ENGLISH FOR SPECIFIC

PURPOSES
(ENGL 222)
REPORTERS: JANNETH S. ESTEBES
& R AY M U N D A . R O B L E S
SYLLABUS
MAKING

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 SYLLABUS
A syllabus is a brief introduction to an
educational course and is commonly used at
the grade-school, secondary, and post-
secondary levels. It serves as a reference to
students concerning course procedures,
content, and more.
However, writing a syllabus is a
bit more complicated than it might
seem. Not only do you need to
include basic information, but you
may need to include descriptions,
disclaimers, and policies unique to
your institution. Fortunately,
despite these challenges, with a
little bit of time and some
information, you’ll be able to write
a great syllabus for whatever
educational level you teach.
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 INCLUDING
BASIC
INFORMATION

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 INCLUDING BASIC INFORMATION.
1. Start a new document in your word processing software. Word
processing software like Microsoft Word is usually the best place to
create a syllabus. This is because word processing software will give
you the appropriate tools you need to create and format your
syllabus.
• If you have specific requirements for layouts, margins, and font
types for your students’ papers and assignments, you should use
the same for your syllabus.
• Make sure your word processing software has the ability to save
as a .pdf. This way, you’ll be able to share a non-editable version
of your syllabus with your students.

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 INCLUDING BASIC INFORMATION.
2. Put your identification information at the top. The first step in creating
your syllabus is to put your identification information at the top of the
document. Identification information will tell students (and parents)
everything they need to know about you, your office and room, and the
title of the course.
• Type the title of your course at the top of the document. You can
follow this by (next to or underneath) the semester, year, and section
number of the course.
• Underneath the title, add your name (with title). It will appear like: Dr.
James F. Clarke.
• Put your class location and meeting times.

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 INCLUDING BASIC INFORMATION.
• Insert your contact information like your office number and office
hours, email address, and office phone number (if you have one).
• Place your room number and/or office number under your contact
information.
• Depending on style, institutional, and regional customs, you can
move information around.
• You can choose whether to center, align right, or align left your
identification information.

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 INCLUDING BASIC INFORMATION.
3. Write a course description. Your course description will describe your course in a
way that gives students (and parents) an idea about the general content of your
course. The point of a description is that someone will be able to read it and form a
basic understanding of what your course covers.
• Your course description should be a paragraph -- about 4 to 6 sentences in
length.
• It should introduce students to the course, its purpose, and scope, and describe
who should take the class.
• Briefly describe the type of content your students will learn.
• Consult your department or institution to see if they have a template course
description for a given course. They'll likely have one if you're teaching a survey
course that is offered frequently.

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 INCLUDING BASIC INFORMATION.
4. Outline the course objectives. Course objectives will give students a sense of what
they will accomplish while in the class. Objectives might be specific in that they’ll learn a
certain amount of content, or they might be general in that they’ll develop skills while in
the class. In order to create a course objective, ask yourself some questions about the
class including:
• What will students learn taking this course? If students will gain specific content
needed as a prerequisite for another course or program, state it here.
• What skills will they develop? If they'll be learning how to analyze and synthesize
information, say so.
• What questions will they be able to answer? If your course focuses on major
problems or questions in a certain field or subfield, mention those here.

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 INCLUDING BASIC INFORMATION.
5. List any prerequisites to the course. Prerequisites are courses,
content, or other qualifications a student must have to take the course
for credit. If the course has any prerequisites, list them near the top of
the syllabus.
• Include the formal name of courses that are prerequisites.
• Make sure to include course numbers and course IDs.
• If your class is a graduate level course, make sure to note whether
undergraduates can take the course for some sort of credit. Consult
your department for more information.

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 INCLUDING BASIC INFORMATION.
6. List required materials. You also need to include a list of all of the materials
needed for your course. While this list might include books, it could also include
hardware, software, art supplies, and more. All materials that are required to take
the course should be on this list.
• Provide students with the name, author, year, and International Standard Book
Number (“ISBN”) of the textbook or other assigned texts.
• Don’t list materials required by every class, such as notebooks, paper, or pens.
• A good rule of thumb is to include any materials not common to other classes,
such as a scientific calculator, software, or drafting tools.
• If materials are expensive or hard to come by, provide a recommended source
for them.

