the syllabus is dead, long live the syllabus: thoughts on the state of language curriculum, content,...

The Syllabus is Dead, Long Live the Syllabus: Thoughtson the State of Language Curriculum, Content,Language, Tasks, Projects, Materials, Wikis, Blogsand the World Wide Web

Peter A. Shaw*Monterey Institute of International Studies

Abstract

In the 1990s, second and foreign language education entered the so-called post-method condition,marking the end of the search for a global pedagogy applicable to all learning contexts. Just as lan-guage pedagogy – the design and implementation of learning tasks – became flexible and localised,so have corresponding curricular concepts and procedures followed suit, leading to the beginningof a post-syllabus condition. Supported by developments in CALL (Computer-Assisted LanguageLearning), the move to a learner-centred focus, and the deployment of authentic target languagetexts and artefacts, language learning and teaching are becoming increasingly local, nimble, rele-vant and specific. At the same time, the latest educational and communication technologies (wikis,blogs, Skype, Second Life and the like) are having a strong impact on what constitutes the local interms of a particular learning community.

Introduction

The quest for a unifying and globally relevant language teaching method might be said tohave officially ended with the paper, ‘‘The postmethod condition’’, by Kumaravadivelu(1994). This work was subsequently complemented by ‘‘Towards a postmethod peda-gogy’’ (Kumaravadivelu 2001), which was elaborated into the book, Beyond Methods,again by Kumaravadivelu in 2003. In the intervening years, significant attention in thefield of language education has been paid to competing visions of the syllabus, to differentaspects of learner-centeredness, to the role and status of authentic (real world) materialsand, most recently, to the role of computer technology and the Internet. In this study,I sketch these developments and propose that we are also approaching a post-syllabus condi-tion, so that neither the content nor the procedures of a given language course are prede-termined. Rather, they are shaped, on the one hand, by co-constructive, collaborativeprocedures among teachers, students and other participants in the learning community;and, on the other, by the available educational and communication technologies.

In other words, in some contexts, the traditional language syllabus is dead. It has beenreplaced by looser, more flexible and resolutely temporary frameworks, which serve thepurposes of a given learning group and are promptly discarded the instant that commu-nity disbands. It must be emphasised, however, that currently, in the great majority oflanguage learning and teaching situations, not only is the syllabus not defunct, but it alsois vital to the conduct of a coherent programme.

While methodology (pedagogy) and curriculum are closely related, it is helpful to sepa-rate them while exploring historical trends, present realities and future possibilities.

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In what follows, therefore, the discussion will move back and forth between the two,including related considerations for learning materials and the professional preparation oflanguage teachers. In the end, an account of a post-method, post-syllabus approach mustcoherently unite all elements.

Clarifications: Target Language, Curriculum and Syllabus

Before proceeding, I want to clarify a couple of key terms. The first involves reference tothe target language (TL) and the context in which it is learned and taught. The two tra-ditional major contexts have been recently renamed (Graves 2008): target language-removed(roughly equivalent to the old foreign language or FL) and target language-embedded contexts(second language or SL). For this purpose, I simply use TL to cover all situations wherelearners are developing proficiency in a language that is not their mother tongue. Thesecond clarification involves the terms, syllabus and curriculum. While the two are some-times treated as synonymous, the literature generally makes a distinction. From a generaleducation point of view, Posner (2004) lists seven common curriculum concepts: scopeand sequence, syllabus, content outline, standards, textbooks, course of study and plannedexperiences. In language education terms, Johnson (1989) also emphasises that curriculumis the wider concept, syllabus the narrower. He includes both ‘‘all the relevant decisionmaking processes of all the participants’’ and ‘‘the products ... for example policy docu-ments, syllabuses, teacher-training programmes, teaching materials and resources, andteaching and learning acts’’ (1). Johnson notes that the former is harder to describe andassess. Again, syllabus is subsumed under the curricular umbrella.

Krahnke (1987:7) plays down the differences in his survey of syllabus types: ‘‘The dis-tinction between curriculum and syllabus is not a major concern here. While a distinctionis usually assumed in the literature, it is rarely clear’’. However, he adds that syllabi areusually regarded as more specific or concrete than curricula, while the latter may embracea number of the former. Breen (2001:151), in a later survey of syllabus design, beginswith this sharp distinction:

Any syllabus is a plan of what is to be achieved through teaching and learning. It is part of anoverall language curriculum ... which is made up of four elements: aims, content, methodologyand evaluation.

I would add that curriculum should also include the resources (instructional and supportstaff, library, computer lab and the like). Crabbe (2003:10) offers a more concise generalaccount of curriculum as follows: ‘‘an organisation of learning opportunities, or means, forachieving certain outcomes or ends’’. This suggests a fluidity and dynamism in curriculumdesign which are echoed elsewhere: Graves (2000) adopts a systems approach to coursedesign and shows how processes are overlapping and interconnected. Carroll (2007:3)similarly views curriculum as a complex of information gathering, decision-making,implementation and outcomes in a particular setting. He compares top–down andbottom–up design processes and underscores the value of the latter:

... curriculum innovations will succeed or fail according to the extent to which teachers in par-ticular, and to some extent students, feel they are meaningfully involved in the process ofchange.

