Situational syllabus

Presenter: Wu Qiong Group member: Hu Xiaohui,

Tao Tao, Liu Zhiping

Sept. 23th,

2008

Brief introduction

• Definition: Situational syllabus is often

defined as one which the contents are organized according to situations in which certain language is likely to be employed.

(Richards, et al, 1985:260; Ur, 2000: 178)

• Development: structural syllabus

situational syllabus

Situational syllabus came into being when structural syllabus fell into disfavor. It is now on the decline, but it used to thrive in the 1950s.

‘Structurally competent’, but ‘communicatively incompetent’

Tourist handbook

• key idea situation The fundamental principle for the

organization of contents is to make a list of situations, real or imagery, which reflects the way language is used in everyday life.

So the designer of a situational syllabus tries to predict situations that the learners are likely to encounter in daily life, such as “at the airport”, “at the restaurant”, “at the post office”…

each lesson deals with the language associated with a different situation.

Theoretical assumptionCompared with structural syllabus,

language in situational syllabus, was viewed as a purposeful activity related to goals and situations in the real world.

(J.C.Richards, 2000: 35)

J.R.Firth’s important notion of “context of situation” served as the base of the situational syllabus. He believed that the meaning of utterances is determined by the social setting in which they occur.

(Johnson, 2002:179)

You will find a sample lesson in (Richards,

2000:40)

Main components Aims: enable Ss to communicate

effectively in specific situation in real world as well as to learn the language associated with the situation

Objectives: accuracy in both pronunciation and grammar; basic structures and sentence patterns; four skills…

Non-language outcomes: Ss are motivated to learn English, since they are satisfied with the practicality of situational syllabus; Ss find there is a real need to learn in actual situation…

learning contents: vocabulary list, structures involved in situations; culture…

Implementation: activities occurred in specific situations / teachers’ role

Merits

It provides concrete contexts within which to learn notions, functions and structures, thus making it easier for learners to master, and meanwhile it stimulates Ss’ interest.

It highly motivates learners, since they are learning to meet their most pressing everyday communication needs.

Drawbacks

Those structures, functions and notions involved in situational syllabus are learned in the context of only one situation, whereas they may be expressed in a variety of situations.

Usually, there is a predictable script for each situation, but unforeseen things can happen in any situation, thus requiring a change of script or topic.

According to the individual differences, most of students will be demotivated because their communicative needs can’t be satisfied in the limited situations listed in the language course.

Context≠ situation

Now, it is 3 o’clock!

example

Situation A

Situation B

Situation c

Simply askingtime

objection

complaint

Summary

So, the ideal solution is to combine the situational syllabus with other syllabus design. Multidimensional syllabus

merits drawbacks＜＝＞？

Topic for discussion

• Situational syllabus

Silly or not

Functional or structuralhot

• No, it isn’t. It is useful for those people who haven’t learnt any English, but who will go abroad for travel or business…(meet their immediate needs)

• Yes, it is. There are quite a lot of unpredictable contexts for a single situation, but it simply couldn’t contain all possible contexts of situations. (awkwardness may occur)

Bibliography

• Brumfit, C. J., & Johnson, K., (Eds). 1979. The communicative approach to language teaching. Oxford: OUP.

• Cheng, X. 2002 . Material development and evaluation (In Chinese). Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Researching Press. (程晓堂，英语教材分析与设计，北京，外语教学与研究出版社 )。

• Dubin, F. & Olshtain, E. 1986. Course design. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press.

• Johnson, K. An introduction to foreign language learning and teaching. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press

• Richards, J., Platt, J., & Weber, H. 1985. Longman Dictionary of Applied Linguistics. London : Longman.

• Ur, P. 2000. A course in language teaching: practice and theory. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press.

• Wilkins, D. A. 1976. Notional Syllabuses. Oxford: Oxford University Press.