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 INCLUDING BASIC INFORMATION.
7. Include a brief statement about the format and organization of the course. You also need
to provide a statement about the format and organization of the course very close to the
start of the syllabus. This statement will tell students how course content will be delivered,
how and/or where the class will meet, and what is expected of students in terms of
attendance.
• Mention how the course is taught (through lectures, labs, or online video lectures).
• Note what type of assignments will be given (quizzes, discussion boards, or lab
assignments). In addition, be sure to note how students with learning differences can
make their needs known to you, and what types of modifications may be made to their
assignments to accommodate them.
• Depending on your style and/or the customs of your institution, you may want to
include this in your course description.

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 OUTLINING
POLICIES AND
THE SCHEDULE

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 OUTLINING POLICIES
AND THE SCHEDULE
1. Describe your evaluation
and grading policy
You also need to include a section on your evaluation
and grading policy. This section of a syllabus tells
students how the major components of the class
contribute to their final grade.
 Many institutions have specific rules about
what should be included in this section, so
check with the administrator or department
for guidelines on what must be included.
 Include your grading scale.
 Explain how assignments will be weighted in
order to determine final grades.
 Provide a statement about any other grade
policies, such as if you drop the lowest test or
quiz grade.
 You may want to also include a definitive
statement on your extra credit policy. If you
don’t provide extra credit, state it explicitly.
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 Immediately after the evaluation policy
 OUTLINING POLICIES section, you should include a section that
AND THE SCHEDULE details your assignment policy. This will give
students an idea of how late, missed, or
incomplete assignments will affect them and
impact their grade.
2. Include a late, missed,  Include an explicit statement about
or incomplete assignment makeup exams.
policy.  Make sure to address your policy about
late papers.
 If missing a test or not completing an
assignment will substantially impact a
student’s grade and make it impossible
for them to pass, you should mention
this here.

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 A course calendar is possibly the most
 OUTLINING POLICIES important part of a good syllabus. Your
AND THE SCHEDULE calendar or schedule will outline how
where the class will be, content and
assignment wise, throughout the semester
2. Provide a course (or year).
schedule.   The calendar may provide a daily
breakdown of all lecture topics.
 List written assignments on the day
they will be assigned and on the day
they are due.
 List the assignment dates of all
readings (from the textbook, other
texts, and electronic materials).

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 Course policies may include rules, and
 OUTLINING POLICIES behavioral and academic expectations. This
AND THE SCHEDULE section will give your students a good idea
of how they need to conduct themselves
while in your classroom or while engaging
2. List your classroom or in coursework.
course policies. • Many colleges and universities have
specific policies and statements that
must be included in this section of
the syllabus, so check with the
appropriate educational institution
for guidelines.
• Attendance Policy.
• Class Participation Policy.
• Classroom Etiquette.
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 ADDING INSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LANGUAGE.

1. Inform your students about learning support services at your

institution. Your institution (secondary or post-secondary) may offer learning
support services to students. These support services are often intended to
promote student success and may be available to students with or without
disabilities.
 Let your students know that they do not have to have a disability to take
advantage of some learning support services.
 If your institution has a learning resource center, mention it in your
syllabus.
 Your institution might require you to include language about learning
support services – check with your administrators.
 ADDING INSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LANGUAGE.

2. Write a syllabus change policy. One important section to include is a

syllabus change policy. A syllabus change policy will let students know that
you have the right to change the syllabus throughout the term of the
course with advance notice given to students.
• Your syllabus change policy covers schedule of topics, lectures,
assignments, and readings.
• Most institutions will require you to note that you may not make
changes that substantially affect how a student will be evaluated
during the course.
 ADDING INSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LANGUAGE.

