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Designing Type A and Type B syllabuses: Advantages and Disadvantages

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 Designing Type A and Type B syllabuses:

Advantages and Disadvantages

Jamel Abdenacer ALIMI

e-mail: jamel_alimi@yahoo.com

August 2013

In our enthusiasm to reveal to the world the

enlightment of our vision, we are apt to forget
that this vision is in all likelihood itself
culturally induced and that other people in
other countries it may appear only as a
delusion.

Widdowson (1984:24)

Over the last three decades or so, the field of syllabus design has witnessed a plethora
of novel, yet competing approaches to syllabus construction, following "dramatic
shifts in attitudes towards both language and learning" (Nunan 1989:12). The
accompanying claims and counter-claims as to their very rationale, design unit
validity, and contextual teaching applicability have to date been unabated, and tended
to remain, unfortunately, a shaded area in the minds of a large section of ESL/EFL
practitioners worldwide.

The present paper is in line with the ongoing efforts meant at discussing and
evaluating the set of syllabi recently proposed in the field. It chiefly aims (a) to
discuss the merits and limitations of functional as well as procedural syllabuses, and
(b) to assess the latter's legitimacy status and classroom effectiveness.

To this end, the remainder of the essay will be divided into the following four
sections. Section One provides a brief conceptual background which comprises a
concise definition of the two syllabuses under study, followed by a contextualization
of them both within their respective Type A or Type B strands or orientations (White
1988). Sections Two and Three, in turn, discuss the advantages and disadvantages of
functionally- and procedurally-mapped syllabuses. Section Four is to shed further
light on two key areas relating to the latter syllabuses — namely, their legitimacy
status as well as their potential for successful operability within the teaching contexts
they happen to be implemented in.

1. BACKGROUND: DEFINITIONS AND SYLLABUS STRANDS

The present Section aims to place the syllabuses under consideration within their
overall Type A/Type B traditions in anticipation for a firm grasp of their individual
implications, be they positive or negative, in so far as language, learning and teaching

1
are concerned. Before embarking on this task, though, we promptly suggest to start
with a brief definition of each of the syllabi in question.

1.1 Definitions

1.1.1 Functional-Notional Syllabuses:

Functional- notional syllabuses are types of syllabus in which teaching units are
organized on the basis of one or two kinds of concepts —notions and functions—
which are thought to help learners "communicate through language" (Wilkins 1976).
According to Hutchinson and Waters (1987)

Functions are concerned with social behaviour and represent the intention
of the speaker or writer, for example, advising, warning, threatening,
describing etc. They can be approximately equated with the
communicative acts that are carried out through language. Notions, on the
other hand, reflect the way in which the human mind thinks. They are the
categories into which the mind and thereby language divides reality, for
example, time, frequency, duration, gender, number, location, quantity etc,
(31).

Such syllabuses, originally exemplified in the Council of Europe's (1970s) Threshold

Level and Waystage syllabi, have undergone major re-interpretations ever since. Yet,
as Johnson (1998:232) assert, they are seldom realized in textbooks which are set up
in accordance with their orthodoxy, partly due to the significant shortcomings that
have surfaced in the meantime (see Sub-section 2.2 below).

1.1.2 Procedural Syllabuses

Procedural syllabuses are basically identified as those organized around the concept
of "task" in lieu of, for instance, lexis or syntax (Richards et al 1992:373-4).They are
so called because of their focus on the procedures of both learning and teaching. As
such, they do not specify any sort of language products, be they specific structures,
functions or skills, beforehand, as is the case with the structural, functional and many
versions of skills syllabuses. Their applications are practically initiated via the 1975
Malaysian Syllabus and the 1979-84 Communicational Teaching Project or CTP
(Richards 1984).

For our purposes, the paper will observe the differentiation between procedural and
task-based syllabuses, as they each represent distinct versions of their own right (see
Long and Crookes 1992 for further details). Subsequently, the remainder will be
exclusively concerned with the CTP or any other versions totally in congruence with
it. However, the terms "syllabus" and "curriculum" are to be used interchangeably
throughout to avoid any further unnecessary repetition.

1.2 Syllabus Tradition Adherence

Functionally-, and procedurally-constructed curricula adhere to two distinct syllabus

traditions, which, respectively, provide "a change of focus from content for leaning
towards the process of learning" (Breen 1984:52).

