Making Sandwiches Libro Versión Revisada

Moss, G.
(forthcoming): Making Sandwiches: A combined approach to course design for

English teachers. Barranquilla: Ediciones Uninorte
1

SECTION 1: APPROACHES

Chapter 1: The ESP or Needs-based approach to course design.

In the contemporary world of global relations and numerous local or regional conflicts,
we, as educators, have a special responsibility for the formation of world citizens with
the ability to respect diversity and coexist peacefully with others, though they be of
differing race, culture and persuasion. Developing the capacity to overcome greed and
intolerance, and the violence they engender, constitutes our only hope for survival.
The future of the planet depends then, in part, on the way in which we teachers
approach our task. In this context, the topic of curriculum design takes on special
relevance, in that we can no longer safely assume that imported, universally
applicable approaches will serve our purposes.
In this section, I shall be making the case for a needs-analysis-based approach to
course
1
design for the teaching of English as a Foreign Language. I shall start, in this
chapter, by looking briefly at the reasons for basing design on needs. Then, in chapter
2, I will go on to consider the advantages and possible disadvantages of two well-
established approaches to needs-based course design in order to put forward a
combined or sandwich approach and describe an example of how it may be put into
practice.
Why, then, do I start from the assumption that course design should be based on
needs analysis? In this respect, Widdowson (1990: 26) cites the Greek myth of
Procrustes, an inn-keeper who had only one size of bed; on receiving a guest who
was too tall for the bed, he would cut off his feet and, on receiving one who was too
short, he would stretch him on a rack to make him fit the bed (Figure 1.1 depicts a
modern-day Procrustes). As teachers of English, says Widdowson, we have a
tendency to be procrustean and attempt to make the student fit the course instead of
making the course fit the student. It is my belief that, in order to make a meaningful
contribution to the education of citizens who are aware of, and responsive to, the
needs of their fellow humans and their environment, it is necessary for us to take the

1
Throughout this book I shall be using the term course to refer to the content, method and assessment
of English teaching programmes, in opposition to curriculum which I reserve for the school or
university programme as a whole.
Moss, G. (forthcoming): Making Sandwiches: A combined approach to course design for
2

Figure 1.1 A modern-day Procrustes
3

lead by creating educational environments which are responsive to the diverse needs
of the individuals within them.
Needs analysis, historically, has been considered characteristic of English for Specific
Purposes as opposed to General English (See, for example, Hutchinson and Waters
1987, McDonough 1984). It grew out of the recognition in the post-Second-World-War
context, of the fact that particular individuals or groups of people needed to learn
English for different reasons and that, therefore, they needed to learn different aspects
of the English language and to develop different skills in using it. Parallel to this
specialized approach, the majority of English teaching institutions continued to offer
General English courses which were intended to answer the needs of the majority of
learners. This tradition was largely based on the notion, reinforced by followers of
Chomsky in the 1960s and 1970s, that there exists an abstract language system,
independent of the particularities of instances of use, and that it is this system which
learners need to become acquainted with.
It is my contention that General English does not exist, except as a procrustean
attempt to fit all students willy-nilly into the same mould. Chomsky himself intended his
distinction between competence and performance to be used as an analytical linguistic
tool, not as a basis for pedagogical practice. Most language learners do not intend to
engage in theoretical linguistics. They wish and/or need to learn the language in order
to engage in some kind of communicative processes, whether through the reading of
various kinds of texts, keeping in touch with friends and colleagues through writing
letters or emails, chatting on the telephone or computer, attending conferences, or a
myriad other activities which we humans like to engage in. Language which can be
used for this kind of meaningful human interaction must, of necessity, be context-
sensitive, taking context in the broad Hallidayan sense of context of situation, made
up of participants and their relations (tenor), the topic and activity concerned (field)
and the role of language (mode) (Halliday and Hasan, 1985).
When we consider that nowadays the English being taught in all parts of the world is
inevitably aimed at international, intercultural communication, with all the risks of
misunderstanding and misinterpretation which this entails, the need for this kind of
context-sensitivity becomes doubly clear. If people from widely differing cultural and
linguistic backgrounds are to have any hope of communicating successfully with each
other, they must have some understanding of the relation between language and
context, of how to express themselves appropriately according to the characteristics of
their interlocutor(s) and the kind of communicative situation in which they find
themselves. Given that it is not feasible to teach about every possible imaginable
context of situation and the language associated with it, it thus behoves us as
teachers, to attempt to discover as much as we can about our students needs and
wishes and attempt to orient our courses accordingly. Thus, all processes of course
design benefit from an ESP-style approach. Table 1.1 summarizes the principal
differences between the ESP-style approach to course design and the General
English approach.
4

ESP-STYLE APPROACH GENERAL ENGLISH APPROACH
Makes the course fit the student Makes the student fit the course
Is closely related to context of situation Is independent of context
Aims at ability to use language in
context
Aims at knowledge of universal
system of English
Aims to understand and fulfil students
needs
Assumes all students have the same
needs

The procedures and techniques of Needs Analysis as described and discussed in the
literature will be summarized in Chapter 3. My aim in this brief chapter has been to
clarify the reasons why I consider ESP to be a broad approach to course design and
not a specific methodology for dealing with a limited number of students. I would
encourage all teachers to adopt an ESP approach to course design. In the next
chapter, I will go on to describe the particular approach which I recommend and which
I have dubbed The Sandwich Approach.

5

Chapter 2: The Sandwich Approach

Within the ESP-style, needs-based approach outlined above, we may distinguish two
relatively well-established sub-approaches which may be broadly described as top-
down and bottom-up. The top-down approach, represented diagramatically in Figure
2.1
2
, takes the analysis of target needs as its point of departure. By target needs, we
understand the activities which the student will need to carry out in English after the
completion of formal studies, and the type of language knowledge and skills necessary
in order to perform them successfully (Munby 1978). This analysis is combined with
that of wants, understood as that which the student desires to learn irrespective of
necessity, and input from sources such as theories of language and learning,
alternatives for classroom management, the results of classroom and theoretical
research and examples taken from other courses designed for similar situations. All
these sources of information combine to provide a general overview of the situation,
the students, the course and the alternatives for its realisation, from which we may
derive course goals and objectives. Once having defined objectives, we then proceed
to specify teaching points, that is to say, what exactly is to be taught. Teaching points
may include, as well as aspects of language knowledge and skills, such areas as
awareness-raising and learning skills and strategies. At this stage in the process, we
also go about selecting the materials (texts, films, dialogues, images, problems, and
so forth) which will be used in developing our teaching points. The next step is to
arrange the points in sequence following the criteria for sequencing and structuring
which our prior analysis of the situation indicates to be appropriate. After sequencing
and structuring have been decided upon, we may proceed to write the materials for
the course. The course should then be implemented with a pilot group with
subsequent modification and adaptation until results are deemed to be satisfactory, at
which point the course may be fully implemented. In this way, we move from the top
down, from the most general view of the course - its goals and theoretical orientation -
to its specific realisation in the form of teaching points and materials.

The other major tendency in needs-based course design may be designated as
bottom-up in that it proceeds largely in reverse order. Figure 2.2 is David Nunans
(1990) representation of this approach. Here too, the process begins with needs
analysis, but of a rather different type. In this case, we look not to the future but to the
present and ask: Who are my students? What are their characteristics and feelings?
Where are they now and where do they think they are going? Having got to know our
students on the ground, we can then organise them in groups according to such
criteria as proficiency in English, interests, goals and so forth. On the basis of this
acquaintance with our students, we then proceed to select and sequence the kinds of
activities, tasks and problems which we consider it would be productive for them to

2
I am indebted to Mike Scott of the University of Liverpool for this representation of the steps in the top-
down approach to LSP course design.
6

Figure 2.1 The top-down approach
7

Figure 2.2: The bottom-up approach
8

address. At this point in the process, we also need to make reference to theories of
language and learning. The next step is to decide which language items are relevant
to the activities selected and write materials for teaching them. We then proceed to
the development of assessment and evaluation instruments and procedures which
will actively involve the learner in the process of assessing the success of the course
and of his/her individual learning process. This approach can be termed bottom-up in
that it proceeds from very specific, individual data about students towards the more
general concerns of goals, content, methodology and evaluation.
Both of the approaches outlined above have been used with a great measure of
success in the design of courses for specific situations and groups of students.
However, they have their drawbacks. The top-down approach can, on occasion, lead
to a certain lack of flexibility and fail to take into account individual learning styles,
wants and so forth. On the other hand, the bottom-up approach may, at times, give the
impression of lacking a sense of direction and also runs the risk of over-emphasising
present concerns to the detriment of target situation needs. It is for this reason that I
shall now propose a combined approach.
The approach which I have termed the Sandwich Approach is represented
diagrammatically in Figure 2.3. The model is simultaneously data-driven and theory-
driven, making a sandwich on the horizontal plane of the figure. Data are drawn from
both types of needs analysis. On the top, we go into analysis of target needs and
situational constraints. Target needs, as mentioned above, refer to the types of activity
the student will need to carry out in English after completing formal instruction and the
language knowledge and skills necessary to perform these activities successfully.
Situational constraints are those factors which, in some way, limit what it is possible
for us to do in our courses. That is to say, a target needs analysis will result in a profile
of aims and activities which, in many cases, it is not practically feasible to carry out. In
tracing our course goals, therefore, it is necessary to take into account not only what is
desirable, but also what is feasible. More detail about the collection of data regarding
target needs and situational constraints will be provided in Chapter 3.
At the same time, at the bottom of the model, we carry out learning needs analysis,
looking at our students current levels of competence, their learning styles and so on.
This process will also be described in more detail in Chapter 3. By comparing this
where we are now analysis with the where we want to get to analysis of target
needs, we can derive a set of teaching points which need to be covered in our course.
We have thus started from top and bottom simultaneously in order to arrive at our
course goals and the teaching points necessary to achieve them.
However, it is also essential that our decisions be informed by a clear theoretical
orientation in order to give sense, coherence and direction to what might otherwise
become a hotchpotch of particular activities with no clear guiding principle.
3
On the
theory side of the sandwich, we find approaches to education, to language and to

3
Also known as the Sancocho Approach (Mara Stella Martnez, personal communication, 1995)
9

Figure 2.3: The Sandwich Approach
10

learning which are vital elements in the overall coherence of our design. These
approaches will be discussed in detail in Chapter 4.
In this model, then, we take input simultaneously from top and bottom, from data and
theory, to make up the bread and butter of our course. The syllabus design as such
then becomes the filling in the sandwich, whose nature is determined by the input
factors. I have stressed as outcomes of data and theoretical input, the course goals
and teaching points. If we know where we are going and what we need to do in order
to get there and are aware of our students learning styles and preferences, then
decisions relating to sequence and structure and selection of materials are more easily
arrived at. The model also shows the writing of general and specific objectives. This is
a moot point in current educational debate. There are those who believe that
specifying objectives implies rigidity and presupposes that all students start and end at
the same point, regardless of individual characteristics. My own view is that clearly
stated objectives are a useful guide for teachers, learners and institutional authorities
and can be used with flexibility rather than in strait-jacket terms. This, again, is a
decision which needs to be consciously considered and taken on the basis of the input
from data and theory, rather than simply adopted as tradition. I shall be considering
this question in more depth in Chapter 6. The final stages in the process: piloting,
revision, implementation and evaluation are common to all models of course design
and are amply treated in the literature.
I should like, now, to describe a concrete example of the sandwich model in action.
The example, shown in Figure 2.4 is taken from a programme in English for Academic
Purposes for university undergraduates. I have chosen this example because it is one
that I was closely involved with some years ago but I should like to stress that the
model is equally applicable to any other kind of course. In fact, students on the
Postgraduate Diploma in Teaching English at Universidad del Norte have applied it to
the design of courses for pre-school, primary and high school as well as at university
level.
The example, then, is one aspect of an undergraduate English programme which was
designed and implemented at Universidad del Norte in Barranquilla, Colombia in the
mid 1990s.. I should like to fill in a little of the background in order to make the
example as clear as possible. As from the 1970s, when Uninorte participated in the
Reading and Thinking in English project, up until 1994, we worked with the now
established model of ESP for Latin American countries - three semesters of English
devoted exclusively to reading comprehension. Initially, this approach was amply
justified. Time available did not permit working on more than one skill, and the vast
majority of Colombian professionals had no need of English other than as a means of
obtaining up-to-date information about their field. Times have changed. Colombia, in
the 1990s went through a process of opening up to international commerce and
communications in all fields and it was no longer acceptable for us to condemn future
Colombian professionals to a passive role on the world stage. We needed people who
would go out and participate actively for Colombia; most especially we needed
graduates who could undertake postgraduate studies in any country of the world and
return to put their new knowledge and skills to the benefit of a new Colombia.
11

Figure 2.4 The Sandwich Approach: an example
12

Therefore, in 1995, the Universidad del Norte created its Language Institute, whose
principal responsibility is to ensure that Uninorte graduates are able to participate in
graduate studies round the world. To this end, a new eight-semester four-skills
programme was designed and implemented, using the sandwich approach.
The example presented in Figure 2.4 refers to one particular aspect of the design of
the undergraduate programme and serves to illustrate how the different aspects of
input (bread and butter) come together to decide on the filling.
At the top of the model, we found, in regard to target needs, the fact that our
graduates, as postgraduate students, would need, among other things, to read
academic texts and attend lectures. At the same time, on the theory side, our
approach to education was hermeneutic: we believed that it was our duty to aim at
forming individuals with a critical awareness of the socio-cultural processes involved in
active citizenship and that education for critical citizenship implies critical discourse
skills. These two complementary sources of input combined to indicate that one of our
major goals should be the development of critical reading and listening skills.
At the bottom end of the model, contact with our students told us that the majority
had poor L1 reading skills and that their most immediate need in English was for
reading: not only books and journals but, ever more frequently, Internet, international
databases and so forth. At the same time, they told us that they wanted to be able to
understand films received over cable and satellite TV, songs and so on. On the theory
side, our functional systemic approach to language suggested that listening and
reading skills are closely intertwined and our Vygotskian view of learning suggested
that some degree of awareness of the processes involved is necessary to ensure
assimilation. We thus arrived at the conclusion that our teaching points should include
awareness-raising with regard to language and learning, as well as a variety of
reading and listening strategies. This also tied in with the comprehensible input theory
put forward by Krashen (1985), which stresses the importance of exposure to the
target language before being required to produce it. We hoped that by attending to
students current needs and wants we would achieve higher levels of engagement
(van Lier 1996) in the process on the part of our students.
Finally, as a result of the study of all these different types of data and theoretical
considerations, when we came to putting the filling in the sandwich, it was decided
that, while all levels of the programme should deal to some extent with all four skills,
the first level should emphasise above all the development of reading strategies; in the
second and third levels these strategies were extended to listening comprehension,
while levels four and five worked intensively on writing and speaking. Levels six, seven
and eight dealt with research skills in the students field of study. A similar process
was gone through for decision-making about all the different aspects of the course, in
an attempt to ensure that everything we did was coherent both with our students
needs and with our theoretical orientation.

