CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT

SYLLABUS DESIGN

I will start by defining what syllabus design is and what the place is of it in curriculum development. Candlin (1984) suggest that the curricula are concerned with making general statement about language learning, learning purpose and experiences, evaluation and the role relationships of teachers and learners. They will also contain banks of learning items and suggestions about how these might be used in class. Syllabuses, on the other hand, are more localized and are based on accounts and records of what actually happens at the classroom level as teachers and learners apply a given curriculum to their own situation.

Curriculum design also depends on the administration of the school. In order to plan a curriculum, we should take many things into consideration, for example what are the learners’ needs; how to group them, how to develop the appropriate materials, learning tasks, and evaluation tools, all of these need to be integrated. The curriculum development is how to teach with all the aspects it involves and the syllabus is just a part of it.

Syllabus design is concerned to how to select and grade the content according to its difficulty and usefulness, methodology is a part of it. So, syllabus is just the specification of what units will be taught, while curriculum involves considerations of the whole complex philosophical, social and administrative factors which contribute to the planning of an educational program.

Curriculum has at least three phases: a planning phase, an implementation phase, and an evaluation phase.

During the 1970’s, communicative views of language teaching began to be incorporated into syllabus design, focusing not only on language functions, but also on experimental content (that is, the subject matter through which the language is taught).

‘’Product oriented’’ is viewed as the things that learners should know or be able to do as a result of instruction.

Recently some syllabus designers suggested that syllabus content might be specified in terms of learning tasks and activities.

Humanistic education is based on the belief that learners should have a say in what they should be learning and how they should learn it. It criticizes the approach developed by Munby in the area of language syllabus analysis, because Munby view is too mechanistic and pays too little attention to the perceptions of the learner. On the other hand, some education authorities and even learners feel that if the teacher or institution asks for the learners’ opinion, it is a sign that they do not know what they are doing. I certainly agree on this part, because when I was a student I felt the same; now, as a teacher I think teachers know what is the better methodology for learners, of course making some analysis first and some adaptations.

Another concern is whether or not to teach general English, or if it is better to teach English for specific purposes. Even though a learner may need English for a specific purpose, this learner will be engaged in everyday situations in which he will need to speak what is called general English. Widdowson suggests that English for specific purposes is restricted, whereas general English competence fulfills is aimed at the development of general capacity.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

· Nunan D. 1993. Ch 1. The scope of syllabus design in Syllabus Design. Oxford. OUP

pp. 3-9.

· Nunan D. 1993. Ch 1. Point of Departure in Syllabus Design. Oxford. OUP

pp. 10-26