Ÿ The situational syllabus

       The aim of the situational syllabus is specifying the situations in which the target language is used. The selection and organization of language items are based on situations.

       The situational syllabus has certain advantages over the structural syllabus, for it sets out to meet the learner’s direct communicative needs. However, since the situational syllabus relies on whatever linguistic description is available, and at its times this meant structuralist grammar, such a syllabus is essentially grammatical. Some people regarded it as “pseudo-functional”. (pseudo [ˈsju:dəu] 虚伪的)

                     Ÿ The communicative syllabus

       It aims at the learner’s communicative competence. Based on a notional-functional syllabus,(What the notional-functional syllabus wants the learner to acquire is, first, the knowledge of language structure, and second, the ability of using them in different situations to express ideas.) it teaches the language needed to express and understand different kinds of functions, and emphasizes the process of communication.

                     Ÿ The task-based syllabus

        The “task” here means an activity in which students use the target language to do something, usually with a non-linguistic purpose. Below are six principles that the majority of pro-task researchers can follow when design task:

1. A task should have a clear purpose

      We mean communicative purpose rather than pure pedagogical purpose.

2. A task should have some degree of resemblance to real-world events

       By resemblance of real-world events, we mean what the students are required to do is similar to something we do in life or work in the real world.

       Activities such as answering reading comprehension questions by choosing the right answer from A,B,C and rewriting a paragraph in passive voice, putting scrambled sentences back to their original order do not qualify as tasks.

3. A task should involve information seeking, processing and conveying.

       In other words, when students perform the task, they need to obtain information, reorganize information and convey information one way or another.

4. A task should involve the students in some modes of doing things

       We mean they must do something which can be observed.

5. A task should involve the meaning-focused use of language

       It means that the students focus on understanding meaning and conveying meaning rather than manipulating the structures.

6. A task should end with a tangible product

       Most pro-task researchers and teachers agree that when a task is finished, there should be a final product, ideally a tangible one, such as a report or a graph.

       We do not mean TBLT is a product-oriented approach of language teaching. On the contrary, TBLT is a process-oriented approach. It attaches more attention to how students learn than what they learn. It advocates experiential learning by asking students to experience and explore language in the process of using language to do things.

             = Components of Syllabus

Aims/Goals

Objectives/Targets/requirements

Non-language outcomes

Learning strategies, thinking skills, interpersonal skills, etc.(Affect cultivation, such as confidence, motivation, interest)

Implementation

Assessment/Evaluation

             = Current Trends in Syllabus Design

课本p286

1.  The co-existence of the old and the new.

2. The emphasis on the learning process.

3. The inclusion of non-linguistic objectives in syllabus.

4. The emergence of the multi-syllabus.

   « Contrastive Analysis and Error Analysis

            =Language Transfer

        The study of the roles that the native language plays in the course of second language acquisition is known as the research of Language Transfer, by which is meant the psychological process whereby prior learning is carried over into a new learning situation, or “the influence resulting from the similarities and differences between the target language and any other language that has been previously acquired.” For example, the students’ learned knowledge and skills in the native language can be transferred to the second or foreign language.

            = Contrastive Analysis

             Contrastive Analysis is a way of comparing language (e.g., L1 and L2 )in order to determining potential errors for the ultimate purpose of isolating what needs to be learned and what does not need to be learned in a second language learning situation.

            Nowadays in the literature, the term “contrastive analysis” is gradually been replaced by “the study of cross-linguistic influence”.

            =Error Analysis

         CA was gradually replaced by the Error Analysis movement, a major claim of which is that many errors made by L2 learners were caused by factors other than L1 interference.

         Errors and mistakes are often differentiated. Errors usually arise from the learner’s lack of knowledge; it represents a lack of competence. In other words, the learner does not know the right form or is unable to use language correctly due to lack of attention or other factors.

         In terms of the source of errors, errors are often divided into interlingual errors (or transfer errors) occur when the learner misuses an item because it shares features with an item in native language. Intralingual errors (or developmental errors) are errors within the target language itself, such as Overgeneralization, which arises when the learner applies a rule in a situation where the rule does apply.

         In terms of the nature of errors, errors often fall into five types: omissions, additions, double markings, misformations and misorderings.

   « Corpus Linguistics and Language Teaching

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J Various linguistic views and their significance in language learning and teaching                 《英语语言学考点测评》p141-142

        1) The traditional grammar lays emphasis on correctness, literary excellence, the use of Latin models, and the priority of the written language.

        2) Structuralist linguistics sets out to describe the spoken language in people’s communication but its focus is still on the grammatical structures of a language.

        3) Transformation-Generative grammar sees language as a system of innate rules.

        4) Halliday’s systemic –functional linguistics sees language as an instrument used to perform various functions in social interaction.

        5) The theory of communicative competence holds that language learning should cultivate the ability to perform speech acts so as to take part in speech events effectively.

J Testing     《英语语言学考点测评》p143

Aptitude test, proficiency test, achievement test, diagnosis test

P Chapter 8 Language in Use

 µ Pragmatics

《英语语言学考点测评》p98

 « Speech Act Theory

       It is originated by John Langshaw Austin in his book “How to Do Things with Words”.

        = Performatives and Constatives

                There are two types of sentences:

               练习册 p53

        = A Theory of the Illocutionary Act

         In Austin’s opinion, there are three senses in which saying something is to do something. 练习册 p54

     Ÿ Locutionary Act

        It is the act of uttering; we move our vocal organs and produce a number of sounds, organized in certain way and with a certain meaning.

     Ÿ Illocutionary Act

        When we speak, we not only utter some sentences conveying meaning, but also we intend to “do” something, that is, we tell hearers of our intentions of uttering these, or as Austin suggested, they have some “force” . in the example of  saying “ Morning” to somebody, it has the force of a greeting.

     Ÿ Prelocutionary Act

         The Prelocutionary Act concerns the consequential effects of a locution upon the hearers. By saying that, the speaker may have change the opinions of the hearers or may have misled or surprised them, etc. whether or not these effects are the intentions of the speaker, they have factually worked, and can be regarded as part of the speaking act.

                 Ÿ Summary:

         Among these three senses, the Illocutionary Act is what Austin Really driving at. The Illocutionary Force, may be said to be equivalent to speaker’s meaning, contextual meaning, or extra meaning, and may be translated into Chinese as 言外之意, is the very interest of most of the linguists. In this sense, speech act theory is in fact a theory of the Illocutionary Act.

 « The Theory of conversational Implicature

         The second major theory in pragmatics is the theory of conversational implicature, proposed by the Oxford philosopher Herbert Paul Grice.

        = The Cooperative Principle

         Grice noticed that in daily conversations people do not usually say things directly but tend to imply them. It seems each participant in a conversation recognizes kind of a common purpose or set of purposes, or at least a mutually accepted direction.

          In other words, we seem to follow some principle like the following:

          Make your conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purposes or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged.

          And this principle is known as Cooperative Principle or CP for short.

          To specify the CP further, Grice introduced four categories of maxims as follows:

Quantity

     1. Make your contribution as informative as is required (for the current purpose of the exchange)

     2. Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.

Quality

     Try to make your contribution one that is true.

     1. Do not say what you believe to be false.

     2. Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.

Relation