Design Syllabus

Designing a topic-based syllabus

for young learners

James M. Bourke

In recent years there has been a good deal of debate on the teaching of English to

young learners. Although the article looks at the teaching of English to lower

primary children in anESLcontext in Southeast Asia, it is not speciﬁc to one

region. The young learners in question are aged 6 to 8 years. The main focus of the article is how best to design a syllabus and classwork materials suitable for young learners wherever they may be. The writer stresses the need for appropriate target- setting and makes the case for a topic- based/task-based syllabus. The underlying rationale is that a second language syllabus should reﬂect the world of the child and facilitate the bringing of acquisition into the classroom.

Introduction

Although it is clear that different young learners have different English

language needs, priorities, and motivations, it is now generally agreed that an early start is desirable and beneﬁcial. Language acquisition seems to be one of the things that young children are particularly good at. The question is how best to get acquisition into the second language classroom and to provide the necessary conditions for its growth and development across the primary curriculum. One of the major considerations is the matter of a

syllabus. The syllabus is much more than an inventory of teaching items. It also deﬁnes the approach to teaching/learning. Every syllabus has to take account of contextual variables and constraints, and at the same time pay due regardto the principles of secondlanguage learning. In this paper it will be argued that there is a strong case for a topic-based/task-based approach to designing English language programmes for young learners.

Syllabus design:

goals and content

Second language syllabus design is an inexact science. Language syllabi are written with the specifics of a particular situation in mind. It is difficult to define linguistic outcomes precisely for learners of different age groups, different socio-linguistic backgrounds, and different curricular experiences.

Clearly, however, one needs overall goals within which speciﬁc outcomes or objectives can be set. For instance the goals of an English language syllabus for young learners might be the following (adapted from the primary

English syllabus for Brunei):

nto help pupils communicate effectively in English, in order to discuss

personal experiences, and to meet the demands of the school

curriculum

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279

nto facilitate the acquisition of ﬂuency and accuracy through active

participation in a range of appropriate tasks

nto develop emergent reading and to inculcate in pupils a fondness for

reading

nto introduce language items (e.g. structures, vocabulary) within the

context of appropriate topics which can be talked about, read about, and

written about.

Assuming that the function of a syllabus is to generate appropriate units of workfor a speciﬁc group of learners, one can see that a syllabus constructed to implement the four broad goals above would have the following

characteristics:

ncommunicative activities such as games, cued dialogues, role-play,

information gap exercises, and various other interactive tasks

ncommunicative tasks supported by ‘enabling’ (i.e. language-oriented)

tasks. The rationale here is that childrenwill acquire the language as a by-

product of the activities in which they are engaged

ngradual introduction of pupils to reading in English by means of the

shared reading of Big Books, using both ‘look and say’ and phonic

approaches

ntopic-related units of work derived from the syllabus. The topics provide

the scaffolding aroundwhich the language grows and develops. Theyalso

provide the motivation for personal and group writing tasks.

In all of this the needs and experiences of the learner are paramount. The aim isnot so much to teach themthe new language, but rather to provide the necessary conditions and motivating experiences for the target language to be acquired by the pupils themselves.

Minimizing

mismatches

Based on the communicative agenda above, it could be argued that the best

type of syllabus for young learners of English is one which makes it possible

for them to acquire the target language within the acquisition-poor
environment of the classroom. The problem with skills-based, structural,
lexical, and other ‘itemized’ syllabi is that they are needlessly prescriptive
and uni-directional. They are based on the false assumption that there is a
simple, one-to-one relationship between teaching and learning. Nunan
(1994) pointed out that learning is mutually constructed as a collaborative
experience between teachers and learners. He went on to outline the

mismatches that may occur between the agendas of teachers andlearners in

three important domains: a) the experiential domain, b) the learning

process domain, and c) the language content domain.

The experiential

domain

In relation to this domain, language teaching should relate to the child’s world. It is necessary to re-discover and inhabit the world of the child. Children live in a world of fantasy and make-believe, a world of dragons and monsters, talking animals, and alien beings. In their world there are no tenses, nouns, or adjectives; there are no schemas labelled ‘grammar’, ‘lexis’, ‘phonology’, or ‘discourse’. It follows that when we plan a syllabus for young learners we

should make sure it is experientially appropriate. It should contain:

ntopics of interest to children

nstories of all kinds

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James M. Bourke

ngames and fun activities
ndoing and making activities
nsongs, chants, and rhymes
npairwork and groupwork tasks
nBig Books
nmaterials from the Web
nchildren’s literature
nany activity that brings acquisition into the classroom.

There is still a place for language games and meaningful drills, but only in so far as these ‘language experiences’ act as a pivot point to more genuine communication.

The learning process

domain

Itemized syllabi typically focus on the product and not on the learning
process. They ignore the fact that language is made in the mind and
requires active processing on the part of the learner. In contrast, a
‘process’ type syllabus requires learners to notice features of the input

and process them in various ways in order to convert ‘input’ into ‘intake’.

The main objection to skills-based, structural, and other ‘itemized’
syllabi is that they are unnatural. They intervene in and interfere with
the learner’s emerging interlanguage, which is often described as
a ‘built-in syllabus’. Naturalness in second language learning implies
a commitment to acquisition-like activities in acquisition-rich
environments and the adoption of a ‘minimal teaching strategy’,
a viewpoint expressed by Von Humboldt: ’ We cannot teach a language;
we can only create the conditions under which it will be learned’

(Dakin 1973: 11).

What those optimal conditions are is still an open question, but different

researchers have suggested the following:

ncomprehensible input
na stress-free environment
nthe right to be silent
ncopious interaction
nsome focus on form.

Research also indicates that language learning is a complex, non-linear, and

rather chaotic process.

Learning linguistic items is not a linear process—learners do not master
one item and then move on to another. In fact the learning curve for a
single item is not linear either (Larsen-Freeman 1997: 151).

The language

content domain

Some syllabi and coursebooks adopt a multi-strand approach to language content by listing language content under headings such as language input (grammar, language functions, lexical items) and skills development (the four skills). This division of labour results in a series of lessons where the main teachingpoint is grammar, or readingcomprehension, or writing, etc. What happens is that teachers blindly followthe sequence of teaching items in the syllabus in the hope that learners will somehow re-combine these discrete items once they are inside the head. Sadly, this does not seem to happen.