Situational syllabus

The situational syllabus takes into account that language is always used in a social context, which influences meaning. The syllabus is, therefore, based on a series of situations, usually in dialogue form. Learners are most likely to encounter such situations as prospective tourists when travelling abroad. E.g.: finding a room in a hotel, ordering a meal in a restaurant, buying stamps at the post-office, travelling by train, getting around town, etc.

David Wilkinsin his ‘Linguistics in Language Teaching’ considers this type of syllabus more efficient and more motivating than the grammatical syllabus because it is centred on the practical learner needs rather than on an abstract analysis of the language. The shortcoming of the approach is that a physical situational setting, such as ‘ At the Post-Office ’ or ‘ In a Restaurant ’ does not necessarily predict the language forms which will be used. One may go into a restaurant not to order a meal, but to ask directions to the museum or to change money to make a telephone call. While there is a high probability of certain language functions to occur in certain situational settings, language use cannot be predicted by the physical setting in which it is used. A further problem, not inherent in the situational approach as such, but caused by its strong ties to the grammatical syllabus, can be seen in the quote-‘seeded’ dialogues. The dialogues carry the dual function of illustrating recurrent grammatical patterns and presenting practical phrases for a situational context. These dialogues often present discourse that would never be used in natural language. And in spite of good intentions, language as practised in the classroom and language as spoken in the real world have little in common. I am sure you all are familiar with such dialogues as one from ‘Let’s Learn English’. The situational setting is: Tom and John are two American teenagers talking about the football game. John didn’t make it to go to the game the day before.

John: Did you go to the game yesterday?

Tom: Yes, I did. I went with Bill.

J: Did you walk to the stadium?

T: Yes, we walked. It wasn’t very far.

J: Did you have good seats?

T: Yes, we did. We had very good seats near the centre.

J: How was the weather?

T: Fine. It was a beautiful afternoon. Cool, but sunny.

J: Did the game begin in time?

T: Yes, it did. It began at two o’clock sharp.

J: Did you enjoy the game?

T: Yes, I did. I enjoyed it very much.

I believe even those of you who are culturally not yet terribly attained to American teenage language know that no two red-blooded American boys would talk like this.

So, we have grammatically accurate language, we have a grammatically seeded language, but no one talks like it. A situational syllabus, particularly if it is not tied to a grammatical progression, is probably most appropriate for short-term special purpose courses, such as preparing prospective tourists or service personnel, waiters and waitresses for dealing with routine requests, or for firemen with a number of emergency phrases. It has limited potential for the general language learner, interested in acquiring global language efficiency.