Sulabo de inglés curso detallado

Dra. Mildred M. Pérez Pérez

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THE SYLLABUS DESIGN. Definition

It is a working document that should be used flexibly and appropriately to maximize the aims and processes of

learning (Hutchinson and Waters). The syllabus defines the constituent parts of language knowledge, and

provides basis for the division of assessment, textbooks and learning time; this makes the language learning

task appear manageable.

An ESP syllabus shows that some thought and planning has gone into the development of the course. A

syllabus will normally be expressed in terms of what is taken to be the most important aspect of language

learning and defines the kind of texts to look for, the items to focus on in exercises and finally a syllabus

provides a visible basic for testing. A properly constructed and planned syllabus is believed to assure

successful learning, since it represents a linguistically and psycholinguistically optimal introduction to the target

language.

A SYLLABUS DESIGN FOR AN ENGLISH FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSE COURSE (ESP).

PHYLOSOPHICAL AND EPISTHEMOLOGIC BASIS

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Syllabus design theory has consequently been one of the most active branches of applied linguistics in recent

years (e.g. Wilkins 1976; Shaw 1977; Yalden 1983; Krashens 1987; Nunan 1988). As a result of the more

recent movement toward communicative theories of language and language learning, Syllabus has tended to

be expressed more in communicative terms. Despite the extensive literature on syllabus design in recent years,

there is little empirical evidence to warrant commitment to any particular approach to syllabus development. In

practice, combination of approaches is often used. The syllabus reflects the philosophical assumptions of the

syllabus planners: a commitment to communicative language teaching and to a needs-based approach to

program content. At the same time the syllabus assumes that teachers have a high degree of proficiency in

English and are able to adapt and plan materials and classroom activities around the syllabus.

Approaches to Syllabus Design: (Wilkins 1979)

2.1. Synthetic Approach.

The Different parts of language are taught separately and step by step, so that acquisition is a process of

gradual accumulation of the parts until the whole structure of the language has been built up.

Syllabus= inventory of grammatical structures and list of lexical items.

Fixed order of presentation.

Simplified and limited sample of language.

Restricted vocabulary.

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Linear syllabus design.

Emphasis on form.

Lack of situational relevance.

2.2. Analytic Approach.

There is no attempt at this careful linguistic control of the learning environment:

A variety of structures (linguistic structures) is allowed from the beginning.

Analysis of significant forms isolated from the structurally heterogeneous context.

Organized in terms of language behavior or purposes for which people are learning the language.

Structural diversity: heterogeneous, more varied.

Structural considerations are secondary in the choice and organization of the material.

The language not simplified or restricted: authentic language is used.

Types of Syllabi

3.1. Grammatical Syllabus

This type of syllabus is based on the concept of linguistic competence as “Knowledge of grammar structure”. In

this type of syllabus the emphasis is on form; vocabulary and grammar are carefully chosen and controlled, the

language is non-authentic and there is lack of situational and contextual relevance.

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3.2. Situational Syllabus

This approach assumes that language consists of a set of patterns of social use, and language learning implies

becoming proficient in using the language in social situations.

3.3. Notional Syllabus

The emphasis of this type of syllabus lies the concepts expresses the ideas or notions such as: time, locality,

direction, size, space, etc. Wilkins suggests three components for a syllabus design:

A semantic component: the basic concepts, the WHAT of communication (NOTIONS)

A functional or interactive component: the WHY of communication (FUNTIONS)

A formal component: grammatical knowledge, the WHAT of communication (structures or key language

items)

3.3. Functional Notional Syllabus

The emphasis is on the purpose (WHY) of communication, represented through functions (such as: asking,

describing, narrative, expressing agreement or disagreement, describing, and else) followed by the notions or

concepts to be expressed (time, space, locality, frequency, and else). Both notional and functional / notional

syllabi represents a communicative approach to language teaching.


