Syllabus
From the ICAL TEFL wiki
A Syllabus is the outline of language to be taught to a class over a particular course (term, etc).
It can be seen as a step in the hierarchy of learning and teaching English. At best it will be designed by the DoS; at worst there won't be one. Or if there is one it will be merely using a particular book throughout the term.
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Design Preparation
Step One in designing a syllabus is working out what your students need to learn. In other words, you look at the Needs Analysis of your students. This will give you the ending point of the syllabus (the goals which should be reached) and also you will know where your students are now and thus, what they need to know.
In conjunction with the needs analysis, you can also look at other considerations for the syllabus such as:
- class age & makeup
- class background (in terms of what teaching techniques they are used to, etc)
- class age, level and ability
Next you will need to know what resources you have available:
- teacher/classroom availability
- teacher ability/experience
- teaching contact hours
- books, computers, field trips, etc...
And of course there may well be other influences such as the interests of the school owner in what should be taught or perhaps the desire to use certain materials and so on.
Syllabus Types
There are different kinds of syllabi often related to different kinds of teaching methodology. For example, you could base your syllabus design on one of these methodologies:
- structural - a certain selection of grammatical items would be presented over the course of the syllabus e.g. lesson 1 is the past simple, lesson two the past continuous and so on. There are several criticisms we can make of this, namely that this approach looks at one aspect of langauge (grammar) to the detriment of others. Likewise not all needs can be broken down into grammar; the students might be learning English for pleasure or to watch Hollywood films for example.
- situational - a selection of situations is chosen and presented to the students. This might work well with a class who are going to be visiting the USA on business and need to be able to work with their hosts; lessons could include Introductions, Going through Airport Customs, Touring a Factory and so on.
Or, of course, a mixture of these and other approaches. The bottom line is, however, that the approach you adopt will be determined to a large extent by the needs of your students.
Syllabus Content
Having established what the syllabus will do and broadly how it will be done, the next step is to fill in the spaces.
This means breaking the syllabus down into a series of lessons. A syllabus for business learners might be:
- Introductions
- Talking about your job
- The company hierarchy
- Making/Taking orders on the phone
- Discussing your products
and so on. However, the syllabus should be flexible and allow time for revision lessons or adjustments which will crop up during the course. They will also need to take into account the fact that not every lesson is concerned with teaching new material per se (exams, field trips, illnesses and holidays can all interrupt the course).
The final step is to take the syllabus and for each lesson devise a lesson plan. This won't be done, of course, at the syllabus design stage but will happen almost certainly in the week preceding the lesson itself.
