Group members: 陈川、南迪、 张宁、邹膨鲜

1. Functional-notional syllabus Group members: 陈川、南迪、 张宁、邹膨鲜

2. Drawbacks Main components 4 2 Merits Merits 3 Contents Theoretical assumptions 1 1 3 3 Drawbacks

3. Theoretical assumptions 1 Sociolinguistic and Communicative view of Language

4. Basic claim: • Language is used to realize communicative functions and convey meanings. • So language teaching should focus more on: the purposes (functions) of using the language and themeanings (notions) expressed through the languagerather thangrammatical forms. (Harlow & Linda L., 1980: 12)

5. Main components 2

6. Functions: • what people want to do with the language • e. g. making invitation, asking questions, expressing opinions, expressing wishes, making suggestions, inquiring, complaining, and apologizing etc.

7. Notions: 2. what ideas and meanings people want to say • Notions are the vocabulary items that might answer who, where, when, why, how long, how far, how much, how big etc. • can be expressed through nouns, pronouns, verbs, prepositions, conjunctions, adjectives, or adverbs. (Finocchiaro, M. & Brumfit, C. 1983: 12-14)

8. Examples: • “the notion of location” can be expressed by various prepositions e.g. behind, near, up, down, on, under, etc. • “the notion of time” can be expressed by different forms of verbs. e.g. He is leaving. He left. He will leave in two days.

9. How are functions and notions organized in textbooks? • Functions are classified and put into units. • Title of each unit – indicating the core function in each unit. • Dialogues • reading passages • the communicative expressions • Notions (structures and vocabulary) • learning tasks and activities Centering around functions

10. Main features of F-N units: 3. Cyclical order-the same function may repeatedly occur in different situations at succeeding units (Valdman, 1978)

11. FROM : TRUE COLORS

12. Samples: (Finoccharo, M. & Brumfit, C. 1983: 38)

13. Merits (Harlow & Linda L., 1978: 561) Merits 3 • By perceiving language as a real means of communication, learners would feel more motivated to learn. • Language functions in a real-life setting would generate a special kind of excitement for learning and leads to productive learning. • Students’ needs are taken into most consideration. They are able to see from the beginning how what they learn relates to their language needs.

14. learners have the opportunity to use the target language much earlier than in traditional approaches. • compared to the structural syllabus where elements of language are learned in an isolated way from real life, students’ communicative competence and confidence can be well developed. • teachers can revitalize teaching materials to meet learning objectives.

15. An alternative to the grammatically-oriented textbook may not solve all of the problems in language teaching. Drawbacks 4 (David Nunan, 1988:37)

16. 1. The grading of functional items becomes more complex Functions can hardly be classified by the principles of simplicity, frequency etc. e.g. Should apologizing be simpler than requesting?

17. Dividing language into discrete units of functions may misrepresent the nature of language as communication. (Widdowson H. G.1979, cited in Nuna, D. 1988: 37) 2.The lists of functions and notions do not reflect the way languages are learned

18. References: • Harlow & Linda L., 1978. An alternative to structurally oriented textbooks. Foreign Language Annals, 11(5) . • D.A. Wilkins, 1972. An investigation into the linguistic an situational content of the common core in a unit credit system. • Wilkins. D. A., 1981. Notional Syllabus Revisited: a Further Reply, Applied Linguistics, 2. • Valdman, 1978. Comunicative use of language and syllabus design, Foreign language Annals , 11(5) . • Harlow & Linda L., 1980. Student-perceived communication needs: infrastructure of the functional notional syllabus, Foreign Language Annals, 13(1). • David Nunan, 1988. Syllabus Design. Oxford University Press. • Finocchiaro, M. & Brumfit, C. 1983. The Functional –Notional Approach. From Theory to Practice. Oxford university press.

19. Thank You!