Philippine Normal University-Mindanao

Properidad, Agusan Del Sur

Curriculum Development
and Language Teaching
Course planning and
syllabus design
Prepared by: Hizzel De Castro
 Dimensions of course
development:
1.developing a
course rationale
4. planning the course
content (syllabus and
2. choosing instructional blocks)
course content
5. preparing the
3. sequencing scope and
course content sequence plan
 1. The Course
Rationale
Answers the
questions:
 Who is this course for?
 What is the course
about?
 What kind of teaching
and learning will take
 The rationale serves the purposes of:

 guiding the planning of the various

components of the course

 emphasizing the kinds of

teaching and learning the
course should exemplify
 providing a check on the consistency
of the various course components in
terms of the course values and goals
(Posner and Rudnitsky 1986)
 An example of a course rationale:

This course is designed for working adults who

wish to improve their communication skills in
English in order to improve their employment
prospects. It teaches the basic communication
skills needed to communicate in a variety of
different work settings. The course seeks to
enable participants to 'recognize their strengths
and needs in language learning and to give them
the confidence to use English more effectively to
achieve their own goals. It also seeks to develop
the participants' skills in independent learning
outside of the classroom.
 Describing the
entry and exit level

 the level at which the program

will start and the level learners
may be expected to reach at the
end of the course.
 elementary, intermediate, and
advanced levels
 more detailed descriptions are
needed of students' proficiency
levels
 TOEFL (Test of English as a
Foreign Language) or IELTS
(Illinois Licensure Testing
System)
 identify different levels
of performance or
proficiency in the form
of band levels or points
on a proficiency scale.
 Australian Migrant Education
On-Arrival Program
--some overall perspective of
the development path is
required.
 Development of ASLPR-
Australian Second Language
Proficiency Ratings
 Similarly, in 1982 the American
Council on the Teaching of
Foreign Languages (ACTFL)
published proficiency guidelines
in the form of "[a] series of
descriptions of proficiency levels
for speaking, listening, reading,
writing, and culture in a foreign
language.
 Proficiency ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines
descriptions
for the
domain of
speaking
Generic descriptions -
speaking

Novice
Novice-Low
Novice-Mid
Novice-High
 Intermediate

Intermediate-Low

Intermediate-Mid

Intermediate- High
Advanced

Advanced- Plus
 Band descriptors-used in the IELTS examinations

Accuracy

Appropriacy

Range
Flexibility
 2. Choosing course content
 grammar (e.g., using the present
tense in descriptions)
 functions (e.g., describing likes and
dislikes)
 topics (e.g., writing about world
issues)
 skills (e.g., developing topic
sentences)
 processes (e.g., using prewriting
strategies)
 texts (e.g.-,''writing a business letter)
 Similarly a speaking course could be
organized around:

 functions (expressing opinions)

 interaction skills (opening and
closing conversations, turn
taking)
 topics (current affairs, business
topics)
The choice of a particular
approach to content selection will
depend on subject-matter
knowledge,
the learners' proficiency
levels,
current views on second
language learning and
teaching, conventional
wisdom, and convenience.
 Ideas from the following sources:

 available literature on the topic

 published materials on the topic
 review of similar courses offered
elsewhere
 review of tests or exams in the area "
analysis of students* problems
 consultation with teachers familiar with
the topic.
 consultation with specialists in the area
 Initial ideas about what could be included in a course on listening
and speaking skills for a group of intermediate-level learners:

 asking questions
 opening and closing conversations
 expressing opinions
 dealing with misunderstandings ■
 describing experiences
 social talk
 telephone skills
 situation-specific language, such as at a bank
 describing daily routines
 recognizing sound contrasts
 using communication strategies
 Are all the suggested topics
necessary? Have any important
topics been omitted? Is there
sufficient time to cover them?
 Has sufficient priority been given
to the most important areas? Has
enough emphasis been put on the
different aspects of the areas
identified? Will die areas covered
enable students to attain the
learning outcomes?
 3. Determining the
scope and sequence
 Decisions about course content also need
to address the distribution of con-tent
throughout the course.

