A report on the analysis of Situational Syllabus

胡曼君，张雪飞，林敦来，腾文波，陈贻雄

1. Theoretical assumptions underlying the Situational Syllabus

A situational syllabus is often defined as one in which the contents are organized according to
situations in which certain language is likely to be employed (Richards, et al, 1985:260; Ur,
2000:178; Schulz, 2005). That is, the fundamental principle for the organization of the contents is
situation, instead of grammar items, although which will also appear in the syllabus (Kaur, 1990;
Wilkins, 1976). Under this guideline, what the designer of a Situational Syllabus probably tries to
do is to predict situations that the learners are likely to run into, such as “at the airport,” “at the
doctor’s office,” and “in the classroom.” According to Wilkins, Situational Syllabus is the “only
[syllabus] other [than Grammatical Syllabus]” used widely in teaching material development in
his day (Wilkins, 1976:20). Although Situational Syllabus is now on the decline, it enjoys a
century long history (Dubin and Olshtain, 1986:37), and used to thrive in the 1950s.
As for the theoretical assumptions of the Situational Syllabus, Johnson attribute it to the
theory of language developed by John Rupert Firth (Johnson, 2002: 179-180), which we thought
is reasonable. Influenced by Saussure and Malinowski, Firth believes that language is not only an
abstract system of structures, but also a “social process”; the meaning of language is determined
by the context in which it occurs, and language has the capacity to get things done, thus human
being need to learn language to live (Liu and Feng, 2002: 302). Naturally, this “context of
situation” serves as the basis of Situational Syllabus: “Language, the reasoning goes, is best
learned and remembered in when presented in contextual settings” (Johnson, 2002:179).
Another theory underlying the Situational Syllabus is the problematic assumption that the
learner can cope with all situations in the life by putting together the learning of language patterns
appears in each single situations. Wilkins believes that this assumption on the learning process is a
“behavioral” one in nature (Wilkins, 1976: 21), which we think is appropriate. Further, Long and
Crookes (1992) interpreted the notion “synthetic syllabus” as “…syllabus relies on learners'
assumed ability to learn a language in parts (e.g., structures and functions) which are independent
of one another, and also to integrate, or synthesize, the pieces when the time comes to use them for
communicative purposes.”(Long and Crookes, 1992:30) Thus, in the framework Wilkins
circumscribes in the same book (Wilkins, 1976:2), the assumption of learning could be termed as a
synthetic one: at the final phase of learning, that is the production of a language, the knowledge of
the language is synthesized by putting together what have been learned. As will be seen in this
report, this assumption is fatal to the Situational Syllabus.

2. Components of situational syllabuses

1) Aims/Goal
2) Objectives
3) Non-language outcomes
4) Learning contents
 --Knowledge: A list of the communication situations you want to be able to operate in,
and order them from the following criteria:
 Learner’s interests and Communicative needs
 The likelihood of the students will encounter them
 Language items involved (simplicity & learnability)
 Student’s language proficiency
 Cultural differences
--Topics: A list of topics that the students are expected to be able to talk about.
--Language items: language items should be bear in mind when ordering the
communicative situations
--Skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing
5) Implementation
6) Evaluation

3. Merits of the situational syllabus

Whether or not a syllabus is considered as feasible in the actual teaching or learning environment,
in accordance with our group’s discussion, should be examined along three dimensions: (a)
language content, or the specific matter to be included; (b) process, or the manner in which
language content is learned; (c) product, or outcomes such as the language skills learners are
expected to master. To put it more specifically, materials, teacher and learners are three
fundamental components of a syllabus. Since our group have selected “situational syllabus” as the
point of penetration, we would like to adopt this three-dimensional criteria to evaluate this
syllabus type by illustrating some of its merits and drawbacks.

To begin with, situational syllabus attaches much importance to the context within which the
theme and the linguistic topics are presented; more often than not there would be a list of useful
situations which learners would encounter during the course.

