Title Page
English Language Teaching ELT: Study Questions Analyzed
By
Rahman Mostafiz
Introduction
The purpose of this book is to build up a general knowledge about designing a syllabus considering its various types and to highlight the issues relevant to teachers and students considering creating their own syllabus with specific references to those based in some third world countries. The later part of this book contains some important methodologies and approaches regarding Foreign Language Teaching. It will hopefully help both teachers and students better evaluate their own programs and courses. It is therefore concerned with linguistic theory and theories of language learning and how they are applied to the classroom.
Definition of Syllabus
A syllabus is a framework within which learning tasks and activities can be carried out. It is an expression of opinion on the nature of learning which acts as a guide for both teacsers and learners by providing some goals to be attained. a syllabus can also be seen as a "summary of the content to which learners will be exposed" (Yalden.1987: 87). It is seen as an approximation of what will be taught and that it cannot accurately predict what will be learnt.
The task of the syllabus designer is to select and grade the contents used aas the basis for planning courses.
For designing a language syllabus J. van Ek proposes the following necessary components:
- 1 the situations in which the foreign language will be used, including the topics which trill be dealt with
- the language activities in which the learner will engage
- the language functions which the learner will fulfill
- what the learner will be able to do with respect to each topic
- the general notions which the learner will be able to handle
- the specific (topic-related) notions which the learner will be able to handle
- the language forms which the learner will be able to use
- the degree of skill with which the learner will be able to perform.
Various Types of Approaches Available for Syllabus Design
Product-Oriented Syllabuses
These kinds of syllabuses emphasize on the products of language learning.
Different approaches of this kind are discussed below.
The Structural Approach
The structural or grammatical syllabus is the most prevalent of syllabus type. In this type of syllabus the selection and grading of the content is based on the complexity and simplicity of grammatical items. The learner is expected to master each structural step and add it to his or her grammar collection. While pursuing the structural approach, a syllabus designer may face the problem of having feeble ties connecting the structural items. The grammatical syllabus focuses on only one aspect of language, namely grammar, whereas there may be many more aspects to language.
The Situational Approach
These limitations of structural approach led to an alternative one where the point of departure became situational needs rather than grammatical units. In this approach, the principal organizing characteristic is a list of situations which reflects the way language and behavior are used everyday outside the classroom. Thus, by the situational approach learners are able to induce the meaning from a relevant context which will heighten the motivation of learners.
The Notional/Functional Approach
The notional or functional approach of 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 relegated to a subsidiary role. In this approach, the needs of the learners will have to be analyzed by various types of communication in which the learners have to confront.
The terms 'function' is described as the communicative purposes for which we use language, while ‘notion’ is described as the concept i.e. objects, entities, states of affairs, logical relationships, and so on.
The above approaches belong to the product-oriented category of syllabuses. An
Impressum
Verlag: BookRix GmbH & Co. KG
Texte: Md. Mostafizur Rahman, Lecturer, Dept. of English, USTC, Bangladesh.
Tag der Veröffentlichung: 24.08.2014
ISBN: 978-3-7368-3388-3
Alle Rechte vorbehalten
Widmung:
My Dearest Learners of Foreign Language Teaching