A Journey Through Online
Language Learning
Syllabus Type > Notional/Functional (Product based approach)
As a response to the criticism of grammatical or structural syllabuses, a broader view of language was incorporated in the notional-functional syllabus, which is built up around functions and notions in the foreign language. Functions are communicative purposes, for example: buying food, requesting information or apologising. This syllabus is also concerned with notions or conceptual meanings in that language, such as quantity, age or time. A criticism of this kind of syllabus is that, just like the grammatical syllabus, it still divides up language into bits that need to be learnt sequentially, a piecemeal and cut-up process which misrepresents the holistic nature of language as communication (Widdowson 1979, in Nunan 2008:37).
Example: Lagelands
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