COURSE PLANNING AND SYLLABUS

DESIGN
 THE COURSE RATIONALE
 It normally describes the beliefs, values and goals that underline the course. It
would be a two-or three paragraph statement in providing teaching and
learning that will take place in course.
 The rationale thus serves the purposes of:
1. Guiding the planning of the various components of the course
2. Emphasizing the kinds of teaching and learning the course should exemplify.
3. Providing check on the consistency of the various course components in
terms of the course values and goals. (Posner and Rudnitsky 1986)

Example of a course rationale:

“This course is designed for working adults who wish to improve their communication
skills n English in order to improve their employment prospects. It teaches the basic communication
skills needed to communicate in a variety of different work settings. This course seeks to enable
participants to recognize their strength and needs in language learning anf to give them the
confidence to use English more effectively to achieve their own goals. It also seeks to develop the
partcipants’ skills in independent learning outside of the classroom”.
DESCRIBING THE ENTRY AND EXIT LEVEL
 Language programs and commercial materials typically distinguish between
elementary, intermediate and advanced level, but these categories are too
board for the kind of detail planning.
 More detailed descriptions are gained from their result on international
proficiency tests such as TOEFL or IELTS. An approach that has been widely
used in language prgram planning is to identify different levels of performance
or proficiency in the form of band levels o points on a proficiency scale.
 It can describes what a student is able to do at different stages in a language
program.
CHOOSING COURSE CONTENT

 Decisions about course content reflect the planners’

assumptions about the nature of language, language
use, and language learning, what the most essential, and
how these can be organized as an efficient basis for
second language learning. (See on p.148-149)
DETERMINING THE SCOPE AND SEQUENCE

 Scope is concerned with the breadth and depth of coverage of items in

the course, that is, with the following questions:
1. What range of content will be covered
2. To what extend should each topic be studied
 Sequencing of content in the course involves decding which content is
needed early in the course and which provides a basis for things will
be learned later
 SEQUENCING MAY BE BASED ON THE FOLLOWING CRITERIA :
 Simple to complex: Ex : In reading course, simple skill such as “literal
comprehension” may be required early on, and more complex skills such as
“inferencing” taught at a later stage.
 Chronology: Ex: In Writing, (1) brainstorming, (2) drafting, (3) revising, (4)
editing. In proficiency course: (1) listening (2) speaking (3) reading (4) writing.
 Need : content may be sequenced according to when learners ae most likely to
need it outside of the classroom. (see on p.150)
 Prerequisite Learning: the sequence of content may reflect what is necessary at
one point as a foundation for the next step in the learning process.
 Whole a Part or Part to Whole: material at the beginning of a course may focus
on the overall structure or organization of a topic before considering the
individual components that make it up, or vice-versa.
 Spiral Sequencing: this approach involves the recycling of items to ensure that
learners have repeated opprotunities to learn them.
PLANNING THE COURSE STRUCTURE
 Two aspects in the process of planning the course, however, require more detailed
planning: selecting a syllabus framework and developing instructional blocks.
 Selecting a Syllabus Framework

A syllabus describes the major elements that will be used in planning a

language course and provides that basis for its instituional focus and content. The
syllabus could be:
1.Situational : organized around different situations and the oral skills needed in those
situations.
2.Topical: organized around different topics and how to talk about them in English
3.Functional: organized around the functions most commonly needed in Speaking
4.Task-based: organized around different tasks and activities that the learners would
carry out in English
IN DECIDING SYLLABUS FRAMEWORK,
PLANNERS ARE INFLUENCED BY THE
FOLLOWING FACTORS:

(1) KNOWLEDGE AND BELIEFS ABOUT THE SUBJECT

AREA.
(2) RESEARCH AND THEORY
(3) COMMON PRACTICE
(4) TRENDS.
OTHER APPROACHES TO SYLLABUS DESIGNS:
1.Grammatical syllabus : it organizes around grammatical items. In developing
a grammatical syllabus, the syllabus planners seek 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 that will allow for the
development of basic communicative skills.

Criticisms on Grammatical syllabus:

 They represent only a partial dimension of language proficiency
 They do not reflect the acquistion sequences seen in naturalistic SLA
 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
2.Lexical Syllabus: one that identifies a target
vocabulary to be taught normally arranged according
to levels such as:
1,000 words = Elementary level,
2,000 words = Intermediate levels,
+2,000 words = Upper Intermediate level,
++2,000 = Advanced level.
3. Functional Syllabus: one that is organized around communicative
functions such as requesting, complaining, suggesting, agreeing.
Advantages of Functional syllabus:
 They reflect a more comprehensive view of language that grammar syllabus and focus
on the use of the language.
 They can readily linked to other types of syllabus content.
 They provide convenient framework for the design of teaching materials, particularly
in the domains of listening and speaking.

