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Syllabus design for the generalclass: what happens to theorywhen you apply itKatie Gray

The first part of this article looks at what aspects of the current interest insyllabus design are likely to filter down to the classroom. Then the articledescribes the successes and failures of an attempt at the Centre for EnglishLanguage Teaching at Stirling University to implement a negotiated pro-cess syllabus.

Current trends in New attitudes to syllabus design are in. the air as a result of changingsyllabus design frames of reference: our views on language, teaching methodology, and

learner contributions are all changing. Teachers are well aware of theshift away from product-oriented syllabuses. In his state-of-the-artarticle, Breen (1987) gives a theoretical overview of these newapproaches in syllabus design. He identifies a conventional paradigm ofpropositional plans. represented by what he calls the formal (i.e. struc-tural) and the functional syllabuses which map out the knowledge of thelanguage and the conventions of language performance. Then he pro-poses an alternative paradigm of process plans - task-based and processsyllabuses, which move the emphasis from the language system to thelearners cognitive processes. He stresses that the most important newinsight in syllabus design relates to how we may plan for teaching andlearning, especially as classroom-oriented research has shown how littledirect effect teaching has. The classroom context and the learners contri-bution to the learning process are to be the new focus.Breens use of the word process as both cover term and one of his twospecific terms is. however. potentially confusing. More usually, the task-based syllabus developed at Lancaster by Breen and his colleagues is dis-tinguished from the procedural type of syllabus developed by Prabhu inSouthern India. Both types are process plans and share a focus on thelearning process, on how something is done and a consequent emphasison task-based learning. The Lancaster proposals allow the learner to gen-erate the syllabus and are therefore to some extent a development of indi-vidualized learning; indeed. Breens task-based syllabus exploits both thelearners current competence and his learning difficulties as dual meanstowards competence in a new language. Prabhus project in a secondaryschool context maximizes the classroom community and is teacher-led.EL T J ournal Volum e 44/ 4 October 1990 Oxford Un iversity Press 1990 261

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Here the making of the syllabus is one of the main classroom activities. Inboth cases, the focus is clearly on broad pedagogical development, ratherthan on narrow linguistic training, and the assumption is that learning isboth communicative and metacommunicative. An emphasis on the learn-ing process rather than the target language per se means that the class-room comes into its own; classroom experiences are to be consciousmeans to learning outcomes.

Process syllabuses Process syllabuses still allow for communicative techniques and activities,and especially the least language-specific ones; information-gap, reasoning-

communicative gap, and opinion-gap activities are at the heart of Prabhus syllabus, fortechniques instance. However, a process syllabus is not the same as a communicative

syllabus. The communicative label has been over-used in the past, andconfusingly applied to both syllabus and methodology. Nevertheless, theprime focus of a communicative approach is on meaningful social inter-action achieved through a series of communicative activities which areevaluated in terms of their communicative effectiveness rather than theirgrammatical accuracy. With a process syllabus, and more particularlywith a task-based one which is probably more suited to adults, clear divi-sions between syllabus, content, and methodology seem to have gone.Selection and grading of communicative activities has been replaced bynegotiating and planning of larger tasks which dictate their own contentand the specific enabling skills that each student will need to achieve thetask. The methodology to achieve this will inevitably be eclectic and willreflect, among other things, the learners own preferred learning styles.No longer is the content of the syllabus a selection of aspects of the targetlanguage, but the learning process itself gives content and meaning.

