Structural/Grammatical Syllabus: advantages and disadvantages

Structural syllabus, also known as the grammatical syllabus, is the most common and traditional syllabus type. It has been in use by language teachers for many years. It is a product oriented, content based syllabus in that the focus is on knowledge and skills which learners should gain as a result of instruction, not on how they can attain them. Synthetic approach to syllabus designing is essential to produce such a syllabus. Most grammatical syllabus seems to be that language consists of a finite set of rules and these rules can be learned one by one in an additive fashion.

Content:

Structural / grammatical syllabus generally consists of two components:

(i) a list of linguistic structures and (ii) a list of words

Selection and gradation / sequencing:

Syllabus input is graded according to grammatical notions of simplicity and complexity. Selection and sequencing of vocabulary in a structural syllabus are done with the help of the criteria mentioned by Michael West (1953):

(a)   Frequency: The number of times the word appears in our use of language.

(b)  Range: The number of texts / areas in which the item is found.

(c)   Availability: Most appropriate and necessary for certain situations.

(d)  Familiarity: Most familiar words.

(e)   Coverage: The degree to which a word covers other words.

(f)    Learnability: Easily learnable.

Advantages:

The main advantages of the structural / grammatical syllabus are the followings:-

(a)    Structures and vocabulary are the two most important elements of a language. Without good command of these sectors, no one can conceive of performing in a language successfully.

(b)   There is teaching facility as there are available materials, textbooks, etc.

(c)    Sequencing and selection is not so difficult as it is with semantic and functional syllabuses.

Criticism:

During the 1970s, the use of structural syllabuses came under increasing criticism. Let us look at some of the criticisms:

1)    One early criticism was that structurally graded syllabuses misrepresented the nature of that complex phenomenon of language.

2)    SLA researchers state that grammatical grading of content interferes with language acquisition which is more a global than a linear process.

3)    Form and meaning are emphasized and therefore, functional aspect of meaning is ignored.

4)    Meaning of words and sentences is taught in isolation within a particular grammatical form.

5)    What is taught within this view is items present in a structure.

6)    The attack on grammatical syllabus is in part an attack on the view that language must be taught as a body of knowledge, a package that the teacher passes to the learner.

Structural / grammatical syllabus is the commonest type of syllabus both traditionally and currently. It has been used with success over a long period; recently many methodologists have come to see grammar as the wrong organizing principle for a syllabus and have proposed a number of alternatives as frameworks to hang a language program on.