Situational Syllabus

1. Definition

1.1. organized around the language needed for different situations

1.1.1. Situation: a setting in which particular communicative acts typically occur

1.1.2. Elements of the situation:

1.1.2.1. the participants

1.1.2.2. their role relations

1.1.2.3. the transactions they engage in

1.1.2.4. the skills or behavior involved in each transaction

1.1.2.5. the kinds of oral and written texts that are produced

1.1.2.6. the linguistic features of the texts

2. Advantage

2.1. presenting language in context

2.2. teaching language of immediate practical use.

3. Disadvantage

3.1. Little is known about the language used in different situations, so selection of teaching items is typically based on intuition

3.2. • syllabus seeks to analyze the concept of communicative competence into its different components on the assumption that mastery of individual functions will result in overall communicative ability.

3.3. • Language used in specific situations may not transfer to other situations.

3.4. • Situational syllabuses often lead to a phrase-book approach.

3.5. • Grammar is dealt with incidentally, so a situational syllabus may result in gaps in a student's grammatical knowledge.