3.1. Content
As the content of a situational syllabus, in most cases, is organized in order of different
authentic situations, it certainly has the potential advantage of tapping students’ knowledge of the
world as an aid to learning, and also of providing realistic, and hence motivating, materials. Thus,
as has been observed, there exists a correspondence between students’ personal experience and the
materials, on one hand; on the other hand, it can facilitate the process of grounding so-called
indirect knowledge into schemata which is generally viewed as the ultimate phase of language
learning.
Moreover, especially when it comes to ESL environment, like in China, the situation-based
method of selecting and organizing materials may well serve the purpose of bridging cultural gap
by various conversations and topics that are implied with typical social conventions and customs
of the countries and people the learners are interested in.
Last but not least, situational syllabus is flexible in nature. It is manageable to take situational
syllabus as a pedestal, upon which we can incorporate many other syllabus types, for instance,
grammatical/structural, functional/notional syllabi, etc. Granted, students learn more rapidly about
how to use different lexical items or linguistic structures, given specific situations in which they
are often employed.

3.2. Process
Process, as mentioned above, refers to the manner in which language is learned. In
compliance with this dimension, a few things have been covered in subsection 3.1. But here we
would like to emphasize the role that teachers often play under the guidance of situational
syllabus. Certainly, teachers have a larger knowledge base than that of students’, so it is plausibly
assumed that teachers are able to relate to the different situations listed in the syllabus, and come
up with a specific plan concerning how to teach students and what aspects of learning shall be
given more priorities. Taking “Coursebook for PETS (Level 1)” for an example,
Unit 7 At Home
Dialogues
Passage:Ａ Childlike Father
Words and Expressions
Notes
Exercises
Supplementary Reading: The British Bobby
Unit 8 Receiving Friends
Dialogues
Passage: My Friend Charlie
Words and Expressions
Notes
Exercises
Supplementary Reading: American Senior Citizens
Under such circumstances, teachers do not have to figure out by themselves how to make up
some rigid and lifeless situations in which certain words or structures should be used. Conversely,
the syllabus provides such contents beforehand.
In accordance with the functional viewpoint of the nature of language, language is a social
semiotic system and a meaning potential which is composed of infinite words and structures.
Bearing this in mind, as far as our imagination goes, those teachers, if conscientious enough, will
go and glean as many similar materials as possible which fix their central themes on the given
topic of the situation. Anyhow, situational syllabus makes the case in description more apt to
happen.
As is known to all, the number of situation types is innumerable, and therefore, situational
syllabus will definitely have a countless resource to utilize, so as to construct and design a variety
of courses without worrying about repetition and boredom. Also, as time goes by, society changes
as well as the mode of people’s thinking and perceiving; thus, if we adopt a situation-oriented
approach to design syllabus, the adaptability of the syllabus to social needs will, expectedly, be
greatly improved.

3.3. Product
Product in syllabus design is mainly concerned with what students are expected to learn; or in
other words, the objectives of the syllabus. It has been commonly acknowledged that under a
situational syllabus, the communicative competence is given first priorities. Of course, this has
much to do with and shares a lot in common with functional syllabus. By and large, students’
communicative competence will be improved in terms of learning and understanding language
more thoroughly and comprehensively by knowing language in use, and to be exact, the language
will be more smoothly transformed into procedural knowledge that would be stored into the long-
term memory, and according to the connectinalist view, the procedural knowledge could be
activated in real life situations with no signs of transfer. As a result, students’ communicative
competence will be naturally enhanced.