2
In a practical move for classifying syllabuses, White (Op.Cit.44) proposes "Type A"
and "Type B" as viable terms for describing, and distinguishing between, the various
language teaching curricula. By and large, syllabuses of Type A category are
fundamentally preoccupied with the question "What is to be learnt?" whereas their
Type B counterparts with that of "How is it to be learnt?" (ibid: 44-5). The resulting
demarcation between the What and the How may, perhaps, be best perceived in its
immediate, comprehensive implications in the Summary Table below.

Type A
a- Syllabus orientation to
Interventionist; giving
learning process priority to the pre-selection
of linguistic or other
content or skill objectives
b- Attitude towards the . external to the learner
learner . other-directed
. determined by authority
c- Teacher/student roles . teacher as a decision-
maker
. teacher doing things to
the learner
d- Language content . content = what the
subject is to the expert
. content = a gift from the
teacher or knower
e- syllabus objectives defined in advance
(Adapted from White 1988:44-5)
Type B
Non-interventionist;
experiential; “natural
growth” approach to the
learning process
. internal to the learner
. inner directed or self-
fulfilling
. negotiated between
teachers and learners
. learner and teacher as
joint decision-makers
. teacher doing things for
or with the learner
. content = what the
subject is to the learner
. content = what the
learner brings and wants
. content is subordinate to
learning processes and
pedagogical procedures
described afterwards

As could obviously be inferred, Type A syllabuses tend to betray a fundamental

preoccupation with product while their counterparts appear primarily concerned with
process. This has inevitably yielded a significantly positive as well as negative
bearing on their individual approaches to language and classroom learning and
teaching (Richards and Rodgers Op.Cit.:18-35).

Some of the most pertinent advantages and disadvantages of designing both types of
curricula are to be spelled out in the two sections below with sole reference to
functional and procedural syllabuses.
2. FUNCTIONALLY-DESIGNED SYLLABUSES: MERITS AND
LIMITATIONS

As hinted at Introduction Section above, the field of syllabus design and methodology
has experienced a radical paradigm shift from curriculums compatible with the tenets
of the Audio-lingual Method (Nunan 1988; Wilkins Op.Cit.; Richards and Rodgers
Op.Cit). The long-held endorsement of the "structure" as a unit of analysis has

3
ultimately come under fierce attack. Its viability is henceforth questioned by
Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) proponents, methodologists, and Second
Language Acquisition (SLA) researchers at a variety of levels. These mainly concern
its failings in issues in connection with learnability, sequencing, and inadequacy to
address students' real communicative needs in and for learning a target language (e.g.,
Wilkins Op.Cit; Ellis 1997:135; Hutchinson and Waters Op.cit:31-2; Richards and
Rodgers Op.cit.). Two alternative units labeled, in Wilkins' (1976) terms, as "notions"
and "functions", are brought centre-stage. This newly introduced analytic conception
to syllabus design offers, arguably, neat superiority to the synthetic, form-focused one
on grounds of the merits discussed below.

2.1. Merits

Wilkins (Op.cit), in his review of drawing up a notional syllabus, attributes the latter's
superiority to hitherto dominant grammatical and situational curriculums to its
paramount account for what he calls the "communicative facts of language" from the
very outset without pour autant losing sight the structural or situational factors
involved therein. As he puts it, the notional syllabus he proposes

is potentially superior to the grammatical syllabus because it will produce

a communicative competence and because its evident concern with the use
of language will sustain the motivation of the learners. It is superior to the
situational syllabus because it can ensure that the most important
grammatical forms are included and because it can cover all kinds of
language functions, not only those that typically occur in certain situations
(ibid: my emphasis).

The two phrases, italicized in the quotation above, are closely associated with
functional-notionalism, and constitute two of the most acclaimed benefits of
designing a functionally-oriented syllabus (Finocchiaro and Brumfit 1983:17; cited in
Nunan 1988:36). Others advanced in its favour include its preoccupation with the
notion of "surrender value" (Johnson 1998:232), its root in Reconstructionism (White
Op.cit.:25), and its interest in catering for learners' specific linguistic and
communicative needs and wants (Munby 1978), to name but a few. Their intended
effects, initially brought about in Phase One/Wilkins Period and profusely detailed in
Phase Two/Munby Period, are not only still being felt in the current Phase Three/
Prabhu Period but are also reactivating an interest in functionally-based approaches to
language teaching in conjunction with "new leads in discourse and genre analysis,
schema theory, pragmatics, and systemic/functional grammar" (Rodgers 2001:5).
However important these merits might be, the design of functional syllabi has
attracted, in its turn, a variety of criticism because of arguably crucial drawbacks, the
most salient of which are to be briefly discussed in the following sub-section.