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3.4. Task- Based Syllabus

The task – based syllabus or procedural syllabus, is based on the task principle (Richards and Rodgers, 1986)

which states that “activities that involve the completion of real-world task promote learning”, it does not aim to

introduce language items in any order at all, but consists of doing real activities which require real language

use.

3.5. Communicative Syllabus

The communicative approach was the result of the needs to find alternative ways for foreign language teaching

and language syllabus design in Britain. It resulted from the work of a team of experts appointed by the Council

of Europe. The main characteristics of this approach are the following. It is based on the idea that language is

communication and learning a language is learning to communicate.

Language is viewed as a set of concepts (notions) to be communicated and a purpose for communication

(functions). The contents of language teaching courses are defined in terms of concepts and functions and not

on terms of formal elements of syntax and lexis. It is a student-centered approach: the concepts and functions

are based on student’s needs.

The syllabus is organized in terms of functions and notions in a cyclic or spiral way. Key language items are

introduced depending on the functions without any particular order. It takes the communicative factors of

language into account from the beginning, without losing sight of grammatical factors (some cognitive elements


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are accepted). More importance is assigned to the content of communication (the meaning of the message)

rather than the form used to express it. Meaning is emphasized.

Communicative competence is the desired goal. All four skills are emphasized from the beginning: reading and

writing start from the first day. Communication takes place as a discourse where meanings are negotiated

through interaction. The students are encouraged to communicate from the beginning; errors are corrected only

if they interfere with communication. Communicative activities are developed based on the concept of

“information gap”. Some characteristics:

There is more flexibility than in others approaches in the use of the mother tongue. Judicious use of L1 is

accepted when necessary.

Dialogues and activities are always contextualized.

Authentic or simulated materials are used to familiarize students with the functions of the language in real

situations.

Effective communication is sought and any device which helps the learner is accepted. Procedures from

other approaches, such a drilling and grammar explanations may be used if deemed necessary.

Classrooms activities are teacher directed but student-centered. The teacher is a guide or manager: the

students interact in pairs or groups, with the teacher or with other students.

Materials are varied, as well as classroom activities. Receptive skills materials and text follow the I +1

principle; the teacher can use oral or written language that is slightly above the language level of the student,

Authentic language is emphasized; fluency is the primary goal.


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A course design

It is the process by which the raw data about learning need is interpreted in order to produce an integrated

series of teaching – learning experiences. The course design major aim is to drive the learners to a particular

state of knowledge. Some important aspects involved in a course design are:

a. The use of the Theoretical and Empirical Information available:

To produce a syllabus

To select, adapt or write materials in accordance with the Syllabus

To develop a methodology for teaching those materials.

To establish evaluation procedures by which progress towards the specified goals will be measured

b. The Data: After collecting the information about our students needs, we must interpret it. This interpretation

helps us to carry out the designing of our course. However, we will find another series of questions when we

come to designing our course, the data from our needs analysis can answer these questions.

c. The needs analysis: The starting point for Hutchinson and Waters is the question, what is the difference

between E.S.P and General English? From a traditional point of view the answer is in General English needs

are not specifiable. What distinguishes ESP from General English is not the “existence” of a need as such, but

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rather an “awareness” of a need. It is not so much the nature of the need which distinguishes the ESP from the

General Course but rather the awareness of the need (i.e. learners, sponsors and teachers knowing why

learners need English). This awareness influences what will be acceptable as reasonable content in the

language course. In other words, the content that characterizes the ESP courses (science, medicine, tourism,

commerce, culinary art) is a secondary consequence of that awareness (being able to readily specify why the

learners need English).

Approaches to a course design

This is the simplest kind of course design process. The language – centred course design process aims to draw

as direct as a connection as possible between the analysis of the target situation and the content of the ESP

course. This process may seem to be a very logical procedure because it starts with the learner; goes on

through different stages of analysis to a syllabus, and thence to materials used in the classroom and finally to

evaluation of mastery of the syllabus items. But if we analyse carefully this process we can find some

weaknesses:

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4.1.1 Language – Centred Course

Design


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a. About the learner and their needs:

This process starts from learners and their needs; but learner is simply used as a means of identifying the

target situation; so, the learner is used as a way of locating the restricted area of the language will be taught.