13

The Sandwich Approach to course design outlined in this chapter is an attempt
systematically to involve knowledge of students, context and theory in the decision-
making processes which make up the essence of course design. Section 2 of this
book will provide further information about sources of input to the sandwich model
both from data and from theory and Section 3 will describe, step-by-step, the
procedures to be followed in working through a course design process.
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SECTION 2: INPUT

Chapter 4: Input from theory

4.1 The importance of defining approaches
As I mentioned in the first chapter of this book, it is my belief that in the contemporary
world of global relations and numerous local or regional conflicts, we, as educators,
have a special responsibility to play our part in the development of world citizens with
the ability to respect diversity and coexist peacefully with others, though they be of
differing race, culture and persuasion. The will to overcome intolerance and combat
injustice constitutes our only hope for survival. Similarly, the development of citizens
who take seriously their responsibility towards the non-human environment is a task
which cannot be postponed. The future of humanity and of the planet depends then, in
part, on the way in which we teachers approach our task.
In some contexts, English teachers tend to think of themselves simply as language
instructors, limiting their horizons to the four walls of their classroom and assuming
that their responsibility goes no further than the development of certain clearly defined
language skills. We believe that this attitude is untenable. The learning of English,
nowadays, is a politically and culturally charged activity with repercussions not only for
teachers and learners but also for families, communities and national governments.
We cannot assume, therefore, that data from students and situation provide sufficient
information for all the decisions we need to take in the course design process. It is
also essential that our decisions be informed by a clear theoretical and philosophical
orientation to give sense, coherence and direction to what might otherwise become a
hotchpotch of particular activities with no clear guiding principle.
4
On the theory side of
the sandwich model, then, we find approaches to education and to language learning
which are vital elements in the overall coherence of our design. As regards approach
to education, it is indispensable for the teacher to have a clear notion of the aims of
the educational process in which s/he is participating. If we do not have a clear
conception of the kind of human being we hope will emerge from the educational
process, then none of our actions as teachers can hope to make sense. Every single
one of the decisions we make (and we are, according to Shn (1983), the
professionals who must most frequently take decisions) whether they be at the micro
level of classroom interaction or at the macro level of course goals or anywhere in-
between, should be guided by this conception of human development. It is essential,
then, for example, to know whether we are aiming towards efficient, productive

4
Also known as the Sancocho Approach (Mara Stella Martnez, personal communication, 1995)
15

members of an obedient workforce or critical, questioning individuals (in Rortys (1980)
terms, between epistemology and hermeneutics).

The second aspect of theory shown on the model is approach to language learning.
This, in reality, covers two interrelated but distinct points: approach to language and
approach to learning. As regards approach to language, the two main schools are the
structuralist view of language as a set of syntactic structures stored in memory, and
the functionalist view of language as the negotiation of meaning between participants
in specific discourse situations. Our decision in this respect will obviously have
important repercussions for the content, materials and methodology of our courses.
As regards approach to learning, the principal dichotomy is between the behaviourist,
stimulus-response view which informed the audio-lingual methods popular in the
1960s and 70s and the cognitive school, derived from Vygotsky and Bruner, which lies
at the heart of the currently favoured constructivist methodologies in education.
In the sections which follow, we will discuss further the nature of the choices involved
in defining approaches to education, to language and to learning.

4.2 Approaches to Education
As suggested above, it is convenient, for the purposes of illustration, to consider
approaches to education in a rather simplified fashion, as falling into two classes,
which may roughly be compared with what Rorty (1980) describes as epistemological
and hermeneutic. The epistemological approach relates to the idea of education as
socialization into a particular cultural and scientific tradition, preparation for taking
ones place as a useful, conventional member of society. The hermeneutic approach,
on the other hand, relates to notions of critical citizenship, of learning to question
conventions, take autonomous decisions and contribute creatively to processes of
change. The two approaches are outlined in synoptic form in table 4.1.
EPISTEMOLOGICAL HERMENEUTIC
Socialization Autonomy
Banking Construction of knowledge
Information Formation
Professional training Human development

Table 4.1: Summary of epistemological and hermeneutic approaches to education

Socialization is generally defined as the process by which human beings or animals
learn to adopt the behavior patterns of the community in which they live. While it is
16

clearly one of the purposes of education to enable people to live in society, the
concept of socialization has been criticized by many educators because it suggests
casting people in a pre-designed mould leaving little or no room for individual
creativity, critical thinking or questioning of established norms. In this respect it is
interesting to note that a search for Socialization on the Google search engine,
throws up more or less equal numbers of pages referring to children and pages
referring to puppies. The connotation of training to obey is evident.

On the other side of the table, we find the notion of autonomy. It would be idle to
attempt a full definition of autonomy here. It is, after all, a question which has stretched
the minds of philosophers for centuries. In this context, we are using the term to refer
to the ability to think differently, to break the crust of convention (Dewey, cited by
Rorty, 1980: 379). This thinking differently involves developing a sense of the
relativity of descriptive vocabularies to periods, traditions, and historical accidents
(362); that is to say, an understanding of the fact that statements which we, in our
context, consider to be simple statements of fact would not be considered as such in
other cultures or at other periods in history. A simple example of this might be a
statement such as Human beings and chimpanzees have evolved from a common
ancestor. For most early twenty-first century biology teachers this is a statement of
fact; however, certain religious groups would challenge its status as such, suggesting
that it is only one of several possible points of view. Similarly, before Charles Darwins
time, it would have been considered nonsense. In this sense, breaking the crust of
convention also involves questioning the traditional distinction between facts and
values. Autonomy, then, involves the ability to think independently. It also involves the
capacity to use that independent thinking as the basis for making decisions and to
accept responsibility for the consequences of those decisions. All of this contrasts with
the idea of socialization with its emphasis on conformity and obedience.

In the second contrasting pair in the table, we find banking versus construction of
knowledge. The term banking is borrowed from Paulo Freire (1968), the great
Brazilian educator and champion of education as a facilitator for the emancipation of
disadvantaged groups of people. The practice of education as banking, according to
Freire, involves treating students as empty receptacles to be filled by teachers with
knowledge which may be stored and then withdrawn for use at a later time. The
experiential knowledge which students bring with them to the classroom is ignored or
treated as irrelevant. The academic knowledge provided by the teacher is stored by
means of memorization and is not related to the learners experiences of life in their
context. The use of the knowledge at a later time is largely in the form of repetition for
examination purposes. This approach contrasts with the constructivist approach,
based on the work of psychologists such as Vygotsky (1934/1986) and Bruner (1986),
which proposes recognition of the value of the experiential knowledge which students
bring to the learning task and providing learners with cognitive tools to allow them to
build more scientific knowledge on the basis of what they already know. We will return
17

to this point in our discussion of approaches to learning in section 2.2.3 below.
Learners in this approach are seen as interlocutors in a conversation, as active
participants in their own learning process, not simply as passive recipients of received
knowledge. The banking approach relates to the epistemological side of our table
because it assumes that knowledge consists of a set of established facts which should
be learned without questioning. The constructivist approach relates to hermeneutics in
that it assumes that knowledge is personal, culture-sensitive and context-related.

Along the same lines, we find an emphasis on information contrasted with an
emphasis on formation. In epistemological, banking approaches to education, it is
considered to be of paramount importance that students acquire large amounts of
information about a particular range of topics to be determined by the educational
institution and / or by national governments in the form of national curricula which will
then be tested in state controlled examinations. On the other hand, in a more
hermeneutic approach, we would expect the emphasis to fall on the formation of
human beings with certain cognitive, metacognitive and socio-affective skills which
may be applied at different times in a persons life to the acquisition of whatever
information may be necessary for the task in hand. This kind of learning is, of course,
much more difficult to evaluate and almost impossible to measure in objective tests.

Finally, and in close association with the previous point, we find professional training
contrasted with human development. The professional training approach suggests
that the purpose of education is to fit students for the job market. The human
development approach, by contrast, gives priority to the development of each
individuals particular talents, interests and potential, together with her/his
interpersonal skills.

It will be apparent from the comments above that we, ourselves, favour the
hermeneutic approach to education. We believe that both individual learners and
societies are better served by the development of well-rounded human beings,
equipped with competences for thinking and learning, communicating and cooperating
in flexible and unpredictable ways, questioning traditional habits of thought and action
and proposing new and original ones. However, it should also be evident that it is not
always easy for institutions, or for individual teachers within them, to adhere to this
approach. Parents expect their children to do well in exams and later to be successful
in the job market. Schools and universities are compared in league tables based on
state exam results. Sponsors may not always look favourably on the development of
critical thinking.

18

There exists a danger, then, of falling into the trap of expressing, in documents and
discussions, a commitment to hermeneutic education while, in reality, cultivating
practices more characteristic of epistemological education. We would suggest a three-
pronged approach to living with this dilemma. Firstly, the two sides of the table should
not be seen as mutually exclusive opposites but rather as two ends of a cline on which
it is possible to situate oneself somewhere in-between the two extremes. Secondly,
institutional documents, such as mission statements and educational projects, and
government policy documents should be read with our critical filter switched on and
compared with the evidence of actions and decisions. Finally, if our personal
convictions as educators are not entirely in accord with the policies of the institutions
in which we work or those of our national governments, we need not despair nor see
the situation necessarily in terms of conflict, but rather of conversation. Hermeneutics
asserts Rorty, sees the relations between various discourses as those of strands in a
possible conversation () where the hope of agreement is never lost so long as the
conversation lasts () or, at least, exciting and fruitful disagreement. (1980: 318)

A complementary view of approaches to education is that of Askew and Carnell (1998,
chapter 6) who posit four educational frameworks: liberatory, client-centred, social
justice and functionalist. These four frameworks are mapped on two clines: intrinsic
versus extrinsic knowledge and radical change versus social regulation. The liberatory
framework combines intrinsic knowledge with radical change; the client-centred,
intrinsic knowledge with social regulation; the social justice, extrinsic knowledge with
radical change; and the functionalist, extrinsic knowledge with social regulation (p.84).
If we compare these frameworks with the epistemological hermeneutic contrast
established above, we find that the most hermeneutic framework is the liberatory and
the most epistemological framework is the functionalist. It is not surprising, then, that
Askew and Carnell comment that It is difficult to conceive of [the liberatory] model
being adopted in any form within the current educational climate, since teachers and
educational establishments have less autonomy and are faced with increasing
direction on how or what to teach. (pp. 90-91). They make a similar comment about
the social justice model. Once again then, we may find ourselves in a situation where
we need to embrace exciting and fruitful disagreement, as suggested above.

4.3 Approaches to language
The second half of the twentieth century produced two radically different approaches
to language, roughly based on two streams of linguistics which we referred to above
as structuralist and functionalist and which have also been referred to as isolating
and integrating (e.g. Thompson and Collins, 2001). The first, whose most well-known
exponent is Noam Chomsky, sees language as rule-based behaviour and assumes
that its object of study is the abstract language system, independent of data relating to
specific contexts or specific language users. The second, whose best-known exponent
is Michael Halliday, conceives of language as a meaning-making resource and takes
19

as its object of study the complex relations between the language system, texts,
contexts and users. Thompson refers to these strands as isolating and integrating
because structuralist linguistics sees the language system as separate from context
and from use and therefore spawns a variety of sub-disciplines in order to deal with
these other aspects: sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, pragmatics, text linguistics and
so forth. Functionalist linguistics, on the other hand, integrates social, cognitive,
pragmatic and discourse features into its theory of the language system.

Language teaching based on these two different strands of linguistics, therefore,
emphasises different aspects of the language to be taught and has differing goals and
objectives. Table 4.2 sets out some of these differences of approach.
Approach to
language
Aspects
Structuralist Functionalist
Nature of language Rule-based behaviour Meaning-making resource
Object of study Morphology and syntax Communicative functions and
skills
Goal of teaching and
learning
Linguistic competence;
learning language
Communicative competence;
learning language, learning
about language, learning
through language
Behaviour expected of
learners
Production of correct
sentences
Negotiation of meaning
Criterion for evaluation Accuracy Appropriacy to context and
function
Table 4.2: Contrasting approaches to language and their relation to teaching
practices
It is worth noting that the functionalist approach, because of its integrating nature,
does not see the study of language whether mother tongue or second/foreign
language as an isolated discipline but as an integral part of the curriculum,
intimately related to other subject areas. Hence we find that practitioners following
this approach stress not only the need to learn language, but also the need to learn
about language and to learn through language.
As with the approaches to education discussed in the previous section, it is wise to
see these two approaches, at least in their educational applications, as opposite
ends of a cline rather than as mutually exclusive. It may thus be possible to
emphasise language as meaning-making resource while still giving some
classroom attention to rule-based behaviour. It is, however, important to establish
priorities and to bear them in mind throughout the process of curriculum and
materials design. Traditional language teaching has followed the structuralist path
and it is all too easy to pay lip service to the fashionable notions of communicative
competence while, in fact, organizing classroom activities around purely structural
20

notions and basing assessment on matters of accuracy. A decision to go with the
functionalist stream requires willingness to reassess our traditional activities and
priorities in the light of real communicative processes, which empower students to
express their own thoughts and feelings rather than simply manipulating the
language used to express ideas provided by teachers and / or text-book writers.
4.4 Approaches to learning

The principal approaches to learning may be summarized under the headings of
behaviourist, cognitivist and sociocultural. Behaviourist theories emphasise
changes in behaviour which can be achieved through the use of activities based on
stimulus-response and reinforcement. They focus on the observable evidence of
learning outcomes. Cognitive approaches, on the other hand, emphasise the
processes of learning, the conscious ways in which human individuals construct
knowledge. Sociocultural approaches have much in common with cognitivist
approaches but stress the importance of learning through interaction with others
and with the environment. Leading proponents of behaviourism are Skinner and
Watson, the most important figure in the cognitivist field is Piaget, while Vygotsky
and Bruner are the leading theorists of the sociocultural approach. Table 4.3
presents some contrasting characteristics of the three approaches.