Graves (2008) also sees the teacher as a catalyst for curriculum change as the classroomlearning community interacts with the TL world, both actual and virtual. Curriculum isconsequently defined as the planning, implementation and evaluation of what is learned

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ª 2009 The Author Language and Linguistics Compass 3/5 (2009): 1266–1283, 10.1111/j.1749-818x.2009.00154.xJournal Compilation ª 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

as a coherent set of processes and content with specific and locally relevant purposes. Insuch an emergent view of curriculum, the broader framework becomes paramount andthe concept of syllabus tends, as we shall see, to fade into oblivion.

The Historical Context: From Grammar to Communication

The teaching of SL or FL was structured for a long time by the rigid scaffolding of thegrammatical syllabus. The unit-to-unit progression from one grammatical rule (or struc-ture) to the next, accompanied by an appropriate amount of new vocabulary, sustainedboth deductive (the Grammar Translation Method) and inductive approaches (the DirectMethod, the Audio-Lingual Method or ALM), which dominated the twentieth-centurypedagogies. However, by 1970, parent fields had undergone significant changes as psy-cholinguistics rejected behaviourism as an account of language learning, linguistics turnedaway from structuralism to more sophisticated accounts of syntax and discourse and theemerging Sociolinguistics began to offer data-based insights into language use and com-munication in the real world. These significant shifts were echoed in language educationby a search for more communicative approaches and by a questioning of the role offormal properties of the TL as the basis for instruction.

This upheaval appeared initially as two distinct cracks in the existing facade. From acurricular point of view, alternatives to the grammatical syllabus were offered: David Wil-kins was writing about the notional (or notional-functional) syllabus as early as 1972.Wilkins’ 1976 book summarises his work. Other models followed (see Krahnke 1987, fora concise survey): the situational syllabus, which catalogues the physical contexts for TLuse; various versions of a lexical syllabus (Willis 1990; Lewis 2001); a discourse syllabus(McCarthy and Carter 2001); skill-based syllabi, basing each unit on a component of, say,the reading or writing skills (Omaggio-Hadley 2000); the task-based syllabus, presenting asequence of activities, which ranged from the purely pedagogic to the academic to thereal world (Prabhu 1987; Van den Branden 2007); and content-based, where the focusshifted from teaching the TL directly, to teaching a body of relevant subject matterthrough the TL (Mohan 1984; Stryker and Leaver 1997; Met 1999; Kaspar 2000; Pally2000; Jourdenais and Shaw 2005).

The second locus of change was in classroom pedagogy. As the prevailing methodswere called into question, a rapid outpouring of possible alternatives ensued. Theseincluded: James Asher’s (1969, 1982) Total Physical Response (TPR); Tracy Terrell’s(1982) Natural Approach (which incorporates TPR); Charles Curran’s (1976, 1982; alsoRardin 1977) Community Language Learning (CLL); Caleb Gattegno’s (1973, 1976)Silent Way and Georgi Lozanov’s Suggestopedia (Racle 1975; Bancroft 1979; Lozanov1979, 1982). After a rather intensive period of initial interest in these methods, however,the absence of documented success and the recognition of severe limitations returned thefocus of the field to the promising but ill-defined approach known as CommunicativeLanguage Teaching (CLT). Once this became established as a broad attempt to engagelearners in identifying and expressing meanings in relevant contexts, there arose a com-plementary group of principles and procedures known initially as Consciousness Raising,subsequently (and currently) as Language Awareness (LA). In this aspect of learning andinstruction, students are engaged, not in communication, but in examining how the TLuses forms to express particular meanings in particular contexts.

In other words, by the turn of the century, the cutting edge of the field had reached,in broad strokes, the following: in a particular unit of work, learners turn to a new topicand are exposed to spoken and written TL texts in such a way that they are able to grasp

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both the overall significance and the key detailed meanings; they then engage with themessages of this material through such speaking and writing activities as detailed compre-hension tasks, problem-solving, discussions, analysis and offering their own personal inter-pretations and reactions. Finally, they return to the TL texts and their own output andexamine the use of particular forms. If, for example, a particular written text is rich inpassive or subjunctive forms or in relative clauses, after it has been mined for the relevantmessages, it may be approached by first locating and identifying these forms and thenanalysing why the speaker or writer makes particular formal choices to express particularmeanings in particular contexts (see Suzuki and Itagaki 2007, for an example).

Parallel to these developments in syllabus and pedagogy was a series of moves thatpushed language programmes to become more specific and relevant to the population oflearners. The first of these was Languages for Specific Purposes (LSP) with English (ESP)leading the way (see Mackay and Palmer 1981 for an influential early account; Jordan1997 for a helpful account of possibilities and resources; Orr 2002 for a dozen insightfulcase studies, covering contexts as disparate as law and business, shipbuilding and brewing).Specific purpose programmes were driven from the outset by needs assessment proceduresthat outlined the objective and subjective needs of learners and often pointed to relevanttasks and materials, which would be incorporated into the course design. The rapiditywith which other languages are catching up with English is apparent from a survey byMurray (2007) indicating how many university programmes in the United States arecombining LSP courses with particular academic and professional specialisations. Examplesrange from French and Italian for ballet and opera apprentices to Chinese and Interna-tional Business, Spanish for Business and Tourism, Spanish for Health Professionals andArabic and Economics. The general principles behind this language–subject matterintegration in tertiary level curricula can be found at the ACTFL (American Council onTeaching Foreign Languages) website (http://www.actfl.org).

