From curriculum to syllabus design: The different stages to
design a programme
Curriculum
What stages are followed in designing a course?
The definition of curriculum is complex because there are as many definitions as there are writers in the field
It can go anywhere along the range from a list of subjects for a course to the perception of the ultimate goal of education as a whole
Articulating your beliefs and defining the context might be considered as the foundation for the processes to follow when organizing your syllabus
What follows is what you must plan, organize and the decisions to take about what should be taught first, second, third, and so on
Other types of syllabuses that he has come across his ESL/EFL teaching:
Structural: Grammatical and phonological structures are the organizing principles-sequenced from easy to difficult or frequent to less frequent.
Situational: Situations form the organizing principlesequenced by the likelihood students will encounter them.
Topical: Topics or themes form the organizing principle-sequenced by the likelihood that students will encounter them.
Functional: Functions are the organizing principlesequenced by some sense of chronology or usefulness of each function
Notional: Conceptual categories called notions are the basis of organizationsequenced by some sense of chronology or usefulness of each notion
Skills: Scanning a reading passage for
specific information. Serve as the basis for organization sequenced by some sense of chronology or usefulness for each skill
Task: Task or activity-based categories serve
as the basis for organization-sequenced by some sense of
chronology or usefulness of notions
Selecting the Shape of the Syllabus
The basic dilemma are planners must reconcile is that language is infinite, but a syllabus must be finite.”
Dubin and Olshtain (1997: 51) Next they present five possible types:
The Linear Format: The linear format is adopted for discrete element content, particularly grammar or
structures
The Modular Format:The modular format is well suited to courses which integrate thematic or situational
contents
The Cyclical Format: The cyclical format is an organizational principle which enables teachers and learners to work with the same topic more than once, but each time a particular one reappears it is at a more complex or difficult level
The Matrix Format: The matrix format gives users maximum flexibility to select topics from a table of contents in a random order, the matrix is well suited to situational content.
The story-line format: is basically a narrative. It is of a different type than the ones mentioned and it could be used in conjunction with any of them.
Organizing the course
It is said that the way you organize your course depends on a number of factors which include: “The course content, your goals and objectives, your past experience, your student's needs, your beliefs and understandings, the method or
text and the context”
(Graves, 2000: 127). Next she adds that organizing a course involves five overlapping processes captured in the next flowchart and that the processes do not have to follow a specific order:
Language Testing
The next step to follow is the
development of tests.
“Tests can be used to drive a programme by shaping the
expectations of the students and their teachers”
the method he advocates for test development requires the use of two different
types of tests:
Norm-referenced:the ones intended to compare the relative
performance of students to each
Criterion-referenced:texts intended to
measure the amount of course material that each student has learned
Materials
In other words I believe that decisions regarding approaches, syllabuses, techniques, and exercises should always be left up to the individuals who are on site and know the situation best.
What I will advocate is a strategy in which students’ needs, objectives, tests, teaching and program evaluation will all be related to each other and to the materials”.
What might be concluded is that an important aspect of materials development is making choices and that you need to make these choices based on what you want your students