Approach to
learning

Aspects
Behaviourist Cognitivist Sociocultural
Theory of learning Stimulus and
response
Conscious
construction of
knowledge
Co-construction of
knowledge
Effective learning
techniques
Rote learning Use of strategies:
cognitive
metacognitive
socio-affective
Participation in
communities of
knowledge
Pedagogical
practice
Mechanization of
routines
Interaction:
learner-learner
learner-teacher
learner-
materials
learner-context
Interaction:
learner-learner
learner-teacher
learner-
materials
learner-context
Table 4.3: Approaches to learning

In the case of approaches to learning, even more than in the cases of approaches
to education and to language, it is important to bear in mind that the extreme cases
presented in the table are exactly that extreme cases. It is perfectly possible in
real teaching and learning situations to situate oneself somewhere in-between and
make use of the more effective aspects of each. Language learning is one of the
most complex areas of educational endeavour and it would be unwise to limit our
21

range of possible activities by adhering strictly to one approach or another. Once
again, however, it is advisable to have clear priorities and to make use of elements
of other approaches only when they are coherent and compatible with those
priorities. It should also be evident from the table that the cognitive and
sociocultural approaches are more easily compatible with each other than is either
one of them with the behaviourist approach.

In aligning ourselves with approaches to education, language and learning, it is
important to take an overall view of our situation and ensure that our choices are
coherent with each other. In broad terms, we may observe a tendency for
hermeneutic approaches to education to combine with functional approaches to
language and cognitivist or sociocultural approaches to learning. The emphasis on
independent thinking in hermeneutic approaches to education would be difficult to
reconcile with the rote learning and mechanization characteristic of behaviourist
approaches to learning. Similarly, the importance of sensitivity to context in
functional approaches to language could not easily be learnt through behaviourist
methods which emphasise uniformity rather than difference. On the other hand, an
epistemological approach to education, with its emphasis on fulfilling expectations
and conforming to norms may be well served by memorization and a focus on rules
as in behaviourist and structuralist approaches.

These combinations, however, should not be taken as hard and fast rules or, even
worse, as formulae with predictable outcomes. Every situation is different and it is
always worthwhile to think deeply about each set of alternatives and their possible
combinations.

4.5 Putting theory into practice
Work through Worksheet 1.

4.6 Summary
This section has considered the theoretical input for course design decisions. It has
stressed the importance for educators of reflection on questions relating to what
education is for and what kind of people we hope to see come out at the end of the
process. Such reflection should consider not only our personal convictions but also
the characteristics, needs and constraints of the particular situation in which we
work. For language curricula, we need to take into account approaches to
education, approaches to language and approaches to learning. In each case, we
need to situate ourselves somewhere on a cline between two extremes:
epistemological and hermeneutic approaches to education; structuralist and
functionalist approaches to language and behaviourist and cognitivist approaches
to learning. In any particular teaching situation, it may be necessary to steer a
middle course or to enter into conversation with differing approaches.

4.7 Further reading

4.7.1 Approaches to education
Delors, J. (ed.) (1996): Learning: The Treasure Within. Paris: UNESCO
22

Gmez Buenda, H. (1998): Educacin: La agenda del siglo XXI. Hacia un
desarrollo humano. Colombia: PNUD / Tercer Mundo Editores
Rorty, R. (1980): Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. Oxford: Blackwell. (Chapters
7 and 8 are relevant for educational purposes.)

4.7.2 Approaches to language
Chomsky, N. (1976): Reflections on Language. Glasgow: Fontana/Collins
Cook, G. (1989): Discourse. Oxford University Press
Eggins, S. (1994): An Introduction to Systemic Functional Linguistics
London: Pinter
Halliday, M.A.K. And Hasan, R. (1989): Language, Context and Text: Aspects of
Language in a Social-Semiotic Perspective. Oxford University Press.
Moss, G., Mizuno, J., Avila, D., Barletta, N., Carreo, S., Chamorro, D., Tapia, C.
(2003): Urdimbre del Texto Escolar. Barranquilla: Ediciones Uninorte.
Thompson, G. (1996): Introducing Functional Grammar. London: Arnold.
Unsworth, L. (ed.) (2000): Researching language in schools and communities:
functional linguistic perspectives London: Cassell

4.7.3 Approaches to learning
Moll, L.C. (ed.) (1990): Vygotsky and Education. Cambridge University Press
(traduccin al espaol. Vygotsky y la educacin. Buenos Aires: Aique)
Van Lier, L. (1996): Interaction in the Language Curriculum: Awareness, autonomy
and authenticity. London: Longman
___________ (2004): The ecology and semiotics of language learning: A
sociocultural approach. Kluwer Academic Press
Vygotsky, L. S. (1979): El desarrollo de los procesos psicolgicos superiores
Barcelona: Editorial Crtica
______________ (1986): Thought and Language. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press
(original in Russian, 1934)
Wertsch, J.V. (1988): Vygotsky y la formacin social de la mente. Barcelona:
Paids

23

SECTION 3: DESIGN

Like most complex processes, course design can best be handled by dividing it
into a series of steps and dealing with them one by one. In this section, I will work
through the steps presented in the sandwich model providing definitions and
recommendations for each one so that you can gradually build up your own
sandwich. Each step will also be illustrated with examples taken from monographs
written by students of the Postgraduate Diploma in English Teaching at the
Universidad del Norte in Barranquilla, Colombia. After reading the examples, you
will be invited to work on your own design by using the Worksheets in Section 5. At
the end of each chapter, I will provide a brief summary and suggestions for further
reading.

Chapter 5: Procedural recommendations

Course design is a complex process involving many interlocking decisions which
all need to be coherent with each other if the resulting design is to produce the
results we expect of it. It is easy to get lost or confused in the process. I would
therefore like to suggest some strategies for keeping track of your work and
avoiding unnecessary confusion.

5.1 Draft and re-draft
Once again, the complex nature of the course design process makes it unlikely that
you will get everything right (i.e. to your satisfaction) on the first attempt. As you go
through the decision-making processes you will need to go back to earlier stages
and redraft your ideas in the light of later reflections. In some cases, you may need
to redraft three or four times before reaching a final version. It is useful to think of
course design as an on-going process which you will keep redrafting even after
you begin implementation of your course. Feedback from the classroom will then
be input for further redrafting. Try not to become too enamoured of your early ideas
and drafts; you need to be able to let them go if they are either not coherent with
later decisions or clearly not working in the classroom.

5.2 The use of a portfolio
I strongly recommend the use of a portfolio or loose-leaf folder in which you can
keep succeeding drafts of each step in your design process. It is important to keep
all the drafts, and to keep them in order, so that you can look back and see how
your ideas have progressed and developed as you work through the process. You
may at some point wish to restore some aspect of an earlier version. So,
remember:
Number your drafts
Label them clearly with the topic (e.g. goals and general objectives) and the
date on which you wrote them.
24

If you want to write comments on them at a later stage, or have someone
else comment on them for you, remember to use different colours to
differentiate the comments from the original.
Keep them in separate sections of your portfolio, clearly labelled according
to topic. This way it is easy to find what you need when you need it.

5.3 Your own sandwich
It can be useful to build up your own version of the sandwich model, filling in the
boxes with key ideas from your needs analysis, your reflection on approaches and
your decision-making process. This gives you an overview of your design and is
helpful for assessing the degree of coherence which you have achieved between
the different aspects. You will probably also want to make several drafts of this and
keep it in your portfolio. On the next page you will find an example of what it might
look like and then a blank model for you to fill in as you go along. I suggest you
also keep this in your portfolio.
25

COURSE DESIGN: THE SANDWICH APPROACH

Data-driven COURSE DESIGN Theory-driven

TARGET NEEDS
Students will need to
read academic texts
and attend lectures.
A COURSE GOAL
Development of critical reading APPROACH TO
and listening skills EDUCATION
Critical citizenship
implies critical discourse skills.

sequence of skills to be emphasised:
1. reading
2. listening
3. speaking and writing

APPROACH TO
LANGUAGE and LEARNING
Functional, cognitivist: awareness;
exposure; engagement

SOME TEACHING POINTS
language and learning awareness; reading and listening strategies

LEARNING NEEDS
many poor L1 readers
immediate need for reading
desire for listening
26

COURSE DESIGN: THE SANDWICH APPROACH

Data-driven COURSE DESIGN Theory-driven

TARGET NEEDS
________________
________________
A COURSE GOAL
________________________ APPROACH TO
EDUCATION
_____________________

____________________________:
________________________________
________________________________
________________________________
________________________________

APPROACH TO
LANGUAGE and LEARNING
__________________________
__________________________

SOME TEACHING POINTS
_______________________________________________________

LEARNING NEEDS
____________________________
____________________________
____________________________
27

CHAPTER 6: Setting goals, general objectives and competences

A course is unlikely to be successful if nobody knows what it is trying to achieve. It
is important for all the interested parties - designers, teachers, students,
institutional authorities, sponsors and governmental bodies to know what the
course is intended to accomplish. This facilitates all the stages in the process:
planning, implementation and evaluation. There are a number of different ways of
defining and stating these ideas about what we are trying to achieve or where we
are going with a course. There has also been a great deal of discussion recently
about the relative merits of describing desired student behaviour in terms of
objectives or competences. As a general rule, I have found it useful to work with
goals, general objectives and competences. At a later stage, general objectives will
then be broken down into specific objectives. I will first define what I mean by
goals, general objectives and competences.

6.1 Definitions
Goal: may be variously defined as:
Our final destination,
The outcome of our efforts,
The situation we desire at the end of the course,
The ball in the net!
The last of those definitions makes reference, of course, to the origin of the term
which is a metaphor from sport, particularly football. Notice that these definitions all
stress the goal as a final situation or state. The goal describes what we hope will
be the result at the end of the course. It says nothing about how we will get there.
This is where objectives come in.

Objectives: in their turn may be defined as:
The realization of goals,
The necessary moves to make in order to achieve a goal,
The way to get the ball into the net!
So, continuing with the football metaphor, objectives tell us something about what
the players need to do in order to score the goal. They describe behaviours, not
results. Obviously, since they are the means to achieve the goals, they are very
closely related to the goals and can only be defined once the goals are clear.
General objectives relate directly to goals; specific objectives break down general
objectives into their component parts and relate to teaching points. Now, just as the
objectives specify the behaviour which is necessary in order to achieve the goals,
we also need particular types of know-how, in order to perform that behaviour. And
this is where competences are important.

28

Competences: may be defined as:
The know-how which enables us to make appropriate moves:
o Knowledge of the rules
o Skills
o The ability to make decisions, choose moves, apply skills according
to the needs of the moment
Competences, then, are essential bases for achieving objectives and goals. They
involve both theoretical knowledge about what to do and the practical skills needed
for doing it. They also involve more general abilities to relate generalized
knowledge and skills to the requirements of specific contexts, situations and tasks.

So, is it really necessary to work with all three? The current trend in most
educational circles is towards working with competences. Why not concentrate on
competences and forget about goals and objectives?

I believe that it is useful to work with all three and that each one has a rather
different function or purpose to fulfil. This is the topic of the next section.

6.2 Types and purposes
Goals, to use a different metaphor, are like a guiding star. We need to keep our
eye on them and make sure that we are moving towards them in order to avoid
getting lost. Everything that we do needs to help us in some way to move closer
towards them. For course design purposes, it is useful to distinguish between three
types of goal, as shown in Figure 6.1.

Figure 6.1 Types of goal

GOALS
TARGET LEARNING HUMAN
Values
Relations
Attitude Awareness Strategies
Language Learning
Language
content
Subject
content
Skills
29

Target goals: These are goals which relate to the acquisition of the knowledge
and skills required by the target situation as defined in our analysis of target needs
(see Chapter 3). They are basically cognitive in nature. The knowledge and skills
required may relate to the English language or to a particular subject area or both.

Learning goals: These are goals which relate to becoming a better learner, to
learning to learn. They are basically metacognitive in nature and are extremely
important in helping students to develop as learners in ways which will help to
achieve the target goals not only of their English course but also of any learning
process which they may wish to undertake. They can be subdivided into three
major areas: attitude, awareness and strategies, with awareness being further
defined as language awareness and/or learning awareness. Attitude goals relate to
things like motivation, interest in the subject or understanding of its importance.
Language awareness goals cover such issues as understanding that different
languages have different structures or being aware of appropriacy to context while
learning awareness has to do with recognizing ones own cognitive style or
learning preferences, identifying ones strengths and weaknesses as a learner.
Finally, strategies are particular techniques chosen and applied for solving specific
learning problems. A great deal has been written about learning strategies over the
last two decades (e.g. Oxford, 1990; OMalley and Chamot, 1990) and there is
ample literature to support our choices in this field.

Human goals: These are goals which relate to human development and are
basically socio-affective in nature. They are included here in coherence with my
belief that, as English teachers, we are educators and not just language
instructors. Particularly in situations where we are dealing with children,
adolescents or young adults, these goals are of vital importance in terms of
education for citizenship. Now, many teachers would argue that although they do
not specify this type of goals in their course documents, they are always working
on them. I believe that this is rarely the case. Going back to the metaphor of the
guiding star, if you cant see the star, you wont follow it! What is not specified in
course outlines is always in danger of being marginalized or even forgotten
completely. I firmly believe that if we have the serious intention of devoting time
and energy in class to working on these goals, then it is essential for them to be
made explicit and to be contemplated in our evaluation processes.

Objectives specify the actions we need to take in order successfully to follow our
guiding stars. They serve as guidelines for:
Writers
Teachers
Students
Sponsors
Evaluators
These guidelines give each one of these participants information about what kind
of behaviour is expected of them and/or what kind of behaviour they can expect
from the other participants. This information is essential when it comes to
30

evaluating the degree of success or failure of a course or of any of the participants
in it. We can only judge success by comparing actual performance with expected
performance. Evaluation criteria, then, are closely based on objectives. For this
reason, there are a number of different kinds of objectives, depending on their
exact purpose and on who is going to use them. Firstly, objectives may be
conceived from different points of view, as we can see in Figure 6.2.