2.2. Limitations
Despite the tone of promise recognizable in the quotation just above, functionally-
based syllabus design has been subject to many aspects of criticism. These especially
regard

 The verisimilitude which notionally-mapped curriculums show with

grammatical counterparts in presenting language as an "inventory of units, of
items for accumulation and storage. They are notional rather than structural,

4
 but they are isolates all the same" (Widdowson 1979:248; quoted in Yalden
1983:77),
 Functional syllabus and textbook writers' problematic tendency to rely on
intuition when "selecting exponents and structures for the functions they have
chosen" (White Op.cit:82),
 The realization that Wilkins' (1976) approach is "quite atheoretical; it says
nothing about how languages are learned" (Paulston in Wilkins et al 1981:93;
quoted in Johnson 1998:232),
 The seemingly fundamental flaw as to viewing language acquisition as a
"planned process of input-assimilation", whereby "what is taught = what is (or
ought to) be learnt" (Prabhu 1984:273;quoted in Long and Crookes Op.cit),
 The danger that F/N syllabuses merely provide learners with useful, ready-
made phrases which are suitable to well-established contexts— but with no
"real generative capacity of a communication" (Johnson Op.cit).

In parallel to the set of criticisms mentioned above, Long and Crookes (1992) draw
attention to the fact that the syllabuses in question, being fundamentally to Type A
category, simply focus on what is to be learnt (that is, the target language) and not on
how that particular language is to be learnt. As such, they could but share the inherent,
negative characteristics of their fellow product-oriented counterparts (see the
Summary Table in Section One above).

As could obviously be expected, the various aspects of dissatisfaction discussed

earlier have ultimately triggered different types of responses on the part of other
syllabus proponents. Some of the most drastic ones are from the procedural syllabus,
as could be easily felt in the excerpt in Prabhu (1980; quoted in Long and Crookes
op.cit) here below

Communicative teaching in most Western thinking has been training for

communication, which I claim involves one in some way or other in
preselection; it is a kind of matching of notion and form. Whereas the
Bangalore Project is teaching through communication; and therefore the
very notion of communication is different (164).

The following Section will deal with some of the advantages and disadvantages of
designing procedural curriculums.

3- PROCEDURAL SYLLABUSES: MERITS AND CAVEATS

3.1 Merits:
The design of procedural curriculums, as exemplified by the seminal 1979-1984
Bangalore CTP, offers many advantages, which are in close connection with the
overall Type B strands (Section 1.3). More specifically, though, the positive aspects
associated with such syllabi are conspicuous in two key areas of focus— their views
of language and of language learning.

In so far as the former is concerned, the syllabuses in question provide new avenues
for interpreting more accurately the essence and functions of language. Accordingly,
language is no more to be viewed as a series of discrete items, with a primary concern
over accuracy, forms and communication, as is largely held by product-oriented
syllabuses. Instead, it is henceforth approached from a holistic perspective, with a
5
chief focus on meaning, on communicative competence, and on the premise that
language is communication. As Prabhu (1987), such a view can operate effectively
via a procedurally-principled teaching, which should be

concerned with creating conditions for coping with meaning in the

classroom, to the exclusion of any deliberate regulation of the
development of grammatical competence or a mere simulation of language
behaviour (2).

As for their views of language learning, procedurally-conceived syllabuses tend to

demonstrate a preference to developmental process, where different area of linguistic
knowledge grow at different rates, with no slightest attempt ever made at specifying
or ordering linguistic items to be learnt whatsoever. An otherwise approach is to be
dismissed for failing to foster learners' grammatical competence and to enhance a
much-needed preoccupation with meaning in the classroom (Op.cit). The resulting
advantage, it is argued, is that learners, while focusing on task outcomes, will not only
sustain a parallel focus on meaning but also set up an "internal system" or
interlanguage, which is mainly developed at a subconscious level (Op.cit.69-70).

