COURSE AND MATERIALS DESIGN
by Jane Willis & Sue Garton

Unit 1 - An introduction to course and syllabus design

Purposes, outcomes and objectives

• to explore the meanings of terms such as: curriculum, syllabus, course, language programme etc.
• to broaden your experience of ways in which syllabuses can be specified and described.
• to help you appraise your own experience of different types of syllabus and to describe syllabuses you have used or seen in action.
• to reflect on the possible functions of a syllabus statement, and decide on what it should minimally contain and do.
• to explore some of the basic theoretical stances underlying approaches to syllabus design, and to identify some common, if opposing, beliefs about it.
• to look at the nature of ESP syllabuses and discuss some related issues.
• to give an overview of practical, social and theoretical factors that affect syllabus design and may precipitate change.

Preliminary information

This first unit builds on concepts explored in Unit 7 of the Foundation Module which looked at the field of CSD from four different perspectives. It started by looking at large scale language planning and the concept of 'different world Englishes'; it focused in on to the 'stakeholder perspective', considering the roles of learners, teachers, administrators and controlling authorities and the kinds of influence they may have on syllabus and course design. Then, after examining the nature of language that is taught, it ended up focusing more tightly on syllabus content itself.
This unit begins by giving three alternative overviews of systems for syllabus specification and then looks at the reasons why syllabuses change and have changed in the past. We will then go on to look at the status of ESP (English for Specific Purposes) syllabus design in particular, discussing the relevance of ESP for EGP (English for General Purposes) syllabuses.

Key Reading

Graves, K. 1996. Teachers as Course Developers. Cambridge: CUP.
Chapters 1 and 2.

Suggested reading

Hutchinson, T. and Waters, A. 1987. English for Specific Purposes: a learning centred approach. Cambridge CUP: Chapter 8.
OR
Robinson, P. 1991. ESP Today: A Practitioner's Guide. London: Prentice Hall International: Chapters 1 & 4.
Widdowson, H. G. 1990. Aspects of Language Teaching. Oxford: OUP. Chapter 9.
White, R. 1988. The ELT Curriculum: Design, Innovation and Management Oxford: Blackwell. Chapters 1, 2 & 3.
OR
Nunan, D. 1988. Syllabus Design, OUP.

Both White and Nunan are now rather out of date, although they are good introductions to the field. If you have either of them easily available, it’s definitely worth reading them.

1.1. Some definitions

Task 1

1. Write a first draft (in paragraph or list form) of what you feel a language syllabus should, in principle, be / do / include... Stop when you have around four points.
If possible, ask a colleague to do the same, and compare, and adapt your draft if you want to.
2. What distinction would you make between course, syllabus and curriculum?
3. What is the relationship between syllabus and methodology?

Write the date on your answers and remember to come back to them once you’ve finished the first part of this module.

Courses and syllabuses are generally perceived to be two different things, partly it must be admitted simply by customary collocation, given that the two terms are not always used indistinguishably. But a “course” might be taken to mean a real series of lessons (the particular course delivered last year to such and such a group of students and to be repeated again this year), while a “syllabus” can be taken to be something rather more abstract, with fewer details of the blow by blow conduct of individual lessons. Thus you and I might quite properly write rather different courses, with different materials, but based on the same syllabus. This happens a lot in publishing. For example when notions and functions became popular as a basis for course design, each major ELT publisher published a course based on what became known as a 'notional/functional' syllabus, often using the Council of Europe staged language taxonomies as a basis e.g. van Ek, J 1975. And each course was different. However, when one is in the short course market, (often ESP), it can work the other way round as Graves, 1996, shows. This is after all a book on course design rather than syllabus design, and Graves takes White's (1988) definition: 'A syllabus will be defined narrowly as the specification and ordering of content of a course or courses." (Graves 1996:3). So, you may start with the demand for a course, for a specific group of learners over a specific length of time, and then you design a syllabus for it.