A shift of emphasis White (1988: 45) offers a useful summary of syllabus types, which I sub-stantially reproduce below. He highlights how the shift away from anemphasis on the subject to be learnt (Breens propositional paradigm),towards an emphasis on the learning process itself (Breens process para-digm). brings with it other consequences - in terms of negotiation, assess-

262

ment, and retrospective planning.What is to be learnt?Subject emphasisExternal to the learnerDetermined by authorityTeacher as decision-makerContent=what the subject is to

the expertObjectives defined in advanceAssessment by achievement or

by masteryDoing things to the learner

Katie Gray

How is it to be learnt?Process emphasisInternal to the learnerNegotiated between learners

and teachersLearner and teacher as joint

decision-makersContent=what the subject is to

the learnerObjectives described afterwardsAchievement in relation to

learners criteria of successDoing things for or with the

learner

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Another book in a long and recent line on the subject of syllabus design isNunans Syllabus Design (1988). Revealingly, the series to which thisbook belongs uses a task-based approach throughout. Nunan is at painsto point out that the new focus on learning does not necessarily excludeother alternatives. The syllabus designer will usually incorporate theanswers to three key questions: what linguistic elements should betaught? (a linguistic perspective); what does the learner want to do withthe language? (a learner perspective); and what activities will stimulateand promote language acquisition? (a learning perspective).So what is actually new about all this? The move away from the target lan-guage itself as the basis of the course content is not new: but the emphasison the learning process and the way in which it automatically defines themethodology is. In particular, the involvement of the learner in decisionmaking is new and exciting. The generative educational aim is to makethe students understand, maximize, and control their cognitive powersand cognitive weaknesses. Learner differences which teachers havealways been aware of are now a valuable resource to exploit. Self-direction, learner-autonomy, and negotiation are the order of the day.

Rethinking the These trends seemed to provide possible answers to problems that hadgeneral class been bothering me. At the Centre for English Language Teaching

syllabus (CELT) we see students as falling into two categories. On the one hand,there are those who apply to join specific courses (for example, Englishfor University Studies [EUS]) and those who ask for tailor-made courses(for example, Bangladeshi fish-farm personnel). On the other hand,there are those who come as individuals with no specific aims and who areslotted into the general class.The syllabuses have reflected this split. The EUS courses specify object-ives to be met over a fixed period of weeks, whereas for the four levels ofthe general classes, there is a vague skills- and strategies-based syllabus.Because the centre is small, for the general classes, there is a policy ofcontinuous enrolment (every Monday), and we also accept part-timestudents. General students can be with us for as little as a month, or asmuch as a year or more.Inevitably, there is a problem in giving these classes a sense of progressionand of progress. Teachers tend to see their listening class, or their oralskills class, at best as isolated from everything else on the timetable, atworst as a one-off. I was concerned to establish some principled guide-lines for the syllabus of the general class.

Three questions I asked myself three questions:1 What should be the aims and objectives of a general class?

The students themselves usually offer general improvement as theirreason for coming; the Centre more often than not persuades them todo external exams if the timing is right. Is this enough?

Put ting process into practice 263

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2 What should be the content of a general class?Is it enough to use the latest course book and make sure that there is agood balance between the four skills?

3 What about methodology?Is the communicative approach enough? Does it allow for differencesin learning goals and learning styles? Is enough accurate written workproduced?

I felt that one possible answer to these questions was to be found in anegotiated process syllabus, with a strong emphasis on tasks. The taskswould dictate the content and the methodology. The aims would becomeprocess aims. But would the teachers and students find this solutionsatisfactory?

The planning An examination of the background of the last years general-class intakestage indicated that a large proportion of the students had either been uni-

