Course Design

In course design you need to distinguish between relevant and useless information. This is
exactly the role of course designer. Teachers are able to pick up data in its raw state and
effectively interpret it to construct a unique sequence of learning experience, where the
student is gradually introduced to new concepts and ideas to lead them towards the goals
established beforehand by the teacher. General English course design differs from Business
English course design, as GE puts more emphasis on courses in relation to literature,
linguistics and culture. Students, who are more interested in Business English need to be
aware that greater focus is put on the value of language in business communication.
Hutchinson and Waters were able to distinguish three types of ESP course design, labeling
them as skills-centered course design, language-centered course design and learning-centered
course design (Hutchinson & Waters, 1987).

Evaluation

The practice of evaluation is no anomaly in terms of being an unconscious act in our common
daily routine. In the process of language training, evaluation is crucial as it acts in the form of
feedback for students and it serves as an evaluation of the seminar (Dudley-Evans & St.
John,1998).

Nunan and Lumb (1996) appeal that, “Monitoring and evaluation are essential parts of
everyday life. We monitor ourselves and others as we carry out the many tasks of everyday
life-shopping, riding the subway to work, looking after our kids in the park, watching
television and so on.”.From a pedagogical point of view, evaluation and testing should not be
viewed as the same concepts, as testing is merely apart of evaluation, and evaluation is
directly connected to the learning environment (Rea-Dickinsand Germaine,1992).

Evaluation should be executed by the ESP or GE trainersand not byany other experts in this
field of expertise, as teachers are aware of attributes assigned to each individual student.
Additionally,the trainer recognizes complications in the classroom environment and can
successfully applyanappropriate type of evaluation according to the required situation. The
traineris regularly involved in various formsof evaluation. Nonetheless ESP is restricted to
only two forms of evaluation (Bojovic, 2006). The first isstudents’ evaluation. In any given
language program teacher is compelled to determine student’sefficiency at strategic point, for
instance,at start of the course or by its end.

The ESP practitionermostly uses placement, achievement and proficiency tests.Placement

tests determine,if the pupils have fundamental vocabulary and set of skills in order to
efficiently operate in the classroom. It is conducted before the ESP program begins. As a
result,learners can be placed in the ESP courseor in a levelmost suited to their requirements
and needs. The placement test serves asa diagnostictoolto illustrate aspects that learnersshould
work on to reach expected proficiency levels. Nonetheless competent placement tests, should
not focus only on negative factors.

Achievement test reflects the nature and the content of the course. Testscan be conducted at
any given time throughout the duration of the course. The teacher is able to assess what
student has learnt over specific period of time. In order for achievement test to meaningful,
itshould not be biased and the ESP practitioner should test aspects of the language previously
coveredin the lecture. Finally,proficiency tests arecarried outto estimate if learner will be able
to carry out language assignments demanded from them.Students'language skills will be
measured according to certain criteria essential toachieve proficiency in specific task.As a
result,proficiency tests areclassified as acriterion-referencedexamination. The second form
isassessing the program and supplementary material in order to estimate their usefulness with
relation to the learners needs.

There are many ways to evaluate the effectiveness of anESP course,ranging from test results
to questionnaires. Students are not always the best avenue for acquiringunbiased feedback, as
many might fear to express their true feelings regarding the program or criticize the
authority.It is difficult to assess frequency of performing acourse evaluation, as conducting it
too often or too rarely can be equally devastating. Every single ESP practitioner should asses
how often a course evaluation should be conducted based on hisor her own needs.In order to
allow ESP community to grow, it is fundamental thatESPusers comprehend what ESPtruly
stands for, and acknowledge the numerous functions that ESP practitionersare required to
perform in order to guarantee its progress. These actions will ensure the attraction of new
potential learnersand will not aggravate the position ESP holds in English teachingtoday.

Needs Analysis
A needs analysis represents a form of assessing particular linguistic needs of the trainee or
group of them. It has not been considered as a research area until the early 1970s, as its
importance grew gradually along with expansion of the communicative approach. Shortly
after, needs analysis theory experienced a series of continuous developments, mainly due to
the work performed by Richterich (1972) and Munby (1978). Supporters of the
communicative approach quarreled over the choice of the didactical evidence, as it should
have been dependent on systematic investigation of the trainees ́ demand from the target
language.

"Needs are those skills which a learner perceives as being relevant to him; wants are a subset
of needs, those which a learner puts at a high priority given the time available; and the lack is
the difference a learner perceives between his present competence in a particular skill and the
competence he wishes to achieve‟(Dickinson, 1991). A needs analysis must be efficient,
safeand practical. It can be performed through three different acts: planning, collecting data
and putting information into the analysis.