As far as the word “design” is concerned, it is fair to point out, that it too may be tested and evaluated. A major point of debate in contemporary debate in course design is concerned precisely with how much design should go into a particular course, that is, how much should be negotiated with the learners, how much predetermined by the teacher, and how much left to chance and the mood of the participants on the day. This notion is bound up with the idea of the “focus on the learner”, to repeat the title of a well-known book, and more recently with ideas of control and initiative in the classroom. (We shall return to some of these ideas later.)

The above, though, are not major problems for most learners and scholars. Some people, however, get mired down in the task of differentiating between Course or Syllabus Design and Methodology, a task it is probably necessary to undertake at the level of broad outline and futile and frustrating if the attempt is made to delve into minutiae. Roughly, one would want to say that CSD is concerned with the content of what gets taught and the organisation of this (into bits of grammar, or functions, or what have you), while Methodology is concerned with the how. This, however, is a question it is best not to consider too closely. It is disingenuous in the extreme to suppose that the “what” of teaching is put together without reference to the “how”; contemporary syllabuses are almost always designed with a particular - generally broadly communicative - methodology in mind. And scholars have muddied the waters still further by misappropriating the word “communicative”, which ought to be a matter of methodology but is commonly used to refer to syllabus design.

1.2. Syllabuses as lists

Let us begin by assuming an air of complete naïveté. Let us temporarily move away from the exigencies of the classroom, the sponsor and our director who want something now, and presume nothing at all. What is a syllabus?

Well, it involves a list. Perhaps we might say, a list of things we want our learners to learn in the English class. So, what do we want them to learn?

There are four problems here:

• what we want them to learn could be extremely varied;
• some of the things we want them to learn are easy to articulate;
• others are not; the “what” and the “how” of learning are intimately, and perhaps inextricably, bound up;
• our formulation assumes that we do indeed want a pre-established list of things to be learned.

We will be returning to all these problems at various points during this module, but I want to begin by looking at what these pre-established lists of things might consist of and giving some overviews of ways in which people have attempted to classify and organise them.

1.3 Ways of specifying content of a language syllabus

It is worth looking back now at how Graves (1996: 19-25) categorises possible syllabus content using a syllabus grid which she builds up gradually (the same grid that was discussed in FND Unit 7). If you have completed some of the linguistic modules of the Masters course, you may now like to look at the categories in her grid again, appraise them in the light of what you know about language. Decide how you might add to her categories or refine them, and/or maybe think of some alternative examples.

Another, slightly more systematic, attempt at an overview is to be found in Pauline Robinson 1991:35:

BASES FOR LANGUAGE SYLLABUSES

CONTENT SKILL METHOD

TOPIC
Informational LANGUAGE LEARNING PROCESS PROCEDURAL
Structural focus focus Receptive/ Skill Learning Cognitive
Productive acquisition focus focus
focus Learner-led Task-based

SITUATION
Contextual focus
Notional/Functional focus

Figure 1 Bases for language syllabus design (sources: White (1988); ovals, Breen (1987); rectangles, Allen (1984)

Finally, Willis D summarises major approaches to syllabus design, making an explicit distinction between discrete item and holistic modes, and looking at focus and content for each. See Figure 2.

MODE FOCUS CONTENT

Grammar

Linguistic Lexis

Discrete item
(Type A) Phonology

Notions
Semantic/
Pragmatic
Functions
SYLLABUS TYPE

(Skills)

Topics

Holistic Learning Tasks
(Type B) process
(Skills)

Figure 2 Approaches to syllabus design, Willis D. 1995. Unpublished Birmingham University MA in TEFL/TESOL materials.

Task 2

a. Compare figures 1 and 2. What overlap is there? In what ways do they differ?
b. Could the categories for content offered by Graves fit either of the other
systems for classification?
c. Are there any categories used in syllabuses familiar to you that are not accounted for in any of the three diagrams?
d. Take one syllabus known to you and plot it on to any two of the diagrams. What do you find out from doing this?