versity students in their own country or were about to do a universitycourse. So an English for Academic Purposes (EAP) emphasis, ratherthan a General Purposes English (GPE) emphasis, seemed to provide arationale for initiating change. In this way, I could suggest to the teachersthat they treat their language students as people with an academic back-ground, who could fairly be expected to take responsibility for their ownlearning and who would want to develop specific study skills. This wouldhave a knock-on effect on the content and the methodology. The teachingand learning would need to be much more individualized in the fifteenhours of morning classes each week (two one and a half-hour sessionseach morning). The teachers would start by helping the students toidentify their learning styles and learning problems. Through task-basedproject work - which would be negotiated with individuals, with groups,or with the whole class, as appropriate - the students would be helped toperceive in which areas they needed to do more specific language work.In groups, or as individuals, they could once again work on these problemareas, returning to the teacher with those problems they could not solvefor themselves. Thus, the teachers input would no longer be restricted toeach one and a half-hour session. The teacher would link several periodsinto a module. which would last as many weeks as was needed.Full-time students also chose two two-hour afternoon options from theeight or so on offer. In contrast to the negotiated mornings, I encouragedthe teachers to offer subjects that interested the teachers themselves, orthat they felt they did not normally get a chance to teach: English forCookery, Practical Video Making, the Media in Britain, Varieties ofEnglish, and Pronunciation for Spanish Speakers were all eventually sug-gested. English for Business had to be included, because we advertise it,and so did Exam Practice, since we did not anticipate having enoughentries for any one exam to make up a full class. We included anotheroption, Guided Study, as a bridge between morning and afternoonclasses. In these classes, students could study whatever they wanted withsome guidance from the teacher. This gave two doctors the opportunityKatie Gray

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to do some medical English. for example. On their other free afternoons,the students were to be encouraged to use the self-access room.

Anticipatedproblems for the

teachers

Anticipatedproblems for the

students

Teachers reactionsat the planning

stage

I anticipated several major problems at this stage. I wanted to pairteachers up (providing a mix of age. teaching style, etc.) and then giveeach pair responsibility for a class. But would the teachers see me asabdicating my role if I asked them to flesh out their timetables? I found asolution in Candlin and Murphy (1987). The curriculum (which was myresponsibility) would be prospective. the syllabus retrospective (anaccount provided by the teachers after the terms work); and the means ofaccountability - which had been signally lacking in the old system -would be provided by the tasks.However, this would require radical rethinking from teachers. Theywould have to be very flexible, drawing back from establishing what wasto happen in the class, waiting to see what was wanted. They would beconstantly involved in creating material as appropriate, rather than rely-ing on a textbook. The satisfaction of more efficient learning would, Ihoped, compensate for the hard work. In the event, the teachers pro-duced a large amount of material which is now held in a central file; theyalso wrote lengthy accounts of the terms work. An abbreviated versionof one such retrospective syllabus is included in the Appendix.For the students. the main problem was going to be accountability andassessment. The new syllabus plans did not seem to answer my problemabout direction. and the abandonment of forward planning makes it diffi-cult to keep track of what is happening. The students might not all ap-preciate making decisions that traditionally have been for teachers tomake; nor would students necessarily agree that their goal should andmust be the process and not the product. As a result, I determined todraw up forms for progress charts, to be used in class by students andteachers; student records. to be used by the students as an account of thework done in the self-access room: and learner contracts, to be used bymyself and the teachers for individual interviews with the students. I alsodetermined to encourage the teachers to get the students to hand intangible and well-produced end-products as a very simple way of record-ing progress and progression. The ideal would be to fire the students withintrinsic motivation and the need for self-fulfilment and enable them to goaway as independent learners, with an understanding of their language-learning problems and an awareness of how to go about solving them.If I was going to involve the teachers in the planning and responsibility,some acknowledgement of their new status was necessary. So, as thebeginning of the autumn term drew near, I set up, as the first change, astaff meeting for a whole afternoon.In the event. the teachers were very positive. They were pleased to bepaired. The pairs were delighted to be able to decide themselves on howthe fifteen hours morning teaching should be divided between them.They realized that until they met the students they could only divide thePut tin g process int o practice 265

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content of their timetables into broad areas like project work and lan-guage work. So they had accepted the value of negotiation. At the sametime, they had tentative ideas for initial tasks and projects which wouldenable the students to be more independent in their learning. Examplesincluded designing a guide to the university, and devising instructions forthe word processor and language laboratory. The teachers accepted thatsome of the conventional lockstep work (on grammar, for instance) couldbe done by students working on their own and were already suggestingfollow-up workshops and discussion groups to deal with problems thatthe students might come up with.

