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What is a syllabus?
It is a specification specification of the content of the course of instruction and includes what will be taught and tested.
What is a lexical syllabus?
it is the target vocabulary for a language course
How many words do educated native speakers recognize?
17,000 words.
Mention one criteria for grammar selection in a course
Simplicity and centrality, Frecuency, Learnability
When did the language teaching curriculum as we know it today begin to develop?
1960's
What does the criteria of similarity consist of?
selecting words for lexical syllabus based on the similarities it has with the native language
What percentage of words in everyday texts comes from a small class of words?
Up to 95%.
What was the priority in planning the teaching of a language?
Grammar and Vocabulary
When was the first generation of English language teaching syllabuses developed?
in the first half of the twentieth century
What are some categories that can be included in a basic English vocabulary?
Model items, delexical verbs, stance words, discourse markers, basic nouns, general deictics, basic adjectives, basic verbs, basic adverbs
Why is selection necessary in language teaching?
It is impossible to teach the whole of a language, so all methods must select the part they intend to teach.
What are the two sequencing approaches?
Cyclical and linear
What were the 3 assumptions of the first generation of syllabuses?
Language analysis provides the basis for language teaching, the basic units of language are vocabulary and grammar and learnerns everywhere have the same needs
What criteria has to do with the selection of words that may not be the most frequent, but are useful in defining other words?
Defining power
What were the two main aspects of selection that influenced syllabus design?
Vocabulary selection and grammar selection.
When we compare one language with another, it is called language comparison approach, also known as...
contrastive analysis
What were the two central processes for syllabus design?
selection and gradation, or sequencing
Why are frequency and range not enough to develop a vocabulary syllabus?
they are not necessarily the most teachable words in an introductory language course
How many words cover 95% and 98% of written texts?
4,000-5,000 words cover 95%, while 8,000-9,000 words cover 98%.
This principle argues that simple structures should be taught before complex ones and is the commonest criterion used to justify the sequence of grammatical items in a syllabus.
Intrinsic difficulty