Nowadays, you are unlikely to find a course book or indeed a course that uses only one of these forms of specification. But more often than not, even in the “Multi-syllabus” Course books, there will be one or two major organising factors, such as grammar and/or functions, with topics selected to illustrate the grammatical or functional items. Other features like lexis, phonology, and skills practice are often subservient to the main strands and are built in along the way.

Prabhu, by contrast, bases his syllabus on sets of tasks, each set grouped around a specific topic, such as school timetables or journeys. This is an example of a totally holistic approach: his syllabus contains no overt itemistic linguistic specifications at all; words, meanings and patterns arise naturally out of the topic and task and are supplied or explained by the teacher when needed, in the same way as a subject teacher would.

You could also take as a starting point a set of simple tasks that are built around the use of known words or cognates, and from this lead on to the study of naturally occurring phrases and grammatical patterns - for examples, see Willis J 1996 (b): 119-123.

Mohan’s recommended starting point for ESL learners is topic and content (Mohan 1986 described briefly in Nunan 1988: pp49-51) Each topic is then exploited systematically within a given framework leading to the production of language teaching materials.

All these approaches have a rationale behind them which stems from what we knew or now know about the 'how' of learning - revealing some truth in the third problem statement in 1.2 above. We will, however, leave these 'how's and 'why's for discussion in Unit 2.

1.4 Influences on syllabus design

The process of designing a syllabus for a particular group of learners - however large or small - is actually a very practical business, and common sense plays an important part. It is not in itself a theoretical field. However, syllabus design is necessarily parasitic on other research and, as mentioned in the previous section, theories of language learning and contemporary views on language are two such areas. The more we know about language and its uses, the more alternatives we have for ways of specifying language on our syllabus. (The AWD module is a case in point.) The more we find out about how people best learn languages, the more options we have for selecting and grading content and materials and choosing an appropriate methodology to act as a vehicle for our syllabus. So whenever a new theory arises, it should be examined carefully to see what implications it may have for language learning and teaching.

Political and economic factors may also stimulate a change in syllabus design. For example, the opening up of Eastern Europe in the early 1990s led to the demise of Russian teaching and a huge demand for teachers able to teach English of an international nature, for trade and educational links, and also for young learners. New syllabuses were needed for the ex-Russian teachers to enable them both to learn English for international purposes and to learn new methods to teach it to children.

Advances in technology have also contributed to change. In the past, the availability of tape recorders, for example, and then language laboratories, certainly helped to popularise and establish syllabuses based on Behaviourist principles - a little bit of language at a time, each taught and ‘learnt’ to perfection. Now, computers enable huge corpora of language to be collected and analysed; databases can be stored and updated with ease. This has enormous implications for syllabus design.

Beliefs about the language learning process commonly affect language policy and course design. For example, the belief that children can learn a foreign language better the younger they are has led governments to lower the age for beginning a foreign language down to primary level - hence the growing trend for the introduction of Primary English, with its subsequent 'knock-on' effects on syllabuses right through the schools. It is not on our agenda at this point to discuss the pros and cons of this, though I must add that according to some recent research, this is considered to be a possibly mistaken belief - it all depends on what you mean by 'better' and on the conditions in which the young learners are taught.

There are other factors that contribute to change in curriculum, syllabus and course design too. You may like to think about the diagram on the next page and then discuss this task with a colleague.

Task 3

Look at the table showing some of the major factors that contribute to change in Curriculum, Syllabus and Course Design. Can you suggest another major factor that could contribute? Can you add some examples? You may like to further sub-divide and add to this and other parts of the table.

Major factors that contribute to change in curriculum, syllabus and course design

LINGUISTIC THEORIES LEARNING THEORIES
changes in views of languages evidence about how people learn

POLITICAL/ECONOMIC PEDAGOGIC EXPERIENCE
SOCIAL CHANGE
long-term needs teachers’/students’ views
classroom research
testing

TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCES EDUCATIONAL VIEWS
e.g. ..... from other fields

OTHER?