Successes and Probably the greatest success was the self-access room. The teachers hadfailures in the set each student at least an hours homework (based on self-assessment)

first term to be done in the self-access room every week. This ensured that everyFrom the students student at the Centre made some use of the self-access facility. It was very

point of view poorly stocked at the beginning of the term and the students were askedto make suggestions for inclusion of materials they personally wanted tostudy from. This was both helpful to the teacher who had responsibilityfor building up the resources, and also made the students see that we werevery positively supportive of their self-study. Students wanted more back-ground reading for project work. Teachers were able to put their ownbooks into short loan for this. The students also asked for listeningmaterials of all kinds; vocabulary worksheets (we found a good source atthe local ESL resources centre); and for more advanced reading material(we all brought unwanted books from home, and I also ordered triplecopies of every book set for the Cambridge First Certificate and Pro-ficiency examinations). The fact that they could also go into the languagelab or the video room in their free afternoons and listen to or watch tapesagain was much appreciated by students.The idea of tangible end-products was also very successful. One class ofmainly Japanese students visited a local primary school as part of theireducation project and spent the morning teaching a primary class aboutaspects of Japanese life. The visual display that they made subsequentlyshowed the hard work and enthusiasm that had gone into the under-taking. Each student had chosen a different aspect of Japanese culture totell or teach the children about.One class, in which two students had wanted to do some in-depth work onShakespeare, had a wall-to-wall display on what they had discovered.There had been an exhibition in the local museum and a performance atthe local theatre of A Mid sum m er-Nights Dream and they had been ableto get the rest of the class interested.A group of Tunisian teachers went on a visit to Culzean Castle and pro-duced a very interesting project about their experiences there. In anotherclass, a life-styles project involved an attempt to get a class of ten outinto the community on individual projects learning about British culture.Taking into account each students personal interests, the teacher pairedeach one with people she knew: for example, her doctor, a local

266 Katie Gray

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councillor, a crche leader, an unemployed friend, and so on. The ideawas that each student would spend a day following his or her counterpart.Inevitably, the visits could not all be organized for the same day, so thepreparation for them was often individualized. This involved appropriatebackground reading, class-work on communications skills and note-taking, and individual guidance. After their Day with . . ., there was areport to be written and a presentation to be made to the others. Ingeneral feedback sessions, the students discussed what they had learntabout British life-styles.Once again, the standard of work produced was excitingly high.Although activities worked well at small-group level, in the end it was theindividualized projects that had the greatest face validity for the students.They were delighted to find that they could work on anything thatinterested them. This showed us that negotiating the tasks did indeed leadto very positive developments of study skills, and led students to producefar more written work (often word-processed) than is normal in ourgeneral class.There were problems too: inevitably, as an individualized approach wasemphasized, the individuals pulled strongly away from one another onoccasions. It was particularly difficult to get the balance right betweentime spent on discussion, self-study, and presentations. On the otherhand, it was interesting to hear students complain about unnecessarygrammar classes.

From the teachers The teaching pairs idea worked very well. In nearly all cases, one teacherpoint of view in the pair developed the task-based process approach, and the otherused a more formal, linguistic approach. This allowed the pair to capital-ize on their different teaching styles, interests, and talents. This wasmotivating for the teachers and reassuring for the students. All theteachers worked very hard on creating materials and are beginning tobuild up a materials bank of recyclable ideas.One major and unexpected problem involved having to replace a teacherwho was taking time off. The problem entailed helping the replacementteacher not only to understand the way in which the original teacher hadintegrated her lessons, but also to identify the best way in which she, asthe new teacher, could bring her own skills and abilities to the situation.This was particularly challenging for a negotiated situation, since thereplacement teacher was not familiar with all the earlier discussions andevolving plans.

