Teach English in Taihe Zhen - Zibo Shi

A teacher may find that in some educational institutes a syllabus for his/her class will be provided by the state or private school, but where this is not available then a syllabus needs to be designed and implemented. There are many theories as to what design is best and some of these are either structural, functional-notional, learner-led, or situational syllabus, the first one ( structural ), is content based in that the grammar is the predominant input of the syllabus, in that it covers of the forms and structures of the language in the grammar form, ( nouns, verbs, past tenses, clauses, complex sentences etc ), but this has a drawback in that although you learn in sequence of the grammatical structure that reflects it’s complexity, this does not cover the use of the English language is’ real life situations’, as a communication tool to best equip the student out of the classroom, so I would favour one of the other three designs which are more user based as opposed to content based. To begin the process of designing a syllabus the teacher must do a needs analysis, also information re materials available , ( a blackboard and one PC , or laptop for all students and overhead power point available ), the length of the course and the age of the class, which will have an impact on the design, in that language points for a 5 to 7 age class of learning ( alphabet, colours, shapes , animal names,) would be different to the topics that an intermediate class would be subject too, so by selecting the course content to best help the class and also using the material at your disposal, to best teach the course content, both will be used to evaluate and review the syllabus as to the positive outcome as the class progresses through the term , and by doing so, adjust the syllabus if required. I believe the communitive , user TBLT ( task based learner teaching ), syllabi available are a better option especially for teaching English , children e.g, would be more motivated and excited to be actually USING the language taught, by engaging with people and situations outside the classroom, e,g. at home, mum can I go to my room ? please pass the salt, hello what a nice day, to a teacher as the student goes to class ), the functional-notional syllabus are real life situations ( notions ), in which people engage in specific functions (aims of communication ), e,g. a guy goes shopping in a menswear shop ( notion ), and asks what material and quality of a particular suit ( function ), or a 10 year goes to a convenience store ( notion ), and asks what is the price of the ice cream the shop keeper has ( function), as an example of the success of this method at the Taif ,( Saudi Arabia), university for medical students ( EFL), engaged in the TBLT functional-notional method, the outcome was that the students had better grasp of grammar form, speech production and overall improved their language skills in English, this is of great importance as some medical establishments policy ( especially in asia), is to only engage workers that CAN speak fluent English. . Although the positives of learning English by the TBLT method, in that the EFL( english foreign learner), student learning is not just limited to the classroom but he/she is also taught in ‘real life’ situations, we are told not as an alternative to the more stringent grammar form based method, but both working together to achieve the best outcome, ( Ellis , 2009). The Situational syllabus is similar to the other method discussed here in that it is a user( communitive ) method, and not content based, here we are giver real life situations and the course is built around them or the various forms of engagement that the teacher has devised. the Situational syllabus may have several participants engaged in an activity in a specific setting, e.g, husband and wife discussing the merits of a trip to asia, at a travel agency, a person going through customs. The student learner-led syllabus, can only be positive in that it has some input from the students , they feel a connection with the syllabus, that there teacher cares about them and that they are in ‘this trip’ together. The first part of a syllabus design should involve introductions of teacher and class, a general outline of the syllabus , the various subject matter to be studied and the expectations the teacher would like the class to achieve, where there are progress tests and the final achievement test, a good syllabus form would include; the class being taught, dates and times of that class, class room, lesson, content and resources to study the content to be taught, ( introductions, colours, shapes, past tense, clauses, parts of speech etc). Syllabus design is not an easy task but by following the various stages, as commented on in this essay, whether it be task based or content based , a syllabus can be constructed to achieve a successful outcome.