Approaches to Syllabus Design and the Role of Teachers as Course Developers

The issue of syllabus design is of great importance in language education and has attracted the attention of many material developers and language instructors over the last decade. The main purpose of this paper is, thus, to provide theoretical rationale, concepts, and practical approaches for those English teachers and material developers who want to develop their own courses. The paper also seeks to familiarize the ESL/EFL instructors and material developers with the tools and techniques of developing a course in TESOL, acquaint them with fundamental issues and practices in language curriculum development and provide them with necessary information to deepen their understanding of course development. Key elements and essential components in a course development process including different types of approaches to foreign language syllabus design, the current schools of syllabus design, the role of teachers in syllabus design, goals and objectives, material development, grading, sequencing of contents, textbook selection, syllabus and evaluation will be explained in detail. Potential practical guidelines to teaching English language, syllabus design and material development will be presented in order to provide language teachers with the necessary knowledge and skills for planning, implementing and evaluating in a given course.