Traditional Approaches to Syllabus Design

Education has changed a lot over the years. Today, educational institutions
seek to implement the best teaching programme in their schools to produce
more competent students who are prepared to face the world.
From my point of view, I believe that it is possible to implement a programme
that focuses on providing quality education. But what is the best approach to
Syllabus design?

First of all, it is good to point out that there are different traditional approaches
to Syllabus design. Regards to the grammar syllabus, a from the 1920s, Harold
Palmer and others in the Reform Movement emphasised control, presentation
of grammatical structures and oral practice after classroom presentation. These
intuitive criteria, reflected in the selection and grading decisions in the basic
structure for language teaching, continue to be influential.
However, Wilkins comments; "The use of a grammatical syllabus can be
regarded as the conventional approach to language teaching, since most
published syllabuses and courses have at their core a Syllabus design,
emphasising the 'uses' to which structures might be put during Communicative
activities gave rise to alternative proposals in the 1970s which also continue to
be influential. In my opinion, I consider the use of language in activities to be
extremely important because language acquisition is learned when we are
communicators. Sometimes there is a belief that learning grammatical
structures and their content is the first thing that has to be learned, but I believe
that this is not the case. On the contrary, it can be learned inductively or
deductively. For example, when the learner is asked to read a text related to a
grammatical topic to underline the sentences positively, negatively or
interrogatively, it is a way of identifying the grammatical topic to understand and
explain the use of the topic. The same theme can be learned when students
watch a video to identify the grammatical pattern and then explain in their own
words the use of the topic through oral participation. When applying an
approach, it is important to apply different assessment methods, such as self-
assessment, co-assessment and hetero-assessment to achieve comprehensive
and effective learning.

With regards to notional-functional syllabuses, b in the 1970s, the Council of

Europe initiated a project which aimed to specify a common framework for
teaching and assessing "communicative competence" in foreign language
education. The aim was to specify curricula in terms of three categories of
meaning common across languages: semantic-grammatical meaning, or
notions, such as 'time' and 'quantity'; modal meanings, such as degree of
certainty and scale of commitment; and communicative functions, such as
agreeing, requesting, menting, fulfilling. These provided a way of moving from
specific types of meaning, or universal communicative and conceptual
categories, to their realisation in Languages. This approach emphasises the use
of language in real communication situations. The aim is to establish standards
for Japanese instruction in various state and private sector institutions in the
United States (Brockett, 2000).
Communicative functions are grouped into higher categories, which include,
socialising, getting things done, communicating factual information.
Concepts or notions are also listed in this way, so the notional category of
"existential concepts" is divided into subcategories, such as "possibility and
impossibility".
The notional-functional syllabus is little more than an inventory of notions and
functions to be covered at different levels of a language teaching programme.
Functions can be realised with any number of forms or structures. (White, 1988)
Consequently, Brockett comments, "Curricula can likely be organised more
successfully around the principle of presenting learners with structural patterns
in the context of their communicative functions and concepts within specific
subject areas" (2000, pp. 19). From my point of view, I consider this approach to
be meaningful because the use of the English language is vital to acquire it and
demonstrate that the student can use expressions or language when
developing their activities. For example, when students have to deal with a
project, they first analyse the situation, give possible answers, orally or in
writing, make a plan to solve the problem, carry out the plan, research, correct,
provide extra information until they arrive at a solution. Throughout this process,
the student applies the communicative approach at the moment of developing
these activities. Through this, they must be inquirers, communicators, thinkers,
reflective, caring, autonomous and collaborative, whether they work individually
or in a group. For this reason, the use of expressions in real contexts will allow
meaningful learning.

In conclusion, I believe that all approaches are relevant to learning from all of
them. In my case, I would apply the Notional-functional syllabi. So, use an
approach according to your analysis and apply an approach in order to achieve
efficient and effective learning.

REFERENCES
Robinson, P. (1996a). Consciousness, rules, and instructed second language
acquisition. New York:
Peter Long.
Robinson, P. (2002). Learning conditions, aptitude complexes and SLA: A
framework for research and pedagogy.
research and pedagogy. In P. Robinson (ed.), Individual differences and
instructed language learning (pp. 110-33).
language learning (pp. 110-33). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Robinson, P. (2003b). The Cognition Hypothesis of adult, task-based language
learning. Second
Language Studies 21, 45-107. www.hawaii.edu/sls/uhwpesl/21(2)/Robinson.pdf.
Tobón, Sergio, Formación basada en competencias. Pensamiento complejo,
diseño curricular y didáctica, Colombia, 2006, Ecoe ediciones.
Villegas, Ruiz, Marco, Los paradigmas de la calidad educativa. De la
autoevaluación a la acreditación, Mexico, 2001, Unión de Universidades de
América Latina.
Zabalza, Miguel Ángel, Diseño y desarrollo curricular, Madrid, 1991, Narcea.