SITUATIONAL

SYLLABUS

MEGA SAFITRI
A N N A N U R FA I Z Z AT I L
F I R LY D I N A A R A FA H
 HISTORY

Notional- Content-
Structural Situational Skill-based Task-based
functional based

Emphasis on form emphasis on meaning

“Language is related to the situational contexts

in which it occurs.”
DEFINITION

A syllabus which contains a collection of real or imaginary situations in

which language occurs or is used.

Participants Function

Specific setting Specific expression

 UNDERLYING THEORIES
 The contents are constructed on the analyses of situations and behaviors.
 The designer predicts those situations in which learners can use the language.
 The language items are selected, organized, and presented based on the situation.
 The purpose is to teach language that occurs in the situations.
Examples:
Seeing the dentist
Complaining to the landlord
Buying book at the bookstore
Meeting a new student
Asking directions in a new town
 The learners are expected to practice the dialogues and memorize useful expressions
and patterns.
 The grammar and the vocabulary derived from the situations.
COMPONENTS OF SITUATIONAL SYLLABUS
EXAMPLE OF SITUATIONAL
SYLLABUS
TYPES OF SITUATIONAL
SYLLABUS
According to Alexander (1976):
1. Based on information
a. Limbo
b. Concrete
c. Mythical
2. Based on linguistics focuses
3. Based on type of situation
LIMBO

One in which the specific setting of the situation is of little or no

importance. The importance is in the language associated with the
situation, not the setting.
Example: introduction at a party.
CONCRETE

• One in which the situations are enacted against specific settings. The
importance is both language and the setting.

• Example: ordering meal in a restaurant and going through customs.

MYTHICAL

One that depends on some sorts of fictional story line, frequently with a
fictional cast of characters in a fictional place.
POSITIVE CHARACTERISTICS
OF SITUATIONAL SYLLABI
• Lead more directly than others to learners’ ability to communicaate in
specific settings.
• Provide contexts of discourse in which form and meaning coincide,
and the form-meaning relationship can be reinforced.
• Help to provide some social and cultural information about the
language and its users in a nondidactic way; well-prepared situations
caan show how ntive speakers act and what they talk about and are
concerned about.
NEGATIVE CHARACTERISTICS
OF SITUATIONAL SYLLABI
• Too great a use of predetermined and artificial situations can lead to lack of
transfer, as students are led to rely on prelerarned routines and patterns of
language use rather than creative and negotiated uses of language.
• It presents sequencing problems. Few criteria are available for determining the
difficulty of situations and sequencing them in instructional syllabi.
Sequencing can reflect some natural chain of events but it is difficult to
control language that might occur in such sequences without restoring to
artificiality.
• The reliance on situational content can cause problems where the learners or
the instructional setting do not want culturaal values to accompany the
language.
NEGATIVE CHARACTERISTICS OF
SITUATIONAL SYLLABI (CONT)
• It is extremely difficult to creaate authentic language for instructional
purpose.
 The actual patterns of use of native speakers in many situations are
still unknown, an intuition is not a reliable guide.
 A special type of talent is required to write focused-and natural
dialogue, rarely found in published texts.
 The tendency of authenticity in situational content become outdate
& more specific and accurate the language associated with a
situation, the more likelu it will become inappropriate quickly.
APPLICATION

• Situational syllabi rarely carry the etire content weight of an instructional

program. Many methods” from grammar-translation to Berlitz to modern
integrated textbooks, have used examples of the language being learned in
situations and settings. Many collections of conversation or communication
activities are organized in terms of situation.
• Another case is the conversational course whose objective is limited
conversational ability with specific topics.
• Another one is the instruction intended for learners with specific situations, where
the language that will occur is highly predictble (e.g., with waiters in restaurants).
• Another case is as a corrective tool for learners who have weak functional bility
in the language.