The localisation of this process is exemplified by Davies (2006:3), who describes theuse of ‘‘teacher-designed class-specific questionnaires intended to obtain context-relevantdata from learners as an aid to better course provision’’. Davies emphasises that the focusmust be on an individual class, rather than the programme or institution, as that is wheredata-based plans are implemented. The benefits of course-specific surveys include a morecohesive course, more effective materials selection and enhanced learner-centeredness.Second, investigation of language students’ learning strategies and various learning stylepreferences (Oxford 1990) established two related needs: to recognise learners as differentone from another along a variety of dimensions and to accommodate this reality bybuilding variety and choice into the language curriculum (Tudor 1996).

Combining the contributions of LSP and the emphasis on learning styles and strategieshas produced a more learner-centered approach to language education. By focusingclosely on the wants, needs, preferences, purposes, interests and goals of their students,language programmes have become more specifically and locally relevant. White(2007:321) offers an updated account, listing features that might now be used to characte-rise contemporary language learning: ‘‘lifelong, self-directed, relevant, authentic, global,flexible, constructivist, negotiated, collaborative, virtual, international...’’. This variety isthen condensed into four key dimensions: the relevance of learner needs, interests andgoals to curricular decision-making; the responsiveness, or adaptability or flexibility,required of language teachers in incorporating learner inputs; the commitment to co-construction of knowledge by learners and teacher through meaningful interaction andsustaining a culture of enquiry, in which students and teachers never stop exploring boththe TL and the most effective means for learning it. White then relates each dimension



to current issues in technology-mediated instruction. In terms of relevance, for example,a profile of learner needs will often feature using Web resources and participating inonline communities.

The tendency towards learner-centeredness has been accompanied, perhaps reinforced,by a move towards authentic materials, defined broadly as spoken and written texts cre-ated by native speakers for other native speakers and not to serve the purposes of thoselearning the language (see Van Lier 1996; for a critical discussion of the core issues andGilmore 2007 for a helpful update). Again, technology mediation plays a key role, as theWeb provides instant access to a huge range of information sources, permitting studentsto make personal choices about which topics to research and which resources to explore.Most recently, in fact, language educators have been systematically exploring the possibili-ties of computer technologies and the Internet, an examination that was initially tentative(see Hyland and Hamp-Lyons 2002) but which has subsequently gathered impetus andboldness, along with sophistication in analysing learner behaviours and learning outcomes(Warschauer and Kern 2000; Belz 2003; White 2003; Holmberg et al. 2005; Belz andThorne 2006).

It must be stressed here that curriculum innovation is always challenging. Markee(1997:172–80), reviewing the lessons from a case study in curricular innovation, derivesnine principles, including that developing new curriculum is a complex phenomenon;curriculum change is an inherently messy, unpredictable process, which always takeslonger to institute than first anticipated; and it is very likely that proposals made by achange agent will be misunderstood.

These trends combine to move language programmes away from rigid syllabi deliveredthrough published textbooks, towards flexible and nimble frameworks which maximiserelevance to learner needs and interests and involve students in identifying topics andreal-world resources. It must be emphasised, however, that there are a number of real-world conditions which slow down, even completely impede, this movement. Theseinclude: large class size, lack of resources (especially technology and Internet access, butoften more basic items as well), teachers with limited proficiency in the TL, teachers withlimited pedagogical training, low student motivation and standardised tests, in which stu-dents’ performance has a great impact on their future academic or professional prospects.It is safe to conclude, in fact, that the majority of SL or FL programmes in the world arefar from the post-method, post-syllabus conditions outlined in this study. Indeed, there isconsiderable documentation (Holliday 1994; Byram and Fleming 1998; Littlewood 2007)of the difficulties which continue to constraint the import of some form of CLT intomany language-learning communities. In a curricular version of Zeno’s Paradox, thegrammar-based, textbook-driven, heavily tested tortoise may never catch the self-deter-mining, autonomous, technology-driven hare, who defies Aesop’s version by never sittingstill. From experience, I can attest that one of the more intriguing ironies of a career inlanguage teacher education is an involvement in coaching one and the other of these tworunners.

Methods and Pedagogy: How We Reached the Post-Method Era

Over at least the past century and a half, one might posit two broad traditions in languagelearning and teaching (see Howatt 1984 for an excellent review of the facts andMusumeci 1997 for a compelling account that the longer, broader view of the history oflanguage education reveals a more unified approach). One (see Figure 1) we may labelthe Naturalist approach (examples are in green), which is based on a relatively

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Look at these resources for Authentic Materials argument.

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subconscious, effortless process of exposure to TL input under circumstances which ren-der that input comprehensible to the learner. The Direct Method emerged in the latterpart of the nineteenth century as a specific instantiation of this idea and continues today,often as a lively, private language school alternative (or supplement) to the more aca-demic, effortful and conscious rigours of school language programmes. During the meth-odological splintering of the 1970s, James Asher’s TPR and Tracy Terrell’s NaturalApproach grew from this same naturalistic soil and flourished briefly.

