Reflection on Course Planning and Syllabus Design
After reading this chapter, I came to realize that a course designer or a text material developer should consider a lot of things in order to produce a successful syllabus. I’ve never been in syllabus making position, but from the view point of the user of English language related books, I’ve certainly witnessed various kinds of syllabus frameworks. The very first book I was impressed with was ‘English Grammar in Use.’ Before encountering this book, I studied grammar with the help of famous books like ‘Sungmun English Grammar’ and ‘Man-to-Man.’ However, I found them really hard, and some grammatical items never made sense to me. They made me feel really frustrated. On the other hand, ‘English Grammar in Use’ was totally different from these books; it was absolutely sensational. The moment I started studying this book, I felt so relieved from the long-lived stress and pressure. It provided not only easy explanation of grammatical points but also examples of everyday-life conversation. I could easily utilize those expressions in real world, which helped me practice the grammar and communication skills at the same time. One of grammatical syllabus’s drawbacks is not addressing communicative skills, but this is not the case with this great book. One of the reasons why I found Korean grammar books very hard was because example sentences were often very formal and literature-like. Therefore, it was almost impossible to associate learning grammar with improving speaking skills. However, ‘English Grammar in Use’ is like killing two birds with one stone; you have easy grasp of grammar and increase communicative skills. Whenever I taught secondary school students, I used this book. Whoever knows this book is very blessed.