Criticisms on functional syllabus:

 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.
 They often lead to a phrase-book approach to teaching that concentrates on teaching
expressions and idioms.
 Students learning from a functional course may have considerable gaps in their
grammatical competence because some important grmmatical structures are not
taught
4. Situational syllabus: 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. Ex: (1) on an
airplane (2) at an immigration counter (3) at a bank (4) on the telephon (5) on the
street, etc.

Criticisms on situational syllabus:

 Little is known about the language used in different situations.

 Language used in specific situations may not transfer to other situations.

 Situational syllabus often lead to phrase-book approach.

 Grammar is dealt with incidentally, so a situational syllabus may result in gaps

in a students’ grammatical knowledge.
5. Topical Syllabus : one that is organized around
themes, topics, or other units of content.

Advantages of topical syllabus:

 They facilitate comprehension
 Content makes linguistics form more meaningful
 Content serves as the best basis for teaching the skills
areas
 They address students’ needs
 They motivate learners
 They allow for intregation of the four skills
 They allow for use of authentic materials
(Brinton, Snow, and Wesche 1989; Mohan 1986)
6. Competency-based syllabus
 One based on a specification of the competencies learners are expected
to master in relation to specific situations and activities. Competencies
are a description of the essential skills, knowledge, and attitudes
required for effective performance of particular tasks and activities.
 Competency-based syllabus are widely used in social survival and work-
oriented language programs. Advantages and disadvantages are
discussed in Chapter 5.

7. Skills syllabus: one that is organized around the different underlying

abilities that are involved in using a language for purposes such as
reading, writing, listening and speaking.

Advantage: focus on performance in relation to specific tasks and therefore

provide a practical framework for designing courses and teaching materials
Disadvantages:
 There is no serious basis for determining skills
 They focus on discrete aspects of performance rather than on
developing more global and integrated communicatives abilites.
8. Text-based syllabus : one that is built around texts and samples of
extended discourse. Feez (1998, 85-86) states that a text-based
syllabus is a type of integrated syllabus because it combines elements
of different types of syllabus.
Advantages and disadvantages are explained briefly in page 164.

9. An Integrated Syllabus: the course planners need to decide

between macrolevel and microlevel planning units in the course. In
practical terms, therefore, all syllabus reflect some degree of
integration.
Krahkne (1987, 75) concludes: “…and a combination of task-based,
skill-based, situational, functional, and content instruction may be
chosen”.
DEVELOPING INSTRUCTIONAL BLOCKS

 An instructional block is a self-contained learning sequence that has its own

goals and objectives and that also reflects the overall objectives for the course.
 In organizing a course into teaching blocks one seeks to achieve the
folllowing:
1.To make the course more teachable and learnable
2.To provide a progression in level of difficulty
3.To create overall coherence and structure for the course
 Two commonly used instructional blocks are : (1) Modules, and (2) Units
PREPARING THE SCOPE AND SEQUENCE
PLAN
 Preparing the scope and sequence plan might
consist of a listing of the module or units and their
contents and an indication of how much teaching
time each block in the course will require.
 In the case of a textbook it usually consists of a
unit-by-unit description of the course cross-
referenced to the syllabus items included.
(Appendix 9)
 (THE ELT CURRICULUM : A FLEXIBLE MODEL FOR A
CHANGING WORLD)

Curriculum : A Definition

The term of curriculum is the nearest with the syllabus. A.V.Kelly makes a
strong case for understanding curriculum as ‘the overal rationale for the
educational programme of an institution’, and he defines curriculum must
include the following:

“the intention of the planners, the procedures adopted for the implementation
of those intentions, the actual experiences of the pupils resulting from the
teacher’s direct attempts to carry out their or the planner’s intentions, and the
“hidden learning” that occurs as a by-product of the organization of the
curriculum , and, indeed, of the school (Kelly, 1989, p.14)
RICHARDS, PLATT AND PLATT IN LONGMAN
DICTIONARY OF APPLIED LINGUISTICS (1992, P.94)
STATE THAT CURRICULUM IS AN EDUCATIONAL
PROGRAMME WHICH STATES:

a. The educational purposes of the programme (the ends)

b. The content, teaching procedures and learning experiences which
will be necessacry to achieve this purpose (the means)
c. Some means for assessing whether or not the edcational ends have
been achieved.
MODELS OF CURRICULUM PLANNING

1. The Content Model : Classical Humanism

 In the Classical Humanist tradition, the content is a valued cultural heritage,
the understanding of which contributes to the overall intellectual development
of the learner and agreed to be universal, unchanging and absolute.
 Kelly (1989, p 45-46) points out, the model is inadequate as the basis for
curriculum design because it is unable to cope with a discussion of the wider
purposes of education, and does not take into account the abilities problems of
the individual learner or the complexities of the learning process itself.
2. THE OBJECTIVES MODEL : RECONSTRUCTIONISM

