1 / 24

Syllabus Designing

Syllabus Designing. Syllabus vs. Curriculum. C urriculum is a very general concept which involves consideration of the whole complex of philosophical, social and administrative factors which contribute to the planning of an educational program.

derron
Download Presentation

Syllabus Designing

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Syllabus Designing

  2. Syllabus vs. Curriculum • Curriculumis a very general concept which involves consideration of the whole complex of philosophical, social and administrative factors which contribute to the planning of an educational program. • Syllabus, on the other hand, refers to that subpart of curriculum which is concerned with a specification of what units will be taught (as distinct from how they will be taught, which is a matter for methodology). (Allen 1984: 61)

  3. Syllabus vs. Curriculum • Candlin(1984) suggests that curricula are concerned with making general statements about language learning, learning purpose and experience, evaluation, and the role relationships of teachers and learners. • According to Candlin, they will also contain banks of learning items and suggestions about how these might be used in class.

  4. Syllabus vs curriculum • Syllabuses, on the other hand, are more localized and are based on accounts and records of what actually happens at classroom level as teachers and learners apply a given curriculum to their own situation. • These accounts can be used to make subsequent modifications to the curriculum, so that the developmental process is ongoing.

  5. language is highly complex and cannot be taught all at the same time, • Successful teaching requires that there should be a selection of material depending on the prior definition of objectives, proficiency level, and duration of course. • This selection takes place at the syllabus planning stage.

  6. The curriculum has at least three phases: • a planning phase, • an implementation phase, • and an evaluation phase

  7. Need Analysis • Need Analysis is the process of identifying and evaluating needs (see sample definitions below) in a community or other defined population of people. The identification of needs is a process of describing “problems” of a target population and possible solutions to these problems. • A need has been described as: • A gap between “what is” and “what should be.” (Witkin et al., 1995) • • “A gap between real and ideal that is both acknowledged by community values and potentially amenable to change.” (Reviere, 1996, p. 5)

  8. • May be different from such related concepts as wants (“something people are willing to pay for”) or demands (“something people are willing to march for”). (McKillip, 1987) • Need analysis focuses on the future, or what should be done, rather than on what was done as is the focus of most program evaluations. • Some people use the related term “needs assessment”

  9. We can gather information about learners’ needs through different media (Hutchinson and Waters 1987:58; Palacios Martínez 1994:143): • surveys, questionnaires, interviews, attitude scales, intelligence tests, language tests, job analyses, content analyses, statistical analyses, observation, data collection, or informal consultation with sponsors, learners and others.

  10. Furthermore, needs analysis should not only be considered as a pre-stage for the design of language courses; in fact, it is an “on-going process” (White 1998:91) and, as evaluation, it can be used to design, improve and implement language programmes.

  11. Needs analysis is a complex process which has to take into account what Hutchinson and Waters (1987:54-63) define as “target needs”, what learners need to do in the target situation – i.e. language use, and “learning needs”, what learners need to do in order to learn – i.e. language learning. • In a more modern view, we should not only take into account “target needs” and “learning needs” – i.e. objective needs – but also learners’ subjective needs, that is, their affective needs, such as their interests, wishes, expectations and preferences (Nunan 1988).

  12. Two Broad Categories/Types 1-PRODUCT-ORIENTED – emphasizes the product of language learning • e.g. structural approach, situational approach, notional/functional approach 2-PROCESS ORIENTED – to enhance communicative skills, focuses on the specification of the learning task and activities that she/he will undertake • e.g. procedural/task based approaches, learner-led syllabus,

  13. Product oriented( Synthetic ): • 1 The Structural Approach • Historically, the common syllabus type is perhaps the grammatical syllabus. Selection and grading of the content is based on the complexity and simplicity of grammatical items. The learner moves from one step to the next as he or she masters it. • 2 The Situational Approach • Limitations associated with the structural approach led to an alternative where the point of departure became situational needs rather than grammatical units. Here, the principal organizing characteristic is a list of situations which reflects language and behavior outside the classroom (i.e., in everyday life). • 3 Notional/Functional Approach • the starting point for a syllabus is the communicative purpose and conceptual meaning of language i.e. notions and functions, as opposed to grammatical items and situational elements which remain but are no longer the most important focus.

