NOTE: Free essay sample provided on this page should be used for references or sample purposes only. The sample essay is available to anyone, so any direct quoting without mentioning the source will be considered plagiarism by schools, colleges and universities that use plagiarism detection software. To get a completely brand-new, plagiarism-free essay, please use our essay writing service.
One click instant price quote
... the subject is to expert Content = a gift to the learner or teacher or knower Objectives defined in advance Subject emphasis Assessment by achievement or by mastery Doing things to the learner Type B: How is to be learnt? Internal to the learner Inner directed or self-fulfilling Negotiated between learners and readers Learner and teacher as joint decision maker Content = what the subject is to the learner Content = what the learner brings and wants Objectives described afterwords Process emphasis Assessment in relationship to learners criteria of success Doing things for or with the learners Several different factors related to the networks of psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, and pedagogy claim to be taken into consideration for framing a syllabus. The syllabus is indeed concerned with the specification and planning of what is to be learned, frequently set down in some written form as prescription for actions by teachers and learners.
It is also concerned with the achievements of ends, often, though not always, associated with the pursuance of particular means. It is necessarily, though not obviously, imbued with particular educational philosophies, views of the subject matter, and how it may best be learned, beliefs about the relationship between the teachers and learners, all of which underpinned by particular definitions of a desirable social order and world view. Now it is patent that the factors, which are considered for constructing a syllabus, are manipulated by the syllabus and vice-versa. Van Ek lists the following necessary components of a language syllabus: a. The situation in which the SL/FL will be used, including the topics which will be dealt with; b.
The language activities in which the learners will be engaged c. The language function which the learner will fulfill d. What the learner will be able to do with respect to each topic e. The general notions which the learners will be able to handle f. The specific topic notions which the learner will be able to handle g. The language form which the learner will be able to use h.
The degree of scale with which the learner will be able to perform Here the social, psychological and pedagogical factors are confidently advocated as pre considerations for syllabus construction. That is, the selections of the teaching items, and then their sequencing are obviously affected and even controlled by the social and psychological factors of the learner as a social being and as an individual. And the factors ultimate relate to the pedagogical factors and the overall concept of the syllabus planning. Selection and Organization: In the account of syllabus the focus is also on selection and organization of content, whereas, as we firmly consider, there are other approaches to syllabus which shift attention to methodology and evaluation. As a consequence of the foregoing review and discussion, it is obvious to propound a collection of typical components actively considered in designing a syllabus. Typical Components: Set A 1.
Statements about the learner: a. Age, sex, motivation, attitude, aptitude, learning style, educational level, type of institution, previous attainment etc; b. Specific features- derived, elite, mono / bi /multi-lingual / cultural . 2. Statement about aims and needs: a.
Reason for SL/FL learning/ teaching; b. Skill- all or two or... to be taught; c. Specific features, if any. 3. Starting and target level needs, and the determination of deficiencies, if any. 4. Information about duration / offer : a.
Length of courses, number of classes per week, total duration; b. Homework, self-study; 5. Information about the teacher (s): a. Qualification; b.
Training; c. Competency; d. Seriousness, punctuality, honesty, sincerity, regularity and the like; e. Friendly, polite, sympathetic, humorous, democratic etc. Typical Components: Set B 1. Content: a.
Specification of content; b. Grammar, vocabulary and others. 2. Time Terms/ semesters / courses /years 3. Sequence of teaching items Which to be taught, which second / next . Typical Components: Set C 1. Methodology: Which method to apply-Direct method or Audioligual method or Communicative Language Teaching Approach or eclectic method. 2.
Aids and equipment: Chalk board, market board, OHP, VCR, TV, computer, cassette player and the like. 3. Books and material. Typical components: Set D 1. Examination 2.
Other Educational levels The relation between preceding and following courses. 3. Relation to teacher training: Short or long-term training. According to McDonough the syllabus designers seem to have a relatively homogenous idea of the order of difficulty of various grammatical devices of simple English. Some kind of empirical validation of this, or empirical challenge is required, because despite gradual replacement of structural criteria by communicational criteria of sequencing in recent textbooks, the presentation of grammatical construction is still ordered according to intuitive ideas of relative difficulty. An early attempt to work out the implications of such findings of organizing language syllabuses was made by Valdman (1974), who discussed whether the process of pidgin ization could be used as a basis for grading teaching materials. But there is a problem that a little language would contain stigmatized forms, which could become fossilized.
To avoid this Valdman proposed the Focus Approach which Pieneman summarizes as follows: 1. The learners are allowed to use reduced and deviant forms in communicative activities. 2. However, these forms will not be brought in focus in the syllabus. 3. The learners are exposed to a fully formed input filtered only by the application of pedagogical norms. 4.
The syllabus will be graded according to what is easy to acquire. Halliday, McIntosh and Stevens have noted a surprising lack of published guidance on syllabus grading, a number of criteria have been proposed and have become accepted through use and these are listed below according to focus: structural, topic and functional. Structural: Frequency, coverage ability, simplicity / complexity , learn ability/ teachability, comb inability, contrast, productiveness, generalizability, natural order of acquisition. Topic: Interest and activity, need, pedagogic merit, relevance, depth of treatment, practicality, utility. Functional: Need: immediate and long-term, utility, coverage and generalizability, interest, complexity of form. Alternatives Priorities in Design: The predestined content syllabus captures the designers selection form, and organization of the target language and its use in certain situation.
