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Grammatical Syllabus

The document discusses a grammatical syllabus, which is a type of syllabus that prioritizes the teaching of grammar and linguistic structures. It presents grammar rules and vocabulary in a step-by-step, additive fashion. Selection and sequencing of content is based on criteria like frequency, range, availability, and familiarity. While it has advantages like established teaching materials, criticism includes that it misrepresents the complex and nonlinear nature of language acquisition.

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2K views

Grammatical Syllabus

The document discusses a grammatical syllabus, which is a type of syllabus that prioritizes the teaching of grammar and linguistic structures. It presents grammar rules and vocabulary in a step-by-step, additive fashion. Selection and sequencing of content is based on criteria like frequency, range, availability, and familiarity. While it has advantages like established teaching materials, criticism includes that it misrepresents the complex and nonlinear nature of language acquisition.

Uploaded by

dunia dunia
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Grammatical syllabus

Grammatical syllabus is constructed based on the theory that assumes that


the grammatical or structural aspects of language form are the basic or
useful aspects of language.

Top priority to the teaching of grammar and structures:

1.A list of linguistic structures(noun, verb, pronoun, adjective, singular,


plural, and tenses)

2.A list of words ,the lexicon to be taught(singular and plural making, the
forms making the tense system , and special morphology such as, articles,
determiners, prepositions , and so on)
Structural syllabus, also known as the grammatical syllabus, is the most
common and traditional syllabus type. It has been in use by language
teachers for many years. It is a product oriented, content based syllabus in
that the focus is on knowledge and skills which learners should gain as a
result of instruction, not on how they can attain them. Synthetic approach to
syllabus designing is essential to produce such a syllabus. Most
grammatical syllabus seems to be that language consists of a finite set of
rules and these rules can be learned one by one in an additive fashion.
Features
1.The key features of structural syllabus is synthetic (requires analysis of
language, content i.e. word frequency, grammatical analysis, discourse
analysis)
2.In synthetic syllabus , different parts of language are taught separately
and step by step, So that learners’ acquisition on the language is gradually
the accumulation of parts until the whole structure.
Selection and gradation / sequencing:

Syllabus input is graded according to grammatical notions of simplicity and


complexity. Selection and sequencing of vocabulary in a structural syllabus
are done with the help of the criteria mentioned by Michael West (1953):

(a) Frequency: The number of times the word appears in our use of language.

(b) Range: The number of texts / areas in which the item is found.

(c) Availability: Most appropriate and necessary for certain situations.

(d) Familiarity: Most familiar words.(e) Coverage: The degree to which a


word covers other words.
Advantages:

The main advantages of the structural / grammatical syllabus are the


followings:-

(a) Structures and vocabulary are the two most important elements of a
language. Without good command of these sectors, no one can conceive of
performing in a language successfully.

(b) There is teaching facility as there are available materials, textbooks, etc.

(c) Sequencing and selection is not so difficult as it is with semantic and


functional syllabuses.
Criticism

1) One early criticism was that structurally graded syllabuses


misrepresented the nature of that complex phenomenon of language.

2) SLA researchers state that grammatical grading of content interferes


with language acquisition which is more a global than a linear process.

3) Form and meaning are emphasized and therefore, functional aspect of


meaning is ignored.
4) Meaning of words and sentences is taught in isolation within a
particular grammatical form.

5) What is taught within this view is items present in a structure.

6) The attack on grammatical syllabus is in part an attack on the view that


language must be taught as a body of knowledge, a package that the
teacher passes to the learner.

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