Syllabus Design

PETER ROBINSON
Syllabus design involves decisions about the units of classroom instruction and organization, and the order in which they are to be taught, or organized for learners. These decisions
are constrained, in different ways, by two purposes that syllabi fulfill in educational settings
to promote learning and to ensure accountability. With the first of these purposes
in mind, choice of the unit of analysis for sequencing whatever is to be worked on in
classrooms must draw on what is known of the psycholinguistic processes implicated in
second language acquisition (SLA). Consequently, there are variations between proposals
for syllabus design which reflect different theoretical positions on the psycholinguistically
valid units of analysis for L2 learning, and also the sequence in which they should be
presented to learners. One could call these bottom-up proposals, made by SLA researchers
who are concerned with the complementarity of decisions about units and sequencing with
what is known about learning processes, and the levels of L2 attainment that they lead to.
On the other hand, syllabi are necessary so that government agencies, institutions, and
teachers can be accountable for what is taught in a program, and so that comparisons can
be made across institutions, enabling instruction to be coordinated across settings and
national boundaries (North, 2001). One could call these top-down proposals, which are
concerned with the feasibility of implementing decisions about syllabus design across
a range of settings and languages taught, and with how comparable their concomitant
assessment procedures are with respect to the societal goals of L2 education. Since these
top-down implementational considerations must logically assume the correctness of one
or another of the bottom-up language-learning process proposals for syllabus design,
only the latter are described in what follows.

Grammatical Syllabi
Since the 1920s, and the work of Harold Palmer and others in the Reform Movement
who emphasized the controlled presentation of grammatical structures and oral practice
following classroom presentation, grammatical syllabi have featured prominently in programs for second and foreign-language learners. Intuitive criteria of relative usefulness
and simplicity were used as a basis of selection and grading, and these criteria continue
to guide selection and sequencing of grammatical structures in many published teaching
materials. Ellis (1997), however, provides a contemporary psycholinguistic rationale for
adopting a structural, grammatical syllabus. He argues that explicit, declarative knowledge
of L2 grammar can influence the development of implicit declarative knowledge, and
through communicative activity implicit declarative knowledge can be proceduralized and
used in spontaneous skilled performance. The main constraint on what structures should
be taught, and when, is that learners must be developmentally ready to incorporate the
explicit grammar instruction into their interlanguage. Ellis cites research by himself,
Pienemann (1989), and others showing that learners pass through stages of development
in the acquisition of, amongst other things, morphemes, question forms, and forms for
expressing negation. Unless grammatical instruction is timed to the learners point of
development, Ellis argues, it will not influence the developing implicit knowledge base.
The Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics, Edited by Carol A. Chapelle.
2013 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2013 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/9781405198431.wbeal1135

syllabus design

Since stages of development are learner-internal and hidden from the teacher, timing is
difficult to manage. However, Ellis claims that explicit grammatical knowledge serves a
number of other functions: it can be used to monitor production; it can help learners to
notice features in the input; and it can help learners to compare their own production with
a target model, and in some cases notice the gap between them. Knowing about grammar,
Ellis argues, is therefore useful, and a structural syllabus can be used to organize and
promote this knowledge.

Semantic Syllabi
In the 1970s the Council of Europe initiated a project (see Wilkins, 1976) which aimed to
specify a common framework for teaching and assessing communicative competence in
foreign-language education. The aim was to specify syllabi in terms of three categories of
meaning common across languages; semantico-grammatical meaning or notions, such as
time and quantity; modal meanings, such as degree of certainty and scale of commitment; and communicative functions, such as agreeing, requesting, or complimenting. These
provided a way of going from specified types of meaning, or universal communicative
and conceptual categories, to their token realization in specific languages. This is an unordered
inventory: what provides sequencing constraints on these notional categories, and their
realizations in language, is the idea of a common core of notions and functions, useful for
all communicative goals and purposes, which must be mastered before those particular
to specific communicative purposes. Similarly, Negueruela and Lantolf (2006) have recently
proposed that concepts should be the minimal units of instruction, and that explicit instruction in grammar can promote learners awareness and control over specific conceptual
categories as they are linked to formal properties of language (2006, p. 82). These conceptual units of instruction can be selected based on what is known of L2 development
for example, progressive aspect is first used in development to express the concept of
activity and only later to express achievementor they can be based on an analysis of the
differences between how the languages already known and the language to be learned
package concepts, such as time and motion, for grammatical expression.

Usage-Based Lexical Syllabi

The development of large-scale corpora over the last twenty years has also led to proposals
for frequency-based syllabi which use lexical items or collocations as the units of syllabus
design. For example, rather than structurally grading the grammatical content of the syllabus,
Willis (1990) argued for grading it lexically using corpora of language use to identify word
frequency at the 700-word, the 1,500-word, and the 2,500-word levels. Words in the corpora
are itemized as collocations exemplifying each words typical patterns of use. In the lexical syllabus these three corpora are the bases of exposure at three levels of learner development. Willis claims that exposure is not sequenced or controlled within these levels,
and the lexical syllabus does not dictate what will be learned and in what order, rather
it offers the learner experience of a tiny but balanced corpus from which it is possible to
make generalizations about the language as a whole (Willis, 1990, p. vii).