The central stances outlined above largely have the merits of demarcating
procedurally-based syllabi from many of the tenets and techniques of their functional-
notional counterparts. By the same token, they help establish them in clear distinction
from the premises and practices so much valued in structural curriculums, including,
most importantly, drilling, over-concern over error correction, and the presentation-
practice-production continuum (Johnson 1998:2312; Skehan 1996:20). In contrast, the
now proposed types of syllabus seek to t promote teaching circumstances, whereby
students are cognitively engaged in completing tasks rather than learning the target
language. As Prabhu (Op.cit) argues, this will have the additional advantage of

developing pedagogic procedures which would (1) bring about in the

classroom a preoccupation with meaning and an effort to cope with
communication and (2) avoid planned progression and pre-selection in
terms of language structure as well as form-focused activity (or planned
language practice) in the classroom (17).
One of the tasks and activities, which has been exploited in the Project, is reproduced
here below for illustration:

Madras Arkonam Katpadi Jolarpet Kolar Bangalore

Bangalore Dep.2140 Arr. 2250 Arr.0005 Arr.0155 Arr.0340 Arr.0550
Mail Dep.2305 Dep.0015 Dep.0210 Dep.0350

1 When does the Bangalore Mail leave Madras?

2 When does it arrive in Bangalore?
3 For how long does it stop at Arkonam?
4 At what time does it reach Katpadi?
5 At what time does it leave Jolarpet?
6 How long does it take to go from Madras to Arkonam?
7 How long does it take to go from Kolar to Bangalore?

6
As it were, it is the very concept of "task", as conceived of by procedural syllabus
designers, which tends to attract a variety of cautious and, more often than not, harsh
reservations. The subsequent part will identify some of them in further detail.

3.2 Limitations:

In spite of its reportedly wide merits (Long and Crookes 1992; Nunan 1998:42;
Johnson 1982, 1998), a procedurally-mapped syllabus does seem prone to suffer, at
least, two disadvantages.

In so far as its conception of "task" is concerned, the foundational definition proposed

by Prabhu (1987), whereby

An activity which required learners to arrive at an outcome from given

information through some process of thought, and which allowed teachers
to control and regulate that process, was regarded as a "task" (24).

tends to provide a task-based designer with little or no help when selecting, grading
and sequencing tasks are at issue (Long and Crookes Op.cit.).

Secondly, with respect to students' variables, the syllabus in question appears not to
account much for securing a robust fit between task-based instruction and students'
learning strategies and skills. For, as Skehan rightly points out,

Some learners are drawn to language-as-pattern, while others are more

concerned with achieving the expression of meaning. Some learners, other
things being equal, are likely to focus their attention on form, on "cracking
the code" because they enjoy analising verbal material and finding
patterns. Others are more inclined to treat the task of language learning as
one of memory, with the need to assimilate a wide repertoire of functional
expressions which can then be used as ready-made chunks (29).

It should be noted at this point that a task a la Prabhu does not expect each and every
single student to arrive to the task's desired outcomes. As Prabhu (Op.cit) himself
reports,
Teachers on the project used the working rule that the challenge of a task
was reasonable if approximately half the learners in the class were
successful on approximately half the task (as shown by a marking of their
work) (56).

While this may sound intuitively realistic in ordinary, daily classroom interactions,
one would, nonetheless, find the percentage pre-set for success in a given task utterly
unrealistic and hard to sustain on empirically verified SLA research findings.

It will not have escaped the reader that the two Sections above dealt with the
advantages and disadvantages of the functional and procedural syllabuses almost
totally in their design phase. It should be borne in mind that other additional features
and caveats do actually emerge at post-construction, implementational stages, as is
extensively reported on by curriculum specialists and classroom practitioners
worldwide. The debate on such matters is far from being conclusive, given among
other things the divergences between syllabus design schools and the numerous,

7
controversial issues constantly being raised (see the collection of papers in Brumfit
(ed) (1984) for further details).

In the following Section, two issues of much controversy relating to procedurally-set

up syllabuses will be addressed— namely, their status as legitimate approaches to
curriculum design, and their degree of operability in relation to the teaching contexts
they may be implemented in.

