SYLLABUS EVOLUTION: A BIRDS'S Reported by: Sarah Jane P.

EYE VIEW Manigbas

CURRICULUM VS SYLLABUS
CURRICULUM
“Include the goal, objectives, content, processes, resources and means
of evaluation of all learning experiences planned for pupils both in
and out of the school and community through - classroom instructions
and related programmes.“
-Shaw(1977)
SYLLABUS
Syllabus is defined as a statement of the plan for any part of the
curriculum and is considered to be part of the curriculum.
-Dubin and Olshtan 1986
CURRICULUM VS SYLLABUS
1. A syllabus is more specific and more concrete than the curriculum
and curriculum may contain number of syllabi.
2. A curriculum may specify only the goals (what the learners will
be able to do at the end of the instruction), wherein syllabus
specifies the content of the lessons used to move the learners
towards the goal.
ELT CURRICULUM VS ELT SYLLABUS
ELT Curriculum and ELT syllabus (Yalden) says that in North America
Syllabus is often used interchangeably with curriculum. R.V.White, in
his book, 'ELT Curriculum (1988) places language syllabus design
within the wider context of Curriculum when he discusses the values
and ideologies of the ELT curriculum.
WHAT IS A SYLLABUS?
A syllabus has been compared to ' A blue print.
-Yalden 1987

Each subject has a syllabus, so when we refer to syllabus, we

would wish to restrict the term 'Syllabus' to that of language
teaching for the purpose of our argument.
THE GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF A SYLLABUS
ARE AS FOLLOWS ( BRUMFIT 1984 A P. 75-76)
1. A syllabus is a specification of a work of a particular
department in a school or college.
2. In practice, it is often linked to time semesters, terms,
weeks or courses which are tied to these.
THE GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF A SYLLABUS
ARE AS FOLLOWS ( BRUMFIT 1984 A P. 75-76)
3. A syllabus may specify some kind of sequence of events.
a) Sequencing intrinsic to a theory of language acquisition or to the
structure specified.
b) Sequencing constrained by administrative needs.
c) A syllabus is a document of administrative convenience and will only be
partially justified on theoretical grounds.
d) A syllabus can only specify what is taught, it cannot organize what is
learnt.
e) Not to have a syllabus is to refuse to allow ones assumptions to be
scrutinized.
CURRENT VIEWS ON SYLLABUS
The views of all these syllabus designers are categorized
and classified by Brumfit. These set of shared assumptions
help us understand the major issues in communicative
Methodology.
CURRENT VIEWS ON SYLLABUS
1. A syllabus must be related to a broader curriculum and
to a larger ·social context reflected in the hidden
curriculum, which may be supported or criticized through
the syllabus.
CURRENT VIEWS ON SYLLABUS
2. It is a device for public planning but for teaching not
learning. Thus, it operates as a means of control and must
be administrably workable. Planning may be limited to a
broad curriculum level, the specific syllabus remaining
more spontaneous and local.
CURRENT VIEWS ON SYLLABUS
3. It involves initial specification with discreet items which
must be selected, defined and graded with an
appropriate starting point and end point or at least goal.
There will be sequencing which is intrinsic to the language
or content system and extrinsic, administratively
determined, sequencing for items which do not fit into a
system and the items taught should not be explicit~ linked
to the time.
CURRENT VIEWS ON SYLLABUS
4. It generates a set of units of work and implies
particular methodologies. Indeed the methodology can be
considered part of the syllabus specification.
CURRENT VIEWS ON SYLLABUS
5. It should be negotiable during use and after but
constraints will be needed as support for some students.
However, it may be considered a retrospective record
rather than a prospective plan.
CURRENT VIEWS ON SYLLABUS
6. It can lead to many courses of study and should
produce general competence, unconscious automatic
abilities and conscious metalinguistic capacities.
CURRENT VIEWS ON SYLLABUS
7. The language syllabus will interact with other
syllabuses, but will be the fundamental one-others will
include cultural, communicative ability etc. or it can be
viewed partially in terms of items of content, skills of
behaviour and values of ideology.
CURRENT VIEWS ON SYLLABUS
8. It must be evaluated by a range of procedures as part
of our responsibility to be democratically accountable.