 Scope is concerned with the breadth and

depth of coverage of items in the course.
-What range of content will be covered?
-To what extent should each topic be studied?
 The sequencing of content
-involves deciding which content
is needed early in the course and
which provides a basis for things
that will be learned later.
Sequencing may be based
on the following criteria:
 Simple to complex
 Chronology
 Need

 Prerequisite learning

 Whole to whole part

 Spiral Sequencing
 Sequencing may be based
on the following criteria:
a. Simple to complex
 such as "literal comprehension"
(simplified) and inferencing (unsimplified)
b. Chronology
 Content may be sequenced according to
the order in which events occur in the
real world. Examples in writing and
proficiency course
(1) brainstorming—drafting---revising--editing.
(2) Listening--speaking;-- reading--writing.
c. Need
--Content may be sequenced
according to when learners
are most likely to need it
outside of the classroom

-For example, the rationale for

the sequencing of content in a
social survival curriculum
The sequence is:
i. i. basic literacy skills
ii. ii. Personal identification
iii. iii. Money
iv. iv. Shopping The topics and
v. v. time and dates
vi. vi. Telephone-
cross-topics in the
vii. vii. health curriculum are
viii. viii. emergencies sequenced "in
ix. ix. directions
x. x. transportation
order of
xi. xi. housing importance to
xii. xii. post office
students’ lives
xiii. xiii. banking/bills
xiv. xiv. social language
xv. xv. clarification
(Mrowicki 1986, xi)
d. Prerequisite learning
`
--The sequence of content may
reflect what is necessary at
one point as a foundation for
the next step in the learning
process.
- For example, a certain set of
grammar items may be taught as
a prerequisite to paragraph
writing.
e. Whole to part or part to
whole
--material at the beginning of a course
may focus on the over-all structure or
organization of a topic before
considering the individual components
that make it up.
f. Spiral sequencing
--This approach involves the recycling
of items to ensure that learners have
repeated opportunities to learn them.
 4. Planning the course structure

 The next stage in course

development involves mapping the
course structure into a form and
sequence that provide a suitable
basis for teaching.
Two aspects of this process, require more
detailed planning: SELECTING A
SYLLABUS FRAMEWORK AND
DEVELOPING INSTRUCTIONAL
BLOCKS.
 Selecting a syllabus
framework

 A syllabus describes the major

elements that will be used in
planning a language course
and provides the basis for its
instructional focus and
content.
 The syllabus could be:
 situational: organized around different
situations and the oral skills needed in those
situations
 • topical: organized around different topics
and how to talk about them in English
 • Junctional: organized around the
functions most commonly needed in speaking
 • task-based: organized around different
tasks and activities that the learners would
carry out in English
In choosing a particular
syllabus framework for a
course, planners are
influenced by the following
factors:

 • knowledge and beliefs about the

subject area
 • research and theory
 • common practice
 • trends
 In the 1980s and 1990s, the
communicative language
teaching movement led to a
reexamination of traditional
approaches to syllabus design
and a search for principles for
the development of
communicative syllabuses.
 Syllabus Frameworks
 competency-based
 text-based
 task-based syllabuses
 Grammatical (or structural)
syllabus:
 one that is organized around grammatical
items.

It seeks to solve the following problems:

 • to select sufficient patterns to support
the amount of teaching time available
 • to arrange items into a sequence that
facilitates learning
 • to identify a productive range of
grammatical items that will allow for the
development of basic communicative skills
Grammatical syllabuses have been
criticized on the following grounds:
 • They represent only a partial
dimension of language proficiency.
 • They do not reflect the acquisition
sequences seen in naturalistic second
language acquisition.
 • They focus on the sentence rather than
on longer units of discourse.
 • They focus on form rather than
meaning.
 • They do not address communicative
skills.
However, grammar remains a core
component of many language courses.
There are several reasons for this:
 • Teaching a language through its grammar
represents a familiar approach to teaching for
many people.
 * Grammar provides a convenient framework for
a course: grammar can readily be linked to other
strands of a syllabus, such as functions, topics, or
situations.
 • Grammar represents a core component of
language proficiency: communicative
competence includes the ability to use grammar
arid therefore de serves a place in the
curriculum.
 Lexical syllabus:.