Figure 6.2 Types of objectives, by point of view

Thus, institutional objectives state what the institution aims to do as, for instance, in
a mission statement. For example,
This institution seeks to train its students as independent and analytical thinkers, with solid
ethical principles, who can conceive innovative ideas in such a way that they participate in an
active, leading, responsible, honest, critical and pragmatic way in the process of social,
economic, political and cultural development of the community. (Universidad del Norte
homepage)
Course objectives state what a course or programme hopes to achieve; this kind of
objective is frequently found in programme prospectuses. For example,

To provide the basic foundations of a research-based approach to teaching, emphasising
needs analysis in the participants teaching environment in such a way that they will become
agents of change and promoters of new ideas for the benefit of their professional context and
of the community at large. (Postgraduate Diploma in English Teaching, Universidad del
Norte)

Within an individual course, we usually work either with teacher-centred or
student-centred objectives. Teacher-centred objectives look something like
this:
To provide students with practice in vocabulary relating to their field of study.

where the subject or actor of the action to provide is the teacher. Student-
centred objectives look like this:

To identify, interpret and use, in appropriate ways, vocabulary relating to computer science.

where the subject or actor of the actions to identify, interpret and use is the
student.

Objectives

Institution

Course

Teacher

Learner
31

Each designer needs to choose which type of objectives is most appropriate to suit
the purposes of the course which s/he is designing. However, as a general rule,
most designers nowadays tend to feel that the most important outcome of a course
is what the learner learns rather than what the teacher teaches. It is therefore more
common to find objectives stated in terms of hoped-for student behaviour.

One of the purposes of writing objectives from these different points of view is to
ensure institutional coherence. It is to be hoped that the objectives of a particular
course will be coherent with those of the programme to which the course belongs
and that these, in turn, will be coherent with the mission of the institution which
offers the programme.

I stated above that objectives are of two types, general and specific, general
objectives relating directly to goals and specific objectives breaking down general
objectives into their component parts. We will see later that these component parts
are directly related to teaching points, as can be seen in Figure 6.3.

Figure 6.3 Types of objective, by scope

Both general and specific objectives can be stated from the course, teacher or
student points of view. Similarly, both general and specific objectives may relate to
different types of behaviour: knowledge, performance or attitude. Figure 6.4 shows
this classification.

Objectives

General
(relate to goals)
Specific
(relate to teaching
points)
teaching points)
32

Figure 6.4 Types of objective, by content

Knowledge-based objectives are of the following type:

Students will know the meaning of specified terminology.

This looks very clear and may indeed be the objective which the designer has
in mind. However, this kind of objective is impossible to evaluate since
knowing is something which happens inside peoples heads and therefore
cannot be observed. I do not therefore recommend the use of this type of
objectives. Since knowledge cannot be observed, we need to infer it from
observable behaviour. The objective above could be restated in performance
terms, thus:

Students will identify and interpret specified terminology in context.

This can be observed and is therefore susceptible to evaluation. The third
type of objectives, attitude objectives, is less clear-cut. Many people would
say that attitudes cannot be evaluated and should not therefore be included in
objectives. While it is clear that attitudes cannot be objectively measured and
quantified, they can be observed. So it is possible to include them in
evaluation if we are working within a qualitative, descriptive evaluation
framework. As stated with respect to the inclusion of human goals in course
specifications, I believe that it is important to include these types of objectives
explicitly, in order to ensure that they are in fact dealt with and assigned time
and resources in class. An example of this type of objective might be:

Students should show enhanced awareness of the importance of English for their future
professional lives.

Competences are the resources that we need, the equipment that we need
to acquire in order to be able to take the actions which, in turn, make it
possible for us to follow our guiding star. This is a field which has been amply
researched and written on in recent years (Paulston, 1992; Savignon, 1997)
and this is not the place to go into a detailed discussion. Suffice it say, for the
moment, that specifying competences in a course design helps us to visualize

Objectives

Knowledge

Performance

Attitude
33

the result we are aiming at in all its complexity, combining knowledge, skills,
context and practice. In other words, it helps us to imagine the kind of human
individual towards whose development we hope to be working. A competence
specification might read something like this:

A graduate with excellent communicative competence in several languages is a citizen who
will handle language skills (speaking, listening, writing and reading) appropriately, in a variety
of contexts, adapting to the circumstances and cultural milieus in which s/he finds
her/himself; that is to say, a person with a level of language awareness which permits her/him
to take a critical stance in relation to the discourse which s/he produces and receives, and the
ability effectively to handle a wide range of genres and registers. (Universidad del Norte,
International Relations programme.)

Objectives and/or competences?
In recent years, there has been considerable controversy about the
desirability of specifying objectives, which many people see as being too
restrictive. It is said that objectives try to impose an artificially created
uniformity in learning processes and do not recognise individual differences
between students which inevitably lead to different outcomes for each learner.
This point of view may be seen as a reaction against the extremes of the
instructional design movement which specified expected student behaviour
in minute detail and tended to become a strait-jacket constraining creativity
and individuality in both teachers and learners. An objective of this type might
look something like this:

The student will be able to read a text of 2000 words describing the structure and behaviour
of a plant and produce, in 20 minutes, a written summary of 200 words containing the
relevant main ideas and with minimal grammatical and lexical errors.

It should be evident that this kind of over-specification would sit most
uncomfortably with an approach to education which favours individual human
development or with an approach to learning centred on social construction of
knowledge.

It is possible, however, to write objectives which are clear and precise without
having to specify exact measurements and characteristics of outcomes. It is
important for educators to use objectives to suit their particular context and
purposes and not allow themselves to be controlled and limited by them. One
way of making objectives more learner-friendly is by modalizing them.
Instead of saying The student will , we can say The student should , or
It is hoped that the student will. These modalizations make it clear that the
outcomes are not entirely predictable, that not all students can be expected to
achieve the same, that we can never be certain of what will happen in
educational processes. If we make sure that our objectives are coherent with
our approaches and with our other design decisions then they can be a very
useful tool indeed and I see no reason to avoid them.
34

Competences, for their part, stress process rather than product, awareness of
context, complex task-related problem-solving skills. As suggested above, we
consider them to be complementary with goals and objectives, not
contradictory.

6.3 Sources
The question then arises, When we are designing a course, how do we
decide what our goals, general objectives and competences should be? Here
we need to refer once again to the Sandwich Model (Chapter 2). There are
two basic sources of information which we need to take into account in
making these decisions, one from data and the other from theory. The data
source is our Needs Analysis and, in particular, the target needs and
situational constraints. The theory source is our chosen approach to
education. These sources of input will help us to define goals; we can then
derive general objectives and competences from our goals.

Target needs tell us what our students will need to know and to be able to do
with their English after they have finished the course. This information is
essential input for deciding our goals. It tells us which way our students need
to go and therefore which way the course needs to go.

Situational constraints are an essential element at this point in order to
ensure that we set ourselves goals which are attainable. Setting unattainable
goals can only lead to frustration, anger and disappointment since the result,
inevitably, is failure. If we set our goals considering only the target needs we
have identified we are almost sure to set our sights too high. For example, let
us imagine a situation in which a university teacher is designing a course for
nurses. The target needs include, among other things, the ability to converse
with English-speaking patients in an appropriately sympathetic yet
professional register. However, the situational constraints include the fact that
the programme has only one semester of English with two hours of class per
week and there are forty students in the class. In these circumstances, it
would be unwise to include professional carer speaking abilities in the goals
of the course. Setting goals, then, almost inevitably involves finding a
compromise between the ideal goals as dictated by the target needs analysis
and the realities of the situation.

Approach to education, as suggested above, relates to the type of human
individual we hope will come out at the end of the education process and is
therefore vital input for defining goals, especially learning and human goals.

Once goals have been defined, we then need to ask ourselves what actions
need to be taken in order to achieve them. The answers to this question will
form the basis of our general objectives. The next question is What kind of
35

know-how do people need in order to carry out these actions? The answers
to this question will form the basis of our competences.

6.4 Wordings
Because of the characteristics of each one of the three elements we are
dealing with, their typical wording is different in each case as illustrated in
Table 6.1.

ELEMENT CHARACTERISTIC WORDING
Goal The goal is our destination.
It refers to a state of events.
Nouns describing
knowledge, skills
or processes
Objectives The objectives are the
actions we need to take to
get there.
Verbs describing
observable
behaviour
Competences The competences are what
we need to know and what
we need to be able to do in
order to take those actions.
Descriptors and/or
Propositions
Table 6.1 Elements, characteristics and wordings

In addition we need to make sure that our wordings of objectives have the
following characteristics:
coherence
clarity
precision
observability
The first of these characteristics refers to the classification of objectives by
point of view (see Figure 6.2 above) and means that, if we choose, for
example, to write student-centred objectives, then all of our objectives should
be student-centred. Mixing different points of view in the same design can
lead to confusion.

Clarity means that we should make sure that the wording of objectives is
understandable for all the participants in the process. The best way to ensure
this is by showing a draft to a sample of different participants and asking them
how they understand the objectives. If their answers coincide with each other
and with your understanding, then all is well (at least, as regards clarity). If
not, then some redrafting may be necessary.

Precision means that we need to say exactly what we expect people to do. If
our objectives are vague, then they will not fulfil their purpose of acting as
guidelines for writers, teachers, students, authorities and sponsors. If
objectives are not precise, materials writers will not know how to design their
activities; teachers and students will not know what they are expected to
36

achieve and therefore will be unable to evaluate their attainment; authorities
and sponsors will not know what results to expect and will also be unable to
evaluate objectively. This type of precision does not necessarily imply forcing
everyone into the same mould. As mentioned above, it is a good idea to
modalize the wordings of objectives by means of modal verbs such as
should or may, in order to indicate that not every learner will reach exactly
the same outcomes.

Observability, as explained above, means that our objectives should specify
behaviour which we can observe and assess. Observation and assessment
may be qualitative (description and interpretation) or quantitative (measuring
and counting).

6. 5 Examples
The examples presented in this section are of goals, general objectives and
competences. Detailed information on the writing of specific objectives will be
provided in Chapter 9.

6.5.1 An example from an elementary school
Paola Rodgers (2006) working with 3
rd
grade at the Montessori school in
Cartagena discovered in her needs analysis that both target and learning
needs of her students indicated the importance of reading in English in other
school subjects such as Science and Social Studies. As regards the approach
to education, the school authorities are also interested in strengthening the
relation between linguistic competence and cultural awareness and in working
towards the international Montessori goal of education for peace. Based on
this information, Rodgers set the following goals for her course:

Target goal: Development of reading comprehension skills
Learning goal: Awareness of learning through written language
Human goal: Respect for each other
(Rodgers, 2006: 61)

From these goals, she derived the general objectives she would work with:

Students should be able to read and comprehend descriptive or narrative
texts about daily activities and topics of interest.
Students should be able to value the importance of reading in English for their
performance in related subjects.
Students should be able to respect their turns during the development of the
class activities.
(Rodgers, 2006: 63)

The underlying competence for all three goals and their respective objectives
is communicative competence.

37

6.5.2 An example from a secondary school
Mariluz Torrenegra (2006) was designing a writing course for her 6
th
grade
course at the German School in Barranquilla. This school offers the
International Baccalaureate and therefore, among the students target needs,
is a sufficient level of writing skill in English to pass the Cambridge First
Certificate Exam. Additionally, her students expressed their interest in
creative writing and in using writing as a way to learn and practice English.
The institution works within a social constructivist educational framework, so
Torrenegra took the same framework as her approach to education. With
these factors in mind, she set the following goals for her course:

Development of writing skills. (Target goal)
Encouragement of planning, monitoring and self-correction. (Learning goal)
Encouragement for cooperative work. (Human goal)
(Torrenegra, 2006: 57)

In line with these goals, she defined her general objectives as follows:

Students should be able to write different kinds of composition, such as personal
narrative, descriptive writing, comparative writing, persuasive writing and creative writing.
Students should be able to plan and monitor their own work.
Students should be able to help partners improve their work.

The competences to be developed in relation with these objectives were,
respectively:

Communicative competence
Self-assessment competence
Collaborative competence


6.7 Summary
This chapter has set out to describe the nature of goals, objectives and
competences and the ways in which they relate to and complement each
other. We saw that goals may be compared to a guiding star, objectives to the
route taken in order to follow it and competences to the resources we need in
order to be able to cover the route. We also saw that there are three main
types of goal: target, learning and human. Objectives were classified in
different ways according to their point of view, scope and content. The second
part of the chapter looked at ways of using input from data and theory to
define goals, objectives and competences.

38

6.8 Further reading
Nunan, D. (1990): Using Learner Data in Curriculum Development, English for
Specific Purposes, vol. 9, pp. 17-32
OMalley, J. M. and Chamot, A. (1990): Learning Strategies in Second Language
Acquisition. Cambridge University Press
Oxford, R. L. (1990): Language learning strategies :What every teacher should
know. Boston, Mass. : Heinle & Heinle Publishers
Paulston, C. B. (1992): Linguistic And Communicative Competence: Topics In ESL
Clevedon : Multilingual Matters
Savignon, S. J. (1997): Communicative competence: theory and classroom
practice: texts and contexts in second language learning. New
York: McGraw-Hill
Van Lier, L. (1996): Interaction in the Language Curriculum: Awareness, autonomy
and authenticity. London: Longman

39

CHAPTER 7: Selecting a syllabus focus

7.1 What is a syllabus?
Before looking at the options for syllabus focus and the criteria we might take
into account in order to choose the most appropriate option for our particular
case, we need to ask ourselves two fundamental questions:
What is a syllabus?
What is a syllabus for?
These may look like very simple questions but they cover a multiplicity of
complex issues. The situation is further complicated by the fact that when you
begin to investigate in the literature you will find that every author has her or
his own particular definition of syllabus. Add to this that within each teaching-
learning situation, the syllabus will be seen differently by materials writers,
teachers, learners, sponsors, institutions and governmental bodies, and you
begin to get some notion of the enormous complexity of these two apparently
simple questions.

So how can we make sense of all this and arrive at some manageable
working definitions which will be useful to us as we go through the process of
course design. It may be helpful to take the second question first. What is a
syllabus for? Or, in other words, why do we need a syllabus at all? Why not
simply choose materials and activities related to the goals, objectives and
competences we have specified and get on with the job?

