Functional-notional courses

I. One form – several meanings

The designer of any language course has to begin with doing 2 things: 1) first he must choose what items or aspects of the language are to be included into the course materials. This process is called selection; 2) then he has to arrange these pieces of material into the best possible order to ensure successful learning. This is called grading. The final arrangement is the language syllabus.

As we have seen, structural grading consists mainly of arranging the structural items or patterns into a suitable order. The resulting syllabus is known as a structural, or grammatical, syllabus and can be represented by a list of language forms in a certain order.

A functional-notional syllabus is also an arrangement of ‘pieces’ of language, but these pieces are not language forms: they are functions and notions.

In any language there are many different ways of expressing the same thought. This may seem rather obvious, but the implication of this fact about language is important. It is clear that two aspects of language form and language use are not directly related in every case. The statement ‘ That’s John’s car’ could be used in a variety of contexts, each representing a totally different type of interaction. E.g.:

Type 1: It belongs to John. – Simple identification.

Type 2: It’s John’s, but not yours. – Warning.

Type 3: Open the door of it. – A request to open the door of this very car.

Type 4: Open the front door of the house. – John has arrived. He is the expected guest, i.e. another kind of request.

Type 5: Call John and invite him to the party. – A request plus invitation.

Obviously, stress and intonation are of crucial importance, too.

II. Appropriacy

In other words, one form can have several meanings. The use of the form depends on the circumstances. These circumstances make the use of certain forms either appropriate or inappropriate. Hence, the relevant factor is appropriacy. In the example above, the main consideration is the relationshipbetween the speakers: who is speaking to whom. But other considerations may also influence a speaker’s choice of words:

· setting (where the interaction takes place);

· topic (what subject is under discussion);

· channel (what the medium of communication is: telephone, radio, letter, telegram, etc.);

· any special conventions determined by the circumstances.

But, once again, all aspects brought together put forward the request of the function the language performs in a given situation.

III. Content

David Wilkinsis generally agreed to be the originator of the idea of developing a functional-notional syllabus. In his book ‘Notional syllabuses’ he describes the process of designing such a syllabus as follows: ‘Instead of asking how speakers of the language express themselves or when and where they use the language, we ask what it is they communicate through language. We are then able to organise language teaching in terms of the content rather than the form of the language’.

Functions are clear examples of pieces of ‘ language content’. Basically, a function is a label attached to a sentence saying what it does. But within any such sentence there may be other units of content which we might call concepts, although they are often, confusingly, referred to as notions. Examples of these are the concepts of time, space, quantity, motion, etc.

In practice, unlike functions, these concepts are closely linked to the structure and lexis of a language, but not entirely. The preposition ‘ in’, for example, is used both to express time and space, e.g.: in the evening; in bed. We should finally add a very important set of concepts representing the speaker’s attitude to what he says (Wilkinscalls this ‘modal meaning’). The sentences:

may

Our team will win.

must

represent a scale of uncertainty – certainty, and there are many linguistic forms which are used to express the speaker’s position on this scale. Apart fromuncertainty – certainty, we have concepts such as obligation and intention. In practice, these categories overlap with communicative functions. Thus, we generalise the arrangement of functions and notions and content in the following scheme:

IV. Organisation

To organise the pieces of linguistic content into a syllabus, the course designer should do the following:

1) First, functions are much easier to arrange than concepts, or notions. Most existing courses of this kind place emphasis on the communicative functions of language and they tend to be described as functional, or functional-notional courses.

2) Secondly, all functional-notional courses have a strong situational element. Obviously functions have to be presented in the language materials contextualised in situations. But some situations, such as ‘Using the telephone’ have strict conventions that govern the language forms used. Consequently, functional-notional courses often contain units which are, strictly speaking, situational, entitled ‘Using the telephone’, ‘Asking the way’, ‘Making transport enquiries’, etc.

Topic

Structure

Functions and notions

A general scheme for combining the necessary elements of a notional course might be as follows:

The topic element will include provision for a suitable range of language items. The situation chosen for presentation purposes will make clear the special reference or appropriacy of the forms chosen to express the function in questions.

It is noteworthy that before presenting the language patterns, whatever form they may be in, the teacher needs to set the situation. Experience has shown that the learning of new language items is hindered unless the learners have a full understanding of the situation. One way of achieving this is for the teacher to introduce the situation in the form of a ‘mini-text’ as an initial reading or listening activity. It can be possibly done even in the mother tongue in certain cases. Although this should be as brief as possible, there are certain factors that need to be thought about to make the situation as clearly understandable as possible: characters, social roles, psychological roles, setting, topic, purpose. The following rules are to be observed:

· Make characters plausible. They should appear realistic personalities that the students can recognise and possibly identify with (biographical details).

