Negotiated Syllabuses

After working through this chapter you should be able to give learners a say in the design and
running of a course.

Negotiated Syllabuses
A negotiated syllabus involves the teacher and the learners working together to make decisions at
many of the parts of the curriculum design process. It is a way of giving high priority to the
recognition of learner needs within a course and to the need to continually adjust courses while
they are running to suit changing needs and circumstances. Negotiated syllabuses are also called
“process syllabuses” (Breen, 1987). The word process in the term process syllabus indicates that
the important feature of this type of syllabus is that it focuses on how the syllabus is made rather
than what should be in it.

Clarke (1991) sees the interest in negotiated syllabuses arising from humanistic methodologies
like community language learning which are very learner-centered, from needs analysis which
focuses on learners’ needs, from work in individualization and learner autonomy, and from
learner strategy research which sees the learner playing a central role in determining how the
language is learned. These are clearly strong reasons for having a negotiated syllabus. Breen and
Littlejohn (2000b: 272–3) list situations where a negotiated syllabus is almost unavoidable:

1. Where the teacher and students have different backgrounds.

2. Where time is short and the most useful choices must be made.
3. Where there is a very diverse group of students and there is a need to find common ground.
4. Where initial needs analysis is not possible.
5. Where there is no course book.
6. Where the students’ past experiences must be part of the course.
7. Where the course is open-ended and exploratory.

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The strongest pressure for a negotiated syllabus arises when the learners have experience and
skills which others in the class could learn from (see Norris and Spencer (2000) for a description
of a course involving Indonesian Chapter 10 tertiary teachers), and where the needs of the
learners are not readily apparent to those teaching the course.

There is some debate over what aspects of the syllabus could be negotiated. Breen and Littlejohn
(2000a: 30–31) see the range of decisions open to negotiation as including all the parts of the
central circle of the curriculum design diagram, namely goals, content and sequencing, format
and presentation, and monitoring and assessment.
Purposes: Why are we learning the language? (Goals)
Content: What should be the focus of our work? (Content and sequencing)

Ways of working: How should the learning work be carried out?

(Format and presentation)
Evaluation: How well has the learning proceeded? (Monitoring and assessment)

Breen and Littlejohn (2000a: 34–38) point out that negotiation of the goals, content, presentation
or assessment of the syllabus can occur at any level of detail or generality from negotiating a
particular task in the course, to a sequence of tasks, a series of lessons, the whole course, or the
wider curriculum (Figure 10.1).

A negotiated syllabus involves the steps of (1) negotiating the goals, content, format and
assessment of the course, (2) implementing these negotiated decisions, (3) evaluating the effect
of the implementation in terms of outcomes and the way the implementation was done. This then
should lead to a return to step (1).

Figure 10.1 A process syllabus.

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150 Negotiated Syllabuses
Let us look first at an example of a negotiated syllabus in action and then look more closely at
the range of options available for a negotiated syllabus and its disadvantages and advantages.

An Example of a Negotiated Syllabus

The class is a group of adult graduate students preparing for post-graduate university study
through the medium of English. They come from a wide variety of countries and will do their
post-graduate study in a wide range of disciplines.

1. For the first two weeks of class the teacher follows a set program involving a large
variety of activities.
2. At the end of the two-week period the teacher tells the class, “Now that you have settled
in and have experienced some typical classes, it is time for you to take an active part in
deciding what we will do for the next two weeks.”
3. The teacher and the class members list the activities and parts of the course on the board,
and then working in small groups discuss what should be removed from the list, and what
should be added to it. The groups report back and the list on the board is revised. If the
learners wish they can discuss the list some more.
4. The next step is to rank the items in the list and fit them into the class time table. This
again is done in small groups and then with the class as a whole. During this discussion
the learners negotiate with each other and with the teacher.
5. The resulting timetable with its activities then becomes the timetable for the next one or
two weeks, when it is then renegotiated. The teacher sometimes calls on some of the
learners to help with preparation and material for the class in order to cope with the short
class preparation time that such negotiation sometimes results in.