Task-Based Syllabi
Since the mid-1980s, tasks have been increasingly researched and theorized as a basis for
syllabus design. In contrast to the units of syllabus design described above, tasks are a

syllabus design

nonlinguistic unit. Bygate and Samuda (2008), Long and Crookes (1993), and Skehan (2003)
are in broad agreement about the psycholinguistic motivation for task-based syllabi, citing
research showing (a) little resemblance between acquisitional sequences and instructional
sequences based on linguistic forms (e.g., Lightbown, 1983); (b) evidence that learning is
nonlinear and cumulative, rather than linear and additive as linguistic (structural, semantic
or lexical) syllabi imply (e.g., Selinker & Lakshmanan, 1992); and (c) research showing the
influence of learnability on the order in which items can be learned. In one proposal for
task-based syllabus design (Long & Crookes, 1993) units of real-world activity involving
language use identified on the basis of a needs analysis (target tasks) are subsequently
broken down into simpler versions, which are presented in an order of increasing complexity, so as to eventually approximate the full complexity of the target-task demands.
In this view, the nonlinguistic features of tasks contributing to their relative complexity
are the basis of sequencing decisions. Robinson (2007) has described a taxonomy of task
characteristics, and principles for sequencing increasingly complex pedagogic tasks based
on it. In his SSARC model for task-based syllabus design (Robinson, 2010), the complexity
of the performative demands that tasks make are increased across sequences of pedagogic
task versions of target tasks (e.g., first performing the task with, and then without, planning time). Subsequently, the conceptual demands made by target tasks are increased across
pedagogic versions (e.g., from no causal reasoning to causal reasoning demands). The
rationale for this model is to first promote faster access to and control over what learners
already know of the L2, and then to promote reanalysis and development of formconcept
mappings that may need to be made in order to achieve success in target-task performance.
Similarly, Duran and Ramaut (2006) describe a complexity scale which they developed
to grade and sequence the cognitive and communicative processing demands of tasks
for learners at basic and more advanced proficiency levels. In contrast, other proposals for
task-based syllabi involve sequencing tasks according to specific linguistic criteria, so as
to promote awareness of grammatical structures or lexical items provided in the input to
task performance (Nunan, 2004). In these cases, pedagogic tasks are used to implement a
linguistic syllabus, and so are more properly called language-based syllabi, with task
practice activities.
SEE ALSO: Instructed Second Language Acquisition; Needs Analysis; Needs Analysis and
Syllabus Design for Language for Specific Purposes

References
Bygate, M., & Samuda, V. (2008). Tasks in second language learning. New York, NY: Palgrave
Macmillan.
Duran, G., & Ramaut, G. (2006). Tasks for absolute beginners and beyond: Developing and
sequencing tasks at basic proficiency levels. In K. Van den Branden (Ed.), Task-based language
education (pp. 4775). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Ellis, R. (1997). SLA research and language teaching. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
Lightbown, P. (1983). Exploring relationships between developmental and instructional sequences.
In H. G. Seliger & M. H. Long (Eds.), Classroom oriented research in second language acquisition
(pp. 21743). Rowley, MA: Newbury House.
Long, M. H., & Crookes, G. (1993). Units of analysis in syllabus design: The case for task. In
G. Crookes & S. Gass (Eds.), Tasks in a pedagogical context (pp. 954). Clevedon, England:
Multilingual Matters.
Negueruela, E., & Lantolf, J. (2006). Concept-based instruction and the acquisition of L2 Spanish.
In R. Salaberry & B. Lafford (Eds.), The art of teaching Spanish: Second language acquisition
from research to praxis (pp. 79102). Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.

syllabus design

North, B. (2001). (Ed.). Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, teaching
and assessment. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Nunan, D. (2004). Task-based language teaching. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Pienemann, M. (1989). Is language teachable? Applied Linguistics, 10, 5279.
Robinson, P. (2007). Criteria for classifying and sequencing pedagogic tasks. In M. P. GarciaMayo (Ed.), Investigating tasks in formal language settings (pp. 726). Clevedon, England:
Multilingual Matters.
Robinson, P. (2010). Situating and distributing cognition across task demands: The SSARC model
of pedagogic task sequencing. In M. Putz & L. Sicola (Eds.), Cognitive processing in second
language acquisition: Inside the learners mind (pp. 23965). Amsterdam, Netherlands: John
Benjamins.
Selinker, L., and Lakshmanan, U. (1992). Language transfer and fossilization. In S. Gass &
L. Selinker (Eds.), Language transfer in language learning (pp. 196215). Amsterdam, Netherlands:
John Benjamins.
Skehan, P. (2003). Task-based instruction. Language Teaching, 36, 114.
Wilkins, D. (1976). Notional syllabuses. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
Willis, D. (1990). The lexical syllabus: A new approach to language teaching. London, England: Collins
COBUILD.

Suggested Readings
Richards, J. (2001). The second language curriculum. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University
Press.
Robinson, P. (2001). Task complexity, cognitive resources, and syllabus design: A triadic framework for examining task influences on SLA In P. Robinson (Ed.), Cognition and second
language instruction (pp. 285317). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Stern, H. H. (1992). Issues and options in language teaching. Oxford, England: Oxford University
Press.
Yalden, J. (1983). The communicative syllabus: Evolution, design and implementation. Oxford, England:
Pergamon Press.