Language-learning, as we have said before, is one of the most complex
activities that human beings engage in, involving a network of cognitive,
metacognitive and socio-affective processes. Language itself is an extremely
complex phenomenon. The linguist Michael Halliday, mentioned above as the
foremost exponent of the functionalist approach to language, has stated that
semiotic systems (systems of meaning) are the most complex systems known
to human science, being at the same time physical, biological and social
(Halliday and Martin, 1993: 16). Language is our means of understanding
reality, both internal and external, and of managing our relations with both the
natural world and the social world which surround us. Learning a new
language is therefore an enormous undertaking. A syllabus is useful as a way
of breaking this enormity down into manageable chunks which can be dealt
with, lesson by lesson, learning experience by learning experience, without
overwhelming the learner. It also serves to establish priorities. No language
curriculum can possibly cover all aspects of the language; the syllabus
enables us to focus on those aspects which we have concluded from our
needs analysis and our reflections on theory are the most important in our
particular teaching context.

Going back, then, to our first question What is a syllabus? a working
definition might run something like this: A syllabus is a statement of what is
to be taught and learnt in a particular course (teaching points) and in what
order the points are to be dealt with. Both aspects of the definition, teaching
40

points and the order in which to tackle them, imply decisions about what
needs to be learnt and about how learning can best take place. That is to say
they require input from reflections on the nature of language and the nature of
learning; that is why we need to define our approaches to language and to
learning, as described in Chapter 4, before attempting to design a syllabus.

At the same time, priorities for syllabusing should also respond to the target
needs and situational constraints including availability of resources
identified in the needs analysis.

We have found it useful to divide our decisions on syllabus into two aspects:
syllabus focus and syllabus sequence and structure. Syllabus focus
determines which aspects of language and learning will be concentrated on.
Syllabus sequence and structure determine the order in which teaching points
will be dealt with and the ways in which they will be related to each other. We
recommend taking the syllabus focus decision at this point, after defining
goals, objectives and competences and before specifying teaching points.
Syllabus sequence and structure can then be decided on after teaching points
have been listed.

7.2 Options for syllabus focus
Again, different authors map out the various types of syllabus focus in
different ways. I have found it useful to use some aspects of the classification
presented by Robinson (1991: 35) expanding it to include the learning-
centred approach (Hutchinson and Waters, 1987: 92) and content-based
focuses. I propose five categories as shown in Figure 3.5.

I will now give a brief description of the principal characteristics of each
syllabus focus. However, it is important to bear in mind that, just as we said
that approaches are more in the nature of a cline than a binary opposition,
choosing a syllabus focus means deciding where the centre of attention of a
course will be. It does not mean excluding everything else; many syllabi
successfully combine characteristics of two or more categories.
41

Figure 3.5: Options for syllabus focus

7.2.1 Skills-based
Skills-based syllabi emphasize the acquisition of one or more skills, usually
one or more of the four macro language skills: reading, writing, listening and
speaking. In the 1980s, this type of syllabus became very popular in English
for Specific Purposes and English for Academic Purposes (see, for example,
McDonough, 1984; Robinson, 1991; Swales, 1988). All over Latin America,
for example, university students who needed access to written information in
English but whose English courses were restricted to one or two semesters
with two or three hours of class a week, were taught (and in many cases still
are taught) exclusively reading skills in English. Skills-based syllabi may also
of course develop all four skills, as is the case with a number of well-known
published courses.

In addition, skills-based courses may emphasize learning skills as well as
language skills, focussing on the development of cognitive, metacognitive and
socio-affective strategies for learning (see, for example, Oxford, 1990) as well
as the ability of learners to choose and apply those strategies which are best
suited to their cognitive style and the learning task in hand.

7.2.2 Learner-centred
Learner-centred courses are also sometimes called process syllabi since they
are characterized by on-going design in collaboration between teacher and

Syllabus
focus
Skills-
based
(language
and/or
learning
skills)
learning
skills)
Learner-
centred
(process)
Learning-
centred
(task-
based,
procedural)
Content-
based
Language-
based
(structures,
functions,
vocabulary)
42

learners in contrast to other types of syllabus which are typically designed
before the course begins. The learner-centred syllabus unfolds and takes
shape through interaction in the class, basing decisions on interests and
desires of the students who are encouraged to find their own voice and follow
their own learning paths. Choices of topics, materials and activities are
subject to negotiation among all participants and the emphasis is on human
development and growing autonomy. More detailed descriptions of this type
of syllabus may be found in Breen (1984), Ellis and Sinclair (1989) and Nunan
(2001)

7.2.3 Learning-centred
This type of syllabus focuses on cognitive processes and the development of
learning skills and strategies. One of the most frequent types of learning-
centred syllabus is the task-based syllabus in which learning of the language
takes place through using the language in order to carry out a task or project.
Specific language points are dealt with as and when they are necessary for
the successful completion of the task. This type of syllabus also emphasizes
collaborative learning as the tasks or projects are usually designed to be
worked on in groups. A detailed description of an example of a task-based
syllabus can be found in Prabhu (1987).

7.2.4 Content-based
As the name suggests, content-based syllabi focus on content, particularly on
the content of a subject other than English. The syllabus is organized around
topics; materials and activities are chosen for their relevance to the topic
rather than according to language criteria. As in the case of the task-based
syllabus, language points are dealt with as and when they become necessary
for working with the topics specified in the syllabus (Mohan et al, 2001;
Stryker and Leaver, 1997).

7.2.5 Language-based
The language based syllabus focuses its attention on the forms of the
language, both morphosyntactic and lexical. Topics, materials and activities
are selected in order to illustrate and practice language points such as verb
tenses, modals or tag questions. Emphasis is placed on achieving accuracy
in language use. Language-based syllabi may be structural, emphasising
grammatical points, or notional-functional, emphasising lexis and specific
functions such as requesting information or making a complaint. This type of
syllabus is overwhelmingly the most frequently found in published English
language textbooks, regardless of what authors and/or publishers may say in
their introductions!

We said at the beginning of this section that choosing a syllabus focus relates
not only to the needs and constraints of our teaching situation but also to our
approaches to education, language and learning. Similarly, there is a
tendency to find that a particular type of syllabus focus encourages or is
associated with certain pedagogical practices with regard to the roles of
43

teachers, learners and materials and the type of evaluation engaged in. Table
3.2 provides a summary of these relationships.

7.3 Selecting a suitable syllabus focus
The essential question, of course, is how to choose the most appropriate
syllabus type for our particular teaching-learning situation. Referring once
more to the Sandwich Model, we can see that the decision regarding syllabus
focus derives from theoretical considerations of approaches to education,
language and learning, on the one hand and from data regarding target needs
and situational constraints on the other. In addition, decisions already taken
with respect to course goals, general objectives and competences are also an
important guide when selecting the syllabus focus.

7.3.1 Approaches
Thus, if we study Table 3.2, we can see that an epistemological approach to
education is likely to guide us in the direction of a skills-based or language-
based syllabus while a hermeneutic approach tends more towards a learner-
centred syllabus. Learning-centred and content-based syllabi may
successfully fit in with different approaches. With regard to approaches to
language, most of our syllabus types favour the functionalist approach,
emphasising meaning rather than form. The exception is the language-based
syllabus which is essentially structuralist, even when it is labelled as notional-
functional. This statement may sound contradictory and therefore merits
some explanation. The reason is that notional-functional syllabi generally
teach formulae for what to say in certain situation types, regardless of the real
situations in which learners find themselves and without taking into
consideration the real thoughts and feelings which learners may wish to
express. It is not unusual, therefore, to find, for example, role-play activities
in which learners are instructed to play roles which they are highly unlikely
ever to play outside the classroom, such as the mayor of a U.S. city or the
writer of a bestselling novel. Or information gap activities in which all the
information is provided by the textbook and/or the teacher and learners are
simply required to supply the correct grammatical framework for expressing it.
In these circumstances, learners are not developing communicative
competence, which would involve expressing their own thoughts and feelings,
but simply practicing the correct formulation of different types of sentence,
using ideas which have been determined by the teacher or textbook.
Moss, G. (forthcoming): Making Sandwiches: A combined approach to course design for English teachers. Barranquilla: Ediciones
Uninorte
44

Syllabus
focus

Aspects
Skills-centred Learning-
centred
Learner-centred Content-
based
Language-
oriented
Approach to
education
Epistemological
Functionalist
May be
adapted to
different
approaches
Hermeneutic
Client-centred
May be
adapted to
different
approaches
Epistemological
Approach to
language
Functionalist Functionalist Functionalist Functionalist Structuralist
Approach to
learning
Cognitivist Cognitivist Cognitivist Sociocultural Behaviourist
Cognitivist
Goals
emphasized
Learning Learning Learning and
Human
All types Target
(Language)
Content Communicative
functions
Skills
Strategies
Variety of topics
Strategies
Tasks,
problems and
projects
Variety of topics
Negotiated
Subject-specific
and language
Subject
specific
content
Language
related to
content
Language
forms and
structures
Methodology Interaction with
authentic
materials
Tasks
Exercises
Problem-
solving
Tasks
Group work
Negotiated
Problem-posing
Dialogic inquiry
Discourse
analysis
Projects,
debates, etc.
Grammar-
translation
Audiolingual
Exercises and
drills
Table 3.2: Typical characteristics of the major syllabus types (part 1)

Uninorte
45

Syllabus
focus

Aspects
Skills-centred Learning-
centred
Learner-centred Content-based Language-
based
Teachers
role
Provider of
knowledge
Facilitator
Resourcer
Facilitator
Guide
Guide
Negotiator
Mediator
Facilitator
Moderator
Resourcer
Active
Language
model
Controller
Provider of
knowledge
Students
role
Active
language user
Active
participant
Discoverer
Problem-solver
Increasingly
autonomous
Active participant
Problem-poser
Increasingly
autonomous
Active
constructor of
knowledge
Analyst

Passive
recipient
Listener
Repeater
Memorizer
Imitator
Materials Textbook as
syllabus plus
authentic
materials
Material
selected by
students
Authentic
materials as
input for
problems and
tasks
Variety of sources
Negotiated
Material selected
by students
Subject specific
materials as
sources of input
for inquiry and
debate
Textbook as
backbone of
syllabus
Source of
knowledge
Provider of
activities
Assessment Exams
Presentations
Reports
Portfolios
Task-based
Self- and peer-
assessment

Self-assessment
Portfolios
Projects
Portfolios
Presentations
Self-
assessment
Exams
Tests
Table 3.2: Typical characteristics of the major syllabus types (part 2)

46

This is further evidenced by the fact that evaluation of student performance in
courses using this type of syllabus is generally based on language accuracy,
not on the successful communication of ideas. Thus a non sequitur such as
the statement Im going to Mexico to learn Spanish uttered by a native
speaker of Spanish, may be positively evaluated because it involves the
correct use of the present continuous tense to express a plan, whilst a
sensible statement such as I go to England to learn English uttered by the
same student is negatively assessed because it employs the wrong verb
tense. This is clear indication that what is of primary importance in these
classes is the form of the language used and not the communication of
meaning.

I have gone into some detail in this explanation because a large number of
commercially available textbooks claim to be functional or even
communicative but analysis of the syllabus structure and activities contained
in them makes it clear that the guiding principles at work are in fact
structuralist. This does not of course, of itself, make them bad books; there
may be many circumstances in which they are very useful. However, I do feel
that it is helpful to give things their proper name in order to be clear about
what we are doing and why. These are important points to be borne in mind
when selecting a syllabus focus and later when writing materials. It is all too
easy, when conceiving a syllabus, to pay lip-service to the currently favoured
communicative, functional approach but then, when planning activities and
designing materials, to fall back into the traditional structuralist approaches in
which most teachers, even those of the younger generation, were themselves
taught. This kind of mismatch between stated principles and pedagogical
practice leads to misunderstandings and frustration and should be avoided as
far as possible.

Finally, with regard to approaches to learning, skills-based, learning-centred
and learner-centred are essentially cognitivist, seeing learning as a process of
active construction and internalization of knowledge, centred in the individual.
Content-based syllabi, with their emphasis on dialogic inquiry, debate and
textual analysis tend to favour a more sociocultural theory of learning as a
social activity. In some cases, task-based learning-centred syllabi may also
be compatible with a sociocultural approach. The language-based syllabus
may be either cognitivist or behaviourist. Here the question of methodology
enters into the picture. The traditional grammar-translation methods are
basically cognitivist in approach as they involve conscious analysis and
application of grammatical rules together with comparison and contrast
between L1 and L2. The audiolingual methods which were popular in the
1960s and 1970s, based on repetition drills and the mechanisation of
structures and phrases are basically behaviourist.

47

7.3.2 Target needs and situational constraints
It is impossible to over-emphasise the importance of data regarding target
needs and situational constraints for the selection of an appropriate syllabus
type. A syllabus which does not prepare learners to use English for the
purposes for which they will need it in their target situation can hardly be
considered to be successful or even satisfactory. Similarly, a syllabus which
looks wonderful on paper and which, if it were implemented would meet
learners target needs, but which is impossible to implement within the
situational constraints of the particular context in which you are working is
equally disastrous and can only lead to frustration.

It is not possible here, for reasons of space, to go into all the possible
variations on this. However, a couple of examples will help to illustrate my
meaning.

Imagine, if you will, a situation in which a teacher is dealing with a group of
adolescent learners who have enormous enthusiasm for pop music in English
and for all kinds of game-like activities. Fortunately, the school has a state-of-
the-art computer lab and all kinds of audiovisual equipment. The teacher,
wishing to fulfil the students learning needs and following a communicative
approach to language and a sociocultural approach to learning, opts for a
task-based syllabus, incorporating singing, song-writing, research about
performers, guessing games, karaoke competitions and so on. The students
are delighted and a wonderful time is had by all. However, at the end of the
year, the students have to sit a state exam which is based on academic
reading skills and they all fail! This is a clear case of not giving sufficient
consideration to target needs.

