syllabus types

There are so many types of syllabuses that it is so easy for one to get confused between any of them. The thing is, there has never been published a coursebook that solely based on one type of syllabus and didnt include the aspects of other types of syllabus. Task-based syllabus can be classed as process and procedural, functional syllabus can easily become a notional. Anyway, instead of getting myself even more confused, I will just move on to talk about different types of syllabuses in a nutshell.

1. Procedural syllabus- name associated with Prabhu and Bangalore project. Prabhu designed tasks for each class, but made the same task slightly more complicated each time. The idea is, language items are getting from simple to complex as tasks are getting more difficult. Language is learn implicitly, grammar inductively. Prabhu was against pair-work/group work. Focus was on improving writing skills.

2. Task-based syllabus- name associated with Willisis, Michael Long and Rod Ellis. Employ tasks to teach language implicitly and grammar inductively. But also have form-focus session to get students notice a language form. terms associated with TBLT are conciousness raising, risk taking, form focus

3. Lexical syllabus- again Willisis, corpus linguistics-Birmingham project, Michael Lewish. Language is a grammaticalized lexis not lexicalized grammar. Teach phraze sized chunks, prefabriacated language forms

4. Structural syllabus- grammar driven, teaching language rules one at a time, one-by-one. language is lexicalized grammar. lexis comes secondary to fill in the gaps

5. notional- developd by Wilkins in the 1960's. topic based syllabus, communicative and contextualized

6. functional- wilkins, widdowson. interactional function of language vs transactional function of language. routines in conversations, negotiation skills, negotiation of meaning

7. Content based syllabus- make english the language of instruction to teach other areas. Use english to teach science, engineering, art etc

8. CLIL- content and language integrated learning. There is some focus on form, unlike the content based syllabus. English is the language of instruction to teach science, but also focus on a particular forms of language in a given content

Although there has been written many books on each of them, this is the best written text that describes all the syllabuses in the shortest way. I am also making it very very simple and understandable for anyone who is not coming from an ELT background. Oh, how I love my notes from classes. They come in so handy for revision. And many thanks to a friend who advised me to run a blog. I dont write for weeks at times, but clearly, this has been easy way of organizing my notes when I want to do so! :D