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MediaUndergraduate andGraduate
Undergraduate and GraduateSyllabus:
Syllabus:
AAProposal from Students’
Proposal from Students’Perspective
Perspective
A. Introduction ………………………………………………………….…………27
1. Syllabus and curriculum……………………………………………..……28
2. Models of Syllabus design…………………………………………....….. 30
3. Approaches to Syllabus design……………………………………..…… 31
4. Functions and benefits of Course Syllabus………………..…………… 33
a. For instructors………………………………………...………………33
b. For students………………………………………………………... 34
B. Conclusion………………………………………………………………………35
NB: the Rest of the Paper Will be available in Academia website soon.
A. Introduction
Course design is the process by which the raw data about a learning need is interpreted
is to lead the learners to a particular state of knowledge. In practical terms this entails the use
of the theoretical and empirical information available to produce a syllabus, to select, adapt or
write material in accordance with the syllabus, to develop a methodology for teaching those
materials and to establish evaluation procedures by which progress towards the specified
A detailed course syllabus, handed out on the first day of class, gives students an
immediate sense of what the course will cover, what work is expected of them, and how their
performance will be evaluate. A well-prepared syllabus shows students that you take teaching
A well-crafted syllabus sends students the message that the instructor is organized,
cares about student learning, and will create effective learning experiences. A syllabus should
provide clear and explicit expectations for student learning and establish procedures and
guidelines for typical problems and requests posed by students. In the absence of a clear
syllabus, instructors must continuously negotiate decisions about deadlines, make-up work,
extra credit, and other special requests from students. When an instructor simply applies rules
described in the syllabus to a current request or problem, the actions taken are clearly justified
and students are unlikely to believe that decisions were driven by personal characteristics of
the student. In contrast, an instructor who makes these decisions on unexpected cases may
manner. Faculty can avoid many conflicts by communicating policies in their syllabus and
documented syllabus helps faculty respond to student requests in a consistent and fair manner
curriculum because they are used in some countries interchangeably meaning the same.
Curriculum is wider term as compared with syllabus. Curriculum covers all the
activities and arrangements made by the institution throughout the academic year to facilitate
learning for learners and teaching for instructors; whereas Syllabus is limited to particular
subject of a particular class. Kruger (1990a) describes 'curriculum’ as the content of all
Stern (1984) points out that 'curriculum' is used to indicate either a program of studies of
an institution, or to indicate the substance of what is taught in a given subject. For the latter
the defining of objectives, determining of content and some indication of progress are
included. Stern indicates that the term 'syllabus' is used in Britain to indicate 'curriculum' in
the more restricted sense. White (1988) says that if a curriculum is 'future directed towards an
Rodger, T (1996) says that a curriculum is understood to mean one of the following:
experiences).
White, R. & Robinson, P. (1995) regard the syllabus as the academic content in a
language programme and the order in which it is taught. Thus, syllabus described as the
structuring of content for a specific subject that is organized in subsections, providing an idea
of the work that should be done during the course of a year. Syllabus is seen as a statement of
what has to be learnt during a particular period; it is a description of the following; the policy
White (1988, pp. 3-4) summarizes the consensus of the commonalities that occur in the
It specifies the work of a department and the subsections of work done by specific
groups.
The sequencing of content is either intrinsic to the theory of language learning or the
administration.
It can only state what is taught, but cannot organize what is learnt.
Additionally, these theoretical bases for and approaches to syllabus design differ. Not
all syllabus designers, for example, describe only what is taught; many current syllabuses also
describe what the intended learning outcomes should be. Some syllabus models emphasize
objectives and content; some add methods to the model and some add assessment (ibid: 3-5).
The syllabus is an integral part of the curriculum process and invariably influenced by
level by a few policy makers and presented to teachers and learners. The mode is based on the
Johnson, K. (1982) proposes a model for syllabus design that takes into account the
source of the syllabus, the selection of syllabus items, instruction, and syllabus evaluation. He
sees the source of the syllabus as the total available culture that determines the intended
Yalden, J. (1983) presents a model that involves the aims of education and subject
matter, objectives and outcomes, teaching and learning methods and assessment that are
Steyn (1981), Calitz (1982) and Du Plessis (1993) are among the authors who propose a
cyclic syllabus design model involving the following steps (as cited in De, Villier. p, 5):
A situation analysis.
Syllabus evaluation.
In this respect, designing syllabus or developing a course to be taught for group of individuals
should take into consideration the aforementioned steps. Without paying attention to such
elements the course will be lacking organization, pointless and ineffective. For this reason,
many scholars, researches, curriculum and syllabus designer, stakeholders and language
practitioners have proposed many approaches to syllabus design, each of which focuses on a
The choice of a syllabus is a major decision in any teaching program. Several distinct
types of language teaching syllabi have been proposed, and these different types may be
implemented in various teaching situations. Krahnke (1987: 10) has proposed six types of
syllabi as follows:
collection of the forms and structures, usually grammatical elements such as verbs, nouns,
collection of the functions that are to be performed when language is used, or of the
notions that language is used to express. For example, informing, agreeing, apologizing,
real or imaginary situations in which language occurs or is used. For example, seeing the
based language teaching, the primary purpose of the instruction is to teach some content
or information using the language that the students are also learning. The students are
simultaneously language students and students of whatever content is being taught. The
subject matter is primary, and language learning occurs incidentally to the content
f. A task-based syllabus is one in which the content of the teaching is a series of complex
and purposeful tasks that the students want or need to perform with the language they are
learning.
Additionally, there are many other approaches to course syllabus along with the
and stated that: this approach focus on the needs of students and their learning process.
Instructors specifically include information that will facilitate the academic success of
Description of the course purpose so that students know what to expect from the course
Intended learning outcomes describe specific student behavior and learning goals that
Recommended study habits and details of how students succeed in this course.
new needs emerge during the process of teaching the course. Learning-centered course
syllabus makes learners’ needs in the center of its concern; these needs could be personal,
Syllabus can serve a wide variety of functions that will support and challenge students
as they engage in their educational activities. In this respect, Grunert, (1997, p. 14-19) stated
some of the functions and benefits of a well-written course syllabus on both instructors and
students.
Articulates instructors’ own scholarly orientation to the big concepts in the discipline.
Communicates the nature of the content of the course to other faculties and
administrations.
Communicates instructor’ teaching styles and pedagogical methods to other faculties and
administrators.
Helps reduce student anxiety about the course- contributing to a classroom atmosphere.
Conducive to participation.
considerate instructor.
Allows instructor to set policies which enable him/her to work comfortably.
B. For Students:
Explains how the student will change as a result of the successful completion of the
course.
Helps the student assesses her or his readiness for the course.
In this concern, syllabus plays an important role in any teaching program or course. Thus, it
helps both the instructors and students to function effectively throughout the teaching process.
It makes courses organized and focused till the underlined objectives of the course are
partially achieved, because it was stated earlier that syllabus can tell what should be taught
syllabus to our Media Studies Classes in the English department of Féz-FLDM, we may say
that the appropriate approaches to designing a syllabus in this discipline are: Content-based
Since the majority of the approaches to syllabus design are language-based, it seemed that the
selected approaches to syllabus design are adequate for designing any course or teaching
program regardless of its nature. It is, therefore, necessary to take into consideration the main