3. Provide a statement about your institution’s add/drop policy, if

applicable. Post-secondary institutions may require you to add language
about their withdrawal or add/drop policy. The add/drop policy will let
students know when they can drop the class without academic penalty.
• Include the last day they can drop your course without penalty.
• Include any other relevant information about your institution’s
add/drop or withdrawal policy.
• Consider including language about your institution’s first day
attendance policy. If you’re at a college or university, they may
require students to attend class on the first day or otherwise be
dropped from the course.
 ADDING INSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LANGUAGE.

4. Address your institution’s honor code policy. Most educational

institutions will require that you include a cheating or plagiarism
statement that addresses their honor code policy. In this event, your
institution will provide you with a copy of their honor code.
• They may even provide you with a boilerplate section to add to your
syllabus.
• You may need to include the honor code in full in your syllabus.
• You may need to summarize the honor code in your syllabus
 ADDING INSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LANGUAGE.

5. Outline your institution’s emergency procedures, if

required. You may be required to provide students with
instructions for campus-wide emergencies as well as building
specific emergencies. These procedures might include:
• What to do in the event of a lockdown.
• Procedures in case there is a bomb threat.
• Instructions on what to do if there is a fire.
 INCLUDING
LEGAL
STATEMENTS

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 INCLUDING LEGAL STATEMENTS
1. Mention the institution’s
policy regarding religious
holidays.
Federal law prohibits discrimination based on
religion. As a result, many secondary and post-
secondary institutions have adopted a religious
observance policy that protects the ability of
students to miss school for religious holidays.
 You may want to add language letting your
students know that their right to observe
religious holidays is protected. Check with
your institution to see if they suggest any
standardized language in this area.
 Let your students know that they should
contact you in advance if they’re going to
miss class or an assignment due to religious
observance.
 Include language so that your students know
they can make up work missed due to
religious observance.
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 INCLUDING LEGAL STATEMENTS
2. Address the American
with Disabilities Act (ADA).
Federal law requires that public institutions
provide accommodations to people with
disabilities. Because of this, your institution may
require you to include a section in your syllabus
that addresses the ADA, and explains how your
institution offers accommodations.
 Very often, students need to register with
counselling or a disability resource center.
 The administration or the student may
present documentation from the
institution to the instructor.
 Students should provide documentation
of a recognized disability to the
institution during the enrolment process
or shortly thereafter.
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 College and university instructors may want to include
 INCLUDING LEGAL STATEMENTS language explaining the Family Educational Rights and
Privacy Act (FERPA). FERPA governs the privacy of
3. Insert a section students and/or their parents, depending on age and
the type of educational institution.
addressing federal privacy • FERPA states that instructors and others at a
law, if applicable.  postsecondary institution cannot discuss a
student’s grades, status, or attendance with
anyone without their expressed written
permission.
• FERPA applies to any student 18 or older, or any
student attending a postsecondary institution.
• Consider letting your students know that they
have the right to waive their privacy rights if
they sign a waiver.
• For students under the age of 18 at secondary
institutions, FERPA rights lie with their parents
Reference: or legal guardians.
https://www.wikihow.com/Write-a-Syllabus
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SAMPLE SYLLABUS FOR
ENGLISH LANGUAGE

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 Basic user: A Level. 1st Year
Course coordinator: T.I. Ershova
Class teachers:
Course overview:
This course is designed for foreigners learning English at an ABC and Elementary
levels to acquire and develop the English language knowledge and skills. The course is
defined within the common reference European Framework and corresponds to the
classic division into Pre- Intermediate and Intermediate.

A1
Pre-
  (Breakthrough)
Intermediate
A A2
(Basic User)
  (Way stage) Intermediate

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 The aim of the syllabus is to prepare students to use English for their professional
studies in the Higher School of Economics and consequently for their professional needs
in real life and work. This is realized as KET at Breakthrough level.
This preparatory course will further give the students the opportunity to speak on
general topics, to communicate in Business environment and to understand texts on
business and finance in the English speaking world. This is realized at 2 different levels:
ABC and Basic User (beginners).
The Basic User course incorporates 3 basic components:
1. General English
2. Business English
3. Professional (English for Specific Purposes) English

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The course aims at developing a wide range of skills:
 Language Development, which involves grammar and extensive vocabulary
learning.
 Writing skills, which have a specific focus on literacy and short essays,
memoranda, notes.
 Reading, which involves study of instructional business-related texts of topical
relevance.
 Listening, which includes comprehension of gist and detailed information.
 Communication skills, which cover communication situations (within the
framework of Breakthrough level).