When performing a need analysis, the ESP practitioner can pick out numerous strategies,
butneeds to keepin mind that every procedure affects the type of the information obtained
(Richards, 2002). Schutz and Derwing (1981), introduced eight detailed stages to perform a
needs assessment. These stages are:

Determiningifthe goal is directly related to establishing the purpose of the study specifically
in order to determine appropriate outcome.

2) By setting the limits on the target population, the researcher is able to specify the target
population of the investigation in order to carry out more pragmatic decisions regarding costs,
place and length of the project.

3) Delimiting the framework of examination involves outlining the limitations of the research
mainly to increase its potency.

4) Choosing thedata collecting device includes picking out proper information

gatheringinstruments. Deciding the data collecting device relies upon the environment, range
and goals of the research.

5) Gathering evidence consists of compiling the necessary information via the data collecting
device that will be used in this process. Distinctive kinds of data collecting device, like
distributing surveys, performing personalinterviews, or conducting observations depend upon
a different type of approach and subsequently changing the upcoming stages.

6) Evaluating the data, the analyst can use numerous aids in the form of computer-assisted
investigation methods or simply based on his own observations and calculations. Applying
computer-assisted investigation methods to interpret the data is more practical as it
significantly decreases time and the amount of work, in contrast with observations and
personal calculation that demand lengthened contact with the target contexts and qualitative
analysis of the outcome.

7) By deciphering the outcome, the analyst interprets the data developed from the technique
of information analysis. Afterwards, the analyst seeks to deduce suggestions regarding the
learners' language requirements by using the product of data investigation.

8) Lastly, the criticism of the research portion involves writing down recommendations for
additional studies and clarifyingthe drawbacks of the research

Curriculum

A curriculum,as stated by Hutchinson and Waters (1987),is not required to representa central
figure in the teaching process.Nonetheless it might serve as an aid to satisfy a collection of
needs. To use a curriculum in the most effective manner, the user needs to be mindful of
various actions a syllabus is able to perform in the complex learning and teaching mechanism.
Hutchinson and Waters continue to imply countless reasons for application of a syllabus by
trainers. They focus on the complexity of the anguage and how improbable it is to master a
new language in merely one sitting. Todecrease the time and effort, language should be
divided into more convenient entities.

Furthermore, a well-establishedcurriculum allows a student to raise his confidence to

accomplish course goals. The pupil is presented with a precise plan of action ofhow he should
operate to increase his learning efficiency andwhere it will lead him. He is merely obligedto
follow it. At the same time, the trainer and trainee are immediately able to assess if the time
invested to organize the program could be used more efficiently on different activities and is
not merely a waste of time.
The lecturerwho iswritinga curriculum is able to personalize to reflect his personal view on
the nature of the language and learning process. Through the course of writing a curriculum,
the trainer sets up principles for choice of materials, features in the exercises to focus on and
supplementary texts students should use. Kausar (2009) identifies several features that any
syllabus shouldcontain. Primarily an explicit structure of how knowledge is delivered anda
basic set of skills required to accomplish the general objectivesof theprogram. Secondly,
consistand clear directions given to the lecturer and students of how to work in the lecture
room.Thirdly, a viable basis for assessing a trainee's development in a specific field of the
language. Fourthly, a reliable foundation to evaluate correctness of the method of teaching
comparing it directly with the general goals of the course and students specific needs.

syllabus

A syllabus can be interpreted as “a document which says whatwill be learnt” (Hutchinson

&Waters, 1987). Nevertheless,this kind of explanation seems simple and manylinguists would
rather accept the definition presented by Hyland, “a plan of what is to be achieved through
teaching and learning, identifying what will be worked on in reaching the overall course aims
and providing a basis for evaluating students’ progress” (Hyland, 2006). On the other
hand,this specific attitude drastically shifts power over the course to the syllabus.

A complete syllabus specification will include all five aspects : structure, function, situation,
topic, skills. The difference between syllabuses will lie in the priority given to each of these
aspects.

Eclecticism is a common feature of the majority of course books under the communicative
banner currently on offer. Attempting to combine the various aspects of language has also
been addressed by Hutchinson and Waters who state:

Any teaching material must, in reality, operate several syllabuses at the same time. One of
them will probably be used as the principal organizing feature, but the others are still there
(op.cit.:89).