The Rationalist tradition (examples in red), in contrast, is based on a view of languagelearning as a conscious, effortful endeavour in which formal rules are mastered, memor-ised and then applied through manipulative tasks, such as translation (both into and outof the TL) or completing sentences by filling in blanks. This deductive emphasisdominated the Rationalist side of the street until the Chomsky revolution forced are-evaluation, and a rather awkward hybrid called Cognitive Code was proposed, but hadlittle impact before being supplanted by the more centrally inductive ConsciousnessRaising (Rutherford 1987), supplanted by the more sophisticated LA movement(Hawkins 1984; Donmall 1985; Bertoldi 1988; James and Garrett 1991; Van Lier 1995).

There are other versions of the distinction proposed in this study. Diller (1978), forexample, summarised the issues of the time in terms of an empirical choice (represented bythe ALM) versus the rationalist alternative (Grammar Translation). While this dichotomy

Dialogue-based approaches

The grammar-translation The direct method method

The readingmethod

1955 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Total physicalresponse Natural

approach

Cognitivecode

Communitylanguagelearning

Silentway

1980 Communicativelanguage teaching

Consciousness-raising

1990 Language awareness Notionalfunctional

Task-based

Content-based

Audio-lingualmethod

Audio-visualmethod

Structural-situationalmethod

Rationalisttradition

Naturalistictradition

Fig. 1. Two traditions of language teaching methods.



was certainly very meaningful in the 1960s and 1970s, Musumeci (1997:111), after a care-ful historical survey, places the ALM in context as a ‘‘brief hiatus’’. In Figure 1, therefore,ALM is bracketed in a separate, short-lived tradition with its own unique hue (blue).

By the early 1980s, it was possible to see that the Naturalistic ⁄ Rationalist distinctionwas insufficient for explicating the range of alternatives being proffered. At this point,language teaching methods could be categorised according to the central tenet, or thecrucial key to successful learning, and five such categories might be proposed:

• cognitive, where the central precept indicates the chosen model of conscious learning;again, the Grammar Translation Method is the most common exemplar; othersincluded the Silent Way and Cognitive Code;

• behaviourist, where learning lies not in conscious, cognitive behaviours but in a stimu-lus–response model, with massive repetitive practice with constant feedback; the parentALM gave rise to the Audio-Visual Method and a UK derivative known as the Struc-tural-Situational Method (see Davies et al. 1975);

• humanistic, where the basic principles call for treating learners as individual humanbeings with their own affective and cognitive profile, learning style preferences andspecifiable target needs; these ideas made significant contributions through Suggestope-dia and CLL before being absorbed into CLT;

• comprehension-based, where central learning processes stress understanding of the inputover the productive skills; TPR, the Natural Approach and the Reading Method all fithere;

• communicative, culminating in the flagship CLT, which simultaneously caused a stirringin curricular waters, producing syllabus frameworks such as notional-functional, situa-tional and content-based.

As noted before, the short-lived expansion of the methodological menu provoked a greatdeal of interest in language pedagogy (see Stevick 1976, 1980; Blair 1982; Oller andRichard-Amato 1983; Larsen-Freeman 1986). When this began to recede, the outcomemight well have been to consolidate practice around CLT, with some elements fromother methods accommodated in subordinate roles. For example, the role of TPRbecame largely confined to the early days and weeks of a language course, the periodwhen learners are not yet ready to produce the TL and are more comfortable respondingto input non-verbally. CLT, however, failed to proceed directly to a stage of maturityand dominance.

One possible explanation is that interest now swung back to the nature of the optimalcommunicative syllabus. Interest in the notional-functional syllabus waned as the content-based revolution began and practitioners turned to the possibility that the communicativelanguage syllabus was not linguistic at all, but based on subject matter areas identified asrelevant to a particular learner population.

At the same time, one of the challenges for CLT was to incorporate four of these fivecategories (the communicative, humanistic, comprehension-based and cognitive), leavingbehind only the discredited behaviourist approach. For example, in terms of humanisticinfluences, while methods such as CLL and Suggestopedia left little in the way of usabletechnique, their spirit and basic principle of the learner-as-person combined with theactivity menus of proponents such as Moskowitz (1978) to infuse CLT with the intent tofacilitate learners’ efforts to express in the TL their own ideas, opinions and feelings.

Kumaravadivelu (2003), in characterising the post-method condition, points to theidealised nature of the theory, concepts and procedures in any method: there is no

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flexibility for adjusting to the needs and preferences of a given learning population. Inaddition, multiple studies have confirmed that teachers who claim to base their practicesquarely on a particular method in fact follow neither the theoretical principles nor therecommended classroom procedures. By the early 1990s, in fact, more and more teacherswere claiming to have adopted an eclectic approach, rather than following any onemethod. This came in for some sharp criticism: Stern (1992:11), for example, declaredthat the eclectic approach

offers no criteria according to which we can determine which is the best theory, nor does itprovide any principles by which to include or exclude features which form part of existing the-ories or practices.

Leaving pedagogical decisions to the judgement of individual teachers is, for Kumarava-divelu, too vague and broad to be a satisfactory solution.

The post-method condition, Kumaravadivelu (2003:33) suggests, leads to a search foran alternative to methods, a search that is based on ‘‘location-specific, classroom-orientedinnovative strategies’’. This means much greater autonomy for individual teachers, whomust be prepared to adopt a reflective, self-critical approach to monitor the impact oftheir practice and especially of their innovations. However, this autonomy is tempered bya principled pragmatism, with teachers retaining an awareness of theory-practice relation-ships as manifested in their teaching. Kumaravadivelu proposes to delineate the particularpossibilities of this pragmatism with a set of ten principles, or macrostrategies. Theserange from general stipulations for conducting a language class (maximise learning oppor-tunities, raise cultural consciousness), guidance for designing tasks (contextualise linguisticinput, integrate language skills) to learner-centered mandates (promote learner autonomy,facilitate negotiated interaction). From each macrostrategy, Kumaravadivelu deriveslengthy menus of microstrategies, specific and concrete ideas for classroom practice.