The designer draws the map beginning at the destination. The result being that the whole of the rest of the map- the route through the new language and performance- is most often shaped and constrained by its own objectives and predetermined outcomes. An alternative orientation would prioritize the route itself: a focus upon the means towards the learning of new language. Here the designer would give priority to the changing process of learning and the potential of the classroom-to the psychological and social resources applied to a new language by learners in the classroom context. One result of this change of focus would be that the syllabus would be the plan for gradual creation of the real syllabus of the classroom, jointly and explicitly undertaken by teachers and learners.
Such a plan would be about designing a syllabus, and therefore, a guide for the map-making capacities of its users. The need for syllabus design: Since language is highly complex and cannot be taught all the time, successful teaching requires that there should be a selection of materials depending on the prior definition of the objectives, proficiency level, and duration of the course. This syllabus takes place in syllabus planning stage. It is the appropriate strategy of presentation.
It is the natural growth hypothesis, then, which appears to constitute the most serious challenge to traditional concepts of syllabus planning, and for this reason, it is worthwhile to exploring it in a little more detail. In assessing the role of the non-analytic growth model it is convenient to consider it first in the context of informal task-related programme where there is a serious commitment to the achievement of fluency in a rich target language environment. The principle of organizing a general syllabus can be structural, functional, experiential, or some combination of the three. We need this form to make the students able to communicate properly with the subject they are assigned to. The control over the text material should be exercised in a more subtle and flexible way than can normally be achieved by means of a traditional structural syllabus. Creating and reinterpreting syllabus: Although, we may follow a predestined syllabus, every teacher inevitably interprets and reconstructs that syllabus so that it becomes possible to implement it in the classroom.
Similarly learners create individual learning syllabuses from their own particular starting points and their own perceptions of the language, learning and the classroom. We may regard learners either as people who are trying to redraw the predestined plan, or we may see learners as uncovering the route for the first time in a sense, discovering the new language as if it had never been explored. The classroom is therefore, the meeting place or point of interaction between the predisgned syllabus and individual learners syllabuses. This interaction will generate the real syllabus- or the syllabus in action-which is jointly constructed by the teachers and learners together. In the lesson-to-lesson reality of language teaching, we are continually concerned with three syllabuses: the teachers version of the predestined plan, the individual learner syllabuses, and the unfolding syllabus of the classroom- this last being the synthesis of the other two. One important implication of this for syllabus design is that a good predestined syllabus is one, which is positively amenable to the alternative interpretation and open to reconstruction through interactive in the classroom.
Conclusion: More recent research into SLA has indicated a natural acquisition order, thus giving rise to the possibility of developing structural selection and grading principles in tune with this natural order. Pieneman has suggested modifying grading to bring the two in line, though without requiring learners to produce correct forms before they are ready to do so. To construct a syllabus the designer has to have adequate experience of the social, psychological and educational factors directly or indirectly related to the teaching program. Here is no scope for adopting any arbitrary or notional matter. As the rationale behind designing of the syllabus transforms into component part, the syllabus designer becomes bound to follow the established criteria for selecting and ordering the content, choosing the methods, prescribing the material and equipment, recommending the teachers qualifications and determining the assessment system. When it is done the syllabus might be approximate or result in the expected or required success.
While, non-deviate input will be provided, focus on current forms in learner output will be planned to coincide with the learners stage of readiness to produce such forms. As yet, however, the kind of detailed evidence on which to base such a progression is lacking, although the accumulation of research may result in the evolution of new criteria for organizing language input to learners to avoid some of the learning problems, which appear to have arisen from syllabuses planned according to traditional criteria for structural sequencing. Anyway, a proper designed syllabus, followed by the accurate process, is the right path for the learners. Works Cited: Dr. Maniruzzaman, M. An SL/FL Syllabus and the Rationale Behind Its Design.
Harvest: Jahangirnagar Studies in Literature Vol. 13, 19995 - 1996: 96 - 104. Allen, J. P. B.
General-Purpose Language Teaching: A Variable Focus Approach. ELT Documents 118. Ed. C. J. Brumfit.
Oxford: The British Council and Pergamon Press, 1994: 61 - 74. Breen, M. P. Process Syllabus for the Language Classroom. ELT Documents 118. Ed.
C. J. Brumfit. Oxford: The British Council and Pergamon Press, 1994: 47 - 59. Yalden, J. Syllabus Design in General Education.
ELT Documents 118. Ed. C. J. Brumfit. Oxford: The British Council and Pergamon Press, 1994: 13 - 21.
White, R. V. The ELT Curriculum. London: Athenaeum Press: 1988. Richards, J. C.
and T. S. Rodgers. Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 1986
Free research essays on topics related to: social psychological, long term, natural order, c j, target language
Research essay sample on Social Psychological Target Language