Type pf Syllabus
Types of Syllabus (Reilley)

Although six different types of language teaching syllabi are treated here as though each
occurred “purely,” in practice, these types rarely occur independently of each other. Almost
all actual language-teaching syllabi are combination of two or more of the types. The
characteristics, differences, strengths, and weaknesses of individual syllabi are defined as
follows:

Structural (formal) Syllabus

 The content of language teaching is a collection of the forms and structures, usually
grammatical, of the language being taught.
 Examples include nouns, verbs, adjectives, statements, questions, subordinate clauses,
and so on.

2. A notional/ functional syllabus

 The content of the language teaching is a collection of the functions that are performed
when language is used, or of the notions that a language is used to express
 Examples of the functions includes: informing, agreeing, apologizing, requesting;
examples of notions includes age, size, color, comparison, time, and so on.

3. Situational syllabus

 The content of the language teaching is a collection of real or imaginary situations in

which language occurs or is used. A situation usually involves several participants
who are engaged in some activity in a specific meeting.
 The language occurring in the situation involves a number of functions, combined into
plausible segment of discourse.
 The primary purpose of a situational language-teaching syllabus is to teach the
language that occurs in the situations.
  Examples of the situations include: seeing the dentist, complaining to the landlord,
buying a book at the bookstore, meeting a new student, and so on.

4. A skill-based syllabus

 The content of the language teaching is a collection of specific abilities that may play
a part using language.
 Skills are things that people must be able to do to be competent in a language,
relatively independently of the situation or setting in which the language use can
occur. While the situational syllabi group functions together into specific settings of
the language use, skill-based syllabi group linguistic competencies (pronunciation,
vocabulary, grammar, and discourse) together into generalized types of behavior, such
as listening to spoken language for the main idea, writing well-formed paragraphs,
giving effective oral presentations, and so on.
 The primary purpose of the skill-based instructions is to learn the specific language
skill.
 A possible secondary purpose is to develop more general competence in the language,
learning only incidentally any information that may be available while applying the
language skills.

5. A task-based syllabus

 The content of the teaching is a series of complex and purposeful tasks that the student
wants or need to perform with the language they are learning.
 The tasks are defined as activities with a purpose other than language learning, but, as
in the content-based syllabus, the performance of the tasks is approached in a way
intended to develop second language ability.
 Tasks integrate language (and other) skills in specific settings of the language.
 Task-based teaching differs from situation-based teaching in that while situational
teaching has the goal of teaching the specific language content that occurs in the
situation (pre-defined products), task-based teaching has the goal of teaching students
 to draw on resources to complete some piece of work (a process). The students draw
on a variety of language forms, functions, and skills often in an individual and
unpredictable way, in completing the tasks.
 Tasks can be used for language learning are, generally, tasks that the learners actually
have to perform in any case. Examples include: Applying for a job, talking with a
social worker, getting housing information over the telephone, and so on.

6. A content-based syllabus

 The primary purpose of the instruction is to teach some content or information using
the language that the students are also learning.
 The students are simultaneously language students and students of whatever content is
being taught.
 The subject matter is primary, and the language learning occurs incidentally to the
content learning. The content teaching is not organized around the language teaching,
but vice-versa.
 Content-based language teaching is concerned with information, while task-based
language teaching is concerned with communicative and cognitive processes.
 An example of content-based language teaching is a science class taught in the
language the students need or want to learn, possibly with linguistic adjustment to
make the science more comprehensible.

Teaching Material

Allwright says, “Materials should teach students to learn, that they should be resource books
for ideas and activities for instruction/learning, and that they should give teachers rationales
for what they do”xi. Learners are oriented towards the instruction and learning. Any syllabus
or curriculum has the goals of learning, the methods of learning, etc and teachers help the
earners to learn. Teachers are required to follow the curriculum and provide a better platform
to understand the curriculum with the help of materials. Teachers may adapt, supplement, and
elaborate the materials to disseminate the content to the students and they need to monitor the
progress of the students and finally evaluate the students. Teachers and students rely on
materials to comprehend the content, and the materials become the centre of education.
Therefore, it is important for the teachers to know the correct methods, to choose the best
material for instruction and they should also know how to make supplementary materials for
the class, and how to adapt materials.

Littlejohn and Windeatt says, “Materials have a hidden curriculum that includes attitudes
toward knowledge, attitudes toward teaching and learning, attitudes toward the role and
relationship of the teacher and student, and values and attitudes related to gender, society,
etc.”vi Materials have a basic instructional viewpoint, approach, method, and content,
including which provide linguistic and cultural information.

