syllabus and methodology. Nunan (1988:5) claims that those who
adopt a broader view question this strict separation, arguing that with the advent of
communicative language teaching the distinction between content and tasks is
difficult to sustain.
These two main stream thoughts gave birth to two differen t syllabus kinds:
the product and the process syllabuses. According to Nunan process is a series
of actions directed toward some end. While product is the end itself. []A list of
grammatical structures is a product. Classroom drilling undertaken by learners in
order to learn the structures is a process. The interaction of two speakers as they
communicate with each other is a process. A tape recording of their conversation is
a product.(ibid:12)

Syllabuses such as the structural (or grammatical) syllabus, the situational

syllabus and the notional (or functional-notional) syllabus are the result of
traditional considerations to syllabus design. All of them are product-oriented
syllabuses. These are syllabuses in which the focus is on the knowledge and skills
which learners should gain as a result of instruction (ibid:27)

2.1
Syllabus Design
Syllabus design is mainly a matter of selecting items to be learnt and their
gradation into an appropriate sequence.

There are many kinds of language

syllabuses, all of which can be used as a starting point in the planning of a

language course-book. Whatever type it is, however, writers and course designers
should bear in mind a number of elements while designing their material. When
they have an appropriate view of how their theories and conceptions of learning
might be translated into suitable activities they will have to decide about what
topics to include. This will turn around what the learners find engaging, what
research has found in this area, and the capacity for a good exploitation of the
topics they might choose. It will also be essential to think about the kind of
culture that the material will reflect, and to consider a sort of balance in terms of
the

representation

of

different

groups

in

society,

racial,

ethnic,

and

socioeconomic. Once these decisions have been taken, course book writers may
focus on the organization of their material, namely the syllabus.
As Nunan (1988:5) states it Syllabus design is mainly concerned with
the selection and grading of content. And According to Harmer(2001:295), every
type of syllabus needs to be developed on the basis of certain criteria, such as
learnability and frequency, which can inform decisions about selection and
ordering.
2.1.1 Syllabus Design Criteria
Harmer (2001) came out with the belief that when syllabus designers put
syllabuses together they have to think about each item for inclusion on the basis
of a number of criteria. The criteria he came out with are described in what comes
below.
2.1.1.1 Learnability

Some structural or lexical items are easier for students to learn than
others. Consequently, simpler language items are to be taught at first place then
increase the level of difficulty as the learners language level improves.
Learnability implies that, at beginner levels, it is simpler to deal with the uses of
was and were right after teaching is and are, rather than presenting the third
conditional after is and are.
2.1.1.2 Frequency
The inclusion of items which are more frequent in language, than
those which are occasionally used by native speakers seems to have more sense
especially at beginning level. The use of see to express vision is less used than
that which is equivalent with understand (eg. Oh, I see). It is, therefore, more
logic to teach that second meaning of see which is more frequent in use than the
first one.

2.1.1.3 Coverage
Some words and structures have greater coverage (scope for use)
than others. Thus it might be decided, on the basis of coverage, to introduce the
going to future before the present continuous with future reference, if it could be
shown that going to could be used in more situations than the present
continuous.
2.1.1.4 Usefulness
The reason that words like book and pen figure so highly in classroom
(in spite of the fact that they might not be used so frequently in real language
use) is due to their usefulness in that situation. Similarly, words dealing with
family members take place early on in a pupils learning life because they are
useful in the context of what pupils are linguistically able to talk about.
2.2
Types of Syllabuses
2.2.1
The Grammar Syllabus

Wilkins (1976) concludes that as language learning is very often

identified with acquiring mastery of its grammatical system, its not surprising
that most courses have a grammatical (or structural) pedagogic organization.
The grammatical notions within this organisation are most often taught according
to their simplicity and complexity. Nunan (1988, 28) mentions that grammatical
complexity is not to automatically be taken for the equivalent of learning
difficulty. In other words, what is grammatically complex will not naturally be that
which is difficult to learn, and that which is grammatically simple will not naturally
be that which is easy to learn. Nunan states that the most rigid grammatical
syllabuses were known to introduce one item at a time and asked for the mastery
of that item before shifting on to the following one. Mc. Donough states that the
transition from lesson to lesson is intended to enable material in one lesson to
prepare the ground for the next; and conversely for material in the next to appear
to grow out of the previous one. (Cited in Nunan, 1988)

