Teach English in NantiAnhu Zhen - Chongqing

Syllabus DesignDesigning a syllabus is one of the more demanding and daunting task a teacher faces. As an EFL educator, one has to be particularly aware of students? needs, levels, class dynamics and availability of resources and materials. All these issues combined, ca teacher can then try to coordinate a syllabus that is student centered and communication oriented. One of the leading trends today to meet these goals is creating and developing a task-based syllabus. The idea behind a task-based syllabus is to design lessons and ?tasks? that will simulate and prepare students for real-world communicative situations. So instead of organizing a lesson based on grammar rules and functions of English, a teacher will find themes or topics to set the lesson around, and teach the appropriate grammar, vocabulary and receptive/productive skills around that theme or topic. There are three essential elements that teachers will need to consider before designing a syllabus. The first is language data. This refers to ?authentic? and ?non-authentic? materials and sources. Authentic materials are of course those that were not created or intended for use in the classroom, but can be adapted for specific tasks and activities. ?Non-authentic? materials are those that are specifically designed for the EFL classroom and have a specific linguistic goal in mind for students. Ultimately, the purpose of these materials is to ?make transparent the relationship between form, function and use? (Nunan, pg. 2). Many will argue that the use of ?authentic? materials should be the primary goal in the task-based environment, but ultimately a combination of both materials and sources are needed to provide context to learners, and provide them with tasks necessary for communicative development. students also need information, which generally comes in three forms: ?experiential information about the target culture, linguistic information about the target language system, and?process information about how to go about learning the language? (Nunan, pg. 3). Traditionally, this information is provided through a deductive approach. That is, a teacher or course book gives a specific rule or explanation, and students then take that and apply it to their work and studies to see the explanation or rule at work. Many proponents of a task-based syllabus will prefer a more inductive approach though. The inductive approach provides students with the materials, exercises and tasks where they practice and use certain forms and systems in the target language thus developing their own understanding and explanation of the rules. A teacher might then follow up and provide the official definition after the work for students to compare their own conclusions. The approach a teacher decides to use will greatly depend on the material, class dynamics and student ability. Practice is the third element for teachers to consider. Practice comes in many forms with the end result focusing on either a communicative or linguistic outcome. There are exercises and activities, which tend to be more restrictive and focus on specific linguistic elements. You will see these in language exercises, communication activities and enabling skills which focus on grammar mastery first to ?enable? communication later. Then there are tasks, which focus on communicative skills and aren?t too concerned with grammar and accuracy. In essence, they are more fluency oriented. There are real-world situations which can be accomplished outside of the classroom, a pedagogical task which is simulated through classroom work as rehearsal tasks or activation tasks. Having considered these three elements, a teacher can then look at the steps in designing a task-based program. The first step is to think of a real-world situation that a student might encounter. Next, think of a pedagogical task that would help simulate the situation. Third, identify some enabling skills that can be incorporated into some activities and exercises that would complement the pedagogical task. Lastly, when designing the lesson, organize the exercises, activities and tasks so that they make sense and work progressively in developing students? skills and understanding. These can be incorporated into an engage, study or activate stage. As long as there is a task incorporated and a communicative outcome is the desired result, a teacher will be fulfilling the objective and intent of creating a task-based syllabus.