4. Drawbacks of the Situational Syllabus

Despite the merits mentioned above, we think the situational syllabus has the following four
major drawbacks.
First of all, the situational syllabus may not satisfy the learner’s needs. There are different
types of learners with various learning purposes and learning needs. Although the exact contents
of the situational syllabus are the result of a careful behavioral prediction, consisting of an
inventory of language situations and a description of the linguistic content of each of these
situations, the situational syllabus may not include all the situations in real life. For example, if a
situational syllabus were to be used for any learner whose needs could not be identified in these
situational terms, including the general language learner, the course might not provide him with
the means to handle significant language needs. As claimed by Rabbini (2002), the situational
syllabus is limited for students whose needs were not encompassed by the situations in the
syllabus.
Secondly, the situational syllabus may not predict and include the language necessary to
handle the language situation. It may be true that the situations in which the learner is likely to
need the language may be predicted, and the language necessary to perform linguistically in those
situations are then taught, language used for the same situations may be unpredictable. Learners’
response to the same situations may be quite different due to their life experience, intentions, as
well as their views of the world. The limited aims of a tourist, a waiter or a telephone switchboard
operator might be achieved adequately under the control situations. However, they would be
unprepared for anything 'out of the ordinary' (Robbini, 2002). Wilkins (1976) argues that
situational syllabus only includes language functions that occur in specific situations (p.19).
Brumfit and Johnson (1979) also address the problems with the situational syllabus such as the
limited horizons of language in specific situations and difficulty in defining what the situation is in
the first place (p.83-84).
Thirdly, in the situational syllabus cultural difference may be a factor influencing the learner.
Cheng (2002) points out that due to the cultural differences, different things may be done in the
same situations. Situational courses consist of learning units with labels like 'At the post office',
'Buying a theatre ticket', 'Asking the way' and so on. In all probability they are successful in what
they set out to do. But the learner may find in Britain a person may have gone into the post office,
not to buy stamps, but to complain about the non-arrival of a parcel, to change some money or to
ask a friend who works behind the counter to come to a football match.
It’s true that language is closely related to situations. In some situations certain intentions are
regularly expressed, certain linguistic transactions regularly carried out, but this does not mean
that they are typical of our language use. Moreover, the making of complaints and requests, the
seeking of information, the expression of agreement and disagreement can take place in almost
any situation. There are probably no situations where we typically express possibility, probability,
certainty, doubt or conviction. The situational syllabus seems to only provide with examples of
general language use in specific situations.
5. Summary
As discussed above, Situational Syllabus is to be remembered both for its pros and cons. The
members of this group share the consensus that it might be more insightful to combine Situational
Syllabus with other syllabus design approaches in the design of a single syllabus.

Bibliography
Brumfit, C. J., & Johnson, K., (Eds). 1979. The communicative approach to language teaching.
Oxford: OUP.

Cheng, X. 2002 . Material development and evaluation (In Chinese). Beijing: Foreign Language
Teaching and Researching Press. (程晓堂，英语教材分析与设计，北京，外语教学与研究出
版社)。

Dubin, F. & Olshtain, E. 1986. Course design. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education
Press.

Johnson, K. An introduction to foreign language learning and teaching. Beijing: Foreign

Language Teaching and Research Press

Kaur, A. 1990. Considerations in language syllabus design. The English Teacher, Vol XIX, pp. 67-
84.
Richards, J., Platt, J., & Weber, H. 1985. Longman Dictionary of Applied Linguistics. London :
Longman.

Liu, R. & Feng, Z. 2002. Theories and schools of linguistics (In Chinese). Nanjing: Nanjing
Normal University Press. (刘润清，封宗信，《语言学理论与流派》，南京师范大学出版社)。

Long, M.H. & Crookes, G.1992. Three approaches to task-based syllabus design. TESOL
Quarterly, 26(1): 27-56.

Schulz, R. A. 2005. Language acquisition and syllabus design: the need for a broad perspective
[On-line]. Available Telnet: http://www.adfl.org/adfl/bulletin/v15n3/153001.htm

Ur, P. 2000. A course in language teaching: practice and theory. Beijing: Foreign Language
Teaching and Research Press.

Wilkins, D. A. 1976. Notional Syllabuses. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Robbini, R. 2002. An introduction to syllabus design and evaluation. [on line]. The Internet TESL
Journal, Vol. VIII, No. 5, May 2002. available: http://iteslj.org/Articales/Robbini-Syllabus.html