The structural syllabus (consisting of a list of grammar items taught in a certain sequence) has been with language teaching ever since people had to decide what to teach when learning a language. Scott Thornbury has characterised the results of a survey which showed the popularity of such syllabuses as “dispiriting”. However, Rod Ellis, in a 2018 paper, writes of a more positive outlook which includes a “structural syllabus” as a checklist in a modular curriculum which emphasizes task-based components.
Two kinds of syllabus; task-supported & task-based; (in)compatibilities
In the first section, Ellis runs down a quick history of syllabus types ranging from structural vs. notional/functional; synthetic vs. analytic; Type A vs. Type B; product vs. process; and accuracy vs. fluency. Although each of these dichotomies have their various definitions they can be summed up as: the blue pill (falsehood, security, happiness & blissful ignorance of illusion) vs. the red pill (knowledge, freedom, adversity & brutal truth of reality). 😀
In section two he goes onto to describe Task-Supported Language Teaching (TSLT) and Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) which have been seen as mutually incompatible – TSLT is said to draw on synthetic, Type A, product, and accuracy approaches whilst TBLT is said to draw on analytic, Type B, process, and fluency approaches. Further incompatibilities between TSLT and TBLT arise from differing theoretical bases, TSLT – skill acquisition, TBLT – social interaction/usage based/implicit or incidental acquisition.
However, Ellis argues for the compatibility of TSLT with TBLT following Christopher Brumfit, who wrote about integrating product and process syllabuses. A product or structural syllabus recognises 1) systematicity or someway to organize a syllabus, 2) expectations about learning that students bring and 3) real world educational contexts in which syllabuses have to work in. Ellis reports further points raised by William Littlewood of the challenges of using a process syllabus such as in TBLT in Chinese contexts e.g. large classes, demands of TBLT on skills of teachers, L1 use in tasks.
Brumfit argued that a process syllabus can be used with a product based syllabus when it places controls on what should happen in class. In Brumfit’s integrated model, the figure below shows accuracy dominates initially before giving way to fluency:
Ellis’s model uses the notions of implicit and explicit knowledge. Implicit language knowledge is primary (i.e. the goal of language instruction) while explicit language knowledge is secondary but can help with developing implicit knowledge. There are three logical possibilities of relating structural components to task based components – parallel positioning, structural before task, task before structural.
Rather than an integrated curriculum, Ellis prefers a modular syllabus (i.e. structural & task-based components are kept separate). Ellis also argues for the third option – task based components should come before structural components as shown in the next figure:
Although Ellis’s framework has separate components, there are opportunities for integration for any particular classroom activity. Ellis promotes the benefits of consciousness-raising tasks to avoid problems of teaching explicit forms for which learners are not developmentally ready and the problem of missing grammar features when using reactive focus on form in tasks.
Determining content for task and structure
It is possible to use needs analysis and identify specific tasks (such as buying a railway ticket, buying an airline ticket) and group these into types (buying a ticket). Problems with this include feasibility with young learners and how general task types should be. Can we expect learning to transfer from one task to another? More problematically – can language proficiency be seen as domain and task specific rather than as set of general competences available across task types? Concept-based syllabuses from socio-cultural theory attempt to address the issue of transfer.
Ellis goes onto to describe selecting tasks more on interactional authenticity than situational authenticity. That is, focusing on task takers characteristics in accomplishing a task. For large scale teaching, N.S. Prabhu recommends syllabus designers basing tasks on general characteristics such as topics (e.g. maps; school timetables) and the particular operations a task demands (finding, naming, describing specific locations on a map; making class timetables from instructions):
The table shows both vertical sequence of task types and horizontal sequence of task operations (sequencing is concerned with complexity and timing issues). Various ways to sequence task types include potential familiarity of topics of the task, how close or remote to lives of students topics are, from facts to reasoning to opinions, from input-based tasks with closed outcomes to output-based tasks with open outcomes. For horizontal sequencing, we can look at amount of information to be handled, nature of reasoning needed, precision needed in interpreting information and reaching outcomes, degree of abstractness. However, defining task complexity remains unsolved and we fall back on relying on common-sense notions such as topic familiarity and learners’ interest.
For structural content, many course books use one that has not changed much over the years. In Ellis’s modular syllabus, structural components are used as a checklist not a syllabus – there is no expectation teachers follow the order of a list or need to teach all items. So in this case there is no problem of how to grade and sequence items. However we still need to decide what items to include.
Here we can look at items known to cause difficulties for learners to acquire incidentally – e.g. from research on fossilisation where L1 known structures interact with L2 input structures. Ellis gives the following as examples – past tense, third person -s, epistemic modal verbs, articles, passive clauses, unreal conditionals, unusual/exceptional word orders. But such work from research can only ever be a generalized account and so teachers need to see what problems their learners actually have. That is, from how learners perform on the task-based section of the syllabus teachers can identify relevant grammar content for the structural aspect.
Conclusion
Critics of Ellis may argue that a structural syllabus is fundamentally incompatible with any non-structural syllabuses such as task-based ones. Without wanting to gloss over such critiques, the framing of a grammar list as simply a list and nothing more is, for me, a very useful, guilt-reducing idea. If you accept Ellis’s line of thought there is reason to be cautiously cheerful regarding the apparent widespread use of structural syllabuses, contrary to the dispiriting assessment of Thornbury’s survey. I also think Ellis’s approach is in tune with the multi-faceted nature of language learning – we can have our structural syllabus and eat it as well.
