3.4.3. The propositional paradigm

3.4.3.1. The formal syllabus.

The formal (also termed 'structural' or 'grammatical') syllabus can be classified as 'synthetic' (Long & Crookes 1993), 'propositional' (Breen 1987a), and 'Type A' (White 1988), and addresses the main question of what the learner of a new language needs to know, with its five sub-questions (section 3.4.2), as shown in table 28, below):

Given Halliday's three functions of language (textual, ideational, and interpersonal, [Halliday, 1973; 1978]), the formal syllabus takes the first as its focus, basing itself in descriptive linguistics, in the contrastive theories of the 1950s and 1960s, and the works of "traditional, descriptive" grammarians in the 1970s and 1980s, focusing on surface structure differences between languages. It is the most robust and well-tried type of syllabus in language teaching, growing from the description and analysis of the classical languages, and is still by far the most widely used, especially in foreign language settings (perhaps partly due to its "user-friendliness" for new teachers and teacher trainers).

Contents of structural syllabi usually consist of discrete sentences, yes/no and wh-questions, articles, prepositions, conditionals, and relative clauses, plus inductively or deductively presented pedagogic "grammar points", with structures being generally presented one at a time (occasionally in contrasting pairs), using guidelines laid down by Palmer (1917/68) as a basis for selection, rather than empirical evidence. Long & Crookes (1993) make the point that such syllabi no longer reflect current linguistic theory and research, and owe little to modern generative grammar (e.g. Chomsky's universal grammar, Bresnan's Lexical Functional Grammar, Foley's lexical unification grammar, etc.) and functional-typological grammar (e.g. Givon 1984) (Long & Crookes 1993:13). Thus a number of criticisms of structural (and synthetic) syllabi (as epitomised by the formal syllabus) have been made, regarding:

1.  the inevitable unnaturalness of structurally and lexically graded dialogues or reading passages (Widdowson 1968; Crystal 1981; Ventola 1987);
2. the tendency to model usage, not use (Widdowson 1971);
3. the misleading mixing of different functions of language which happen to be encoded using the same form;
4. the negative effects on motivation for learners who need to be able to communicate as soon as possible (Wilkins 1972);
5. the inefficiency in the idea that the whole grammatical system has to be taught when few learners need it all;
6. the limitations of non-psychologically based descriptions of linguistic competence to the psychological process of SLA (Miesel et al. 1981; Bowermann 1982; Heubner 1983; Kellerman 1985; McLaughlin 1988);
7. the inability to recognise that learners do not acquire structures in isolation but as parts of complex mappings of form-function relationships;
8. the use of instructional sequences which do not reflect acquisition sequences (Lightbown 1983, Pienemann 1987);
9. for beginners, at least, "the inadequacy of full native-like target structure as a unit of analysis in syllabus design"  (Long & Crookes 1993:15).

Continue reading this literature review: The functional syllabus

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[1] Breen defines 'paradigm' as "EN-US;layout-grid-mode:line">a consensus within a professional community concerning which ideas are considered importantlayout-grid-mode:line">" (EN-US;layout-grid-mode:line">1987layout-grid-mode:line">aEN-US;layout-grid-mode:line">:157layout-grid-mode:line">; cf. Kuhn 1970)