From the course I managed to see most students every month in the course of my Fridaydirectors point of morning interviews. These were invaluable both for the students and the

view teachers perception of my involvement with the new initiatives, and pro-vided me with a great deal of feedback on the way the classes were going.In the case of short-stay students, the interviews were particularly help-ful, because I could go over the rationale for the less-than-conventionalPut ting process into practice 267

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approach and ensure that, by the end of the first week, students had com-pleted an analysis of their wants, needs. and preferred learning styles.Face validity was provided by the way I was seen to act on problems thatarose in the interviews. In the beginning, the students sometimes found iteasier to voice their desire for a change in the syllabus to me, rather thanthe teachers (suggesting more authentic listening, or questioning thevalue of working in groups on a project, for instance); once they saw thatthis was passed on to the teachers who were quite prepared to negotiateon the issue, they quickly opened direct lines of communication. I tried toprovide the equivalent help to the teachers by being prepared to find andfetch whatever they decided at the last minute they needed. I also encour-aged them to pass their information-retrieval problems on to the stu-dents. So instead of a teacher having to spend an evening finding outabout something or someone. the students were encouraged to do theirown research.Not surprisingly. perhaps. it was only by the end of term that the learnercontracts really began to work. Initially, the students were unable toanalyse their difficulties below the level of the four skills. Now, however,the feeling is that with increased experience and expertise the teachersthemselves will be able to help students assess their own learning diffi-culties more rapidly.On a general rather than an individual level, the main problem that bothstudents and teachers commented on was the preponderance of studentsof just one nationality (Japanese) in the classes, and the difficulty thiscaused in oral and discussion work. Comments on this point came not justfrom the other students, but from the Japanese students themselves. Oneinteresting initiative in this direction was an afternoon option slot. ori-ginally offered as Practical Video Making. Gradually. the option turnedinto a linked series of drama techniques. confidence-building exercises,and a final presentation. All the Japanese students who took this optioncommented on how useful they found it and were pleased that they hadbeen able to determine the final shape of the option.

The future In planning for the future. there are certain things that look set to becomea part of our way of doing things:1 A continued development of the self-access facilities is planned. Theroom serves the purpose of an intimate library where the students can acton their self-assessment of their language needs.2 The teaching pairs will work with the assumption that they have thefirst responsibility for creating the timetable and for deciding when eachone of them should teach, what they should teach, and how. Then theycome and discuss their timetables with me. (See the outline timetable inthe Appendix.)3 The timetables will show linked modules, where, for example, a writ-ing workshop or a grammar workshop is linked to project support.Katie Gray

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4 We will continue to make the syllabus less classroom-oriented, withmore visits, research, etc.5 We anticipate. as a consequence of the above, less use of and expend-iture on course books.6 I will continue with the Friday morning student interviews, althoughthe teachers now spend much more time with students on self-assessment.

Conclusion It is still too early to gauge how successful either the learning or the teach-ing has been. I am confident, though, that we have found the solution tomany of our problems. We have looked at current theories in syllabusdesign and have found new inspiration for what should be the aims, thecontent, and the methodology of the general class. We have not come upwith an ideal, but with a good practical compromise. Our syllabus is nego-tiated with the students; it does draw on their individual learning pro-cesses. At the same time, by encouraging our students to work towardssuccessful end-products, we have provided them with a mechanism forseeing themselves make progress.Received Ma y 1989

Note Candlin, C. and D. Murphy. (eds.) 1987. LanguageThis article is a revised and updated version of a Learning Tasks Lancaster Practical Papers inpaper presented at the TESOL Scotland Conference English Language Education, Vol. 7.in Edinburgh, on 5 November 1988. Nunan, D. 1988. Syllabus Design Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press.

Prabhu, N. 1987. Second Language PedagogyReferences Oxford: Oxford University Press.Breen, M. 1987. Contemporary paradigms in syl- White, R. 1988. T he EL T Curriculum : Design, I n-

labus design Lan guage Teaching 20/ 2; 20/ 3. novation, and Managem ent Oxford: Blackwell.

Putt ing process into practice 269

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AppendixThis is an outline timetable for the advanced general class. Worked out by the teachers paired for this class, thetimetable is an attempt to combine a balance of skills with self-directed learning.

