Syllabus

A syllabus is public document which serves as a general outline of a particular course. It's basically a list that is ordered by date and general topic. Some basic components and characteristics of the syllabus are:

1. Time Schedule: It can be based on the content to be reviewed from class to class or a specific test date.

2. Materials: This refers to the materials that will be used in the course, such as required or optional books.

3. Evaluation Breakdown: We can see what the grading system is composed of, for example the number of tests and the amount of weight each one has to come up with the final grade.

4. Objectives: It should specify what the student should be able to accomplish at the end of the semester.

5. Policies: Rules that are explained in case of an absence or any other situation that the student could face during the semester.

6. Basic Information: In this category we can include information about the institution and teacher contact information.

There are 10 different types of syllabuses.

1. Grammatical - deals with grammatical structures.
2. Lexical - lists lexical items.
3. Grammatical-lexical - a mixture of the grammatical and lexical syllabuses.
4. Situational - deal with real-life situations.
5. Topic-based - are based on different topics.
6. Notional - language concepts and vocabulary.
7. Functional-notional - deal with things we can do with language.
8. Mixed - mixture of the previous syllabuses.
9. Procedural - specifies learning tasks.
10. Process - is modified over time.