ENGLISH FOR

SPECIFIC PURPOSE

THE SYLLABUS

Kelompok 8
- Irma Putri Ningrum (20222008)
- Hesti Nursahidah (20222010)
 POINT TO BE DISCUSSED

WHAT DO WE MEAN BY
A SYLLABUS? 01 02 WHY SHOULD WE HAVE
A SYLLABUS?

ON WHAT CRITERIA
CAN A SYLLABUS BE
03 04 WHAT ROLE SHOULD A
SYLLABUS PLAY IN THE
COURSE DESIGN
ORGANIZED?
PROCESS?

05 CONCLUSION
01 WHAT DO WE MEAN BY A SYLLABUS?

• A syllabus is an outline and summary of topics to be covered in an education or

training course. It is descriptive (unlike the prescriptive specific curriculum).

• Syllabus is, simply, a statement of what is to be learnt.

1. The Evaluation Syllabus

- This kind of syllabus will be most familiar as the document that is handed down
by ministries or other regulating bodies.
- It stresses what the successful learner will know by the end of the course. In effect, it
puts on record the basis on which success or failure will be evaluated.

2. The Organizational Syllabus

- A syllabus can also state the order in which it is to be learned.

- It is necessary to consider factors that depend upon a view of how people learn. E.g.
what is more easily learned? what is more fundamental to learning? Are some items
needed in order to learn other items?
3. The Materials Syllabus

- In writing materials, the author adds yet more assumptions about the nature of language, language
learning, and language use.

- The author decides the context in which the language will appear, the relative weightings and
integration of skills, the number and type of exercises to be spent on any aspect of language, and the
degree of recycling or revision. These can all have their effect whether and how well something is learned.

4. The Teacher Syllabus

- The teacher can influence the clarity, intensity, and frequency of any item, and thereby affect
the image that the learners receive.

- Stevick (1984) recounts how an inexperience teacher would finish in two minutes an activity that
he would spend twenty minutes on.

- This kind of variability affect the degree of learning.

5. The Classroom Syllabus

- As every teacher knows, what is planned and what actually happens in a lesson are two different
things (Allwright, 1984b).
- A lesson is a communicative event which is created by the interaction of a number of forces.
The classroom then creates conditions which will affect the nature of a planned lesson. E.g. Hot
weather, noise from outside, interruptions to deal with administrative matters, a visitor. Students
may be tired, asking irrelevant questions, etc.

6. The Learners Syllabus

The learner syllabus is the network of knowledge that develops in the learner’s brain which enables
that learner to comprehend and store the later knowledge. It is a retrospective record of what has been learned
rather than a prospective plan of what will be learned. The importance of the learner syllabus lies in the fact
that it is through the filter of this syllabus that the learner views the other syllabuses.
02 WHY SHOULD WE HAVE A SYLLABUS?

There are acknowledged and hidden reasons for having a syllabus:

1. Language is a complex entity. It cannot be learnt in one go. We have to break down complex into manageable units.
2. In practical benefits, a syllabus gives moral support to the teachers and learner.
3. The syllabus can be seen a statement of projected routes, so that both the learners and teachers may know where they are going.
4. A syllabus provides a set of criteria for material selection and writing.
5. It defines the kind of texts to look for or produce, the items to focus on in exercises etc. This is probably one of the
commonest uses for a syllabus, but it can be one of the most damaging to the course, if wrongly used.
6. Uniformity is a necessary condition of any institutionalized activity such as education. A syllabus is one way in which
standardization is achieved.
7. Syllabuses cannot take into account of individual differences.
03 ON WHAT CRITERIA CAN A SYLLABUS BE ORGANIZED?

1. Topic Syllabus
Topic-based syllabus is based on topics which are selected from the students’ specialist studies and
the language analyzed based on appropriate syntax (Jordan, 1997). It is suggested that one objective of
the ESP course may be to teach this specialist content (Robinson, 1991). Ex: health, engine.

2. Structural/Situational Syllabus
The focus of a structural syllabus is on aspects of grammar (e.g., verb, tenses, sentence patterns, articles,
nouns, etc.) and then the gradation of these aspects for teaching, supposedly from the simple to the complex, and
based on frequency and usefulness of these aspects (Jordan, 1997, Robinson, 1991).
 03 ON WHAT CRITERIA CAN A SYLLABUS BE ORGANIZED?

3. Functional/National Syllabus
Jordan (1997) points out, entails conceptual meanings: notions (e.g., time, space, and quantity) expressed
through language (logical relationship) and the communicative purposes (i.e., functions) for which we use language
(e.g., greetings, requests, apologies, description, comparisons, cause and effects, etc.). As this approach focuses
on communication, the processes of communication (e.g., problem-solving, obtaining information, interacting
with people) are often used in the teaching/learning and therefore, it is often referred to as the communicative
approach (Jordan, 1997). Ex: request, apology.

4. Skills Syllabus
Skill-based syllabus is organized around the different underlying abilities that are involved in using a
language for purposes of such as listening, speaking, reading, writing, (Thakur, 2013). As Robinson
(1991) suggests, a course in writing business letters, or in oral skills for business people, or in academic
reading can be examples of this syllabus. As Jordan suggests, reading may be classified into a number of
microskills (e.g., skimming, scanning, reading for information, ideas, opinions, etc. Ex: negotiating, being
interviewed, interviewing.
03 ON WHAT CRITERIA CAN A SYLLABUS BE ORGANIZED?

5. Situational Syllabus
According to Taghizadeh (201) a situational syllabus is a collection of real or imaginary situations in
which language occurs or is used. The primary purpose of a situational language teaching syllabus is to
teach the language that occurs in the situations such as in a business setting, seeing the dentist, complaining to
the landlord, buying a book at the book store, meeting a new student, and so on. Ex: situation in the
classroom, post office, front office in a hotel, etc.

6. Functional/Task-based Syllabus
A task-based syllabus is a series of complex and purposeful tasks that the students want or need to
perform with the language they are learning such as applying for a job, talking with a social worker,
getting housing information over the telephone, and so on (Dincay, 2010).
03 ON WHAT CRITERIA CAN A SYLLABUS BE ORGANIZED?

7. Discourse/Skills Syllabus
Discourse /skills syllabus emphasizes the discourse which are related with the context of its use.

8. Skill and Strategies Syllabus

Skills and strategies syllabus concerns to the strategies which can be used to teach and assess students’
competence and comprehension.
04 WHAT ROLE SHOULD A SYLLABUS PLAY IN THE COURSE
DESIGN PROCESS?
According to Hutchinson and waters (1987) there are 4 course design approaches, those are:

a) Language-Centered Approach

The syllabus is the prime generator of the

teaching materials.
b) Skills-Centered Approach

The syllabus provides opportunities for the

learners to employ and evaluate the skills ads
strategies considered necessary in the target
situation.
c) Learning-Centered Approach

The syllabus and the material evolve together

being to inform the other.
d) The Post Hoc Approach

There is, of course, one last way of using the syllabus, which is
probably more widespread then we might suppose:

MATERIALS EVALUATION

Having completed the needs analysis and course design, we must

now decide what we are going to do with it. There are three
possible ways of turning your course design into actual teaching
materials:

a) Select from existing materials: materials evaluation

b) Write your own materials: materials development

c) Modify existing materials: materials adaptation

05 CONCLUSION

A syllabus used wisely can provide support and guidance that fosters creativity. A syllabus is a working
document that must be used flexibly and appropriately to maximize learning objectives and processes.
 THANK YOU

CRÉDITOS: Esta presentación fue creada por Slidesgo, que incluye iconos de
Flaticon e infografías, imágenes de Freepik