MONDAYThe morning timetable

Each of the ten sessions lasted for 1 hours.TUESDAY WEDNESDAY THURSDAY FRIDAY

Language Background Oralawareness to Britain Writing Project presentation

l1 3 5 7 9

Study skills ListeningV V V2 4 6 8 10

Explanatory notesSessions 1,2,6,7, and 8 were taught by one teacher:Session I: This was a workshop session based onneeds perceived by teacher and students from Thurs-days project work. and from work done inself-access.Session 2: Again, this was a feed-in/feedback sessionfrom the project slot. It was fairly structured, though,and used textbooks regularly.Session 6: Despite the extra preparation required,this evolved into an authentic listening slot, due topressure from the students; part-timers invariablychose this slot since it was discrete.Sessions 7 and 8: Whether the project was to be pro-duced by one individual or a group, the studentsspent the first part of Thursday morning workingindividually in the University library or the Centresself-access room reading and note-taking. They thencame back (again individually) to report on their pro-gress to the teacher. Project titles included: Mediatreatment of Hirohitos funeral; the rise of ScottishNationalism: T ess of th e dUrbervilles; and Varietiesof English.Sessions 3, 4, 5, 9, and 10 were taught by the otherteacher. Here are some extracts from her retro-spective syllabus:S essions 3 and 4: Background to BritainWhat: Introduction to TV news and newspapers.Shakespeare and the Dream, the legal system, Bon-fire Night, the history of the Church, Parliament,pantomime.How: Reading/listening/note-taking, video/work-sheets, discussion, writing, visits to exhibitions.theatre, law courts.270 Katie Gray

Comments: The topics were chosen by the students,or arose from a local event, so motivation andinterest were generally high. The least successful wasthe history of the Church which followed on neatlyfrom Bonfire Night and explored the issues raised bya recent national news item. but was not a topic whichseemed to interest this group. Therefore, I curtailedit and limited it to one week. Students kept a folder oftheir work, which was handed in for me to read andcomment on from time to time. I would like to organ-ize more group end-products like the display on theShakespeare work. but these are not easy to arrangeor think of.The students particularly enjoyed their visits eventhough the material was a little beyond them. Theyseemed to gain satisfaction from wrestling withauthentic. difficult English and I feel that at this stagethey benefit from being stretched. I sometimes felt Iwould like the students to do more of their ownresearch but it didnt seem appropriate when theywere already doing a project. So I concentrated onthe more specific skills of extracting information fromvarious sources and then analysing and reconstitutingit. The formula seems successful so I shall stick to itnext term but perhaps a little more research/prepara-tory work should be done out of class.Session 5: (No notes available, Ed.)S essions 9 and 10: Oral Presenta tionWhat: Individual talks. discussions, news broadcasts,radio play, exam preparation.How: Input and preparation, followed by presenta-tion and comment.Comments: On the whole, the students were fairlyaccurate but lacked fluency and the ability to project

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themselves especially in discussion. So I concen-trated on confidence-building and interpersonalskills. These improved dramatically as term pro-gressed, and as students got to know each other. Iwould have liked to do more work on pronunciationand intonation, but several of the group alreadyattended my afternoon pronunciation option and Idid not want to repeat myself. Perhaps next term Icould tackle this aspect of the course through the pro-duction of a short play. Sometimes, I worried that thecourse seemed bitty and related the Oral pre-sentation topic to Session 3 (Background to Britain).The students. however, preferred the difference ofFriday morning. so I reverted to keeping the Oral

presentation a separate entity. Students very muchappreciated the specific exam practice; from thevideo in particular, they gained useful insights intothe qualities of good speech, especially the value offluency and interpersonal skills.

The authorKatie Gray has worked at the Centre for English Lan-guage Teaching, University of Stirling, since 1983.She is particularly interested in teacher educationand teacher development. Since September 1988, shehas been in charge of the staffing and teaching for allthe courses run within the Centre.

Putt ing process into practice 271