English Language Teaching (Regular MA)

Introduction

“Syllabus” is defined by Richards (2001, p.2), cited in Raine, (2010), as a specification of the content of a course of instruction which lists what will be taught and tested”. There are several distinct types of syllabus namely structural, notional/functional, lexical, content based, skill based, and situational. This assignment paper emphasises on the notional functional syllabus. First the paper discusses the brief definitions of notional functional syllabus; and it continues to explain the background or history that the syllabus draws on.

Furthermore, syllabus content, organization of content, role of the teacher, role of the learner, strengths and criticisms are the major point of discussion in this assignment paper.

The notional-functional syllabi

Definition

According to Wilkins (1976, p 8), Notional-functional syllabi is one in which the content of language teaching is a collection of the functions that are performed when language is used, or of the notions that language is used to express. Examples of functions include: informing, agreeing, apologizing, requesting, and promising, so on. Examples of notions include size, age, colour, comparison, time, and so on.

The notional/functional syllabus is the best known of contemporary language teaching syllabus types. It is, however, also the object of a great deal of misunderstanding (Brumfit & Johnson, 1979: Widdowson, 1979. On the other hand', notional/functionalism has been closely associated with what has been called 'communicative language teaching”. At its simplest, notional/functionalism is, in Richards and Rodgers' (1986) terms, a theory of language.

Background

According to Nunan (1988), the broader view of language provided by philosophers of language and sociolinguists was taken up during the 1970s by those involved in language teaching, and began to be reflected in syllabuses and course books. For the first time there was a large-scale attempt to incorporate this broader view of language systematically into the language syllabus. In particular, it gave rise to what became known as functional-notional syllabus design.

As stated in Laine, (1985), the history of teaching foreign languages includes methods and techniques which have ranged from the grammar translation method, total immersion, the structural approach, to the audio-lingual and situational methods. Each time the new method tried to make up for the deficiencies of its predecessor. Notional/functionalism grew out of a functionally oriented linguistic tradition that his long existed in Britain. Rather than examine language in isolation from its uses and social context, British linguists such as Firth and Halliday (1973) have insisted that adequate descriptions of language must include information on how and for what purposes and in what ways language is used. In the United States, the sociolinguistic work of Hymes (1972) and others on communicative competence provided much of the theoretical basis for notional/ functionalism in language teaching. During the late sixties in Europe, an aware-ness arose concerning the need for adult foreign language education. Adults who had already received a secondary or university degree needed more foreign language instruction in their specialized area. Thus, the need for effective approaches to second language teaching became evident.

The Committee for Out-of-School Education and Cultural Development (a division of the Council for Cultural Cooperation of the Council of Europe) discussed, researched and defined the concept for the Notional-Functional approach. In the same report, the Committee studied the idea of having an adult education program grant a certain amount of credit for linguistic proficiency. A meeting on 11 and 12 September 1972 in Strasbourg, France, concluded the following:

1. The Committee reaffirmed that it should define language learning principles based on a large multi-media units/credits system.
2. Three papers clarifying theoretical and methodological aspects of certain basic problems were examined and together formed a basis for the further development of the unit/credit system.

The threshold level represents the terms of the learner's linguistic capability and to what extent it could be sustained. With objective language needs stated and a method of identifying them, language teaching can benefit a vast number of learners. In order to achieve this, the notional approach was proposed and grammar syllabuses were rejected. The oral proficiency objective not only gave birth to the proposal of the notional syllabus but also liberated the learner and teacher from the structured text. The Notional-Functional approach is designed to allow learners to direct their conversation according to their needs in any given situation (Laine,1985).

Syllabus content

D. A. Wilkins (1976) stated that a notional-functional syllabus should comprise three categories of meaning: semantic-grammatical meaning (including time and quantity), modal meaning (including an indication of the certainty and attitude of the speaker) and communicative function (including requests, complaints, and compliments, among a vast array of others) (Richards 2001)

According to Krahnke, (1987), the major source of information on the content of notional/functional syllabi is van Ek (1976), who presents the general syllabus for the European unit/credit system, plus inventories of notions and functions and their formal exponents. Thus, the syllabus content of Notional-Functional syllabi is functional content and notional content. White (1988, p.75) explains how the notional-functional syllabus is based on two important elements: a notional aspect and a functional aspect. The former is concerned with concepts such as “time, space, movement, cause and effect” while the latter describes and classifies “the intentional or purposive use of language.”

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A notional-functional syllabus, therefore, is one where the course content is comprised of notions, such as the ones mentioned by White (1988, p.75) and functions, such as those provided in the Council of Europe’s Threshold Level (Ek and Trim 1990).