Now, for our second scenario, imagine a situation in which the majority of
students come from difficult home backgrounds, work part-time as well as
studying and have little or no professional or academic ambition, therefore no
clearly defined target needs. The teacher feels drawn to a learner-centred
syllabus, wishing to concentrate her efforts on developing learning skills,
autonomy and self-esteem. The match between syllabus and learners needs
would be excellent. However, there are 40 students in the class, the teacher
works all hours at three different institutions, the library and internet resources
to which she has access are extremely limited and the schools only tape-
recorder is available only once a fortnight. Now, a learner-centred syllabus
implies negotiation of content, materials and activities between teacher and
learner. This means that nothing can be pre-planned; everything must be
prepared as the course proceeds, which inevitably requires a great deal of
time on the part of the teacher, plus access to sources of material for both
teacher and learners. Add to that the difficulty of negotiating with 40

48

individuals and making sure that every voice is heard and it should become
clear that this syllabus type would not be a feasible choice in the
circumstances described above.

7.3.3 Goals, general objectives and competences
Carefully formulated goals, general objectives and competences should help
the novice designer to avoid the some of the kinds of mismatch which I have
described in the imagined scenarios in the previous section. If the teacher in
the first scenario, taking into account the target needs of his learners, had
included Development of academic reading skills as one of his goals, with
its corresponding general objective, for example, At the end of the course,
students should be able to read, interpret and react to short academic texts in
the fields of Natural or Social Sciences, and Reading comprehension as
one of the competences to be developed, he could surely have avoided the
exam catastrophe. He might have opted for a combination of task-based and
skills-based syllabus designs in order to meet both learning and target needs.
Or he might have persisted in his choice of task-based syllabus but made
sure that a proportion of the tasks were reading tasks. This is further
indication of the usefulness and advisability of following the design process
step by step.

In the case of the second scenario, the situation is less clear-cut. The lack of
an evident target situation makes it difficult to define goals; they have to be
defined on the basis of approaches and in relation to learning needs and this
recourse to learning needs inevitably leads to thoughts of a learner-centred
syllabus. The solution, again, is almost certainly to opt for a hybrid syllabus,
combining some elements of learner-centred with another more manageable
type such as skills-based.

7.4 An example of a university undergraduate course
Marieta Ruiz and Ana Maria Sagre, working at the University of Crdoba in
the north west of Colombia and planning a writing course for students in pre-
service teacher education, chose a learning-centred syllabus. Here are some
of their reasons:
A syllabus of this type will serve as a tool for students to analyse and select
strategies that promote active, purposeful, and effective learning;
In this kind of syllabus, attention to skills is also paid and as our course is based on
the development of the writing skill in students, the choice becomes even more
necessary;
The syllabus promotes interaction among learners, as it suggests pairwork [which is]
highly important because it fosters cooperative work;
A learning-centered syllabus broadens the context for learning since it enhances
autonomous learning. As a result of this, learners are bound to use their acquired
knowledge in their future performance as students and in-service teachers.
(Ruiz and Sagre, 2006)

49


7.6 Summary
In this chapter, I began by considering the reasons why it is important to have
a syllabus and then proposed a working definition of syllabus as a statement
of what is to be taught and learnt in a particular course (teaching points) and
in what order the points are to be dealt with. I then went on to look at ways of
categorizing syllabi with reference to the aspect which they take as their
guiding principle, suggesting a five category classification: skills-centred,
learning-centred, learner-centred, content-based, language-based. It was
stressed that while it is important to choose a syllabus focus in order to
ensure coherence in decisions about content and methodology, this decision
does not necessarily mean concentrating exclusively on one aspect to the
exclusion of all others. Finally, I looked at ways in which we can make an
informed choice of syllabus focus taking into account the results of needs
analysis, decisions on approaches to education, language and learning and
the goals and objectives stated for the course.

7.7 Further reading
Breen, M. P. 1984. Process Syllabuses for the Language Classroom in Brumfit
1984, 47-60
Brumfit, C. J. 1984. General English Syllabus Design. Curriculum and syllabus
design for the general English classroom. ELT Documents 118. Oxford: The
British Council / Pergamon Press
Johnson, R. K. (ed.) (1989): The Second Language Curriculum. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press
McDonough, J. (1984): ESP in Perspective: a practical guide. London: Collins
Educational.
Nunan, D. (2001): The Learner-Centred Curriculum. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press
Prabhu, N. S. (1987): Second Language Pedagogy. Oxford: Oxford University
Press
Robinson, P. (1991): ESP Today: A Practitioners Guide. New York: Prentice Hall
Swales, J. M. 1988. Episodes in ESP. A source and reference book on the
development of English for Science and Technology. New York: Prentice
Hall

50

CHAPTER 8: Identifying teaching points

8.1 A method for identifying teaching points
In this step, we decide what will actually go into the course in terms of
content. What exactly is it that we are going to teach? What exactly is it that
we hope students will learn? These are daunting questions and inevitably a
large part of the effort of course design is devoted to this phase. However, if
you follow a method which I have called constituent analysis, you should find
that it is less difficult than you might at first imagine. The method depends on
its place in the sequence of design decisions and steps which I am
recommending. This is therefore a good moment to stop and look back and
make sure that you have filled in all the previous steps. If you consult the
sandwich model, you will see that we are now concerned with the lower,
bottom-up part of the design. That is to say, for the first time in the design
process, you will need to make use of the results from your analysis of
learning needs. You should have at your fingertips for beginning constituent
analysis the following information:
Your course goals and general objectives;
Information about your students learning needs, including their current
level of knowledge or competence.
You will also need to have recourse to your own pedagogical knowledge, your
experience and your knowledge of the field of language and language
learning, of what it is necessary to know in order to achieve a particular goal
and of what it is necessary to be able to do in order to achieve that same
goal. This is closely related to what Giordan and de Vecchi (1995) refer to as
the conceptual aura, the set of ideas which surround a concept under study
and which it is necessary to be acquainted with in order to gain a thorough
understanding of the concept. The reason for this will become clear shortly.

8.2 What is constituent analysis?
The basic principle of constituent analysis is very simple. It means taking
each one of our course goals and listing exactly what knowledge and which
skills are necessary for achieving it. We then compare this list with what our
students already know and are already able to do. Once we have ticked off
those points which our learners have already mastered, we are left with a list
of what we have to teach in order to achieve our goals; that is, a list of
teaching points. The logic of this is quite simple: the content of the course is
the difference between our students level of competence when they begin
the course and the level of competence which we hope they will achieve by
the end of the course.


51

The success of the technique, as is so often the case, depends on the quality
of the input: if you have carefully described your students current level of
competence and if you are prepared to put some time and effort, probably
also some additional reading and discussion with colleagues, into the
constituent analysis then success in specifying appropriate teaching points is
almost guaranteed. If on the other hand, you base these decisions on
traditional notions of what all students of English should learn, then you may
easily find yourself teaching your students points of language which are of no
interest or importance to them and that is a sure way to lose motivation. I
stress this point as I have so often seen teachers include teaching points
which bear no relation to their needs analysis and which they justify because
they need to know that. It is not easy to let go of a traditional mindset which
assumes, a priori, that there are certain aspects of language particularly
grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation which everyone needs to know
irrespective of their context, situation or reasons for learning English.
However, if you really wish to design more relevant and motivating courses
for your students, it is important to make the effort. Remember, at every point
in the process, to keep asking yourself: Why am I including this point? How
does it relate to my goals? Why do my students need to learn this?

On the other side of the coin, it is equally important to make sure that we are
including all the knowledge and skills which are essential to achieving the
goal. This may often include aspects of language use which you have
perhaps not paid much attention to in the past and which may be neglected in
most mainstream textbooks. For example, in dealing with written language,
whether in terms of reading or writing, it is important to include work on the
structure and organization of texts. If we ask students to write an essay, for
example, without teaching them what an essay is, how it is constructed and
how to write it, then the results will inevitably be poor. A grammatical
knowledge of sentence structure does not automatically lead to an ability to
produce coherent texts. Similarly, students are unlikely to be successful
readers unless they are given guidance as to how to recognize different types
of text and the functions of the different parts of a text.

The same goes for all types of goal. It is particularly important, then, that at
this stage of the design process, we devote some time and effort to
questioning our own understanding of what each one of our goals involves
and be prepared to do some additional research in order to complement our
conceptual aura (see above, the introduction to this section and Giordan and
de Vecchi, 1995).


52

8.3 Examples of constituent analysis
In order for the principles of constituent analysis to be clearer, lets take a look
at three examples, one for each type of goal. In each case, we begin from two
key questions:
What do people need to know in order to ?
What do people need to be able to do in order to ?

The first question leads us to define the knowledge constituents of the goal so
the points listed are expressed as entities (vocabulary, conjunctions, etc.) or
propositions (that learning is an active process, etc.); the second question
leads us to define the skills constituents of the goal so the points listed are
expressed in terms of actions or processes (spell the words, identify
strategies, etc.). When defining constituents, it is worth going right back to
the beginning, to the basic building blocks of knowledge and skills. That way
we can be better assured that we have not forgotten anything nor taken for
granted anything which our students do not in fact know or are unable to do. It
is surprising how often teachers assume knowledge or skills which their
students do not in fact possess and it is important to do everything in our
power to avoid this pitfall.

The examples appear on pages 53-55.

8.4 From constituent analysis to teaching points
Once we have carried out the constituent analysis, the next stage is to
compare the lists of constituent knowledge and constituent skills with the
results of our Needs Analysis, with respect to our students level of knowledge
and skills on entering the course. We can use a three option code for this:
= My students already know this / already know how to do this.
= My students have some knowledge of this or some degree of skill but
they need more practice.
X = My students do not know this / do not know how to do this.
On this basis of this coding, we can then make out a list of teaching points
which should include those constituents, both knowledge and skills, which
have been marked either 1/2 or X.


53

CONSTITUENT ANALYSIS OF A TARGET GOAL

Goal: Development of written competence.
General objective: Students should be able to write a short
narrative text.
Starting questions:
1. What do people need to know in order to write a narrative
text?
2. What do people need to be able to do in order to write a
narrative text?

What do people need to know in order to write a narrative
text? Constituent knowledge

The letters of the English language
The lexical items related to the topic to be narrated
Grammatical items typical of narratives: past tense, relative
clauses, conjunctions
Cohesive devices typical of narratives: anaphoric and cataphoric
reference, connectors of sequence
The elements of narratives: actors, settings, events
The structure of narratives: orientation, complicating action,
resolution, coda

What do people need to be able to do in order to write a
narrative text? Constituent skills

To form the letters
To choose appropriate words and spell them correctly
To select and apply appropriate grammatical structures
To make use of appropriate cohesive devices
To describe the actors, events and settings involved in the
narrative
To organize the ideas and information in a coherent narrative
structure.


54

CONSTITUENT ANALYSIS OF A LEARNING GOAL

Goal: Development of autonomy in learning
General objective: Students should be able to choose learning
strategies suited to their cognitive style and the task in hand
Starting questions:
1. What do people need to know in order to become
autonomous learners?
2. What do people need to be able to do in order to become
autonomous learners?

What do people need to know in order to become
autonomous learners? Constituent knowledge

That autonomy can be developed.
That learning is an active process.
That there exists a variety of learning strategies.
That each learner can choose his/her strategies according to
needs and preferences.
That learning involves processes such as information
gathering, analysis, interpretation, selection, comparing with
prior knowledge, evaluating, etc.

What do people need to be able to do in order to become
autonomous learners? Constituent skills

To identify different learning strategies
To choose learning strategies according to the task in hand
To identify sources of information
To select relevant information
To analyse information: categorise, classify, compare and
contrast
To interpret information: make sense of new information in
relation to old
To evaluate information critically
To evaluate appropriacy of choices against outcomes
To trust in their own judgement


55

CONSTITUENT ANALYSIS OF A HUMAN GOAL

Goal: Development of respect for diversity
General objective: Students should be able to recognize the value of
diverse abilities and opinions.
Starting questions:
1. What do people need to know in order to recognize the value
of diverse abilities and opinions?
2. What do people need to be able to do in order to recognize
the value of diverse abilities and opinions?

What do people need to know in order to develop respect for
diversity? Constituent knowledge

That there exist different cultures, races, religions, political
beliefs.
That different cultures and belief systems are equally valid.
That there exist individual differences in physical and
psychological make-up.
That all individuals have both strengths and weaknesses.
That diversity exists between people from the same family or
community.
That human beings can only be happy if they live in harmony
with each other and their environment.

What do people need to be able to do in order to develop
respect for diversity? Constituent skills

To listen carefully to others in order to understand them
To put ourselves in someone elses shoes
To de-centralise ourselves
To recognize and respect other ideas and views even if we
dont agree with those ideas or views.
To understand ourselves in order to be able to understand our
differences with others.
To express our views without offending others.
To recognise the dangers of conflict and the benefits of
harmony

56

At this point, it is important to look back once more at your situational
constraints. If you have a very long list of teaching points and only very limited
time and resources available, you are probably being too ambitious in your
goals and will need to modify them in order to produce a shorter list of
constituents and therefore a shorter list of teaching points. It is also possible
that the opposite may have happened; you may have more time and
resources available than are necessary for working with your list of teaching
points. If this happens then you need to amplify your goals in order to extend
the constituents and teaching points so that you can take full advantage of the
time and resources you have at your disposal. In either case, it means you
need to take a deep breath, go back to the beginning and go through the
whole process again!

A final point to mention here is that I strongly recommend specifying teaching
points which will take up a little less time than the total you have available.
For example, if you are teaching a course of 16 weeks duration, it is a good
idea to design a syllabus for 14 weeks. This will allow leeway for adding extra
material or activities if certain teaching points need more practice, allowing
students to bring their own materials and ideas for activities, and any other
unforeseen occurrence. In the real world, if you design a syllabus to fill every
available class hour you are unlikely to finish it, or if you do, you may well find
that your students feel stressed or frustrated because you have pushed them
through with no space to breathe.


8.6 Summary
In this chapter, I have presented the technique of constituent analysis for the
purposes of making out a list of teaching points for inclusion in the syllabus.
The technique involves analysing what people need to know (constituent
knowledge) and what they need to be able to do (constituent skills) in order to
achieve each one of the goals of the course. From the list of constituents, we
erase those constituents which our students have already mastered and the
result is the list of teaching points.

