Introductory seminar Part 1 Course and Syllabus Design Nur Hooton

1. Course and Materials Design Module CMD MSc in TESOL/TESP/TYL/EMT Introductory seminarPart 1 Course and Syllabus DesignNur Hooton

2. Contents • Unit 1 An Introduction to course and syllabus design • Unit 2 Syllabus types and SLA • Unit 3 Process, procedural and task-based syllabuses • Unit 4 Lexical approaches to syllabus design • Unit 5 From needs analysis to syllabus as corpus • Unit 6 From setting objectives to evaluation procedures • Unit 7 Approaches to materials analysis • Unit 8 Materials, learners and teachers • Unit 9 Authenticity & natural language in materials design • Unit 10 From course to materials design • Unit 11 Innovation & implementation • Unit 12 Supplementary unit

3. The CSD element of the module • avarietyofapproachestosyllabusandcoursedesign • keyconceptsandprinciplesandrationalebehindlanguagesyllabusdesign • opportunitytoappraise,evaluateandadaptexistingsyllabusesandcourses • researchanddesignyourowncourses • researchthelanguageofthetargetdiscoursecommunityandusethistodrawupacoresyllabusforanygroupoflearners

4. Learning outcomes • Abilitytorecognisethetype(s)ofsyllabususedforaparticularcourseandtoassessitsstrengthsandweaknessesforaspecificgroupoflearners; • Beingabletomakeprincipledadaptationstoanexistingcourseorsyllabusandbeabletojustifytheseinthelightoftherelevanttheoreticalissues; • Abilitytodesignyourowncoursesbasedonyourownresearch,andadviseonmaterialsandmethodologicalapproachesforthesecourses; • Abilitytodescribeacourseindifferentwaystosuitparticularaudiences(e.g.teachers,learners,sponsors,companytrainingmanagers); • Abilitytoadviseontheuseoftechnologyforsyllabusandcoursedesign.

5. Some key terms Syllabus “the specification and ordering of content of a course or courses” (White, 1988) “Syllabus design is based essentially on a decision about the ‘units’ of classroom activity, and the ‘sequence’ in which they are to be performed.” (Robinson, 1996:7) “Any syllabus is a plan of what is to be achieved through teaching and learning.” (Breen, 2001:151) Course “an integrated series of teaching - learning experiences, whose ultimate aim is to lead the learners to a particular state of knowledge” (Hutchinson and Waters, 1987) ‘a series of lessons’ Curriculum “refers to the totality of content to be taught and aims to be realized within one school or educational system” (White, 1988) “a curriculum subsumes a syllabus” (Markee, 1997) “the philosophy, purposes, design, and implementation of a whole program” (Graves, 1996)

6. Defining key concepts • syllabus • course • curriculum • goals • objectives • needs / perceived needs / felt needs

7. Sequencing decisions in a syllabus - choices: • prospective and fixed • “on-line” i.e. during classroom activity (e.g. Breen’s process syllabus) • retrospective (Candlin)

8. Synthetic syllabuses • Content is pre-selected • Teaching is incremental • learners’ task is to “re-synthesize the language that has been broken down into a large number of small pieces with the aim of making this learning task easier” (Wilkins, 1976)

9. Analytic syllabuses • Learning is organised in terms of social purposes • Learners interact with and analyse samples of language relevant to their needs • Learners’ analytic capacities are used

10. Synthetic language teaching strategy “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, 1976:2)

11. In analytical syllabuses … The starting point could be content defined in terms of situations, topics, or themes (see Nunan, 1988:38) - language is not linguistically graded.

12. Synthetic Syllabuses Structural/grammatical Situational Functional-notional (Wilkins) [Communicative] Lexical (D.Willis) Skills-based (Johnson) Analytic Syllabuses Task-based * Process Procedural (Prabhu) * Long and Crookes’ (1992) categorisation Types of syllabuses

13. Your own experiences . . . • type of syllabus?

14. Course Design

15. Task: Where would you begin as a course designer? Assessing needs Articulating beliefs Formulating goals and objectives Developing materials Designing an assessment plan Defining the context Organising the course Conceptualising content

16. The answer? • No hierarchy in the processes • No sequence in their accomplishment • ‘articulating beliefs’ and ‘defining context’ serve as the foundation for the other processes • “… course development - designing a course and teaching it - comprises a system, the way a forest or the human body is a system (Clark, 1987 cited in Graves, 2000:4) - components are interrelated. • “Course design is a system in the sense that planning one component will contribute to others; changes to one component will influence all the others.” (Graves, 2000:4) Graves,K. 2000. Designing Language Courses. Heinle & Heinle.

17. Organising a course • overlapping processes: • Determining the organising principle(s) (themes, genres, tasks) • Identifying the course units based on the organising principle(s) • Sequencing the units • Determining unit content • Organising unit content

18. Framework for curriculum planning

19. Reference 1 Graves, K. 2009. ‘The Curriculum of Second Language Teacher Education’. In Burns, A. And Richards, J. C. (eds.)The Cambridge Guide to Teacher Education. Cambridge University Press.

20. Reference 2 Roberts, J. 1998. Language Teacher Education. Arnold (in particular, pages 249-252)

21. Assessment of the module Assignment on: • Course design / syllabus design • Materials development and evaluation

22. For your assignment … • Ability to recognise the type(s) of syllabus used for a particular course and to assess its strengths and weaknesses for a specific group of learners; • Being able to make principled adaptations to an existing course or syllabus and be able to justify these in the light of the relevant theoretical issues; • Ability to design your own courses based on your own research, and advise on materials and methodological approaches for these courses; • Ability to describe a course in different ways to suit particular audiences (e.g. teachers, learners, sponsors, company training managers);Ability to advise on the use of technology for syllabus and course design.

23. Finally… Enjoy the module!