2.2.2

The Lexical Syllabus

According to Michael Lewis (1997:3) language consists not of

traditional grammar and vocabulary but often of multi-word prefabricated

chunks. These are the lexical phrases, the collocations, idioms, fixed and semifixed phrases which form such an important part of the language. Lewis
suggests that fluency is the result of the acquisition of a large store of fixed
and semi-fixed prefabricated items which are available as the foundation for
any linguistic novelty or creativity (1997:15).
This concern about a part of the language, that, may be, was previously
less considered has had a real impact in fostering discussions about what
should learners learn. This lexical approach doesnt over-concentrate on syntax
(with vocabulary slotted into the grammar patterns), but favors the teaching of
phrases which show words in combination, and which are generative in a

different way from traditional grammar substitution tables. Thus, instead of

teaching will for the future, we might instead have students focus on its use in
a series of archetypical utterances (lewis1993:97), Ill get back to you as soon
as I can, Ill be back in a minute, Ill see what I can do, you will never get away
with it. (Coady and Hutckin,1997:259)
2.2.3
Functional-Notional Syllabuses
The view that philosophers of language and sociolinguists had on
language during the 1970s started to be broadly reflected in syllabuses and
course books and gave birth to what became known as functional-notional
syllabus design.
Many teachers, however, while first encountering such terms (function
and notion) get confused to what each of them means. As Nunan (1988)
explains functions can be described as the communicative purposes for which
we use the language whereas notions are the conceptual meanings []
expressed through language. Good examples of language functions that might
a syllabus embody are greeting, identifying, apologizing, inviting, declining
invitations, offering, advising, suggesting and many others, however, for
notions that a textbook may present for study are time, direction, equality,
cause, frequency, existence, duration and size.
2.2.4
The Situational Syllabus
A situational syllabus is often known as one in which the contents
are arranged according to the situations in which certain language is likely to
be employed. That is, the basic principle for the organization of the contents is
situation, instead of grammar items (Wilkins, 1976). A situational syllabus
makes it possible to select and sequence real-life situations rather than
introducing grammatical items, vocabulary topics, or functions. This kind of
syllabus looks something like this: At the bank- At the supermarket-At the
hotel- At the library-At the dentistetc.
2.2.5
The Topic-based Syllabus
A Topic-based syllabus is another way through which language could be
organized in the form of topics such as: the weather, sport, music, survival,
literature, and so on. This list may be expanded, so that the weather topic is
subdivided into items such as the weather changes, weather forecasting,
weather and mood, and the damage that the weather can cause.
2.2.6
The Learner Centered syllabus

The concept of learner autonomy has been widely discussed and generally
recognized as a goal to pursue in the field of education in recent decades (e.g.
Benson, 1996; Benson & Voller, 1997; Crabbe, 1993;Dickinson, 1992;
Dam,1995; Little,1991).It has lately been noticed that within many educational
contexts syllabus designers have tried to design syllabuses in such a way to
shift the learning responsibilities from teachers to learners. Considering the
priority of the learners needs; objectives such as raising learners awareness,
allowing them to take decisions, encouraging them to choose what to learn,
fostering self- evaluation, developing meta-cognitive learning strategies, were
basically put forward. Such an approach to language learning has proved to be
successful and beneficial for all pupils(Trebbi,1995 cited in Little et.
Al,2003:168) in many contexts and with many educators and language
researchers who have undertaken experimental studies with learners at
different studying levels, emigrant learners and even adult learners studying a
foreign language for specific purposes. Perhaps some of the most influential
figures who have undertaken field research in this area are (Dam,1995;Little
and

Dam,1998;

Little,

Ridley

and

Ushioda,

2002;Littlewood,1999;Benson,1996).These researchers do almost all consider the

learner as being in charge of his/her own learning, no teacher can guess what is best
for each learner, and no teacher can predefine the learning process and its outcomes.
Thus, learners have to learn how to develop awareness of their own learning.
According to Kelly Teachers cannot distribute knowledge but only the raw material for
knowledge construction[]teachers can also provide good situations which foster
social-interactive processes and provide individual learning space.(Cited in Little
2003:169)