Language Curriculum and the Syllabus

1. THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
CURRICULUM AND SYLLABUS
Jovy D. Elimanao – Mihm, MAEd
Language Curriculum for Secondary Schools

2. MATCHING TERMS TO DEFINITIONS
Terms Definitions
1. Curriculum A general statement of goals, outcomes, learning
arrangements, evaluation and documentation
relating to management of programs within an
educational institution
2. Syllabus An explicit and coherent plan for a course of study.
It is a guide or map for the teacher and the learners
which may be need to be altered once the course
commences. It is constructed by selecting and
sequencing content, based on explicit objectives. It
is a public document, usually prepared by teachers
and negotiated with learners. It specifies what to be
taught in any particular course of study.

3. MATCHING TERMS TO DEFINITIONS
Terms Definitions
3. Course Design Is a process undertaken by the teacher to plan through a
syllabus and to implement through methodology a
particular course of study.
4. Methodology Underlying approach which influences how learners work
with syllabus content in the classroom. It is how the
teacher makes the syllabus real in the classroom. It refers
to a set of activities in which learners are involved and
why each activity is being undertaken e.g.
communicative approach/genre approach
5. Method Refers to actual classroom practice and procedures.
These include classroom management techniques for
pacing the delivery of content as well as activities such as
information gap activities, pair work, dictogloss etc

4. The Language Curriculum
Fig 1: A model of the parts of the curriculum design process
( Nation & Macalister 2010)
curriculum syllabus

5. The Language Curriculum
curriculum
syllabus
methodology

6. The Language Syllabus
A syllabus provides a focus for what
should be studied, along with a
rationale for how that content should
be selected and ordered.

7. The Language Syllabus
In the history of language teaching,
many types of language syllabuses
have been developed. Currently
the literature reflects three major
types of syllabuses: structural,
situational, and notional.

8. The Structural Language Syllabus
• dominated in language teaching
• Otherwise known as the
grammatical syllabus
• generally consisted of two
components:
• a list of linguistic structures (the
'grammar' to be taught)
• and a list of words (the lexicon to be
taught)

9. The Situational Language Syllabus
• is closely related to the topical
syllabus
• the use of dialogues is very common
as these form the basis of
communication within a specific
situation
• aimed at meaningful conversational
interchange in specific contexts

10. The Functional - Notional Language Syllabus
• Functional- Notional approach focuses
on the purposes for which language is
used. It emphasizes communicative
purposes of a speech act.
• It underlines what people want to do or
what they want to accomplish.
• helps learners to use real and
appropriate language for
communication.

11. Syllabus and Syllabus Design
• A syllabus is the specifications of the
content of a course of instruction and
list what will be taught and tested.
• Syllabus design is the process of
developing a syllabus.
• Syllabus design is one aspect of
curriculum development.

12. The Ideology of the
Curriculum

13. The Ideology of the Curriculum
• Developing goals for educational programs
need the understanding of both present and
long-term needs of learners and the society
as well as the planners’ beliefs and values
about school, learners, and teachers.
• These values are referred to as curriculum
ideologies, and represent the philosophical
underpinnings for educational programs
and the justification for the kinds of aim they
contain.

14. The Curriculum Ideologies
(Perspectives)

15. Academic (Scholar) Rationalism
The aims of the curriculum is justified by
stressing the intrinsic value of the subject
matter and its role in developing
• The learner’s intellect
• Humanistic values
• Rationality

16. Academic (Scholar) Rationalism
• The content matter of different subjects is
viewed as the basis for curriculum.
• Mastery of content is an end in itself rather
than a means to solving social problems or
providing efficient means to achieve the
goals of the policy makers.

17. Academic (Scholar) Rationalism
• The purpose of education is to help children
learn the accumulated knowledge of our
culture: that of the academic disciplines.
• An academic discipline is viewed as a
hierarchical community of people in search
of truth within one part of the universe of
knowledge.

18. Social and Economic Efficiency
This educational philosophy emphasizes
• the practical needs of learners and society
• the role of an educational program in
producing learners who are economically
productive
• Franklin Bobbit (1918) one of the founders of
curriculum theory, advocated this view.