Thereafter the learner plays no further part in the process; however, when considering needs analysis, the

learner should be considered at every stage of the process. In this model the learning needs of the students are

not accounted for at all.

b. About the static and inflexible procedure of this approach:

Once the initial analysis of the target situation is done, the course designer is locked into a relentless process.

No crucial element such as unexpected motivational attitude of students can take into account. In order to

respond to unsuspected or developing influences, any procedure must have flexibility, feedback channels and

error tolerance. There are conflicts and contradictions that are absolutely inherent in human behaviour which

can modify the initial analysis of the target situation.

c. About the systematisation of knowledge:

The role of systematisation in learning is not so simple; the systematisation of knowledge plays an important

and a crucial role in the learning process: we learn by fitting individual items of knowledge together to create a

meaningful predictive system. Learners have to make the system meaningful to themselves. Knowledge can be

systematically analysed and systematically presented but it is not systematically learnt. By far, we do not know

well enough about how the mind goes about creating its internal system of knowledge. The meaningful


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predictive system must be an INTERNALLY – GENERATED SYSTEM not an EXTERNALLY – IMPOSED

SYSTEM. As a result, language has a describable system, describing that system will not induce systematic

learning.

d. language centered – course: it is an analytical model used inappropriately as a predictive one

The most important point is the data interpretation, this allows us make use of all sorts of knowledge that are

not revealed in the needs analysis itself. We must consider a lot of factors which can be used to determine the

content of pedagogic syllabuses and materials. One principle of good pedagogic materials is that they should

be interesting and this factor is not acknowledged in the model but this aspect inevitably plays a part in the

creation of any course.

e. The language – centered analysis of target situation data is only at the surface level

It reveals very little about the competence that underlies the performance. To conclude, this approach fails to

recognize the fact that, learners being people, learning is not a straightforward, logical process.

This approach to ESP has been widely applied in Latin America. The specific aim of this approach is to develop

the students’ ability to read in English because, students in universities and colleges need to read important

4.1.2 Skills - Centred Course Design


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subject texts in English and those are unavailable in the students’ mother tongue. Fundamental principles of

this approach:

a. The basic theoretical hypothesis: It is that underlying any language behavior are certain skills and strategies,

which the learner uses in order to produce or comprehend discourse. This approach aims to get away from

the surface competence that underlies the performance. Therefore, learning objectives will be presented in

terms of both performance and competence.

b. The pragmatic basis: It derives from a distinction between Goal – Oriented Courses and Process – Oriented

Courses (Widdowson 1981).

If we designed a course in terms of what is desirable, for instance: to be able to read in the literature of the

student’s specialists, we have to know the period of time of the course for reaching that aim. On the other hand,

the level of our students allows us predict the experience and knowledge of their specialists. So, time of the

course and experience of the students take part in our course design because we can determine the main aims

in terms of those aspects; it is better to say, designing a course whose aims can be achieved during the course

in a short term and after the end of the course, concentrating on strategies and processes of making students

aware of their own abilities, and motivating them to improve their ESP management after finishing the course.

The skills – centered model sees the ESP course as helping learners to develop skills and strategies which can

be continued to develop after finishing the period of the course. To summarize; this approach takes the

students more into account than the language – centered approach. However, in spite of its concern for the


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learner, the skill – centered approach still takes the learner as a user of language rather than as a learner of a

language. This approach directs its attention to the processes of language use not of language learning.