For practitioners closest to the post-method, post-syllabus condition described in thisstudy, even this principled framework and rich activity menu may be too constraining.There is a tradition in our field (starting, perhaps, with Fanselow 1987) of encouraginglanguage teachers to experiment, for example, by making small pedagogical adjustmentsand then observing the outcomes. This has become the emergent pedagogy as seen, in thecase of the writing class, with Skorczeweski’s (2005) focus on ‘‘teaching one moment at atime’’ and in the work of Ganley and Sawhill (2007). I return to this thread next; first,although, parallel developments in the curriculum must be sketched.

Curriculum Developments: The Search for a Communicative Syllabus

As long ago as 1973, it was suggested that the more significant changes in approach andpractice would be located in the nature of the TL curriculum (what is taught), not in thepedagogy (how we teach). A concise and accurate account of this is provided by Wilkins(1976), who introduced the important distinction between synthetic and analytic types ofsyllabus. The former is the building block approach, with new pieces of the target wallor building being introduced one at a time, examined in isolation and then added to thegrowing totality. An analytic syllabus, in contrast, permits learners to see large sections ofthe target discourse (whole texts, conversations, stories and so forth) and to understandthe overall significance before focusing on discrete elements, which are always examinedin the context of the whole.

After the various experiments previously mentioned (notional-functional, situationaland the like), the most promising alternative to emerge was content-based instruction



(CBI; Mohan 1984; Met 1991, 1999; Stryker and Leaver 1997; Kaspar 2000; Pally 2000).At its simplest, this means that units of work are primarily labelled not with FL categories(The present perfect or Prepositions of place) or situations (At the airport) or speech acts(Making requests or Asking for clarification), but with subject matter topics. Thus, forexample, a low-intermediate Spanish class might approach a geography module calledThe geography of Mexico (or Spain, for students in Europe). Units in this syllabus wouldhave predictable themes (physical features, climate, main population centres, etc.) and besupported by authentic materials, including maps, charts and tables of data.

In some cases, the TL is the medium of instruction and mastery of the content is cru-cial (Met 1994, 1999; Genesee 1994 at: http://www.ncbe.gwu.edu/miscpubs/ncrcdsll/epr11.htm; Cummins 2000 at: http://www.iteachilearn.com/cummins/immersion2000.html). In others, the content is a vehicle for enhancing TL mastery but subordinate as anoutcome (Lafayette and Buscaglia 1982; Stryker and Leaver 1997; Pessoa et al. 2007;Grim 2008). In yet others, the position is more balanced (Shaw 1997; and for a valuablesurvey and examples, see the CoBalTT website at: http://www.carla.umn.edu/cobaltt/modules.html). Whatever the content ⁄ language balance, I believe that all CBI approacheshave a lot in common, features which Jourdenais and Shaw (2005:10) tried to capture inthis extended definition:

The mastery of new subject matter and the provision of comprehensible L2 input and outputthrough cumulative tasked-based interaction sequences in academic style and driven largely byauthentic materials, such that learners’ language, academic, real life and learning skills are fos-tered in a positive, co-operative, and supportive environment.

Clearly, this brings together both curricular and pedagogical features, neatly capturing theintersection between key features of CLT, on the one hand, and a meaning-driven sylla-bus on the other.

As noted before, one important version of content-based language learning is theimmersion programme, which has spread from its beginnings in Canada in the 1960s tomany contexts around the world (see Johnson and Swain 1997 for an array of case stud-ies). In their introduction, Johnson and Swain point to features central to all such pro-grammes: exposure to the L2 is confined to the classroom, where it is the medium ofinstruction, in a curriculum that deliberately parallels the local L1 curriculum; overt sup-port for the L1 is provided as the aim is for additive bilingualism – teachers, for example,are bilingual and the classroom culture is that of the local community. On the otherhand, these programmes vary greatly along other dimensions: they may begin as early aspre-school or as late as high school or even college.

One way to summarise these developments is the so-called ‘‘5 Cs’’, which representthe Standards for Foreign Language Learning in the twenty-first century, created in1999 by a consortium of foreign language education groups headed by the AmericanCouncil for Teaching Foreign Languages (ACTFL at: http://www.globalteachinglearning.com/standards/5cs.shtml provides a clear summary). These five pillars, intended todescribe the recommended content for learning world languages, are: communication,cultures, connections, comparisons and communities. Given the events of the precedingtwo decades, it is not surprising to encounter communication and culture in this list,and ‘‘comparisons’’ represent the need for students to compare and contrast languagesand cultures, uncovering patterns and making predictions about verbal and non-verbalbehaviours, resulting in a better understanding of not only the TL and culture but alsoof the L1. More summoning are connections and communities. The former calls for TLinstruction to be integrated with other subject areas to produce theme-based units and

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lessons. The latter envisages learning moving beyond the classroom into available multi-lingual ⁄multicultural communities, whether local enough to be reached by field trips, orthe wider world, to be engaged through e-mail, web-based activities or exchangeprogrammes.