 one that identifies a target

vocabulary to be taught
normally arranged according to
levels such as the first
500,1,000,1,500,2,000 words
 Typical vocabulary targets for
a general English course are:
 Elementary level: 1,000 words
 Intermediate level: an additional 2,000 words
 Upper Intermediate level: an additional
2,000 words
 Advanced level: an additional 2,000+ words

(Hindmarsh 1980; Nation 1990)

Because vocabulary is involved in the
presentation of any type of language content, a
lexical syllabus can only be considered as one
strand of a more comprehensive syllabus.
 Functional syllabus:
 one that is organized around
communicative functions such as
requesting, complaining,
suggesting, agreeing.
 Situational syllabus:
 one that is organized around the
language needed for different
situations such as at the airport
or at a hotel A situation is a
setting in which particular
communicative acts typically
occur.
An example of a recent situationally
organized textbook on English for
travel is Passport (Buckingham and
Whitney 1995), which contains the
following situational syllabus:
1. On an airplane 10. In a restaurant
2. At an immigration counter
11. In a cafe
3. At a bank 12. In a bar
4. On the telephone 13. On a bus
5. On the street 14. In a store
6. In the city 15. At the post office
7. At home 16. At the cinema
8. At the doctors' 17. In a hotel
9. In an office 18. At the airport
 Topical or content-based
syllabus:
• one that is organized around themes,,
topics, or other units of content. With a
topical syllabus, content rather than/
grammar, functions, or situations is the
starting point in syllabus design.
Claims made for the advantages of
courses based on content-based
syllabuses are:
 They facilitate comprehension.
 Content makes linguistic form more
meaningful.
 Content serves as the best basis for teaching
the skill areas.
 They address students' needs.
 They motivate learners.
 They allow for integration of the four skills.
 They allow for use of authentic materials.

(Brinton, Snow, and Wesche 1989; Mohan 1986)

 Topic-based syllabuses have often
been a feature of ESL programs in
elementary or secondary schools
where the teaching of English is
integrated with science,
mathematics, and social sciences,
as well as of ESL programs for
students at the university level.
 Competency-based
syllabus
 one based on a specification of the
competencies learners are expected to
master in relation to specific situations
and activities. Competencies are a
description of the essential skills,
knowledge, and attitudes required
for effective performance of particular
tasks and activities.
 Skills syllabus

 one that is organized around the

different underlying abilities that are
involved in using a language for
purposes such as reading, writing,
listening, or speaking.
Examples of skills that relate to different
types of language use are:

 writing: creating a topic sentence;

distinguishing between main ideas and
supporting sentences; self-editing
 listening: recognizing key information;
using discourse markers to identify the flow
of discourse : following rapid speech
 speaking: recognizing tum-taking signals;
introducing a topic; using communication
strategies
 reading: reading for gist; guessing words
from context; reading and making inferences
 Task-based
syllabus:
 one that is organized around tasks that
students will complete in the target
language. A task is an activity or
goal that is carried out using
language such as finding a solution to
a puzzle, reading a map and giving
directions, or reading a set of
instructions and assembling a toy.
 A task-based syllabus is one based on
tasks that have been specially designed
to facilitate second language learning
and one in which tasks or activities are
the basic units of syllabus design.
The basic claims made for a task-based
syllabus are:

 • Tasks are activities that drive the second

language acquisition process.

 Grammar teaching is not central with this

approach because learners will acquire
grammar as a by-product of carrying out
tasks.

