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Different Types of Syllabus. 02
Different Types of Syllabus. 02
Interventionist Non-interventionist
External to the learner Internal to the learner
Other directed Inner directed or self fulfilling
Determined by authority Negotiated by learners and teacher s
Teacher as decision maker Learner and teacher as joint decision
makers
Content= what the subject is to expert Content=what the subject is to learner
Content= a gift to the learner from the Content= what the learner brings and
teacher or knower wants
Objectives defined in advance Objectives described afterward
Subject emphasis Process emphasis
Assessment by achievement or mastery Assessment in relation to learner’s criteria
of success
Doing things to the learner Doing things for or with the learner
Synthetic Syllabus
Wilkins (1976) first drew attention to the distinction
between synthetic and analytic syllabuses.
“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. (Wilkins 1976)
Wilkins assumes that grammatical criteria will be used
to break the global language down into discrete units.
The items are graded according to the grammatical
complexity of the items, their frequency of occurrence,
their contrastive difficulty in relation to the learner’s L1,
situational need, and pedagogical convenience.
Synthetic Syllabus
Is grammar the only criterion for selecting and grading
content in a synthetic syllabus?
Initially, people tended to equate synthetic approaches with
grammatical syllabuses.
But some applied linguists feel its application to any syllabus
in which the content is product-oriented.
The content is a discrete list of grammatical items and in
which the classroom focus is on the teaching of these items
as separate and discrete.
Long and Crookes, “synthetic syllabuses rely on learner’s
(assumed) ability to learn a language in parts (e.g. structures
and functions) independently of one another, and also to
integrate, or synthesise, the pieces when the time comes to
use them for communicative purposes.
Synthetic Syllabus
The language learning process is seen as the steady
accumulation of linguistic rules and items, in the
ultimate direction of command of the second language.
It is assumed that the learner is able to learn language
in parts, and to integrate them when the time comes to
use them for communicative purposes.
Wilkins (1976) indicated that the learner’s role is “to re-
synthesise the language that has been broken down
into a large number of small pieces with the aim of
making his learning task easier”.
Synthetic approaches to syllabus design characterize
many traditional or conventional language courses and
textbooks.
Example of a Synthetic Syllabus
Present simple and position of time adverbs
Present continuous
Simple past tense Regular and irregular verbs
Mass and unit
Some, any, a few, a little
Past tense with ‘ago’ and questions with ‘how long ago?’
Adjectives and adverbs
Comparison of adverbs
Going to do
Requests and offers and take/get/bring/show someone
something
Present perfect with ‘for’ and ‘since’
Have been doing/have just done/haven’t done yet/had better do
Past continuous and past simple
Synthetic Syllabus
Synthetic syllabuses have been criticized for major
problems, which include:
(a) absence of needs analysis;
(b) linguistic grading;
(c) lack of support from language learning theory;
(d) ignorance of learners' role in language development;
(e) tendency to produce boring lessons, despite the best
efforts of highly skilled teachers and textbook writers;
(f) production of many more false beginners than
finishers
Analytic Syllabus
Wilkins defines analytic syllabus as:
“Analytic syllabuses are organized in terms of the
purposes for which people are learning language and the
kinds of language performance that are necessary to meet
those purposes”. (Wilkins 1975)
Here a chunk of language is presented to the learner in
the context of a meaning oriented lesson.
The starting point for syllabus design is not the
grammatical system, rather the communicative
purposes for which language is used.
Analytic Syllabus
The language and content are drawn from the input and
are selected and graded primarily according to what the
learners need to do the real world communicative task.
The content in the analytic syllabus is defined in terms of
situation, topics, items and other academic or school
subjects.
Analytic syllabi present the L2 in chunks, without
linguistic interference or control, and rely on the learner’s
ability to induce and infer language rules, as well as on
innate knowledge of linguistic universals.
Procedural, process and task syllabi are examples of the
analytic syllabus
Example of Analytic Syllabus
Unit 1:
Set 1 Identification
Set 2 Invitations
Unit 2:
Set 1 Description: People
Unit 3:
Set 1 Impatience
Regularity
Frequency
contrastive difficulty
social utility.
Grammatical or Structural Syllabus
Structures are not selected, but are merely ordered,
since all of the target-language structures must be
taught sooner or later.
Syllabus input is graded according to grammatical
notions of simplicity and complexity.
Grammatical or Structural Syllabus
Selection and sequencing of vocabulary in a structural
syllabus are done with the help of the following criteria
mentioned by Michael West (1953):
1. Frequency: the number of times the word appears in our use
of language.
2. Range: the number of texts/areas in which the item is found.
3. Availability: most appropriate and necessary for certain
situations.
4. Familiarity: most familiar words (family relationship,
household items, study words, etc.)
5. Coverage: the degree to which a word covers other words.
6. Learnability: easily learnable , contrastive difficulty.
Advantages of Grammatical Syllabus
Structures and vocabulary are the two most important
elements of a language.
There is teaching facility as there are available
materials, text books, etc.
Criticism against Grammatical or Structural Syllabus
Structurally-graded syllabuses misrepresented the nature
of that complex phenomenon, language.
Focus on only one aspect of language, i.e., formal grammar
and vocabulary.
In reality, there is more than one aspect and many other
things to regard to describe the dynamic term ‘language’.
SLA researchers state that grammatical grading of content
interferes with language acquisition which is more a global
than a linear process.
It is seen that in natural acquisition, different aspects of
grammar develop simultaneously rather than one aspect
being mastered at a time.
Criticism against Grammatical or Structural Syllabus
Form and meaning are assumed to be in one to one
relation and, therefore, functional aspect of meaning
is ignored.
Meaning of words and sentences is taught in isolation,
within a particular grammatical form, and not within
stretches of discourse.
No learner is in passive possession of language; it is
rather an extension of his personality, a facilitating set
of abilities which is used for a whole range of
unpredictable purposes.
Thank You !