Task 4

Now consider which of these factors are most likely to affect the language learning situation in your own country, or wherever you intend to be working, in the next decade. Write a list to keep. (And remember to look at it in ten years' time!)

1.5 The nature of ESP syllabuses

1.5.1 Is all ELT ESP?
At the very core of our intuition and understanding of ESP is the notion of restriction. The argument in its favour is that, potentially at least, it identifies essentials and cuts out the extraneous. But in fact, isn't this something we should all be trying to do all the time for all our learners, whether they are learning English for a Special Purpose or General Purposes or even for “no apparent purpose”?

For those of you not currently engaged in ESP, you may like to consider the much debated motion: “All ELT is ESP.” Even in the Secondary School classroom, where few students will know why they are learning English, most teachers have specific aims in mind. For example, to help students pass the exams, to keep as many students as possible motivated to learn, to help broaden students' horizons. Isn’t this also ESP? Don’t the same criteria apply?

Recently some Aston students teaching in Turkey, where English has just been introduced into the Primary curriculum, did a survey of their primary pupils' future English needs and found that what they really needed in their particular target discourse community was English for Academic Purposes. EAP for nine-year olds? As we saw above, there are many other factors, for example affective and psycho-linguistic factors, to take into consideration when designing a course for learners so young, but the fact remains - an ESP bias may well be - at least in part - justifiable , even at this early age.

Task 5

Think back to courses you have taught that have come under a "General English' umbrella, and question, whether in fact, there was (or could usefully have been) some ESP focus at some point in the course.

1.5.2 Education or Training?
In an influential passage, Widdowson (1983) distinguishes between these two terms, not in any absolute sense, but:

as a device for clarifying what seem to me to be important differences in pedagogic principle. This device can be thought of as a scale, with training at one end and education at the other.

As regards training, Widdowson (p.17) quotes Peters approvingly:

.... a person could be a trained ballet-dancer or have mastered an eminently worthwhile skill, such as pottery-making, without being educated. What might be lacking is something to do with knowledge and understanding; for being educated demands more than being highly skilled. An educated man must also possess some body of knowledge and some kind of conceptual scheme to raise this above the level of a collection of disjointed facts. This implies some understanding of principles for the organisation of facts. (1983:17)

This general distinction is in fairly common parlance in certain parts of the world (in the Gulf, certainly). The idea is of education being long-term, somehow an end in itself, ranging broadly and deeply across and into large areas, dealing with the fostering of abilities (this too is a familiar distinction, subtly drawn by Widdowson); training on the other hand is in essence short-term, has a predetermined and clearly specified purpose, and has as its aim the fostering of skills. Thus the foundations of physics laid at school is a matter of education. Learning to be a plumber is a matter of training.

Broad-based EGP is a matter of education, English for plumbers of training. There is a distinction between the “practical deployment” (Widdowson’s phrase) associated with training skills, on a course which examines no underlying principles, and the “knowledge and understanding of these principles” (Widdowson again) which is typical of educational courses. The former is skill-based (Widdowson, perhaps a little tendentiously, describes skills as “mechanical”, “a repertoire of responses tagged with appropriate stimulus indicators”), the latter ability-based.

And Widdowson makes one further point, a very important one for his case. Pointing out that foreign and second language teaching of any type is concerned with “skills” in Peters’ sense - in any class you might have to give the English word for “table” or “screwdriver” and it is fatuous in the extreme to seek here for an underlying principle at stake - he suggests:

an educational approach (that is, in ELT) is one which develops an understanding of principles in order to extend the range of their application. A person educated in a certain language, as opposed to one who is trained only in its use for a restricted set of predictable situations, is someone who is able to relate what he or she knows to circumstances other than those which attended the acquisition of that knowledge ... education in a language presupposes the internalisation of what Halliday calls ‘meaning potential’. It is the ability to realise this potential that I refer to as capacity.