References
Hi, sorry for the overlaps – comments weren’t loading for me before.
Some references for TSLT. Bygate 2016 recommends East and Pinter; the Bryfonski & McKay meta-analysis cites Carless and Klapper, if memory serves. Teacher educators/researchers at Heidelberg brought out that 2011 volume on task-supported language learning with the idea of making TBLT more palatable/compatible with German institutional guidelines, but it’s not browsable online
Bryfonski, L., & McKay, T. H. (2017). TBLT implementation and evaluation: A meta-analysis. Language Teaching Research, 1362168817744389.
Bygate, M. (2016). Sources, developments and directions of task-based language teaching. The language learning journal, 44(4), 381-400.
Bygate, M. (2009). Task-based language teaching: a reader. John Benjamins Publishers.
Bygate, Norris & van den Branden, 2009. TBLT at the interface between research and pedagogy. In Van den Branden, Bygate and Norris Task-based language teaching. Benjamins.
Carless, D. (2007). The suitability of task-based approaches for secondary schools: Perspectives from Hong Kong. System, 35, 595–608.
Carless, D. (2012). TBLT in EFL settings: Looking back and moving forward. In A. Shehadeh & C.A. Coombe (Eds.), Task-based language teaching in foreign language contexts: Research and implementation (pp. 345–358). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
East, M. 2012. Task-based Language Teaching from the Teacher’s Perspective. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Klapper, J. (2003). Taking communication to task? A critical review of recent trends in language teaching. Language Learning Journal, 27, 33–42.
Müller-Hartmann, A., & Schocker-von Ditfurth, M. (2011). Teaching English: Task-supported language learning (Vol. 3336). UTB.
Pinter, A. 2005. Task repetition with 10-year-old children. In Teachers Exploring Tasks in English Language Teaching, ed. C. Edwards and J. Willis, 113–26. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Pinter, A. 2007. Benefits of peer-peer interaction: 10-year-old children practising with a communication tasks. Language Teaching Research 11, no. 2: 189–208.
thanks great thanks Shona!
Hi Mura,
You give a fair summary of the article, but, IMHO, a too optimistic evaluation of it. The difference between grammar-based structural syllabuses that use tasks as activities to practice the language, and Long’s version of TBLT, as described by Shona Whtye, are too great to be fudged over in the way Ellis attempts.
There are serious problems with Ellis’ use of Brunfit’s model. It’s based on Breen’s distinction between process and product syllabuses, Breen dismissed it, and Long, who has always disagreed with Breen’s proposal, suggests a different distinction, between synthetic and analytic syllabus types. While it might seem like a good compromise to combine Breen’s 2 types of syllubus in one course, it actually makes little sense in practice, and in fact ends up being a product syllaubus. Similarly, Ellis’ syllabus ends up being a synthetic syllabus. Just BTW, Table 1 strikes me as bordering on the ridiculous when you look at the work that Robinson, Skehan, Doughty, Long and others have done on identifying differences in task types and criteria for sequencing them.
Long starts from a needs analysis of the real world tasks that the learners will have to carry out and takes these as the basis for the design of pedagogic tasks. Grammar work is restricted to focus on form, excluding the presentation and practice of a pre-determined list of structures. There is a completely different set of methodological principles informing Long’s TBLT, and a much better articulated description of pedagogical procedures. There are, of course, problems for those of us who want to implement Long’s TBLT, but they’re not insurmountable: compromises can be made. Neil McMillan and I are working with Mike Long to produce a framework that teachers in the SLB cooperative and elsewhere can use to design TBLT syllabuses which respect core principles (such as respecting learners’ developmental processes; using tasks to guide NA; promoting learning by doing; and focus on form) but which also allow for compromise and adjustment to our learners’ and teachers’ situations. I can’t see how Ellis’ weak and unprincipled approach will be of much help to us.
hi Geoff
thanks for commenting, when you say “compromises can be made” could you describe what these are?
look forward to what you cook up with Neil and Mike Long!
ta
mura
Compromises in the confection of materials, mostly. Long’s description of “elaborated texts” is very demanding. Essential is that the needs analysis be based on tasks, that the tasks themselves are based on things that the learners have to carry out, and that the course has no arbitary list of grammar structures that should be covered.
ah right okay; i read the ref you suggested (i think it was this?) Long, M. H., & Crookes, G. (1992). Three approaches to task‐based syllabus design. TESOL quarterly, 26(1), 27-56.
and have their other one on my reading cue – Long, M. H., & Crookes, G. (1993). Units of analysis in syllabus design: The case for task. Multilingual Matters, 9-9.
will come back here once digested them!
Thanks for this Mura. Interesting contrast with the Long 2017 article I reviewed on here in December, which argues for a strong version of TBLT without explicit grammar instruction (see here).
The advantage of Ellis’ approach is that it pays more attention to teachers and gives more practical advice to guide choice of materials and activities in the classroom, which can’t be a bad thing (and is often missing from teaching recommendations drawn from SLA research).
hi Shona
thanks! and yeah sorry forgot about your description of Long’s thoughts, thanks for linking it here. though i think it is part 2 which looks at this? [https://eltresearchbites.com/201801-implicit-learning-and-input-enhancement-long-2017-part-2/].
I could not find a good description of TSLT to link to do you know of any?
ta
mura