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Course objectives:
The main objectives of the syllabus are:
 to provide material for the students to learn pronunciation of the English
sounds, to learn to read, write, and to know the fundamentals of English
grammar and vocabulary;
 to develop the students' reading skills to enable them to skim an adapted
text for main idea, to scan an adapted text for specific information, to
interpret an adapted text for inferences;
 to develop the students' writing skills to enable them to respond to input
applying information to a specified task, to elicit, to select, to summarize
information in essays (140-160 words);

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Course objectives:
 to develop the students' listening skills to enable them to understand and
apply specific information from the input (within the framework of
Breakthrough level);
 to develop the students' speaking skills to enable them to use general,
social and professional language (within the framework of Breakthrough
level);
• to develop the students' general capacity to a level that enables them to
use English in their professional and academic environment (within the
framework of Breakthrough level).

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Methods of assessment:
Assessment is by coursework (40%), which integrates the following:
 Individual and group oral presentations
 Oral interactions (including pair work)
 Written tests and tasks of various length (memoranda, notes)
 Essays
 Listening/ viewing
 Communicating the gist of simple reading passages
 Translation of simple texts on economics.
A measure of classroom participation, progress and motivation accounts for 20% of the overall
assessment. A final exam comprising KET listening comprehension, an extract for rendering into
English and an oral topic accounts for 40% of the total credit.

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Main reading:
This syllabus may be fulfilled on the basis of textbooks and training materials,
original special supplementary materials adapted for the elementary level. The
usage of up-to-date adapted materials will help students to obtain the necessary
skills in reading, writing, listening and speaking.
Business English Course book:
М.А. Шевелева. English on Economics. М. 1998.
Cotton D., Falvey D., Kent S. Market Leader. Intermediate Business English.
Longman, 2001.

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General English Course books:
Evans V., Dooley J. Upstream. Intermediate Course book. Express
Publishing. 2002.
Evans V., Dooley J. Upstream. Intermediate workbook. Express Publishing.
2002.
Evans V., Dooley J. Upstream. Grammar. Express Publishing. 2002.
ESP Course book:
ESP –1 Texts on Economics.

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 Course Outline
The content of the English syllabus is based on preliminary
testing and grouping the students into three streams: Pre-
Intermediate, Intermediate and Upper-Intermediate. This
approach helps students in the lower-level groups to achieve
the needed competence and students in the more advanced
groups to perfect their knowledge of English.

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1. General English
The students learn to pronounce, read and write. They acquire their knowledge of
fundamental grammatical structures and functions (e.g. sentence types, tenses, voice,
parts of speech, word order, expressing possibility, obligation, necessity, prohibition,
criticism; expressing preferences, making assumptions; asking for/ refusing/giving
permission; making offers, suggestions, etc.) They acquire their fundamental
vocabulary to fulfill the above mentioned functions in roles, topics and discussions.
The students are taught to be able to converse on different topics (people, jobs,
places to visit, festivals/celebrations, disasters/accidents, eating habits,
sports/hobbies, environment, education, entertainment, transport, crime, etc.).

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 The students learn to understand spoken language. Listening texts include monologues
and interacting speakers. They are taught to focus on understanding the gist, the main
points, look for detail or specific information, and deduce the meaning.
The students are offered adapted/instructional reading material and are encouraged to
learn to use different strategies for different reading purposes: identifying the main
points in a text, looking for detail, locating specific information in a text, understanding a
text structure, etc.
The students are expected to learn to produce written texts of various types: formal /
informal / transactional letters, argumentative essays (expressing opinions, for and
against), narration (story writing), memoranda and notes.