 Reconstructionism has the main purpose of education is to bring about some

kind of social change. It lies in the movement for the scientific management of
education and the work of behavioural psychologists in the first half of 20th
century.
 It has three essential characteristics: (1) they must inambiguously describe the
behaviour to be performed (2) they must describe the conditions under which
the performance will be expected to occur, (3) they must state a standart of
acceptable performance (the criterion).
 The attraction of the model is that it provides: (1) Clarity of goals (2) Ease of
evaluation, (3) Accountability.
 Kelly (1989) states that the fundamental criticism is that philosophically it
reduces people to the level of automatons who can be trained to behave in
particular ways and precludes such concepts as autonomy, self-fulfilment and
personal development.
3. THE PROCESS MODEL : PROGRESSIVISM
 The purpose of education from the point of view of the process model is to
enable the individual to progress towards self-fulfilment. It is concerned with
the development of understanding.
 The analyses by Clark and White show that language teaching has not been
entirely isolated from the educational mainstream, but has been influenced by
philosophical trends and broad educatioanal development.
 For the ELT curriculu designer in the 1990s, informed by research in first and
SLA, there is a need for a frameworkof curriculum design which allows
flexibility but gives a clear direction in which to move.
THE “NEW PRAGMATISM” : A MIXED-FOCUS CURRICULUM

In the opinion of Dubi and Olshtain (1986, p.68), three areas are central to the
concept of a communicative curriculum “ a view of the nature of language as
seen by the field of…sociolinguistics: a cognitively based view of language
learning; and a humanistic approach in education”

1. Curriculum Policy

It has the role in a curriculum design document that is for a juggler, keeping aloft
the “balls” representing the needs of the learners, the needs of institution or
planning committee, the needs, possibly, the society, or at least specific interest
groups within society, and also the neeeds of the teachers nd administrators, the
implementers of the curriculum.
2. NEED ANALYSIS
Need analysis is now seen as the logical strating point for the
development of a language program which is responsive to the
learner ad learning needs.
There are two orientations as suggested by Brindley (1989, p.64):

 A narrow: product-oriented view of needs which focuses on the

language necessary for particular future purposes and is carried
out by the ‘experts’
 A broad: process-oriented view of needs which takes into account
factors such as learner motivation and learning styles as well as
learner-defined target language.
 3. SYLLABUS DESIGN
 One of the most widely used syllabus models is one that integrates aspect of all
three, a variable focus (Allen, 1984) or propotional (Yalden, 1987).
 The three principles in syllabus design according to Yalden are :
1. A view of how language is learned, which would result in a process-based syllabus
2. A view of how language is acquired, which would result in a structure-based
syllabus
3. A view of how language is used, which would result in a function-based syllabus.
 Allen’s three components in the variable focus syllabus which includes all levels,
all the time, but the emphasis changes at different stages of learning:

Structure/Function Function/Skills Task/Theme

Great emphasis on structure Targetting specific functions. Remedial structural work.
and functions introduction of Application through task-based Taks-based syllabus, focus on
learning strategies & and problem solving activities learning processes and
techniques strategies to encourage creative
language use
Elementary levels Pre-intermediate levels Intermediate and above
4. METHODOLOGY
Teacher must be reflective, analytic and creative, open to new methods
and ideas, the aim of teacher-training courses must be developed teachers who are
researchers, not just technicians, and deliverers of the syllabus.
In this way, teaching methodology can reflect curriculum goals, and
teachers’ experiences in turn contribute to the process of curriculum renewal.
5. EVALUATION
 Evaluation must take place at all stages of curriculum planning and
inplementation, and invlove all participants.
 The primary purpose of evaluation is to determine whether or no the
curriculum goals have been met based on the assessment of the participants in
the programme.
 Another purpose is to determine the effectiveness of the curriculum and to
evaluate the language program itself, which will focus on the teachers, the
methodology, the materials and so on.
 CONCLUSION
I. This discussion emphasis on the importance of major types of curriculum models :
Content, objectives and process; the reality is likely to be a blend of all three.
Certainly, it is the mixed-focus product and process models which best fits the
author’s experience of the curriculum.

II. Curriculum development in ELT is that there is a need for flexibility and openness
to change and influences from the broader prespectives of general educational
theory.

III. Richard’s (1984, p.25) concludes that: “ The language teaching profession has yet
to embrace curriculum development as an overall approaach to the planning of
teaching and learning. Our profession has evolved a considerable body of
educational techniques, but little in the way of an integrated and systematic
approach to language curriculum process. Such an approach may be crucial,
however, of we are to develop a more rigorous basis for our educational
practices”.