· Define their social roles. Make clear where your characters are (at work, at home) and who they are (father, son, etc.).

· Indicate the psychological roles involved. Let your student understand their status or position (in a superior/inferior/equal position to the other speaker).

· Describe the setting clearly (football match, office, classroom, street, etc.).

· Define the topic. Make sure that they know what they are speaking about.

· Give them the purpose of the conversation (to induce doing something, to find out something, etc.)

Above all, the situation has to be made clear quickly and briefly so that the presentation of the language can be made as soon as possible.

3) Finally, instead of linear arrangements of items, a spiral arrangement is envisaged. Obviously, in a particular unit on, for example, ‘Requesting’ not all the available forms of expression will be introduced. Instead, these should be built up gradually over the course.

The following pattern represents the spiral arrangement:

Function A Function B

Function H

Function C

Function G Function D

Function F Function E

Functions:

A – Greeting C – Agreeing E – Inducing G – Apologising

B – Requesting D – Refusing F – Inviting H – Saying ‘Good-bye’

This model is a simplification. There are only 8 functions included. But it gives us the general principle. The number of forms of expression for a given function or notion should be gradually increased and built up as the course proceeds.

V. Notional syllabus design: Advantages and disadvantages

a) Advantages

The main advantages of a notional syllabus usually cited are these:

· Clearly, knowledge of structure and lexis (grammatical competence) is not enough to ensure that the student will be able to communicate effectively when required to do so in any set of circumstances. A functional-notionalsyllabus, if well designed, can overcome this problem. In particular, it can make the student sensitive to the need for appropriate language in a givensituation. In general, such a syllabus will focus on the more important goal of using the language for a purpose.

· Because of its obvious value in providing language, which is relevant to the learner’s needs, the functional-notional syllabus should enormously enhance motivation. Instead of learning to manipulate items in a vacuum, the student will be able to recognise the value of the language he learns.

· Finally, functional-notional syllabuses are especially suitable for specialist courses, e.g. English for Scientists, English for Doctors, English for Airline Pilots, etc.

b) Disadvantages

We must also mention certain possible disadvantages of the functional-notional approach to course design:

· Students must inevitably learn the grammar of the language at some stage. We cannot, therefore, totally abandon the principles and procedures of grammatical methods of teaching: we will have to drill structures and organise the linguistic items into a suitable form of grading.

· By aiming at communication effectiveness, we have made our aims more ambitious. We are now aiming at subtler uses of language. This makes the task of both teacher and students much harder. It could be argued that it might be simpler to aim at more accessible objectives and simply provide our students with a minimum equipment (i.e. basic grammar and lexis) to enable them to cope with most communication tasks, however inappropriate their language might be. Here, the amount of teaching time available becomes of crucial importance.

· In some ways, the functional-notional syllabus might be very confusing for our students. Whereas before they could concentrate on the forms of the language, now they may encounter many different forms under the same heading. It might be worth pointing out that this argument has another side to it: similarities of the language form can also be very misleading and confusing. Confusion can result both from the structural and from the notional arrangement of language items; it is difficult to say which is most harmful. E.g., it is possible to imagine a student taught by structural-situational methods encountering in the target country the question: ‘ Have you got a cigarette?’, not recognising it as a request and replying, ‘Yes, I have. Haven’t you?’

· All the above points have led many teachers and course writers to consider the functional-notional syllabus more suitable for the intermediate student, who has already covered the basic grammatical syllabus.

c) Specialist courses

A special note has to be taken about specialist courses organised on the basis of a functional-notional syllabus. When organising a specialist course, such as one for scientists, doctors, engineers, etc., the topic aspect becomes very important. This will produce a special range of lexis relating to the specialisation in question and also a special emphasis on certain particularly useful structural items. For example, in scientific writing, the passive verb forms are particularly suitable. E.g., ‘The test-tube has been shaken for 5 minutes’, or ‘Molten metal is poured into the mould’ and so on.

However, there is a particular advantage in organising specialist courses according to a functional-notional framework. Any given specialist will inevitably have to perform certain specific functions with the language. If these can be isolated, the course writer can economise enormously by concentrating on those functions of the language. This makes the course easier for both the teacher and the student.

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