As we have seen, a needs analysis reveals that the main need of ESP students is to read texts in their subject

specialists, so if we have followed a language – centered or skills - centered approach to course design, we

probably conclude that the ESP lessons would be better only with the activity of reading texts. Therefore, as

they have no need to write, speak or listen to English, all discussions would be in the native language and

writing texts would be minimal. Then, this is a logical application of the models studied above. But, if we took a

Learning – Centered Approach, we would needed to ask further questions and consider other factors because,

it may be possible that learners might understand the structure of texts more easily by writing texts themselves

and, it may be possible too that a knowledge of the sound or rhythm of a language help in reading; so, I

suppose that it depends specially on each particular student.

Stevick (1982) stresses the importance for memory of creating rich images in a way which closely parallels our

own model of learning as a network – building process. But, the most important aspect is how the students can

learn that knowledge most effectively; if the effectiveness of the process can be improved by using of other

skills, then that is what should be done. Processing the same information through a variety of skills is one way

of achieving reinforcement while still maintaining concentration and, in this way, we prevent boredom produced

by frequent repetition drills.

4.1.3 Learning - Centred Course Design


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The answers of all the following questions proposed will influence the course design, because it will vary

according to the individual situation and time span of the course. The answers will serve to show how factors

concerned with learning may affect the design of a course, sometimes in total contradiction to the initial needs

of the target situation.

English for specific purposes. ESP an important approach

English for specific purposes is an area of development of English Language Teaching (ELT), and it is part of

the recent move within the English Language Teaching sphere towards a more communicative basis for

teaching and learning. The importance of English as an important international language continues to increase

because of more people need and require to learn English, for that reason, the teaching of English for specific

purposes has expanded and become the most important part of English Language Teaching.

The demand for an ESP course comes from groups of students who wish to learn English for particular reasons

connected with their studies or their jobs. So, ESP can be seen as an approach to language teaching which is

directed by specific and apparent reasons for learning. Learners realize that a specialized course in English

help them to access to scientific and technical literature.

Language use is different from language learning, ESP must be based on an understanding of the process of

language learning. So, it is important to take into account this definition of ESP: “It is an approach to language

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teaching in which all decisions as content and method are based on the learner’s reason for learning”.

According to Munby (1985), there are two main divisions of ESP situation:

English for occupational purposes (EOP)

and English for academic purposes (EAP)

EOP is taught in a situation in which learners need to use English as part of their work or profession, and EAP

is taught within educational institutions to students needing English in their studies. Three large categories are

usually identified:

Much of the demand for ESP has come from scientists and technologists who need to learn English for a

number of purposes connected with their specialists. EST is an important branch of ESP dealing with scientific

content; so, EST is an important aspect of ESP programmers, the term EST is too general to be of great use in

the design of ESP materials. A scientist may need to operate in English in a number of different situations such

ESP

EST

English for science and technology

EBE

English for business and economy

ESS

English for social sciences


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as: conferences, read relevant, literature, exchange views at social gatherings, write a paper on his subject.

The scientist’s specialists have wide range of disciplines and it is clear that the notion of EST is too general; it

needs the learner to be taken fully into account (Strevens 1977).

Pre – experienced learners is the category of students who need English in order to gain access to knowledge

and express in English, the knowledge which they already have. These distinctions made by Strevens help

teachers to specify the level of student and the content of teaching materials.

ESP Origins

It is important to look at the emergence of ESP in the late 1960s and the theoretical and practical aspects which

have given place to its subsequent development. The combination of three important aspects seemed to point

towards the need for increased specialization in language learning:

a. The expansion of demand for English

The economic and technological power of the United States by 1945 made that English became the key, to the

international currencies of technology and commerce and so, English became the accepted international

Language of technology and commerce. A new mass of people emerges, and they knew specifically why they

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wanted to learn English and why they needed it. This had implications for ELT programmers in that the learners

and their needs were now taken as central to the problem of deciding course content. The effect of this aspect

was to exert pressure on the language teaching profession to deliver the required goods.

b. The developments in the field of linguistics

Linguistics began to pay attention to the ways in which language is actually used in real communication. This

point gave rise to the view that, there are important differences between the language we speak and the

language we write. In ELT there are important differences between the English of commerce and English of

engineering, these ideas married up with the development of English courses for specific groups of learners.