19. Social and Economic Efficiency
• Curriculum development is seen as based
on scientific principles, its practitioners were
“educational engineers” whose job was to
discover the total range of habits, skills,
abilities, forms of thoughts, etc that its
members need for the effective
performance of their vocational labors.
• In language teaching, this philosophy leads
to an emphasis on practical and functional
skills in a foreign or second language

20. Learner Centeredness
In language teaching, this educational
philosophy is leading to
• an emphasis on process rather than product
• focus on learner differences, learner
strategies and on learner self-direction and
autonomy

21. Social Reconstructionism
This curriculum perspective emphasizes the
roles schools and learners can and should
play in addressing social injustices and
inequality.
Morris (1995) observes: “The curriculum derived
from this perspective focuses on developing
knowledge, skills, and attitudes which would
create a world where people care about
each other, the environment, and the
distribution of wealth.” …

22. Social Reconstructionism
… “Tolerance, the acceptance of diversity
and peace would be encouraged. Social
injustices and inequality would be central
issues in the curriculum.“

23. Cultural Pluralism
This philosophy argues
• that schools should prepare students to
participate in several different cultures, and
not merely the culture of the dominant
social and economic group.
• Cultural pluralism seeks to address racism, to
raise the self-esteem of minority groups and
help children appreciate the viewpoints of
other cultures and religions (Phillips and
Terry, 1999).

24. General Curriculum
Planning

25. General Curriculum Planning
Taba’s outline (1962) of the steps which a course
designer must work through to develop subject
matter courses has become the foundation for
many writer’s suggestions.
Her list of ‘curriculum processes’ includes the following:
• Diagnosis of needs
• Formulation of objectives
• Selection of content
• Organization of content
• Selection of learning experiences
• Organization of learning experiences
• Determination of what to evaluate, and the means
to evaluate.

26. Decisions in Curriculum
Construction

27. General Curriculum Planning
Curriculum development revolves around three
major curricular elements (Garcia, 1976):
1. Decisions on what to teach which are
educational ends generated at three levels of
specificity and immediacy (educational aims,
educational objectives, and instructional
objectives) to the learner;
2. Decisions on how to teach, concerned with
strategies in terms of selecting and organizing
learning opportunities, and
3. Decisions concerning the extent to which
educational ends are being attained through
the strategies or means provided.

28. Key Features of a
Curriculum Construction

29. General Curriculum Planning
• Learning is planned and guided. What is
sought to be achieved and how it is to be
achieved should be specified in advance.
• The definition refers to schooling. It should be
recognized that current appreciation of
curriculum theory and practice emerged in
the school and in relation to other schooling
ideas such as subject and lesson.

30. Four Ways of Approaching
Curriculum Theory and Practice

31. Curriculum as a body of knowledge to be
transmitted
• Curzon (1985) points out, those who compile
syllabus tend to follow the traditional
textbook approach of an ‘order of
contents’, or a patterned by a ‘logical’
approach to the subject, or – consciously or
unconsciously –the shape of a university
course in which they may have
participated. Thus, an approach to
curriculum theory and practice which
focuses on syllabus is only really concerned
with content.

32. Curriculum as a body of knowledge to be
transmitted
• Curriculum is a body of knowledge-content
and/or subjects. Education in this sense is the
process by which these are transmitted or
‘’delivered” to students by the most effective
methods that can be devised (Blenkin et al
1992).

33. Curriculum as an attempt to achieve
certain ends in students – product.
• The dominant modes of describing and
managing education are today couched in
the productive form. Education is most often
seen as technical exercise. Objectives are
set, a plan drawn up, and then applied, and
the outcomes (product) measured.

34. Curriculum as an attempt to achieve
certain ends in students – product.
• In the late 1980s and the 1990s many of the
debates about the National Curriculum for
schools and did not so much concern how
the curriculum was thought about as to what
its objectives and content might be.
Curriculum as product model is heavily on
the setting of behavioral objectives.

35. Curriculum as process
• Another way of looking at curriculum theory
and practice is via process. In this sense
curriculum is not a physical thing, but rather
the interaction of teachers, students and
knowledge. In other words, curriculum is
what actually happens in the classroom and
what people do to prepare and evaluate.

36. Curriculum as praxis
• Curriculum as praxis is, in many respects, a
development of the process model. While
the process model is driven by general
principles and places emphasis on judgment
and meaning making, it does not make
explicit statements about the interests it
serves. It may, for example, be used in such
a way that does not make continual
reference to collective human well-being
and to the emancipation of the human
spirit.

37. Curriculum as praxis
• The praxis model of curriculum theory and
practice brings these to the centre of the
process and make an explicit commitment
to emancipation. Thus action is not simply
informed, it is also committed. It is praxis.

38. Curriculum as praxis
• In this approach the curriculum itself
develops through the dynamic interaction
of action and reflection. That is, the
curriculum is not simply a set plans to be
implemented, but rather is constituted
through an active process in which
planning, acting, and evaluating are all
reciprocally related and integrated into the
process (Grundy 1987). At its centre is praxis:
informed, committed action.

39. Curriculum as praxis