Analysis Of Syllabus

General Description

A syllabus in the field of English Language Teaching has been defined in many different ways, depending on the nuances and their different emphasis, according to Candlin (1984:30), syllabuses are concerned with the specifications of what is to be learnt, and often they set down prescriptions of actions to be followed by teachers and learners, they are also concerned withthe accomplishment of goals and they are associated with the process and procedures to do so. But for Pieneman (1985:23), for example a syllabus is “the selection and grading of the linguistic teaching objectives”

At this point it is also important to mention the distinction that has been made between Syllabuses and Curriculums, for instance, Johnson (1989) defines Curriculum as “all therelevant decision-making processes of all the participants” and identifies the Syllabus as its result.

Therefore, when the requirements of those decisions change also the definition of a syllabus does. But separately form the definition of what a syllabus is; there have been identified two main aspects on all of them, depending on whether they are based on the description of goals, or thedescription of the steps followed by teachers and learners in order to achieve them . This distinction is what Nunan (1988) calls “the nature of the syllabus” in which the narrow view is concerned with grading and content, while a broader view is focused on the methodology to be followed, selection of tasks and activities.

In this work we are going to look the way in which a syllabus is designed byanalyzing its components: aims, goals and content, and according to the theory of some authors we will give an idea of what type of syllabus it is.

Analysis of the Syllabus

Aims
Every syllabus needs to have an aim or goal that is the general statement about what you hope the students will gain from the course, this aim always enables the learner to do something which he could not do at thebeginning of the learning process.

According to Richards (2001:120) there are some characteristics the aim should have, such as:
• to provide a clear definition of the purposes of a program
• to provide guidelines for teachers, learners and materials writers
• to provide a focus for instruction
• to describe important and realizable changes in learning.4

The aims of the syllabus of EnglishIV are:
1. To give the base to the students to develop the abilities of the before courses and help to facilitate the learning content of the following courses.
2. To give practice in the use of the English language, preparing the students fro all the subjects of the program.
3. To help the students for a better manage of the language

Analyzing these aims we found that they:
• Do notprovide a clear definition of the purposes of the program because it is not mentioned what the student will be able to do at the end of the course.
• Do not provide a good guideline for the teacher to follow the course, and are not very specific.
• Describe important and realizable changes in learning because they mention in what way this course will help the learners for the following courses.Objectives
According to Bloom (1956: 3) In the objectives we have “… to specify the situations in which the students will need the foreign language”.5

The purposes of this syllabus have all the characteristics that Richards (2001:123) says an objective should have:

• Describe a learning outcome
All the objectives describe a learning outcome such as: talk about personal details, givingreasons, making comparisons, etc.
• Should be consistent with the curriculum aim
The purposes of this syllabus help the students to manage better the language, which is one of the aims.
• Should be precise
They give specifications of what the students will be able to, such as “asking and given instructions or asking and giving explanations”
• Should be feasible
All purposes of the...