A Note on Tasks and their Place in the SL Curriculum

The origins of task-based language learning lie in the 1980s and attempt to formaliseCLT by building clear links between the language classroom and the TL world beyond.Krahnke (1987:58) puts it this way: ‘‘The defining characteristic of task-based content isthat it uses activities that the learners have to do for noninstructional purposes outside ofthe classroom as opportunities for language learning ... Tasks are a way of bringing thereal world into the classroom’’. Over the last twenty years, a variety of accounts, manybased on SL acquisition research, have offered support for an array of individual tasks andtaxonomies: Lee (1995), for example, argues for discussion tasks as prime exemplars ofcommunicative tasks, while Willis (1996) is more concerned with generating meaningfultask sequences (see Skehan 1998 for the SL acquisition (SLA) dimensions and Skehan2003 for a valuable survey of the whole picture). In general, SLA researchers have beenconcerned with exploring and explicating individual tasks; teachers and pedagogy spe-cialists have been exploring different types of tasks and how they might be sequenced tocreate effective lessons and units (Legutke and Thomas 1991).

Vigorous discussion has continued into this century (Bygate et al. 2001). Lee (2006:32)offers this bottom line: ‘‘The consensus is that task-based instruction views language as ameans to an end. Beyond that, variation characterizes the definitions’’. Lee then providesa definition that

is offered within an instructional context and is, therefore, a pedagogically logical definition oftask. A task is (1) a classroom activity or exercise that has (a) an objective attainable only by theinteraction among participants, (b) a mechanism for structuring and sequencing interaction, and(c) a focus on meaning exchange; (2) a language learning endeavor that requires learners tocomprehend, manipulate, and ⁄ or produce the TL as they perform some set of work plans.

For Van den Branden (2007:1), tasks represent ‘‘an approach to language education inwhich students are given functional tasks that invite them to focus primarily on meaningexchange and to use language for real-world, non-linguistic purposes’’. To such targettasks are juxtaposed learning tasks to provide a balance between meaning and form. Willisand Willis (2007) also continue to contrast focus on form and focus on meaning indiscussing tasks. They note the various definitions of task available and seem to preferSkehan’s (1998) account in which a task is an activity with characteristics including theprimacy of meaning, learners have opportunities to express their own ideas, there is arelevance to comparable real-world activities and a clear outcome.

A study of proposed task typologies suggests a strong link with work in general educa-tion. I see much in common between, say, the task categories in Willis (1996) and thework of Bloom, whose taxonomy of six levels of cognitive activity has been revised byAnderson et al. (2001). The comparison is offered in Figure 2, and while not exact, sug-gests to me that the language teacher can learn from our colleagues in other subject areasabout describing and sequencing effective learning tasks – just as we can learn aboutsequencing topics in a content-based syllabus.

It might arguably be a strength of the task-based approach that it blurs the traditionaldistinction between syllabus and pedagogy because both are defined in terms of task.



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Willis and Willis (2007) stress that accurate syllabus design is based on needs assessmentcovering both tasks and topics. Two basic questions are asked: For what do learners needto use the TL? What topics do learners want to learn about? This suggests to me, though,that the syllabus is more accurately described in terms of content, while units and lessonsare built from a relevant range of appropriate tasks.

To grasp the possible wider palette of task types, we must return for a moment to LA.Borg (1994) characterised LA as methodology by describing LA-oriented tasks, includingsuggestions for language teacher training. Basically, LA pedagogy aims to engage the lear-ner with the TL, describing (and not prescribing) formal features of the TL through aprocess of discovery, and to have learners reflect on TL use in a variety of domains(social, cognitive, affective and the like). In a useful summary of recent developments,Svalberg (2007:292) notes

In general, approaches and techniques which make use of or engender conscious knowledgeand which stimulate engagement with the language in a specific context, within a constructivistframework, are consistent with LA pedagogy.

Thus, tasks in the rationalist tradition can complement the more naturalistic communica-tive type to provide learners with a balanced learning experience.

A simple dichotomy, however, whether communicative vs. awareness raising or targetvs. learning, conceals the true complexities of what is available to language teachers andlearners. A clear expression of the need for more categories of task comes from Little-wood (2004, 2007), who proposes five categories:

1. non-communicative learning (e.g. grammar exercises)2. pre-communicative language practice (e.g. question-and-answer practice where the

teacher asks questions to which the answers are already known3. communicative language practice (e.g. information gap tasks)4. structured communication (e.g. structured role-plays)5. authentic communication (e.g. problem-solving tasks),

with the role of meaning increasing from the weakest in type 1 to the strongest in type5.

A recent contribution which I regard of great value in establishing a clear and compre-hensive task typology is a pair of articles by Crabbe (2003, 2007). The first (2003:21)combines the notion of quality in language education with the first of Kumaravadivelu’smacrostrategies, maximising learning opportunities, suggesting that the latter might beunpacked into seven ‘‘opportunity categories’’. These are: input, output, interaction,

Revised Bloom’s taxonomy Willis (1996) task types

Remember Listing

Understand Ordering and sorting

Apply Comparing

Analyze Problem solving

Evaluate Sharing personal experiences

Create Creative tasks

Fig. 2. Comparison of a task typology with Bloom’s taxonomy.

