Problems of Communicative Syllabuses

Abstract

An examination of textbooks based on a 'Grammatical Syllabus' would reveal considerable consensus about order and contents. An examination of textbooks following a 'communica tive' approach however, does not reveal any comparable con sensus about what should be included in a communicative sylla bus. Certain functions do tend to appear, for example 'requesting,' 'apologising' and 'suggesting' but there is no agreed order of presentation. This is probably because the courses were originally designed for a variety of different situations.

This article suggests that there is perhaps greater potential in basing communicative syllabuses on a common core of 'notions' (Wilkins semantico-grammatical categories) such as 'location,' 'cause and effect' and 'quantity.' Such notions have a more predictable relationship with sentence grammar than, say, func tions which are essentially features of discourse and should be treated as such. A communicative syllabus cannot just be an inventory of notions and their formal representations. A com municative syllabus must include methodological guidelines that avoid any contradiction between the aims of the syllabus and the means by which these aims are achieved. Suggestions are made as to the type of communicative methodology that can be ex ploited even from the earliest stages.