As Jolly and Bolitho say, “Materials should also be contextualised to the experiences,
realities and first languages of the learners. An important part of this involves awareness on
the part of the teacher-designer of the “socio-cultural appropriacy” of things such as the
designer’s own style of presenting material, of arranging groups, and so on.”vii So, It is
required to inform about the culture-specific learning processes of the proposed learners.
Materials should be interlinked by which learner can acquaint him with the materials. The
materials should be based on the experiences and realities which should be related to the
topics and it should be appropriate for the desired learner to make sure of their involvement.

Evaluation

Different authors have different notions of educational evaluation. These sometimes

dissimilar views are due to the varied training and background of the writers in terms of their
profession, concerned with different aspects of the education process. Perhaps the most
extended definition of evaluation has been supplied by C.E.Beeby (1977). who described
evaluatiqn as "the systematic collection and interpretation.

Haviqg defined evaluation, 'let us turn ow attention to the basic features that should
characterisea 'good' evaluation. Evaluationshould, ideally,bevalid, reliable, practicable, fair
and useful. Let us now discuss these one by one.

Validity
 Wethe seecombustim that validity related example,of a simple carbon problems science
question in an adequate supply are common weakness given toofschool oxygen') produces a
ofchildren many of('Name the widely much higher the used products test number of correct
answers when the world combustion is replace 'burning'. This shows that the original question
has problems of validity because it is to some extent, testing language and vocabulary skills
other than the basic science involved.

Reliability

The reliability is a measure of the consistancy with which the question, test or examination
produces the same result under different but comparable conditions. A reliable evaluation
! item gives reproduciable scores with similarpopulations of students. It is, therefore,
independent of the characteristicsof individualevaluators. This is often difficult o achievein
practice.
It is obviously important to have reasonable reliable evaluation prodedures when a large
number of individual evaluatorassess the samequestion (e.g. in CentralBoard Examination).

Practicability

Evaluati~nprocedure should be realistic, practical and efficient in t e r n of their cost, time

taken and ease of application. It may be an ideal procedure of evaluationbut may not be put
into practice. Thisis not to be encouraged. For example,in practical examinationof students,
it may be convenientto assign different experimentsinstead of assigning one experiment to
all students. By doing this, the problem of having various s e m f apparatus for conducting
one experiment can be avoided, but this may not be practicable.

Fairness
Evaluathn must be fair to all students. This can be possible by accurate reflecting of range
of expeuted behaviours as desired by the course objectives. To keep fairness in evaluation,
it is also desired that students should know exactly how they are to be evaluated. This means
that students shouldbe provided information about evaluation such as nature of the materials
on which they areto be examined (i.e., Context and Objectives), the form and structure of the
examination, length ofthe examination and the value (in terms of marks) of each component
of the course.

Uwfdness
Evaluation should also be use for students. Feedback from evaluation must be made
available to the students and help them to prove their current strengths and weaknesses. By
knowingtheir strengthand weakness, students can think of furtherimprovement.Evaluation
should duggest allthe needful requirementsfor their improvement.The requirements may be
in t e r n of improvement in the content to be taught, teaching methods and styleoflearning.
Hence, evaluation is very usefhl in diagnoising weakness and remedying them
Conclusion

learly, there is a vast amount of material to disseminate when considering syllabus design.
The numerous approaches touched on here all offer valuable insights into creating a language
program. The synthetic approaches of structuralism, situational and functional-notional, all
have objectives to be attained, a content to be processed and learnt. The foundations of the
product syllabuses remain fundamentally similar, whereas the underlying assumptions about
language and language learning from the analytic approaches differ greatly: process type
syllabuses assert that learning a language is transient and cannot be itemized ; pedagogical
procedure takes precedence over content.

If our assumptions about the nature of linguistics and language learning is one of "language as
communication" (Richards and Rodgers 1986:69) then a syllabus based around activities and
tasks which promote real and meaningful communication will seem advantageous. We have
shown that the false beginner in Japan will have learned structural rules to a surprisingly
complex degree, yet may find it difficult to use, or indeed, may never have had an opportunity
to use the language learned. Consequently, the belief that learning is facilitated by activities
that include real communication, may be the most suitable belief to adopt in the Japanese
classroom.

Further points to consider when critically reviewing a syllabus are the objectives of the course
as well as the needs of the learners. Ultimately, and perhaps ideally, a hybrid syllabus will
result purely due to pragmatic reasons. As Hutchinson and Waters (1987:51) suggest:

It is wise to take an eclectic approach, taking what is useful from each theory and trusting also
in the evidence of your own experience as a teacher.

Thus, to what extent has an integration of the various approaches taken place? Does the
syllabus specification include all aspects? If yes, how is priority established? These questions
must also form part of the criteria when designing or a
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