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feedback, rehearsal, language understanding and learning understanding. The second(2007) takes the further step of proposing that the full value of a particular task can beassessed by examining how many opportunity categories are invoked. This leads to thefollowing:

The primary purpose of a curriculum is to provide a range of learning opportunities. . . . andto facilitate the take-up of those opportunities in order to achieve specified goals.

The bottom line is this: irrespective of exactly how many types of tasks there are, theynevertheless represent the best means at our disposal for structuring units and lessons inlanguage education. Eventually, SLA research may tell us the optimal combination of spe-cific tasks. As a practitioner, however, I relish the opportunity to work with a group oflearners to identify appropriate tasks and to combine them in meaningful sequences forthe local context.

The Role of Technology in the Death of the Language Syllabus

At this point, while the reader may not find particularly fatal the catalogue of factors con-spiring against the formal language syllabus, the accumulation is surely considerable: idea-lised methodological frameworks giving way to pragmatic principles interpreted andapplied under specific, local conditions; the replacement of lock-step methodological pro-cedures with a flexible menu of communicative, reflective and awareness-raising tasks;the locating of language content as a post-communication component of authentic inputand output, subject to subsequent exploration and analysis; the LSP emphasis on meetinglearner needs and matching interests with relevant content, tasks and materials; the trendtowards learner-centeredness, autonomy and life-long learning; the stress on learningopportunities in communities beyond the classroom; the replacement of the textbookwith multiple, multimedia resources and the value of a lightly specified framework, pro-viding a nimble flexibility for the learning community to react to unfolding events bothin the classroom and in the world beyond (Kasumi and Rosen 2007).

Let me match this general list with a concrete example. A group of Chinese journalistsworking in the English language print and online media are in California for an intensiveprogramme of study, focused largely on improving their writing and translating skills.The curriculum includes a course in American culture and institutions, for which there isno pre-existing syllabus. An ad hoc needs assessment reveals considerable interest in,among other topics, the presidential election, now reaching its climax. Exploration beginswith candidate websites, video clips from the party conventions and print media accountsof campaign events and trends. Visits to local party headquarters allow interactive ques-tion-and-answer sessions with party faithful and the collection of campaign literature, tobe studied back in the classroom. Daily conversations are fuelled by a steady input ofnewspaper and magazine articles, audio clips (radio, Internet), video clips (TV, Internet),guest speakers and field trips. Reflection and analysis generate a glossary of technicalterms and a lengthy menu of concepts and issues, all identified and organised by the stu-dents and which are exploited in the students’ written and spoken discussions. This sylla-bus is rich, relevant and unique: the same sequence of resources and activities will neveragain be assembled. It lives and dies with this group of learners in this context at thispoint in time.

One paragraph in the obituary of the language syllabus is being written by BarbaraGanley and Barbara Sawhill (2007:4), who see a world where everything and everyone isinterconnected and pose the following questions:



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What tensions present themselves in the classroom when we invite into our teaching spaces theuser-centric, social software tools our learners are already using to communicate, collaborateand play with their peers? What possibilities and what impediments are created in this highlyparticipatory, creative, ‘mashed up’, hyper-networked world that parallels, encircles and inter-connects with our face-to-face teaching space? How is our teaching transformed when weengage with each other and the world without boundaries, borders or hierarchies?

I quote these questions in full because of the compelling juxtaposition of the traditional‘‘classroom ⁄ face-to-face teaching space’’ with the various characterisations of the hugepotential of the twenty-first century universe of virtual learning. Ganley and Sawhill alsoremind us, in a deliberate echo of hooks (1994), of the tremendous difficulty for teachersof changing one’s practice; of how much easier it is to talk about new ideas and experi-mental practice than to actually engage in the disruptions of real change.

The challenge of the post-syllabus world lies not just in incorporating new technolo-gies or switching to new online formats; the best of our existing practice must beconserved and integrated. Ganley and Sawhill (2007:5) argue strongly that the ‘‘traditionalliteracies of critical reading, thinking and communication’’ must be accommodated in the‘‘emerging literacies of collaboration, online communication and multimedia navigation’’.This is illustrated by a series of examples of student blogs, how individual learners usemultimedia tools to express their ideas and interests and how responses from around theworld lead to conversations that ‘‘fling open the doors and windows of our isolated class-room environments’’. At the heart of blogging is the traditional practice of reflectivewriting; it permits connectivity and recycling with the student’s own previous writing; itenables meaningful exchanges with oneself, with classmates and with the teacher. Thetrue power, however, lies in the open blog’s flexibility and accessibility. Ganley andSawhill (2007:10) catalogue the many possibilities from the Web 2.0 catalogue: images,video clips, podcasts, digital stories, interactive timelines and links to images and textselsewhere on the web. ‘‘Learning objects of all sorts’’, they conclude, ‘‘suited to learnergoals, skills, needs and preferences can easily be integrated into the blogging class’’. In theclassroom (the examples are drawn from Spanish courses), once students have learned touse the blog, the focus of discussion is not the TL or the technology, but the content ofwhat students are presenting and what readers around the world have contributed. Formallanguage issues are largely addressed in subsequent reflection and analysis, through peerinteractions or one-on-one sessions with the instructor.

