EDU 402

SYLLABUS DESIGN
General statements about language
learning, learning purpose and
experience, evaluation, and the roles and
relationships of teachers and learners
Contains banks of learning items and
suggestions about how they might be
used in class

WHAT IS A CURRICULUM?
Expression of opinion on the nature of
language and learning
A guide for both teacher and learner by
providing some goals to be attained
Statement of what needs to be learnt to
reflect language and linguistic
performance
Approximation of what will be taught and
that it cannot accurately predict what will
be learnt

WHAT IS A SYLLABUS?
SYLLABUS – concerned with the selection
and grading of content
METHODOLOGY – selection of learning
tasks and activities

SYLLABUS vs METHODOLOGY
PRODUCT-ORIENTED – emphasizes the
product of language learning
Eg: structural approach, situational
approach, notional/functional approach
PROCESS ORIENTED – to enhance
communicative skills, focuses on the
specification of the learning task and
activities that she/he will undertake
Eg : procedural/task based approaches,
learner-led syllabus, proportional approach

TYPES OF EFL SYLLABUS

PRODUCT-ORIENTED SYLLABUS
PROCESS-ORIENTED SYLLABUSES
CRITICISMS :
Structurally graded syllabus misrepresent
the nature of language
There is more than grammar to language
No one-to-one relationship between form
and function
Tend to promote activities which serve to
internalize the formal properties of
language

PRODUCT-ORIENTED SYLLABUS –
structural approach
CRITICISMS :
Selection and grading of items become much
more complex
Items should reflect how learners carry out
the communicative purposes
Look beyond linguistic simplicity or
complexity
Misrepresents the nature of language as
communication
Promote activities that attempt to replicate in
class “real” communication

PRODUCT-ORIENTED SYLLABUS –
functional/notional approach
WIDDOWSON 1987:65
“…specification of a teaching programme
or pedagogic agenda which defines a
particular group of learners. Such
specification provides not only a
characterization of content, the
formalization in pedagogic terms of an
area of knowledge or behavior, but also
arranges this content as a succession of
interim objectives.”

SYLLABUS DESIGN AND

METHODOLOGY
Engage learners in problem solving tasks
as purposeful activities
Problem solving tasks would involve a
conscious and repeated reference to the
formal properties of the language
Language as a necessary resource for the
achievement of communicative outcomes

WHAT’S THE SOLUTION?