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This is a somewhat conservative example of a negotiated syllabus. It is conservative or cautious
because the class did not start with a negotiated syllabus from the very first day of class. There
were several reasons for this. First, many of the learners came from backgrounds where teachers
are highly respected and would feel very uncomfortable telling the teacher what to do. In the first
two weeks the learners can come to realize that the teacher can be trusted and that it is reasonable
to negotiate with him. Second, most of the learners had not experienced a pre-university course
before and so the teacher wanted to show them some of the range of goals and activities
available, several of which might be new to them. This initial time of experience would inform
and enrich the learners’ later negotiations because they would have more to draw on. Third, the
teacher wanted to show what he saw as Negotiated Syllabuses 151important for the learners and
what he taught well. This was partly with the hope of influencing the later negotiation. Fourth,
the teacher wanted to develop credibility with the class before passing much of the control to
them.

If the syllabus had been negotiated on the first day, some learners may have reacted by thinking,
“You are the teacher, can’t you teach?” All the same, there are many situations when negotiation
begins when teacher and students first meet. Boon (2005) began on the first day because his fee-
paying students were enrolled on a short course. Macalister (2007) was concerned with quickly
meeting the ESP “wants” of engineering students, and used ranking and consensus-building
activities in the first class to find out what their “wants” were.

After much trial and error, Irujo (2000) decided that negotiation of an
MA teaching methodology course was best done by presenting course members with a draft
syllabus in which some items were non-negotiable, but in which there were many items and
procedures (methods of learning, assignments, etc.) that were negotiable. Adding to the draft
necessarily involved removing something from it to provide a place for the new topic. This use
of a draft syllabus satisfied course members who felt uncomfortable with a completely
negotiated syllabus. It also made negotiation more focused and efficient, and dealt very

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effectively with the wide range of experience (or lack of it) that course members brought to the
course.

Requirements for a Negotiated Syllabus

Breen (1987) describes the decisions to be negotiated in a negotiated (process) syllabus and the
materials needed to make it work. The decisions include the following, and are made through
discussion by the teacher and the learners.
1 Negotiation procedure: How will the negotiation be carried out?
When will it be done? How often will it be done? Who has the responsibility for organizing it?
Who has the responsibility for checking that what is negotiated is actually done?
2 Course planning: participation: Who will work with whom? The range of answers to this
question includes individual work, pair work, groups working with the teacher, and the teacher
working with the whole class.
3 Course planning: procedure: What kinds of activity will be worked on? The range of
answers is many and may include role play, information gap tasks, guided writing, extensive
reading, and oral drills. Mossback (1990) shows how nine different types of activity favored by
teachers, administrators and learners came to be incorporated into a curriculum in Sri Lanka as a
result of negotiation over a two-year period. Additional decisions include how long each activity
will be worked on, how it will be worked on, and how the results of the activity will be assessed.
152 Negotiated Syllabuses
4 Course planning: learning goals: What will be the focus of the work? The range of possible
answers includes increasing speaking fluency, learning new vocabulary, learning how to
organize written assignments, and learning how to understand and give directions. The result of
these decisions is a plan of work for a certain period of time. In order for the plan to be put into
action there needs to be a choice of learning resources consisting of activities and tasks.
5 Course evaluations: The fifth, critical step in the negotiated syllabus is continual evaluation of
the previous decisions and the learning resources. This evaluation should then lead to re-
negotiation. The range of decisions to evaluate includes the kind of participation, the kinds of
activities, the material used in the activities, and the learning outcomes. Breen (1987) sees the
evaluation part of the negotiated syllabus as its “key element”. Evaluation leads to re-thinking
and re-negotiation.

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“The process syllabus thereby involves teacher and learners in a cycle of decision-making
through which their own preferred ways of working, their own on-going content syllabus, and
their choices of appropriate activities and tasks are realized in the classroom” (Breen, 1987: 167).
6 Resources and materials: A requirement of a negotiated syllabus is that there is a large
amount of resource material available to draw on or which the teacher and learners can readily
produce.

