FACTORS AFFECTING MATERIALS PREPARATION
1. The curriculum, syllabus, and learning competencies
2. Learners’ learning styles, aptitudes, proficiency
3. Pedagogical principles held by the teachers
4. Societal demands
FRAMEWORKS OF MATERIALS AND METHODS
Contextual Factors
1. Learner factors- age, interests, level of proficiency in English, aptitude, mother
tongue, academic and educational level, attitudes in learning, motivation,
reasons for learning, preferred learning styles, and personality
2. Setting- role of English in the country; role of English in the school; management
and administration; resources available; support personnel; the number of pupils;
time available for the program; physical environment; the socio-cultural
environment; types of tests to be used; and procedures for monitoring and
evaluating.
A syllabus is an expression of opinion on the nature of language and learning; it
acts as a guide for both teacher and learner by providing some goals to be attained.
Hutchinson and Waters (1987:80) define syllabus as ‘at its simplest level a syllabus can
be described as a statement of what is to be learnt. It reflects language and linguistic
performance.’
This is a rather traditional interpretation of syllabus focusing as it does on outcomes
rather than on process.
However, a syllabus can also be seen as a "summary of the content to which
learners will be exposed" (Yalden.1987: 87). It is seen as an approximation of what will
be taught and that it cannot accurately predict what will be learnt.
Syllabus is the overall organizing principle for what is to be taught and learned. It is
the way in which content is organized and broken down into a set of teachable and
learnable units, and will include considerations on pacing, sequencing and grading
items’ methods of presentation and practice, etc.
Syllabus inventory is a list of the content to be covered in the language program
much like a content outline.
Richards and Rodgers (1986) presents a useful framework for the comparison of the
language teaching methods which illustrates the place of syllabus in the program
planning. The Model has three levels: approach, design and procedure.
Approach refers to the views and beliefs or theories of language and language
learning on which planning is based.
Design converts the principles in the first level (approach) into more practical
aspects of syllabus and instructional materials.
Procedure refers to the techniques and management of the classroom itself.
Types of Syllabus (Reilley)
Although six different types of language teaching syllabi are treated here as though
each occurred “purely,” in practice, these types rarely occur independently of each
other. Almost all actual language-teaching syllabi are combination of two or more of the
types. The characteristics, differences, strengths, and weaknesses of individual syllabi
are defined as follows:
1. Structural (formal) Syllabus
The content of language teaching is a collection of the forms and structures,
usually grammatical, of the language being taught.
Examples include nouns, verbs, adjectives, statements, questions, subordinate
clauses, and so on.
Issue/Criticism: One problem facing the syllabus designer pursuing a
grammatical order to sequencing input is that the ties connecting the structural
items maybe rather feeble. A more fundamental criticism is that the grammatical
syllabus focuses on only one aspect of language: the grammar; however in truth
there exist many more aspects to be considered in language. Recent corpus
based research suggest there is a divergence between the grammar of the
spoken and of the written language, raising implications for the grading of content
in grammar - based syllabuses.
2. A notional/ functional syllabus
The content of the language teaching is a collection of the functions that are
performed when language is used, or of the notions that a language is used to
express
Examples of the functions includes: informing, agreeing, apologizing, requesting;
examples of notions includes age, size, color, comparison, time, and so on.
Issue/Criticism: In order to establish objectives, the needs of the learners will
have to be analyzed by the various types of communication in which the learner
has to confront. Consequently, needs analysis has an association with notional-
functional syllabuses. Although needs analysis implies a focus on the learner,
critics of this approach suggest that a new list has replaced the old one. Where
once structural/situational items were used, a new list consisting of notions and
functions has become the main focus in a syllabus. "Language functions do not
usually occur in isolation" and there are also difficulties in selecting and grading
function and form. Clearly, the task of deciding whether a given function (i.e.
persuading), is easier or more difficult than another (i.e. approving), makes the
task harder to approach.
3. Situational syllabus
The content of the language teaching is a collection of real or imaginary
situations in which language occurs or is used. A situation usually involves
several participants who are engaged in some activity in a specific meeting.
The language occurring in the situation involves a number of functions, combined
into a plausible segment of discourse.
The primary purpose of a situational language-teaching syllabus is to teach the
language that occurs in the specific situations.
Examples of the situations include: seeing the dentist, complaining to the
landlord, buying a book, meeting a new student, and so on.
4. A skill-based syllabus
The content of the language teaching is a collection of specific abilities that may
play a part using language.
Skills are things that people must be able to do to be competent in a language,
relatively independent of the situation or setting in which the language use can
occur. While the situational syllabi group functions together into specific settings
of the language use, skill-based syllabi group linguistic competencies
(pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, and discourse) together into generalized
types of behavior, such as listening to spoken language for main idea, writing
well-formed paragraphs, giving effective oral presentations, and so on.
The primary purpose of the skill-based instruction is to learn specific language
skills.
A possible secondary purpose is to develop more general competence in the
language, learning only incidentally any information that may be available while
applying the language skills.
5. A task-based syllabus
The content of the teaching is a series of complex and purposeful tasks that the
student wants or need to perform with the language they are learning.
The tasks are defined as activities with a purpose other than language learning,
but, as in the content-based syllabus, the performance of the tasks is
approached in a way intended to develop second language ability.
Tasks integrate language (and other) skills in specific settings of the language.
Task-based teaching differs from situation-based teaching in that while
situational teaching has the goal of teaching the specific language content that
occurs in the situation (pre-defined products), task-based teaching has the goal
of teaching students to draw on resources to complete some piece of work (a
process). The students draw on a variety of language forms, functions, and skills
often in an individual and unpredictable way, in completing the tasks.
Tasks can be used for language learning are, generally, tasks that the learners
actually have to perform in real life. Examples include: Applying for a job, talking
with a social worker, getting housing information over the telephone, and so on.
6. A content-based syllabus
The primary purpose of the instruction is to teach some content or information
using the language that the students are also learning.
The students are simultaneously language students and students of whatever
content is being taught.
The subject matter is primary, and the language learning occurs incidentally to
the content learning. The content teaching is not organized around the language
teaching, but vice-versa.
Content-based language teaching is concerned with information, while task-
based language teaching is concerned with communicative and cognitive
processes.
An example of content-based language teaching is a science class taught in the
language the students need or want to learn, possibly with linguistic adjustment
to make science more comprehensible.
Syllabus Designs
Multi-syllabus
Lexical
Process
Many would have a primary and secondary organizing principle like:
At the bank: question forms
At a garage: imperatives
At a hotel: present perfect