8.7 Further reading
Giordan, A. and G. de Vecchi (1995): Los Orgenes del Saber: De las
concepciones personales a los conceptos cientficos Sevilla: Dada Editora

57

CHAPTER 9: Setting specific objectives

9.1 What are specific objectives?
Specific objectives are closely related to two elements of course structure
which you have already worked on: general objectives and teaching points.
As such, the writing of specific objectives is a good moment for making sure
once again that everything in your course design is coherent.

In relation to general objectives, specific objectives identify concrete and
particular actions or behaviours which go to make up the behaviour described
in the general objective. To take the example of the target goal analysed
above, the general objective states that students should be able to write a
short narrative text. The corresponding specific objectives will state what
precise actions go into the writing of a narrative text.

In relation to teaching points, specific objectives do for them what general
objectives do for goals; they tell us what actions are carried out in the
pursuance, or putting into effect, of each point.

9.2 What is the purpose of writing specific objectives?
As mentioned above, objectives, particularly procedural objectives, have
earned a rather bad name in some educational circles in recent years, since
some people feel that they restrict the possibilities for individual students to
learn at different paces and to achieve different learning outcomes. There is
some truth in this accusation and it is useful to bear it in mind, in order to
avoid writing objectives in such a way that they become a straitjacket.
However, as was pointed out above, in section 6.2, objectives are extremely
useful as guidelines for the various participants in teaching learning
processes and as a basis for evaluation of different aspects of those
processes. I strongly recommend that you look back now at section 6.2 and
revise what was said there about purposes and types of objectives.

To recap, we can say that specific objectives are in-house; they are for the
use of teachers, learners and materials writers and there is no need for
anyone else to use them. They serve as a guide to learners with regard to
what is expected of them and as a kind of checklist against which they can
compare their progress. This will provide a sense of achievement and/or the
stimulus to work harder if necessary. They serve as a guide to materials
writers as each activity in the materials should relate to at least one objective
and, conversely, all objectives must be worked on in the materials. They are
an aid to teachers in planning class activities, choosing appropriate materials
and designing evaluation procedures and instruments.


58

In sum, my recommendation is to write specific objectives, making sure that
they describe observable behaviour but remembering that they do not
necessarily need to be measurable and should not be allowed to become a
straitjacket. They should provide unity and coherence for the course without
eliminating all possibility for individual differences.

9.3 Writing specific objectives
In writing specific objectives, we need to bear several points in mind:
the focus of the objectives,
the clarity and precision of the wording,
their relation to teaching points and general objectives.
If you look back at the discussion of objectives in section 6.2 and at Figure
6.2, you will remember that objectives can be written from the point of view of
the institution, the course, the teacher or the learner. You will also remember
that I pointed out there that most educationalists nowadays consider that
learning is the principal aim of educational processes and therefore that it is
considered most relevant to express both general and specific objectives in
terms of the learner. This also makes them more useful to learners as a guide
to what they are expected to achieve and, at the same time, more useful to
teachers as a basis for evaluating both the learners and the course as a
whole.

As regards clarity and precision, it is important to remember that, if they are to
serve the purposes outlined above, objectives must state expectations clearly
and in terms of identifiable and observable outcomes. In the next section, I
will suggest the use of a grid to help with filling in possible gaps in the
information necessary for achieving this precision.

Finally, you need to bear in mind the role of specific objectives in the overall
coherence and unity of the course design. This means, in the first place,
deriving objectives directly from teaching points and not from any other
sources such as tradition, habit, intuition or other courses. Secondly, it means
making sure that all your specific objectives relate to your general objectives
and that all of your general objectives have been broken down into their
component elements by means of specific objectives. This can be checked by
use of a chart which you will find in Worksheet 4.

Before presenting the grid, there is one more point I should like to make about
objectives. Remember what the word means. Remember that it means a
result or outcome that we are aiming towards; something a type of
knowledge, a skill, a competence - that we hope students will take with them
and make use of after they have finished the course. This means that class
activities which are used by the teacher as a pedagogical tool should not be
included as objectives they are the means to achieving objectives. For

59

example, I have sometimes seen novice designers include as objectives
things like to sing songs with names of parts of the body or to carry out a
role play about likes and dislikes. The song-singing and the role play are
pedagogical strategies, not objectives; they are used in order to facilitate
learning the names of the parts of the body in the first case and learning to
express likes and dislikes in the second. The corresponding objectives, then,
would be to identify and name parts of the body and to express likes and
dislikes.

9.3.1 The Grid
The grid is an instrument which can be extremely useful in moving from goals
and teaching points to specific objectives. It is also another tool for ensuring
the coherence and unity of the course. Have a look at the example in Table
9.1. Lets analyse the information in this example. First of all, lets look at the
structure of the grid, which is divided into seven columns: goal, task, topic,
genre, context, skills and lexicogrammar. We will take them one by one and
look at what type of information they contain and where the information
comes from.

Goal: This is the easiest column to fill in. You have already set your goals, so
it is simply a matter of copying them into the grid. Notice that the goals
specified in the example are the same goals which appeared in the examples
of constituent analysis presented above. Remember that this example is just
an extract from a course grid. When you come to fill in your own grid you will
need to repeat each goal several times as you will need to carry out a number
of activities for each one.

Task: Here you specify what you are going to ask your students to do in order
to work towards the goal. You can choose tasks by reference to your own
experience and by referring to the literature on task-based syllabi which you
will find recommended in the Further Reading section at the end of the
chapter. In the case of the example, the tasks have been chosen in
coherence with the goals. Thus the task for developing written competence is
to write a text.
5

Topic: In this column, you specify what topic will be dealt with in carrying out
each task. The choice of topics will largely be derived from your Needs
Analysis, both from Target Needs which will tell you something about the
types of topic your students will need to be able to deal with in their future

5
Naturally, when you come to designing materials, a task like writing a text will imply
preparatory work on reading and analysis of similar texts, so that students are aware of the
characteristics of the text which they are being asked to write.


60

careers and from Learning Needs which will tell you what topics your students
are most interested in dealing with. The balance between topics from Target
Needs and topics from Learning Needs will depend on the nature of your
course and the characteristics of your learners. In a university course in
English for Academic Purposes, the majority of the topics should be related to
Target Needs. In a heterogeneous adult evening class, topics will probably be
almost entirely Learning Needs related. In high schools, its advisable to strike
a balance making sure you attend to students future academic needs whilst
maintaining motivation by catering to their current interests as well. In the
case of the example, the topic of famous places was taken from an interest in
learning about other countries expressed by students in the needs analysis.

Genre: Here you will state what genres of text you expect your students to
analyse and/or produce at each point in the course. A genre is a
communicative event which may be written or spoken; it is directed towards
achieving a recognizable purpose and has identifiable patterns of structure,
content and intended audience. You will find recommendations for further
reading on the topic of genre at the end of the chapter. Your decisions as
regards genres will depend largely on the tasks and topics which you have
chosen and the results of your Target Needs analysis. In the example, the
genres correspond to the goals and their constituent skills.

Context: In this column, you specify where you expect your students to carry
out the task set; this will usually be in the classroom or at home, but may also
involve settings such as the library or computer lab or some outside context
such as a supermarket, cinema, park or other public place. Thinking about
this in advance will allow you to plan for some diversity of settings in your
course.

Skills: This is the place to specify what skills you hope your students will be
developing throughout the course. The skills you identified in your constituent
analysis and incorporated in your list of teaching points should be included
here in this column. In addition, there should be coherence between this
column and the task column; certain types of task require certain skills for
their completion. Notice that in the example, the skills specified in the grid
correspond to those specified in the constituent analysis.

Lexicogrammar: This column will contain your specification of the language
points that are necessary for achieving your goals. As in the case of the skills
column, you should include here the language points from your constituent
analysis which were incorporated into your list of teaching points. This column
is also closely related to the topic and genre columns. Certain types of
language are associated with particular topics and genres.


61

How to fill in the grid
This big empty table probably looks daunting at first. Take it step by step.
1. The first step is to fill in your goals.
2. The next step depends on your choice of syllabus focus. Remember
that your chosen syllabus focus is the guiding principle of your design.
It is therefore the next point you need to fill in on your grid, as shown in
Table 9.2. Let us suppose for a moment that you have chosen a skills-
based syllabus. That means that the skills to be developed constitute
the guiding principle of your course. Therefore, you should first fill in
the skills from your list of teaching points in relation to each goal.
Repeat the goals as often as you need to in order to deal with all the
skills which you have included in your teaching points.
3. Choose tasks and genres which you consider appropriate for
developing these skills. You can complement your own ideas on this
by consulting the recommended texts on tasks and genres.
4. Choose topics related to the results of your needs analysis as
described above.
5. Derive the information for the lexicogrammar column from your choice
of topics (lexis) and genre (grammar) and from the language items
which you have included in your list of teaching points.
6. Consider which context or contexts would be suitable for carrying out
the tasks you have specified and fill them in.
7. Make sure that all your teaching points have been included
somewhere on your grid.

If you have chosen a learning-centred syllabus, then the guiding principle is
the type of task your students need to carry out in order to develop their
cognitive processes and achieve the stated goals. You will therefore fill in the
tasks column first. Once you have decided on the types of task, then you can
go on to choose topics, genres and contexts and to specify the relevant
lexicogrammar in the same way as described above for the skills-based
syllabus.

If your syllabus focus is content-based, then logically the topic will be your
point of entry to the grid. Your needs analysis results will help you to specify
the necessary topics. Then fill in appropriate, tasks, genres, contexts and
lexicogrammar.

If your chosen syllabus is language-based, then language points are the
guiding principle of your course. Therefore, you fill in the lexicogrammatical
teaching points which you have included in your list in relation to each goal.
You can then chose topics, tasks and genres which you consider appropriate
for developing these language points.


62

Finally, if you have opted for a learner-centred syllabus, you will not be able to
fill in the grid in detail at this stage. In this case, the design is essentially
negotiated with the students so it cannot be predetermined by the teacher.
However, this does not mean approaching the course with no idea
whatsoever of what will happen. I would suggest filling in some aspects of the
grid which can then be presented to students as a proposal which will form
the basis of negotiation. It is, after all, unlikely that many students will arrive
on the first day of a course with a very clear idea of what they wish to learn
and how they wish to learn it, much less of how what they wish to learn could
be organized into a course.

Uninorte

63

GOAL TASK TOPIC GENRE CONTEXT SKILLS LEXICOGRAMMAR
Development
of written
competence

Write a text
relating an
occasion when
you visited a
famous place
A visit to a
famous place
Narrative -Classroom
-Computer
room
-Home
-Use cohesive
devices
- Describe actors,
settings and events
-Organize ideas
coherently
-Lexical items
related to places,
adjectives
-Past tense

Greater
autonomy in
learning

Presentation
about your
favourite
famous place
in the world,
expressing
reasons for the
choice
My favourite
famous place
in the world
Description,
Argumentation
-Classroom
-Library
-Identify sources of
information
-Identify and select
learning strategies
-Select, analyze and
interpret info
-Evaluate info.
-Justify own choices
-Lexical items
related to places,
adjectives
-Present tense
-Vocabulary to
express reasons for
a choice

Respect for
diversity

Presentation
about peoples
favourite
famous places,
accepting
others
choices,
My favourite
place in the
world
Description
Argumentation
-Classroom -Listen carefully and
critically to each
intervention.
-Be prepared to
analyze reasons
presented for
choices made.
-Be prepared to
express agreement
and disagreement
respectfully.
-Lexical items
related to places,
adjectives
-Present tense
-Vocabulary to
express reasons for
a choice
-Expressions of
agreement and
disagreement

Table 9.1: An extract from a course design grid

64

SYLLABUS FOCUS GRID STARTING POINT
Skills Skills
Learning Task
Content Topic
Language Lexicogrammar
Learner To be negotiated with students
Table 9.2: Grid starting point in relation to syllabus focus

9.3.2 Pen to paper
Once you have your grid filled out, then the specific objectives will practically
write themselves. All you have to do is write them out using the types of
wordings which were discussed above. Lets continue with the example.
Taking the goal of developing written competence, we have as our general
objective Students should be able to write a short narrative text. If we now
look at our grid, we can see that we have specified a task and a number of
skills and lexicogrammatical items in relation to it. Once again, we take our
syllabus focus as the point of entry. This would give us four possible versions
of specific objectives as you can see in Table 9.3.

SYLLABUS FOCUS SPECIFIC OBJECTIVE(S)
Skills Students should be able to:
Use appropriate cohesive devices in writing a
narrative text.
Describe actors, settings and events in
writing a narrative text.
Organize ideas coherently in writing a
narrative text.
Learning Students should be able to write a short narrative
text making use of appropriate rhetorical and
lexicogrammatical choices.
Content Students should be able to describe a visit to a
famous place by writing a short narrative text and
making use of appropriate rhetorical and
lexicogrammatical choices.
Language Students should be able to:
Use lexical items related to place
descriptions in writing a short text.
Use the past tense of verbs in writing a short
text.
Table 9.3: Specific objectives according to syllabus focus


65

There are several points to note here. Firstly, notice how the focus of the
objectives differs according to the chosen syllabus focus. The content is the
same but the emphasis is different and this different emphasis in the
objectives will be reflected in different emphasis in classroom practice. Notice,
for example, that the only case in which the topic of the text to be written is
specified in the objective is for the Content-based syllabus. In the other
focuses, the topic is not of central importance. Similarly, the objectives for the
language-based syllabus do not specify the genre of the text to be written.
Another interesting difference is that the skills-based and language-based
syllabi have two and three specific objectives whereas the learning and
content-based syllabi have only one. This is in line with the more holistic
approach to language and learning which is typical of these types of syllabus.
Finally, you will have notices that I have not included the learner-centred
focus in this table. Due to the negotiated nature of this syllabus, it is unlikely
that you will want to write specific objectives if you have chosen this syllabus
type.

Work through Worksheet 5. At several points in the Worksheet, you will find
that I have suggested that you make reference to the literature recommended
in the Further Reading section. You may feel that this is a very time-
consuming process. However, the grid is an essential tool for moving on to
specific objectives and materials design. If you fill it out in detail and with due
consideration and consultation, then once it is done, it will provide you with a
concept map of your whole course. It is therefore well worth the time and
effort invested in it. Dont skimp it!

9.5 Summary
In this chapter, I have discussed the reasons for writing specific objectives,
suggesting that they are useful as a guide to teachers, learners and materials
writers. They help teachers to design classes and evaluation strategies; they
help learners to understand what they are doing and what is expected of
them; and they help materials writers to select suitable texts and tasks. As a
technique for defining specific objectives, I proposed the use of a grid which
brings together all the decisions taken so far in the course design process
and from which specific objectives may be directly derived.