Syllabuses with Some Elements Negotiated

Breen’s description of a negotiated syllabus is at one end of the scale. It is possible to have a
syllabus within which some parts or some aspects are negotiated while others are left under the
control of the teacher or curriculum designer (Clarke, 1989). There are several ways of dividing
up the syllabus. Here are some of the possibilities.

1. A fixed lesson or time of the day is set aside for negotiated activities. For example, an
hour each Friday afternoon is used for activities that the learners and teacher have
negotiated.
2. One or more of the four types of decisions described above (participation, procedure,
learning goals, evaluation) is open for negotiation. Clarke (1989) suggests encouraging
learners to take over some of the assessment activity.
3. The classes for one or more language skills, such as free-speaking activities, are planned
through negotiation. For example, the learners negotiate the types of reading activities
that they will do.
4. One or more parts of the inner circle of the curriculum design diagram are open to
negotiation. For example, the ideas content of the lessons can Negotiated Syllabuses
153be negotiated, while the teacher retains control of language focus, presentation and
assessment. The Breen and Littlejohn (2000a) collection of reports on the
implementation of a negotiated syllabus provides a very valuable resource for teachers
wishing to try such negotiation in their own classrooms.

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 There are useful examples from all levels of the educational system, from five-year-olds to
secondary school classes, students in tertiary institutions, and teachers-in training.

Negotiating Assessment
Several of the reports focus on negotiation of assessment and evaluation, largely because this has
direct effects on goals and ways of achieving these goals. Breen and Littlejohn (2000a: 40) point
out that there are four major factors affecting feedback through assessment:

1. The extent to which students are aware of the criteria being used.
2. The relative emphasis given to what they have achieved as compared with what they have
failed to achieve.
3. The coincidence between what the feedback focuses upon and what the students themselves
have recognized as particularly difficult for them.
4. Whether or not they believe they can act on the basis of the feedback in a way that solves a
recognized problem.

This is a very insightful list and the teacher needs to keep these factors in mind when negotiating
assessment. Smith (2000) describes a very effective way of negotiating assessment. The
assessment is seen as including not only the results of tests and assigned tasks, but also
participation in class, homework, and class projects. Table 10.1 provides a sample assessment
form that was negotiated in two ways:
1. The components and percentage weightings of the components of assessment were
negotiated with the class.
2. Each individual negotiated their particular marks with the teacher. This negotiated
assessment very effectively takes account of the four factors described above by
including awareness of the criteria for assessment, and a positive, relevant, and formative
focus. This informed and involved approach to assessment will clearly have positive
effects on learning.

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The idea of a negotiated syllabus raises questions about the role of the teacher and the role of the
commercially produced text book (Richards, 1993). This issue will be looked at in the next
chapter, which looks at evaluating a course book.

154 Negotiated Syllabuses

Even where a course uses a prescribed textbook, has an externally imposed syllabus, or leads up
to an externally set test, there are still plenty of opportunities for negotiation, particularly as to
how activities are carried out and how internal assessment is done.

Disadvantages and Advantages of a Negotiated Syllabus

The disadvantages of a negotiated syllabus are of two major types. The first is the result of a lack
of knowledge or experience with such a syllabus. Learners may be reluctant to negotiate or to let
their classmates negotiate because they feel it should be the teacher’s expertise guiding the
course. Gradual introduction of a negotiated syllabus can provide learner training to help
overcome this problem. Learners may also not know enough of the range of options they could
choose from and thus may make unimaginative choices. Teachers may feel that using a
negotiated syllabus removes too much of their power and status. Learners may find it difficult to
reach agreement about what they should be doing. The second major disadvantage is that a fully
negotiated syllabus requires considerable teacher skill and time in accessing and producing
resources. Where there are several teachers with similar classes, this load can be partly shared.

Table 10.2 divides the factors against implementing a negotiated syllabus into learner factors and
teacher factors although some of them reach more widely than that. Some of the learner factors
come from lack of knowledge. Some of them and some of the teacher factors touch a core issue,
namely, will a negotiated syllabus serve the needs of the learners well? Each of the problems
does have at least one possible solution. If the advantages of implementing a negotiated syllabus
are seen as being great, then the disadvantages need to be dealt with.