Organization of content

According to Laine (1985), basically, a notional syllabus aims to organize language teaching in terms of the purposes of communication. Its foundation is a system of notional categories and the determination of forms of language appropriate for the expression of the purposes of communication... A syllabus providing continuity and the advantages of situational contexts, maximum generalization and coherent presentation of different language functions will have a complex structure. Grammar will not be presented systematically because form and meaning are not in a one-to-one relationship. This leaves unanswered the question of how grammar can be effectively promoted. The following seven categories are included in the organization/development of a Notional- Functional syllabus:

• Notion: topics and ideas that a learner needs to handle. Such general ideas or topics could incorporate the following: Self, Family, Education, Mobility, Health, or Sports, to name a few.
• Function: the purpose for the interaction within a given situation for which people communicate either orally or in writing.
• Situation: could be that of formally greeting friends of parents or informally greeting a peer.
• Sample Sentences: allows for the student to use basic utterances in order to understand the given concept that may need to be enlarged by the teacher because a syllabus would only present a few model sentences.
• Grammatical Structures: this to be utilized in a given notion. A teacher can quickly glance over the syllabus and determine the grammatical structures being taught in a short conversation.
• Vocabulary/Idioms: If certain grammatical structures have not been previously introduced, they can be treated as discrete vocabulary items.
• Culture: any cultural item related to a notion is presented in this section. Contained in the notion of Self is the function of greetings; the situation could be an introduction.

Role of the teacher

According to Gu Yueguo (1999), the teacher’s task is to develop the competence to use language, not to let the students know the language knowledge. His/her role is not a single minded act of lesson based teaching, but multiple competent and responsible The teacher makes a list of communication functions of the language that students will learn (expressing agreement and disagreement, greeting people, apologizing, etc).

The teacher writes a list of the semantic notions (meanings) based on the culture and the context of the speakers of the language (likes and dis-likes, formal and informal greetings, values, etc). The teacher applies the functions and the notions together into learning tasks, for instance, introducing yourself, expressing likes and dislikes, giving personal information, describing family members.

Role of the student

Students are expected to state their opinions, to talk about their own experience, and for whatever they say, to be treated with respect by the teacher, to take responsibilities for their own learning decisions, and to consciously develop learning skills (Anisa, 2011).

Strengths

According to Krahnke (1987), the notional-functional syllabus may be praised for encouraging analysis of learner needs (which the structural syllabus failed to acknowledge).The learning process goes through a cycle. Each level recycles the material into finer and more difficult discourse. In so doing, the next cycle will transform the passive knowledge into the' active knowledge bank'. The cyclic characteristic is what gives the Notional-Functional approach its attractiveness and diversity.

The Notional-Functional concept can be applied to any method. The specific method is left to the teacher. That leads to another benefit of the concept; the teacher is free to teach and experiment as he so desires. The objective of student centred teaching is thereby realized. Students not only are able to do more speaking but because of the smaller group size, they are more motivated to speak. Once in a small group, a person has a tendency to speak more because only a few people will hear him and not the whole class. The learner can use the language realistically, make mistakes, but still feel a sense of accomplishment. By using a Notional-Functional syllabus, the teacher may have to reconsider his policy on grading errors.

Criticisms

The Notional-Functional syllabus is similar to the grammatical syllabus in many ways, so they share many of the same criticisms. Notional/functional syllabi remain simple series of isolated form-function pairings will do little to develop interactional and communicative ability because these isolated functions are not synthesized into discourse. ( krahnke, 1987). Widdowson (1979) argues that although the shift from a list of grammar points to a list of NF points still produces a list and such lists are not automatically compatible with real learning. He added that inventories of functions and notions do not necessarily reflect the way languages are learned any more than do inventories of grammatical points and lexical items. He also claims that dividing language into discrete units of whatever type misrepresents the nature of language as communication.

Nunan, (1988, p. 37) agrees by saying that breaking language into small pieces misrepresents the nature of communication. In short, the NF syllabus is as synthetic and therefore, problematic: It can also be criticized for its failure to examine the needs of other stakeholders, which may also be relevant in determining the content of language courses. Furthermore, the lack of protocols may be one reason for its current lack of popularity, especially compared to the grammatical syllabus with its clear focus on accuracy, making assessment not only easy, but transparent.

Conclusion

The notional/functional syllabus is the best known of contemporary language teaching syllabus types. Notional/functionalism grew out of a functionally oriented linguistic tradition that his long existed in Britain. The syllabus content of Notional-Functional syllabi is functional content and notional content. A notional syllabus aims to organize language teaching in terms of the purposes of communication. The teacher’s task is to develop the competence to use language whereas the learners’ role is to develop learning skills.

The notional-functional syllabus may be praised for encouraging analysis of learner needs, and the learning process goes through a cycle. The NF syllabus is criticized for being synthetic and problematic for its failure to examine the needs of other stakeholders.

Bibliography

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