The developments of linguistics which greatly influenced E.S.P programmers were a move towards a view of

language as not only a set of grammatical structure but also a set of functions.

c. The developments in the field of educational psychology

Educational psychology studied the learners and their attitudes to learn (Rodgers, 1969). The different needs

and interests of learners have an influence on their motivation of learn and therefore on the effectiveness of

their learning. The relevance of the English course to the learner’s needs improves motivation and makes

learning better and faster.


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The development of ESP

ESP has been developed in phases; these are well explained in Hutchinson and Waters “A Learning –

Centered Approach”; the present paper will summarize the most important aspects of them:

a. Register analysis

late 1960s and early

1970s

Main workers

REGISTER ANALYSIS ESP

1964

Peter Strevens Halliday Mc Intosch

Focused on

Sentence Grammar

Language at the sentence level

1969 Jack Ewer La Torre Hughes – Davies John Swales

The aim of register analysis was to identify the grammatical and lexical feature common to all scientific

disciplines, Ewer and La Torre analyzed more than three million words of scientific English, taken from a variety

of sources such as textbooks, paper and journals, they selected the most frequent grammatical patterns:

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present simple tense, the passive voice and nominal compounds; structural words and vocabulary items. The

register analysis had a pedagogic motive “makes the E.S.P. course more relevant to learner’s needs”. The aim

was to produce a syllabus with a high priority on the language forms students would meet in their science

studies.

b. Rhetorical or discourse analysis

By 1970s Main workers

Rhetorical or discourse analysis

ESP

1974

Widdowson (Britain) Larry Selinker (EEUU) Louis Trimble Mary Todd – Trimble John Lackstrom

Focused on

It paid attention to understanding how sentences were combined in discourse to produce meaning.

It paid attention to the level above the sentence

The aim was to identify the organizational patterns in text and to specify the linguistic means by which these

patterns are signaled. These patterns would then form the Syllabus of the E.S.P. course. Widdowson (1978)

distinguished between “usage”, language viewed as isolated items of grammatical structure, and “use”,

language used to express ideas through a set theoretical acts.


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c. Target situation analysis

Main workers Target situation analysis

ESP

John Munby (1985): Needs analysis

Chamber

Focused on

it takes the existing knowledge and set it on a more scientific basis .

first, identifies the target situation, then, analyzes the linguistic

The aim was to establish procedures for relating language analysis more closely to learner’s reasons for

learning. A target situation is the situation in which the learners will use the language they are learning.

d. Skills and strategies

early 1980s Main workers

Skills and strategies ESP

1981

Francois Grellet

Focused on

It considers the thinking processes that underlie language use.

Reading skills

1982 Christine Nuttal

1984 Charles Alderson Sandy Urquhart


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The main idea behind the skill centered approach is that underlying all language process, which regardless of

the surface forms, enables us to extract meanings from discourse. This approach focuses on the underlying

interpretive strategies, which enable the learners to cope with the surface forms, for instance: guessing the

meaning of words from context, exploiting cognates, using visual layout to determine the type of text. In terms

of materials the emphasis is on reading or listening strategies.

Factors influencing ESP teaching and learning

The factors influencing the design and implementation of ESP programs are numerous and their inter-

relationship is complex. Teachers must take into consideration these points:

a. The Role of English

The role of English as a means of communication, as a subject on the school curriculum or as a medium

providing access to technology and science have considerable impact on ESP programs since the student’s

knowledge of English and their awareness of their need for the language will vary according to their exposure

and familiarity with English and its usefulness to them.

Program objectives may vary according to whether the students are studying in an institution where English is

the medium of instruction or in one where English is simply and additional subject on the curriculum.