Thus in sum:

training seeks to impose a conformity to certain established patterns of knowledge and behaviour, usually in order to carry out a set of clearly defined tasks .... Education, however, seeks to provide for creativity whereby what is learned is a set of schemata and procedures for adapting them to cope with problems which do not have a ready-made formulaic solution.

This is the essence of Widdowson’s case. In one way it is sufficiently familiar to be unexceptionable: but it is pointed with such subtlety that it bears considerable examination.

1.5.3 ESP - Restrictive, Reconstructionist or more?
Widdowson talks of education in a language entailing the possibility of relating what is known “to circumstances other than those which attended the acquisition of that knowledge”: it presupposes, he says, “the internalisation of what Halliday calls ‘meaning potential’”. In other words, to be educated is to be able to extend knowledge to new situations; by extension, merely to be trained is to be unable to do this. To think of an extreme example - one may train a circus dog to jump through hoops, and the dog will perform the trick successfully night after night; but if the dog is trapped in a room with a single, high exit, one would not guarantee that the penny would drop, that the dog would transfer its trick to its new environment. The dog has learned a behaviour, and that is that.

Therefore there is a risk that the learner of ESP, who is actually being invited to concentrate precisely on a set of restricted contexts, will be like this dog, unable to move beyond the known context, unable to manipulate the world by the application of familiar “skills” (if my prevaricating inverted commas can be forgiven) in unfamiliar surroundings. There is no potential for development, in language terms no “meaning potential”, no possibility for the language knowledge instilled to be used generatively. Put in this light (I don't suggest that Widdowson would argue so grossly), ESP is a trick.

Let me put the argument now in a slightly different perspective. Skilbeck (1982) argues for the existence of what he calls “three educational ideologies”, Classical Humanism, Reconstructionism and Progressivism. It is possible to argue with this division, as it is possible to argue with the subdivision of anything so large and complex as education, but the distinction is enlightening.

ESP-as-training, mutatis mutandis, would presumably come under the heading of Reconstructionism, though the good of the institution rather than of the state

might be a more accurate way of putting it. The emphasis on goals and needs, the stress on practical relevance, are all things one recognises as ESP-like, while much of the broader communicative movement and, more broadly, much of contemporary education in UK, is Progressivist - though it is interesting to note the way that Clark (1987) at once separates out and then lumps together without comment the concepts of “skill” and “ability”. Incidentally, as Clark points out, such evidently “progressivist” movements as Prabhu’s “would seem to misunderstand the purpose of language learning in education, which goes beyond acquisition of a communicative capacity”. Clark quotes Prabhu (1980) as saying his tasks “are not things in themselves to teach children. Instead they are a weapon to teach English.” This, certainly, appears to miss the point of what can be achieved through tasks - and for our immediate purposes may serve as an instance of how easy it is to be unclear of what happens in class regardless of what the theory or the syllabus derived from it says is supposed to happen. I would want to argue that on many occasions the straightforward ESP class does a great deal more than simple Reconstructionism.

After all, for many learners what matters about ESP is that it gives them the opportunity to learn to do new things with and through language. For many learners, the practical bias of the ESP course gives them a context. And for many learners what they learn is not just language but how to study, how to learn, how to interact with others. Indeed, with many successful ESP courses it is only the content of the syllabus that has changed: everything else that gets learned is what gets learned in the general purpose class. And equally, one might argue, if the student does not need to learn these extra-linguistic things then there is no point in giving him/her an EGP type syllabus to provide extra learning in what can already be done.

1.5.4 The syllabus as an empty shell
Both my argument and Widdowson’s assume that there are things that one cannot write in a syllabus, that what goes into a syllabus is not the same as what gets learned. Interlanguage studies certainly bear this out - the late acquisition of the third person s is a prime example; despite any number of lessons on present simple, drills and explanations early on in a syllabus it is rarely acquired at the time of teaching. But it is also true in the sense that there is much that a syllabus specification - of whatever type - cannot capture. This point is well made by Candlin (1984), (talking explicitly about EGP, but his arguments hold) and it is with him that I shall start.

