Situational syllabus
by Jorge Serna
1. Definnition
1.1. Situational syllabus focuses on the use of english language according to pecific situations. This is, taking a specific situation, reoognizing the language required and thereby construct a situational syllabus replacing a grammatical syllabus.
2. Examples:
2.1. Buying a ticket at the airpot. (Voc. about countries and nationalities.) Ordering food in a restaurant. (Modals, vocabulary about food) Asking for directions. (Prepositions of place, directions) Going to the doctor. (voc. about illneses)
3. Advantages: 1.- It is more motivating than grammatical syllabus because it is more focused on practice. 2.- It takes into consideration learner needs. 3.- It focuses on communicative skills more than grammatical syllabus.
4. Disadvantages: 1.- It is not proper for general English students. The situations can have many variations that students could not know how to face when they happen. 2.- It is hard to take all the possible situations that students will need to design a syllabus. 3.- Grammar is barely seen as a main focus, so it may result in learnes gap of grammatical structures.
5. References: Barman, Binoy, Sultana & Bijoy (2006). ELT theory and practice. Dhaka. 24-28.