9.6 Further reading
9.6.1 Task-based teaching and learning.
Crookes, G. and S. M. Gass (1993): Task and Language Learning :Integrating
Theory and Practice Clevedon: Multilingual Matters
Nunan, D. (2004): Task-based language teaching Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press

66

Nunan, D (1989): Designing Tasks for the Communicative Classroom
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Prabhu, N. S. (1987): Second Language Pedagogy. Oxford University Press

9.6.2 Genre
Christie F and J.R. Martin (Eds) (1997): Genre and Institutions :Social Processes in
the Workplace and School London: Cassell
Swales, J M. (1990):Genre Analysis :English in Academic and Research Settings
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

.


67

Syllabus
sequencing
options

Grading
(Easy
difficult)

Importance
(Urgency,
frequency)

Topic
development

Negotiated

CHAPTER 10: Selecting syllabus sequence and structure

10.1 Taking stock of progress
Before continuing, I suggest you look back for a moment at the Sandwich
Model and tick off those points which you have already defined and worked
on. This should be an encouraging activity: you have already achieved a
great deal. Your goals and objectives, both general and specific, have been
defined, as also have the competences which you will be working on and the
focus of your syllabus. Furthermore, you have a list of teaching points and a
grid showing how they related to each other in the overall plan of your
syllabus. All that remains to be done now is to decide in what order to work on
your teaching points and how they should be related to each other. That is to
say, you need to decide on the sequence and structure of your syllabus. Lets
look at sequence first.

10.2 Sequence
So far, you have thought about teaching points in relation to each one of your
goals but you have not thought about what to teach first and what to leave till
later. There are a number of options for syllabus sequencing which I will now
describe.

10.2.1 Sequencing options
The principal options for sequencing teaching points within your syllabus are
shown in Figure 10.1.

Figure 10.1: Options for syllabus sequencing


68

Grading is traditionally the most frequently used criterion for syllabus
sequencing, especially in language-based syllabi. There is an intuitive logic in
teaching and learning first what is easiest and then moving on to more difficult
learning tasks. The problem is: Who decides what is easy and what is
difficult? How do you know what is easy or difficult for your learners? All too
frequently, grading is based on an unquestioning acceptance of traditional
assumptions about ease and difficulty which are not based on research and
may not be relevant for your students. A good example of this is the question
of vocabulary. There is an implicit assumption in the English-speaking world
that short words are easier than long words, an assumption probably based
on observation of small children learning to speak and later to read and write
English as their mother tongue. It is therefore assumed, for example, that
speed is easier than velocity or that mend is easier than repair. If you are
teaching Spanish-speaking students, then it is immediately obvious that the
reverse is true, as the longer words are cognates with Spanish. Something
similar occurs with grammar. In what sense is the present tense easier than
the past? Any experienced teacher of English will tell you that one of the most
persistent grammatical mistakes, even among advanced learners, is the
omission of the third person -s ending in the present simple tense. The past
simple, however, has no endings to be learnt.

If you are using other types of syllabus, the question is equally problematical.
In skills-based, for example, is reading more difficult than writing or vice
versa? The answer will depend to a large extent on the learning styles and
experience of your students. Within reading, are top-down strategies, such as
prediction, skimming and scanning, more difficult than bottom-up reading for
detail? Again, it depends on the students, the text and the task. And so on for
the other syllabus types.

The question of grading, then, is not as simple as you might at first imagine
and requires knowledge of your students learning styles, their previous
learning experience, their motivation to learn and their L1.

Importance is a sequencing criterion which is very closely based on the
results of needs analysis. It means teaching and learning first those teaching
points which the students are in most need of, either because they are
necessary immediately for the students to be able to carry out their activities,
or because they occur very frequently in the types of text which the students
need to comprehend and/or produce. Many academic or technical courses
may benefit from this kind of sequencing. For example, students on a
technical course may have an immediate need for reading instruction
manuals, making it desirable to include this point at the beginning of the
course. Students on academic courses will probably need to read specialist
journal articles which use a lot of technical terminology and make frequent

69

use of the passive voice; these lexicogrammatical points will therefore feature
on such courses earlier than they would do in a traditionally graded course.
This sequencing criterion has the advantage that the information necessary
for its application can be derived directly from the results of Needs Analysis
and does not require you to undertake other types of research.

Topic development is most frequently used as a sequencing criterion in
content-based syllabus design. It means that the material to be taught is
organized according to the knowledge structures (cf. Mohan et al., 2001)
characteristic of the discipline which is being taught along with the English
language. In such cases, it is advisable to consult with the specialist teachers
of the discipline in question before deciding on a definitive sequence for your
teaching points.

A negotiated sequencing of teaching points is particularly suitable for
learner-centred syllabi. The idea is that you present your students with a list
of options, rather like a restaurant menu, and negotiate with them the order in
which they would like to address the points. In this case, of course, the list of
points will be less detailed than in the case of the other syllabus types, as
many of the details of content will also be negotiated with the students. The
metaphor should perhaps be that of a buffet or a salad bar rather than a
menu, thus allowing each student to pick and choose her or his own
combination of ingredients. The advantages of this in terms of student
motivation are obvious. However, it is all too easy to fall into the trap of
spending so much time negotiating and discussing what to do, that you have
very little time left in which to do the chosen activities! The larger the number
of students in your class, the greater will this problem be. It also, inevitably,
means that some people will not be satisfied and may feel discriminated
against because their preferences have not prevailed.


10.4 Structure
In choosing a criterion for sequencing, you have decided in general terms
what should come first and what should come later in your syllabus. It is now
time to make the final syllabus decision which is the structure; that is to say,
within the syllabus how are the teaching points organized? How do they relate
to one another? The possibilities here for individual creativity are endless and
as you become more experienced you will certainly want to experiment with
your own ideas. However, for the first-time designer, it is probably best to
choose one of the established types of syllabus structure which I will describe
below.


70

10.4.1 Structure options
The options for syllabus structure are shown in Figure 10.2.

Figure 10.2: Options for syllabus structure

The linear syllabus is the most traditional type of syllabus structure. It is also
known as step-by-step as it means taking teaching points one by one, dealing
with each one as exhaustively as possibly, evaluating it and then passing on
to the next. Diagrammatically, it might be represented as in Figure 10.3. The
advantages of this type of syllabus are:
it is easy to design;
it is easy to understand and follow;
it can provide a sense of achievement as learners tick off points which
have been successfully mastered.

Its main disadvantages are:
it treats teaching points in isolation from each other, presupposing that
once a point has been dealt with there is nothing more to say about it
when dealing with other points; this tends to encourage a fragmentary
rather than a holistic view of knowledge;
it gives no second chances; students who did not master a point on the
first attempt will be at a disadvantage for the rest of the course.

Syllabus
structure

Linear or
step-by-
step

Spiral or
cyclical

Matrix

Modular

Storyline

Propor-
tional

Lexical

71

F
E
D
C
B
A

Figure 10.3: A linear syllabus

The spiral or cyclical syllabus is an attempt to address the shortcomings of the
linear syllabus. It considers learning from a more holistic point of view and
therefore treats teaching points as interrelated one with another. Thus teaching
points are returned to on a number of occasions during the course, each time with
greater depth and in relation to those points which have been dealt with since the
previous occasion. The major advantages of this type of syllabus are:
it helps students to develop a more organic knowledge base, establishing
relations between different aspects of their knowledge;
it allows students who had difficulty with a particular point to make a second
and third attempt to understand and assimilate the point.
Its major disadvantages are:
it is complex and time-consuming to design;
the faster learners may feel frustrated by the recycling process.
This syllabus has been represented graphically in Figure 10.4.


72

Figure 10.4: A spiral syllabus

A popular option in published materials is the matrix syllabus which, as its name
suggests may be visually represented as a matrix, or table of intersecting columns
and rows. Typically the rows refer to units or chapters in the course book, which
may or may not correspond to particular topics or themes, and the columns present
specify aspects to be studied or practised, such as skills, grammar etc. An extract
from a typical matrix syllabus is presented in Table 10.1. This model lends itself
particularly well to a skills-based syllabus.

Reading Writing Listening
and
Speaking
Grammar
and
Vocabulary
Unit 1: The
Family
Extract from My
Family and Other
Animals by Gerald
Durrell
A description
of the
members of
my family.
Listen to a
report on one-
parent
families.
Discussion.
Members of the
family.
Descriptive
adjectives (people).
Expressing
opinions
Unit 2:
Holidays
Postcards from
abroad
What did you
do on your
holiday?
Describing
favourite
places.
Discussion of
holiday
destinations
Past tenses.
Descriptive
adjectives (places).
Unit 3: At
Work
A job
description
Writing a letter
of application
An interview for a
job
Present and future
tenses.
Modal verbs
Table 10.1: A matrix syllabus
A B C
A B C
D
A D
B
C A
D

73

The modular syllabus design is particularly appropriate for the learner-centred
syllabus. It involves presenting a list of potential topics for study which forms the
starting point for negotiation with students as to which topics will be studied and in
what order. In order for this to work successfully, each topic needs to be self-
contained and not dependent on prior knowledge of any of the other topics. This
means that, although it is an attractive idea, it is not easy to handle in practice, nor
is it easy to ensure that students feel that they are progressing. An extract from an
example modular syllabus is shown in Figure 10.5.

TOPICS
The Family
Holiday Destinations
The Workplace
The Environment
Love Stories
Figure 10.5: An extract from a Modular syllabus

The storyline syllabus involves creating a set of characters and following their
adventures through a number of situations, rather in the style of a soap opera. This
has the advantage of being motivating, especially for adolescent students, but the
great disadvantage that all the texts are necessarily inauthentic, created for the
purposes of the course and, in practice, usually created in order to illustrate a
particular grammatical point. This type of syllabus was popular in the 1970s during
the fashion for audio-lingual methods, when it was considered good practice to
invent artificial dialogues as a basis for grammatical substitution drills. Nowadays, it
is almost universally considered preferable that as many texts as possible be
authentic so I would not recommend the use of the storyline. I have included it here
simply for information.

What is sometimes called the proportional syllabus is a useful way of combining
two different types of syllabus focus. It is particularly appropriate in long-term
syllabus design, that is to say in designing courses for a programme of several
years of study, during which time it is anticipated that the students learning needs
will change as they develop intellectually and grow in competence. The example in
Figure 10.6 shows a proportional progression from a skills-based to a task-based
syllabus focus over a period of 8 semesters.


74

0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
1
s
t

S
e
m
2
n
d

S
e
m
3
r
d

S
e
m
4
t
h

S
e
m
5
t
h

S
e
m
6
t
h

S
e
m
7
t
h

S
e
m
8
t
h

S
e
m
Skills
Tasks

Figure 10.6: A proportional syllabus

The lexical syllabus was born at the beginning of the 1990s. It grew out of the
research carried out by the COBUILD team at the University of Birmingham in the
UK. One of the principal finding of this research programme has been that
grammar is much more intimately related to and dependent on lexis than was
previously imagined. Within traditional (Latin-based) sentence syntax, which is a
fairly blunt instrument in that it recognizes a very limited number of clause types,
we can identify a large number of patterns in smaller chunks of language, centred
around particular lexical items. From this discovery, the COBUILD linguists
theorize a very different type of sentence construction process from that based on
sentence syntax, which basically supposes that speakers and writers first choose a
clause structure which they then fill out by inserting lexical items in the various
syntactic slots such as subject, verb and object. The Pattern Grammar proposed
by the COBUILD linguists (Hunston and Francis, 2000) suggests that, on the
contrary, the grammar is lexis-driven; that the speaker or writer first chooses the
necessary lexis for the message to be communicated and that this lexical choice
then constrains the range of patterns available. This, then, is also the logic for the
syllabus writer who would initially choose the lexis needed by his/her students,
according to needs analysis, and then set about selecting materials which would
illustrate the patterns and meanings associated with these lexical items. The theory
of pattern grammar is extremely convincing, based as it is on detailed analysis of a
very large corpus of naturally occurring English. However, if you wish to base your
syllabus on it, it is recommendable to make sure that you are thoroughly
conversant with the theory.

10.5 Relating sequence and structure
Some of the advantages and disadvantages of the various options for syllabus
structure have been outlined above in the brief descriptions of each type of
structure. In addition to considering these advantages and disadvantages and

75

comparing the description of the structures with the results of your needs analysis,
it is obviously important to ensure coherence between your chosen sequencing
criterion and your chosen structure. For example, grading has traditionally been
associated with the step-by-step syllabus structure, but it is also frequently used
with matrix and spiral syllabi. It is not suitable for use with a modular structure as it
requires determining the sequence before commencing the course. In fact, it is
probably safe to say that the only suitable sequencing criterion for a modular
course is negotiation; all the others require pre-planning on the part of the
designer. A topic based sequence matches most happily with matrix structure but
can also be used with step-by-step or lexical structures. The important thing is to
give careful consideration to the way in which you will combine your sequencing
and structuring decisions in order to ensure coherence.

Work through Worksheets 7 and 8.

10.7 Summary
This chapter has dealt with the final stages in course design: choosing a
criterion for sequencing and a model for structuring the contents of the
syllabus. Both the sequencing criterion and the structuring model need to be
chosen bearing in mind your previous decisions, especially the syllabus
focus, in order to ensure coherence. You should also bear in mind the results
of your needs analysis, particularly as regards learning needs and situational
constraints. Some types of sequence and structure are more suitable than
others for particular groups of students; similarly, some types are difficult to
deal with in situations where classes are very numerous or resources scarce.
There is no ideal combination of sequence and structure. As with all your
course design decisions, these last two decisions should be based on the
characteristics of your particular teaching-learning context.

10.8 Further reading

Dubin, F. and E. Olshtain (1986): Course Design: Developing Programmes and
Materials for Language Learning. Cambridge University Press.
Hunston, S. and G. Francis. 2000. Pattern Grammar. A corpus-driven approach to
the lexical grammar of English. msterdam: John Benjamins
Mohan B., C. Leung and C. Davison. (2001) English as a Second Language in the
Mainstream: Teaching, Learning and Identity. Applied Linguistics and
Language Study Series. Harlow: Longman.

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