He asks a fundamental question: “Can we be so sure that all the knowledge we would like to be exposed to and gain from a syllabus can be so clearly identified as items?” Consider the thrust of this: we can, and do, organise all our teaching round - and in ESP often quite explicitly round - the notion of language needs. The possibility of the student having other needs is something we recognise, but deal with only in the most unprincipled of ways. At best, we will deal head on with the possibility that educationally unsophisticated students may be fluent and confident in English, but will have poor study skills: under such circumstances we will probably create a syllabus which is task-oriented rather than language oriented (this leads us into difficult questions of how to specify tasks, and whether we should try, but leave that be for the moment). The possibility of a student suffering from lack of social ability, or from lack of confidence - the possibility that we can actually help a person's self-esteem, and therefore probably his/her language achievement, by what we do in class — is something every good teacher knows, but something which cannot be written into the syllabus. The more narrowly linguistic this is, the more elegantly and precisely it specifies language content, the more likely it is to say little about the other pieces of learning that are not only taking place in class, but which we want and indeed need to take place in class, both for their own sake and because their presence facilitates language learning.

In other words: there is nothing worse than for a TEFL teacher to think s/he is only a language teacher, yet most syllabuses exist to reinforce the impression that language is all and only what the game is about.

Let me return to Candlin (1984:29) to make another point. He argues:

if the syllabus is to be successful, ought it not to expect some changes in the state of knowing and experience of its differentiated users over time?....If so, is it not unhelpful to formulate a procedure in advance which is designed precisely to foreclose in practice exactly those opportunities for personal changes of direction which characterise learning?

The syllabus, in other words, can act as a straitjacket. Where the class is taught generally as a group, in lockstep, with everyone doing the same thing at the same time, it is inevitable that some will suffer from this. The answer to this problem, of course, is to negotiate the syllabus at the start of the course, and probably again during it on a number of occasions. The results of truly negotiated syllabuses - ignoring for the moment as quite impossible a priori that such negotiations will simply result in the teacher imposing his/her own wishes slowly and by argument rather than suddenly and tacitly - are not, however, always recognisable as anything one would want to recognise as a syllabus, particularly where repeated negotiation is concerned, precisely because the notion of coherent, expert planning is at the heart of the matter. We'll come on to this again later in Unit 3.

Thirdly (this point is not from Candlin) there is what one might term the argument from reality. If a syllabus is not in fact a commercially purchased coursebook, adherence to it is very often sporadic, particularly if it is not backed up by a test which directly mirrors it, and indeed its very existence may often be doubted, sometimes being replaced by nothing, sometimes by an ad hoc collection of photocopied pages from a range of different sources, sometimes at least by the accumulated wisdom of staff who have taught similar courses. Moreover, the strict procedure one tends to find in diagrams, by which “Syllabus Design” happens at a precise and well-defined moment of time (just after Needs Analysis) in the long, confident and stately advance from this last to post-course Evaluation, is frequently a mirage - a point that Waters, (1997) makes strongly. Syllabus Design, like everything else in a profession too often characterised by a general air of scurry and ad hoc activity, is too often something that takes place every now and again, whenever one has time. Yalden (1987) cleverly formalises this process by building the inevitably cyclical nature of CD into the design.

And just how often do we get a chance to design a syllabus or course from scratch? What normally happens is that we adapt an existing course, or supplement a course with “new” materials to fulfil the most recently identified objective.

Task 6

Find out if you can from colleagues what experience they have had of use (or non-use) of syllabuses and the status given to “the syllabus” in places where they have worked. Have any of them experienced “the long, confident and stately advance” from Needs Analysis to Syllabus and Course design and through to Evaluation? Or have they taught in places where the text book is the syllabus? (This may be no bad thing.) Or where there is no syllabus or set text book at all? How did they cope in each situation?