Instructional Materials in Language Lessons: The Meaning of Authenticity

The call for authentic materials is not new. Gilmore (2007) quotes Henry Sweet’s(1899:177) diatribe against ‘‘artifical’’ materials, which ‘‘tend to cause incessant repetitionof certain grammatical constructions, certain elements of vocabulary, certain combinationsof words to the almost total exclusion of others...’’. Clarke (1989) provides a detailed nar-rative of the events following Allwright’s (1979:173) categorical imperative requiringteachers in the English for Academic Purposes programme under his supervision to ‘‘useno materials, published or unpublished, actually conceived or designed as materials forlanguage learning’’. Much was made of different shades of authenticity: of interaction, oftask, of situation, of assessment. Gilmore (2007:98), rightly in my view, brings the con-versation back to the basic question: What are we trying to achieve with classroom materials?His response: ‘‘... the goal is to produce learners who are able to communicate effectivelyin the TL of a particular speech community’’. To attain this goal of communicative com-petence, Gilmore proposes that ‘‘teachers are entitled to use any means at their disposal,

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regardless of the provenance of the materials or tasks and their relative authenticity orcontrivance’’. Again, this permits the flexibility for a given programme to assemble auniquely relevant curriculum for a given population of learners.

Nonetheless, the drawbacks and limitations of published materials are well established.Waugh and Fonseca-Greber (2002:126) point to the ‘‘large gulf between . . . the authen-tic spoken language and the language we teach’’, in a study which demonstrates the reali-ties of the former from analyses of large corpora. A comprehensive review of eightcurrent adult English as a Foreign Language courses (Masuhara et al. 2008), whileacknowledging certain strengths (‘‘. . . the move towards stimulating more personalresponses from the learners, . . . attempts to stimulate real conversation, . . . the realismof many of the audio-visual components . . .’’), call for more flexibility:

In our view, what teachers want are not prescriptions, but good texts, advice, and suggestionsso that they can personalize, localize and adapt the global coursebooks to suit the learners intheir classroom (Masuhara et al. 2008:311, my emphasis).

Numerous alternatives to inauthentic materials have been presented in the literature:examples include: Washburn (2001), arguing for the value of situation comedies for learn-ing pragmatic language use; Fluitt-Dupuy (2001), on teaching argumentative writingthrough film; Abbott (2002), laying out a variety of uses for various genres of music andHerron et al. (1999), describing a video-based approach to the TL and culture. These willdoubtless continue to exist alongside those made available by Web 2.0 tools and the tech-nologies yet to come.

Implications for Language Teachers’ Training and Professional Development

The traditional patterns of pre- and in-service preparation for language teachers involvedestablishing and then expanding a pedagogical repertoire, which was then applied toexisting curricular components – syllabi, textbooks, other materials and tests. Practice wastightly bound to quite narrowly defined theories and concepts of language and learning.In Figure 3, we see a different picture. While various other sources are available toinform and enrich the language teacher’s approach, the basic structure (the purple path-way of pedagogical practice) involves the practitioner in assembling a relevant set of prin-ciples, from which, under local constraints (needs, interests, goals, resources), are derivedguidelines for practice that directly inform the classroom approach, dictating which itemsappear on the task menu, what content, materials and technological resources are availableas options for students to choose.

The localised practitioner continues professional development both by observing andreflecting upon learning outcomes and by conducting small-scale, classroom-basedresearch projects. In both cases, the resulting insights are fed back into the system,expanding or adjusting the instructional repertoire.

Before proceeding to a sketch of possible future developments, I want to emphasiseagain, first, that different sectors of the SL ⁄ FL education field are at very different stages ofdevelopment; second, that the best SL ⁄ FL curricula are, to use a phrase from anthropologistClifford Geertz, ineluctably local and third, that the operationalisation of ‘‘local’’ is signifi-cantly impacted by computer technologies and the Internet. That said, there is an excitingfuture in language education in which learning communities (teachers, learners and theirnetwork) move fluidly back and forth among assessing needs, identifying interests andgoals, selecting topics and materials, setting corresponding task menus, reflecting uponlearning processes and raising awareness of TL and culture features. In this restless seascape,



syllabi arise from the richly infested waters, flourish for a time and then sink back beneaththe waves to be replaced by the next. The syllabus is dead; long live the syllabus.

Short Biography

Peter Shaw is a language teacher, teacher educator, curriculum specialist and textbookauthor, and has worked in Nigeria, Mexico and, most recently, California. He is cur-rently professor of Educational Linguistics in the MATESOL ⁄MATFL programme at theInstitute of International Studies in Monterey, California, where he works on developingnew concepts and procedures for needs assessment, curriculum design and instruction.This practical work in turn informs his research and scholarly interests in SL curriculumand pedagogy. Professor Shaw holds a BA in Philosophy from Oxford University, anMA in Linguistics from Reading University and a PhD in Applied Linguistics from theUniversity of Southern California.

Note

*Correspondence address: Peter A. Shaw, TESOL ⁄ TFL Programme, Graduate School of Language and EducationalLinguistics, Monterey Institute of International Studies, 460 Pierce Street, Monterey, CA 93940, USA. E-mail:[email protected].

SLAtheory

Localised needsassessment

Outcomes

Reflectionand

observation

Coherent principledapproach

Generalpedagogy

General learningtheory Research

General& educationalphilosophy

Instructionalrepertoire

[task menu +local resources] Action

research

Classroomevents

Fig. 3. A model for professional practice and development in language education. Towards the post-method andpost-syllabus era.

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