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2. Professional (ESP) English
The purpose of ESP course is to prepare the students for doing Economics,
Mathematics and Statistics in English.
Development of the students' restricted knowledge in economic terms and topics
includes: different economic systems, central control of economy, labor utilities,
demand and supply, money, markets and monopolies, banking.
The students' competence in ESP is measured by their ability to:
 understand and interpret information presented in verbal, numerical or graphical
form;
 Organize and present ideas and statements in a clear, logical and appropriate form.

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3. Business English
Business English course starts during the first intensive course with the introduction
of the students into the world of business.
The course aims to:
 Develop the students' comprehension of business and economic texts;
 Develop the students' listening skills in the field of business and economics;
 Provide the students with opportunities to express business concepts by
reformulating them in their own words while summarizing.
The students' competence in this aspect is measured by their ability to demonstrate
their communication skills in the key business areas of meetings, negotiations,
telephoning and social English, as well as the ability to write memos, notes.

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4. Skills development
Students are taught to develop their skills in:
Reading which includes:
Skimming, scanning, detailed reading, guessing unknown words
from context, understanding text organization, recognizing argument
and counter-argument; distinguishing between main information and
supporting detail, fact and opinion, hypothesis versus evidence;
summarizing and note-taking.

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Writing includes:
 Essay content and structure (patterns of organization,
paragraphing, discussion – argument/counter-argument,
advantages and disadvantages, topic sentence and supporting
ideas, coherence and cohesion, punctuation).
 Functions (generalization, definitions, exemplification,
classification, comparison and contrast, cause and effect, process
and procedure, interpretation of data).
 Style (passive constructions, avoiding verbosity)
 Punctuation

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Listening includes:
 General comprehension (listening for gist, listening for detailed
information, evaluating the importance of information).
 Lectures (identifying the topic and main themes, identifying relationships
among major ideas, comprehending key information).
Speaking includes:
 Seminar skills (agreeing and disagreeing, clarifying, questioning,
concluding).
 Presentation skills (introductions and stating the purpose, signposting,
highlighting key points, summaries, conclusions).
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The students' competence in skills development is measured by their ability
to understand and produce written and spoken language in an educational
context, to perform the following academic tasks:
 reading and understanding written academic language;
 writing assignments in an appropriate style for university study;
 listening to and comprehending spoken language (within the framework of
Breakthrough level);
 Speaking to colleagues and lecturers (within the framework of
Breakthrough level.

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 TEACHING HOURS FOR TOPICS AND ACTIVITIES
Topic titles TOTAL (hours)  
1st semester (September – December)  
1. My family. Myself. General English Intensive course  96
2. Meeting people. Making Contacts.
3. A city. Getting about town.
4. Our flat. Home life.

2nd semester (January-June)  

1. Travelling. Going abroad. General English 36 
2. Going through Customs.
3. At a hotel.
4. Shopping.
5. Eating out.

1. Making a phone call. Business English  36

2. A modern office.
3. Discussing business.

1. Economics and unemployment. ESP  36

2. Jobs and sales.
3. Markets and production.
4. Prices.

  Add a Footer Total: 204 45

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Teaching and learning methods:
Teaching, learning and assessment are designed to enable students to achieve the course
objectives described above. While part of any session is likely to involve direct teaching, the emphasis
is on student participation and teachers should encourage students to take part actively in discussion
and in tasks.
 Independent learning:
Students are expected to spend time studying outside the class, and we provide guidance, facilities
and materials to help them develop their expertise as pre-intermediate language learners. For this
course, they are asked to consolidate their class work, to read, watch or listen to material in English, to
prepare exercises and activities for the class, to write assignments, undertake projects and generally
acquire a repertoire of effective language learning strategies.
Course materials:
Adapted materials will be used in class, linked to the topic areas studied. Topic-based self-access
resources (authentic print, audio and video), dictionaries and grammars are also available.

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THANK YOU

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