  14. Process oriented(Analytical): • 1 Procedural syllabuses -derive from the Bangalore Project where the syllabus was constructed around a series of problem-solving tasks. Sequencing in the syllabus was based on the amount of reasoning required to solve the task, and teachers feedback focused solely on meaning not on language. • 2 Process syllabuses- are associated with the work of Breen and Candlin. Process courses revolve around a series of problem-solving tasks. In contrast, however, process syllabuses place a heavy emphasis on procedural knowledge rather than declarative knowledge (i.e. how to learn, not what to learn). • Task-based syllabuses- view tasks as a necessary for presenting appropriate language to learners. Tasks can be selected according to the extent to which they reflect the real-world behaviors that learners will have to engage in.

  15. In vogue types of syllabuses: • 1 Grammatical Syllabuses: • The syllabus input is selected and graded according to grammatical notions of simplicity and complexity. These syllabuses introduce one item at a time and require mastery of that item before moving on to the next. • 2 Lexical Syllabuses: • Lexical syllabuses identify a target vocabulary to be taught normally arranged according to levels such as the first 500, 1000, 1500, 2000 words. • 3 Skills Syllabuses: • Skills syllabuses are organized around the different underlying abilities that are involved in using a language for purposes such as reading, writing, listening, or speaking

  16. 4 Content Syllabuses: • In content syllabuses, the content of language learning might be defined in terms of situations, topics, themes, or other academic or school subjects. • 5 Functional-Notional Syllabuses: • In functional-notional syllabuses, the input is selected and graded according to the communicative functions (such as requesting, complaining, suggesting, agreeing) that learners need to perform at the end of the language program. • 6 Task-based Syllabuses: • Task-based syllabuses are more concerned with the classroom processes which stimulate learning. These syllabuses consist of a list of specification of the tasks and activities that the learners will engage in class in the target language.

  17. Planning a course typically involves five stages: • Determining the relationship of the course to the curriculum • Identifying course objectives • Dividing the course into logical units or segments • Identifying learning experiences and methods appropriate to help students achieve course goals • Determining how best to evaluate student performance

  18. Steps in preparing a practical language teaching Syllabus Choice: • 1. Determine, to the extent possible, what outcomes are desired for the students in the instructional program i.e. what the students should be able to do as a result of the instruction. • 2. Rank the syllabus types presented here as to their likelihood of leading to the outcomes desired. Arrange the six types with preference you going to give to each type. • 3. Evaluate available resources for teaching, needs analysis, materials choice and production and in training for teachers. • 4. Rank the syllabi relative to available resources. That is, determine what syllabus types would be the easiest to implement within available resources.

  19. 5. Compare the lists made under Nos. 2 and 4. Making as few adjustments to the earlier list as possible, produce a new list of ranking based on the availability of resources. • 6. Designate one or two syllabus types as dominant and one or two as secondary. • 7. Review the question of combination or integration of syllabus types and determine how combinations will be achieved and in what proportion.

  20. Suggested Steps for Planning Syllabus: • Develop a well-grounded rationale for your course. • Decide what you want students to be able to do as a result of taking your course, and how their work will be appropriately assessed. • Define and delimit course content. • Structure your students’ active involvement in learning. • Identify and develop resources. • Compose your syllabus with a focus on student learning.

  21. Suggested Principles for Designing a Syllabus that Fosters Critical Thinking: • Critical thinking is a learnable skill; the instructor and class fellows are resources in developing critical thinking skills. • Problems, questions, or issues are the point of entry into the subject and a source of motivation for nonstop inquiry. • Successful courses balance the challenge to think critically with supporting students’ developmental needs. • Courses should be assignment centered rather than text and lecture centered. Goals, methods and evaluation emphasize using content rather than simply acquiring it

  22. Students are required to formulate their ideas in writing or other appropriate means. • Students should collaborate to learn and to stretch their thinking, for example, in pair problem solving and small group work. • The developmental needs of students are acknowledged and used as information in the design of the course. Teachers in these courses make standards explicit and then help students learn how to achieve them.

  23. Syllabus Functions: • Establishes an early point of contact and connection between student and instructor • Describes your beliefs about educational purposes • Acquaints students with the logistics of the syllabus • Contains collected handouts • Defines student responsibilities for successful course work • Describes active learning • Helps students to assess their readiness for your syllabus • Sets the course in a broader context for learning • Provides a conceptual framework

  24. Describes available learning resources • Communicates the role of technology in the course • Can improve the effectiveness of student note-taking • Can include material that supports learning outside the classroom • Can serve as a learning contract

More Related