 • Tasks are motivating for learners and

engage them in meaningful communication.
 Two kinds of
tasks
 PEDAGOGICAL REAL-WORLD
TASKS- based TASKS
on SLA theory -designed to
and are practice or rehearse
designed to those activities that
trigger second are found to be
language important in a
learning needs analysis
processes and
strategies.
 Pedagogical Tasks
 • jigsaw tasks: combining different pieces of
information to form a
 • information-gap tasks: one student or group of
students has one set of information and another
student or group has a complementary set of
information.
 • problem solving tasks: Students are given a
problem and a set of information. They must arrive at
a solution to the problem
 • decision-making tasks: Students are given a
problem for which there a number of possible
outcomes and they must choose one through
negotiation and discussion.
 • opinion exchange tasks: Learners engage in
discussion and exchange of ideas.
 Text-based
syllabus:
 one that is built around texts and
samples of extended discourse.
 this can be regarded as a type of
situational approach because the
starting point in planning a syllabus is
analysis of the contexts in which
the learners will use the language
 The following are examples of text types that can be
used in planning a text-based syllabus (Feez 1998, 85-
86):

exchanges
-simple exchanges relating to information and goods and
services
-complex or problematic exchanges
-casual conversation

Forms
-simple formatted texts
-complex formatted texts

procedures
-instructions
-procedures
-protocols
In teaching from a text-based
syllabus a five-part cycle is
proposed that involves:

 1. building the context for the text

 2. modeling and deconstructing
the text
 3. joint construction of the text
 4. independent construction of the
text
 5. linking related texts
 An integrated
syllabus:
Grammar—skills
 Decisions about a and texts
suitable syllabus
framework for a
Tasks—topics
course reflect
different priorities and funtions
in teaching rather
than absolute Skills—topic and
choices. texts
 Reading
course

Reading skills Text, vocaulary and

grammar

(the macrolevel planning category) (the microlevel planning category

 Krahnke (1987,75) concludes: For almost
all instructional programs, it is clear
that some combination of types of
instructional content will be needed to
address the complex goals of the
program ---- for most general teaching
applications, whose goal is functional
ability in broadly defined settings and
structural knowledge and
communicative ability in specific
situations, a combination of functional,
structural, situational, and skill-based
instruction is the probable choice.
 Developing instructional
blocks
 Mapping out of the course
 It is a self-contained learning
sequence that has goals and
objectives
In organizing a course into
teaching blocks one seeks to
achieve the following:

 • to make the course more

teachable
 • to provide a progression in level of
difficulty
 • to create overall coherence and
structure for the course
 Two commonly used
instructional blocks
 Modules: Units:
--is normally longer
--a self- than a single lesson
contained and but shorter than a
independent module and is the
learning commonest way of
sequence with its organizing courses and
teaching materials. It
own objectives..
provides a structured
sequence of activities.
 5. Preparing the scope and
sequence plan

 a listing of the module or units and

their contents and an indication of
how much teaching time each block
in the course will require. In the case of
a textbook it usually consists of a unit-
by-unit description of the course cross-
referenced to the syllabus items
included.
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 Axbey, S. 1997. Real times elementary. London: Richmond.
 Brinton, D., M. Snow, and M. Wesche. 1989. Content-based second language instruction. New York:
Newbury House.
 Buckingham, A., and N. Whitney. 1995. Passport. New York: Oxford Univer-sity Press.
 Burns, A., and H. Joyce. 1997. Focus on speaking. Sydney: National Centre for English Language
Teaching and Research.
 Feez,S. 199&. Text-based syllabus design. Sydney: National Centre for English Language Teaching
and Research.
 Hindmarsh, R. 1980. The Cambridge English lexicon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
 Ingram, D. 1982. Designing a language program. RELC Journal 13(2): 64-6.
 Kelly, L. G. 1969. Twenty-five centuries of language teaching. Rowley, MA: Newbury House.
 Krahnke, K. 1987. Approaches to syllabus design for foreign language teach-ing. Washington, DC:
Center for Applied Linguistics.
 Liskin-Gasparro, J. E. 1984. The ACTFL proficiency guidelines: A historical perspective. In T. V. Higgs
(ed.), Teaching for proficiency: The organizing principle. Skokie, IL: National Textbook Company. 11-
42.
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 Mohan, B. 1986. Language and content. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
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Educational Cooperative.
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 Nation, I. S. P. 1990. Teaching and learning vocabulary^New York: Newbury House.
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