4. PROCEDURALLY-DESIGNED SYLLABUSES: A BIEF

ASSESSMENT

Since the inception of the exemplar Bangalore/Madras Project (Prabhu 1987),

procedurally-mapped curriculums have attracted unremitting reassessments and
evaluations at many a level. Of more immediacy, perhaps, are the ones where the
legitimacy and efficacy of the said proposals are found fault with or, even, harshly
questioned. Here below are some of the arguments and counter-arguments that have
been advanced in this regard.

4.1. Favourable arguments:

A considerable number of critics emphatically ascertain the legitimacy status of
procedural syllabuses within the domain of syllabus design as a whole (e.g. Beretta
and Davies 1985; Richards and Rodgers 2001:164; Brumfit 1984 a; Long and
Crookes 1992).This favourable stance can largely be traced to the set of merits
discussed in Sub-section 3.1 above. Of even more impact, perhaps, is the one
advanced inn favour of the use of "tasks" not only in organizing language syllabuses
but also in putting into practice communicationally-oriented classroom instruction.
From an insider somewhat zealous perspective, Prabhu (1983; quoted in Richards and
Rodgers 2001:164) strongly stresses that

The only form of syllabus which is compatible with and can support
communicational teaching seems to be a purely procedural one— which
lists, in more or less detail, the types of tasks to be attempted in the
classroom and suggests an order of complexity for tasks of the same kind
(4).

From a quite recent angle, pro-procedural syllabus assertions such as the one above
have gained more momentum thanks to the ever-expanding importance assigned to
the notion of "task" by, most notably, task-based learning and teaching proponents
and SLA research (Richards and Rodgers 2001:223-4).

4.2. Counter-arguments:
Though they may not be fully satisfied with the CTP or, indeed, any other CTP-
inspired proposals, critics on the whole tend not to totally discard the curriculum in
question. Nor do they appear inclined to push the argument far enough to undermine
its representativeness as a legitimate, acceptable approach in the field. As yet, a
variety of criticisms has been put forward regarding the issues below, in particular:

 the vagueness largely sensed in the term "task" as defined in Prabhu (1987)
(Long and Crookes 1992; Greenwood 1985),

8
  the provision, and reliance upon, tasks which tend to seem rather ordinary in
content and partly reminiscent of the ones already proposed in CLT
materials— hence, their flouting of "task-based" principles in the strictly
analytic sense of the term (Op.cit),
 the tendency to expose students to tasks with no sustained, explicit negative
evidence on the part of the teachers, as would a considerable portion of the
studends community expect and need (Cece-Murcia 1991),
 the ungrounded assumption that the tasks to be performed within the
classroom confinements are necessarily what the students will do or need to
do once out of the classroom, which heavily overlooks the diversity of
students' needs and their susceptibility to change during a course (Brindley
1989; cited in Long and Crookes Op.cit),
 the realization that the sort of tasks here proposed are of purely pedagogic
nature and do not originally emanate from field needs analysis (Nunan
1988:44),
 the lack of a rigorous field evaluation of the proposals in question so far (Long
and Crookes Op.cit).
 the somewhat longish "period of incubation", which the procedural syllabus
dearly requires for the effective, fruitful implementation of its classroom
techniques, and which may frustrate the needs and agendas of the institutions
it is to be carried out in.

4.3. Personal view:

Following the arguments and counter-arguments detailed above, a balanced position,
in my view, seems most needed so as to assimilate the underlying theory of the CTP
and other related syllabuses in its totality. It would be a gross error to downgrade the
importance of these proposals or to push the argument up to the point where they
should be denied their legitimate status as a syllabus approach in its own right. Such
positions, according to which "… it could be argued that any proposal failing to offer
criteria for grading and sequencing can hardly claim to be a syllabus at all" (Nunan
(Op.cit.: 47), appear to be quite extremist and unfair. Unrestrained standpoints, as
those taken up by Brumfit (1984a), in favour of the said curriculums could prove
unnecessary and, even, dangerous. For as Skehan (1994), in his comment on the
Bangalore Project, warns

Requiring learners to engage in task-based learning, if not balanced by

other activities, may well lead to the use of comprehension and
communication strategies, and encourage a performance-oriented approach
to learning, with the result that fluency and synthesis are developed at the
expense of accuracy and restructuring (190).

A similar note of caution, in my view, concerns

9
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