What image does the more pessimistic of the above formulations leave us with of the Syllabus? It captures some things, but is dumb about large tracts of what happens to learners in classrooms; it is by nature not flexible where flexibility is what matters; and it seldom exists as a complete and coherently considered, written and delivered document in any case?

This is as extreme as it is possible to be, and more extreme than most would wish to be. But a degree of creative scepticism is no bad thing.

Ultimately, syllabus design is a bit of a balancing act - it must surely involve careful consideration of three major areas: it must take account of the learning situation, with its resources and constraints but it must take also take account of how people learn languages, and - equally important to my mind - it needs to identify what language will be useful for learners in their target situation and ensure reasonable coverage of and exposure to that language. And I would argue that this applies to all courses - whether they be for general or for specific purposes. But it is up to you to come to your own decision - and justify this in the light of the theory and evidence you have gained from your own practice, reading and reflection.

1.6 Audiences for syllabus statements
So far we have taken for granted that the syllabus is a document that teachers, learners and text-book writers may want to refer to, but are there other possible audiences? To finish this unit, you might like to think about the following task:

Task 7

a. What other possible groups of people may want to refer to a language syllabus? Make a list. Can you think of three?
b. Can you envisage a situation where you may have to provide two or three different descriptions of the same syllabus or course? Give an example.

Task for consolidation and reflection

In the light of the reading you have done, reflect on and discuss with colleagues the various types of syllabus currently and previously in use in your own language learning and teaching situations. How many different ways of specifying a syllabus have you already experienced? How many exist/have existed in your local environment?

References

Apart from the books suggested at the beginning of the unit, Wilkins was extremely influential in the years immediately following publication, and his is a historic book (sadly now out of print) - if you can find it in a library do have a quick read of it. Prabhu’s book and his ideas are most stimulating and he is frequently referred to in later Units. The other titles are here simply because an aspect of their content has been referred to or quoted in this unit.

Allen, J.P.B. 1984. 'Functional-analytic course design and the variable focus curriculum' in Brumfit CJ. (ed.) The Practice of Communicative Teaching. ELT Document 124, Oxford: Pergamon Press in association with the British Council pp3-24.

Breen, M.P. 1987. 'Contemporary paradigms in syllabus design' Parts 1 and II [State of the art articles] Language Teaching Vol 20. 2. pp 81-92; vol 20.3 pp.157-174.

Candlin, C. 1984 “Syllabus design as a critical process”, General English Syllabus Design, ELT Documents 118, Oxford:Pergamon.

Clark, J.L. 1987 Curriculum Renewal in School Foreign Language Learning, Oxford University Press.

Graves, K. 1996. Teachers as Course Developers CUP .

Mohan, B . 1986. Language & Content, Reading Mass: Addison Wesley.

Nunan, D. 1988. Syllabus Design, OUP.

Prabhu, N.S. 1980 ‘Theoretical background to the Bangalore Project’ and ‘Methodological Foundations of the Bangalore Project’ in New Approaches to Teaching English. Regional Institute of English, South India, Bangalore.
Robinson, P. 1991. ESP Today : a practitioner's guide Prentice-Hall International (UK)

Skilbeck, M. 1982 “Three educational ideologies” in T.Horton & P.Raggat (eds) Challenge and Change in the Curriculum, Hodder & Stoughton.

van Ek, J 1975. Threshold Level English Oxford, Pergamon (also known by the overall title of 'Council of Europe').

White, R. 1988. The ELT Curriculum: Design, Innovation & Management, Oxford: Blackwell.

Waters, A. 1997 'Theory and Practice in LSP Course Design' in Pique, J and Viera, D. (eds) Theory and Practice in ESP, Universitad de Valencia.

Widdowson, H.G. 1983 Learning Purpose and Language Use, Oxford University Press.

Willis, J. 1996. A Framework for Task-based Learning Longman.

Yalden, J. 1987. The Communicative Syllabus: Evolution, Design and Implementation Prentice-Hall International (UK).