Process Syllabus
A syllabus that specifies the procedures by which classroom work is planned, carried out, and evaluated rather than the linguistic content it will cover. Content emerges from ongoing negotiation between teacher and learners; the syllabus is the framework for that negotiation.
Origin
The process syllabus was articulated by Michael Breen and Christopher Candlin in "The essentials of a communicative curriculum in language teaching" (Applied Linguistics 1(2), 89–112, 1980), the lead article of the journal's first issue and a foundational statement for CLT. Breen extended the proposal in "Process syllabuses for the language classroom" (in C. J. Brumfit, ed., General English Syllabus Design, Pergamon and the British Council, 1984) and developed the practical machinery in Classroom Decision-Making with Andrew Littlejohn (Cambridge University Press, 2000).
Theoretical Basis
Breen and Candlin treated language learning as participation in a socio-cultural community of communication, drawing on a Hallidayan view of language as social semiotic. From that premise it follows that classroom work cannot be fully pre-specified: the route through the language depends on what the particular group of learners brings, wants, and discovers. The syllabus is therefore a plan for how decisions get made, not a list of items to cover.
Design Features
A process syllabus operates on three levels:
- A bank of possible content — texts, tasks, topics, language items — drawn from needs analysis, learner interests, and the teacher's repertoire.
- A negotiation procedure through which teacher and learners select, sequence, and evaluate work from the bank, including who decides what, when, and on what basis.
- A retrospective record of decisions taken and outcomes achieved, used to refine the next round of negotiation.
This puts the process syllabus in direct contrast with product-oriented designs (structural, notional-functional, lexical), which specify outcomes in advance.
Relation to Negotiated and Task-Based Syllabuses
The process syllabus is the methodological parent of the Negotiated Syllabus: Breen and Littlejohn (2000) treat negotiation as the operational core of process design. It overlaps with TBLT in valuing emergent, learner-driven work, but the process syllabus negotiates the curriculum itself, where TBLT typically pre-specifies a task sequence and negotiates within it.
Critiques
The approach demands experienced teachers, mature learners, and institutional tolerance for unpredictable coverage — conditions rare in mass schooling and exam-driven contexts. Critics have also questioned whether genuinely shared decision-making is feasible when one party controls assessment. Breen and Littlejohn (2000) responded with a gradualist model in which negotiation widens incrementally as the class develops the procedural literacy to handle it.
References
- Breen, M. P., and Candlin, C. N. (1980). The essentials of a communicative curriculum in language teaching. Applied Linguistics 1(2), 89–112.
- Breen, M. P. (1984). Process syllabuses for the language classroom. In C. J. Brumfit (ed.), General English Syllabus Design (pp. 47–60). Pergamon and the British Council.
- Breen, M. P., and Littlejohn, A. (eds.) (2000). Classroom Decision-Making: Negotiation and Process Syllabuses in Practice. Cambridge University Press.