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b. Resources and Administrative Constrains

The number and nature of facilities available influence programs, and teachers should not brush aside the

physical realities of a situation when designing courses, for example, the ease of access to materials, the

adequate provision of reprographic facilities, the availability of audio-visual aids and the amount of space

available for class teaching.

Teachers must take into account the size of classes the degree of homogeneity within classes with respect to

abilities and subject discipline, the number of hours given to English.

c. The Learners

Some characteristics such as: age, level, motivation, and attitudes to learning must be also considered. Many of

ESP learners are adults, for that reason there is likely to be more agreement on needs between teachers and

students at adult level since the purposes are more clearly defined, the older a learner is, the more likely he is

to have his own definite ideas on why his learning English.The significance of specialist knowledge and the

specialist text makes learners able to manage linguistic skills and perform the ways of thinking appropriate to

his particular discipline.

A course is designed to match a given motivation, problems may occur either if the course content and the

learner’s motivation do not match or if the level of motivation is low in the first place. On the other hand,


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attitudes to an E.S.P. course may be influenced by a student’s previous learning of English, there may be a

negative feeling if the previous learning has not been successful.

d. Linguistic aspects

Any analysis of needs have as its central point the language which it will be necessary to teach if the learner is

to achieve his purpose. The learner may need to be taught a certain vocabulary, specific forms and functions,

and how these functions interrelate to produce coherent text.

Each subject specially has its own vocabulary, often highly specialized or technical. Scientific English uses the

same structure as any other kind of English but with a different distribution. It is also important to realize that

grammar may be used in specific ways in scientific texts and that reference to a general English grammar

may not be helpful. We must look beyond the grammatical level to see what function the structure has in the

text from which is it taken. The type of English the learner is aiming will change its characteristics according to a

number of variables. Topic will considerably affect vocabulary. A further important variable, when considering

the variety of language to be taught, is the role and status of the participants.

Reading.

ESP has its basis in investigation of the purposes of the learner and the set of communicative needs arising

from those purposes. These needs will then act as a guide to the design of course materials. The kind of

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English to be taught will be based on the interest and requirements of the learner. The specific purpose most

common within the participant Universities is the reading of specialist literature in English, Given a group of

learners with this specific purpose in teach English help teachers to use this information as a guideline for the

content of a course suited to the student’s interest and needs.

Teaching reading

Interactive, integrated – skills approaches to language teaching emphasize the interrelationship of skills. In this

point, we will focus on reading as a component of general second language proficiency in the perspective of

interactive language teaching. So, reading ability will be best developed in association with: writing – listening –

speaking activities. Especially the reading – writing connection will help us to achieve the goals in teaching

reading.

EVALUATION.

Focus of Evaluation.

The primary focus of evaluation is to determine whether the goals and objectives of a language program are

being attained – that is, whether the program is effective. When a decision must be made as to whether to

adopt one of two possible program options geared to the same objectives, a secondary focus is on the relative

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effectiveness of the program. In addition, evaluation may be concerned with how a program works: that is, with

how teachers and learners and materials interact in classroom, and how teachers and learners perceive the

program’s goals, materials, and learning experiences. Evaluation differs from educational research in that even

though it shares many of the procedures of educational research ( text, assessment, observation ), information

obtained from evaluation procedures is used to improve educational practices rather than simply describe them.

Examination Questions.

Examination questions tend to have a common underlying structure. They consist of a topic, the subject which

is to be dealt with in the answer. It is this part of the question that students often pick out the instruction which is

also contained in the question and which should influence the type of answer they give. These instructions are

often in the form of imperatives, such as: define, explains, discuss, describe, compare, list, calculate, and

prove. Each, of these imperative requires a different type of answer. An explanation’ requires not only a

description of an event but the reasons why it occurred. A comparison between two process, for example, might

involve a description of process A, then process B, with a comparison of A and B following, and a conclusion.

Sulabo de inglés curso detallado

Technology

key language items

learning centered approach

english language teaching

surface forms

centered approach

language teaching

educational research

recent years