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Breen and Littlejohn (2000b: 273–281) have a very useful discussion of many of these factors.
Learner factors in particular are very well illustrated in Holme and Chalauisaeng (2006)’s
narrative of student responses to attempts

Table 10.1 Assessment scale

Component Weight (%) Pupil’s mark Teacher’s mark
Doing homework 10 8 6
Level of homework 20 16 17
Participation in class 10 9 7
Individual progress 10 5 8
Projects 30 26 27
Test results (not negotiated) 20 15 15
Total 100 79 80

Negotiated Syllabuses 155: to negotiate an EAP reading course at a Thai university. For
example, from believing that the teacher was responsible for their learning, students shifted to
view learning as their own responsibility. They also point to another possible disadvantage of
negotiating a syllabus, however, when they express concern that their approach “may focus the
class too strongly on understanding how they had to learn to the detriment of learning itself”.
Davies (2006) suggests using simple questionnaires, introduced and clarified through class
discussion, to gather learners’ opinions on what kinds of activities should be used in the course.
Because these questionnaires are done at the local class level, changes are relatively easy to
make within the course, and learners feel that their opinions are being considered and acted on.
The advantages of a negotiated syllabus come largely from its responsiveness to the “wants” of
the learners and the involvement of the learners.

Breen (1987) argues strongly that all courses have to adjust in some way to the reality of the
teaching situation and the negotiated syllabus gives clear recognition to this. Involving the
learners in shaping the syllabus has a strong effect on motivation, satisfaction and commitment
to the course. It changes from being the teacher’s course to the learners’ course. The actual
negotiation process has its benefits. If the negotiation is carried out in English, then this may be

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some of the most involving meaning-focused activity in the program. The negotiation also
develops learners’ awareness of the goals of language-learning activities and how these goals can
be achieved. This understanding may then make them better learners.
Table 10.2 Problems in implementing a negotiated syllabus

Learner factors
 The learners have limited awareness of the possible activities.
 The learners are perfectly happy to let the teacher teach.
 The learners need training in negotiation.
 With no course book learners do not feel a sense of progress.
 Learners’ wants are only a small part of learners’ needs.
 The needs of the learners are too diverse to reach agreement.
 Cultural expectations make learners reluctant to negotiate with the teacher.
 The learners lack confidence in negotiating with the teacher.
 Negotiation will have a negative effect on students’ attitudes to the course because the
teacher is not taking control of the course.

Teacher factors
 Negotiation uses valuable class time.
 The teacher’s workload is less if the teacher teaches exactly the same lessons to several
different classes.
 The school expects all learners in different classes to follow the same course.
 What is done in your class needs to be similar to what is done in the rest of the school.
 There are not a lot of teaching resources to draw on.
 The teacher is not skilful enough to cope with short-term planning.

156 Negotiated Syllabuses

Summary of the Steps
1. Decide how the negotiation will be carried out.
2. Negotiate the participation, procedure and goals.
3. Begin to run the course.

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 4. Evaluate the effectiveness of the negotiated decisions.
5. Go through the steps again.
This chapter has looked at how learners can be involved in curriculum design. In the next chapter
we look at a particular kind of evaluation, evaluating a course book.
Tasks
Task 1 Problems in implementing a negotiated syllabus
Look at the list of factors which may make it difficult to introduce a negotiated or partly
negotiated syllabus in Table 10.1. Think of your own teaching environment and decide on the
top three factors creating the most difficult obstacles to overcome. How could you overcome
them?

Task 2 Partly negotiated syllabuses

What parts of the curriculum design process are most open to negotiation?

Task 3 Developing a negotiated approach to syllabus

Design
A bank of materials
1. How could you make your learners aware of the range of material, techniques, activities
and tests that they could choose for the course?

Negotiated Syllabuses 157

Involving learners
2. How could you gather your learners’ opinions about which materials, techniques,
activities and tests they would like to use in the course?
Evaluation
3. How could you arrange for continual feedback for everyone involved and for adjustment
of the syllabus?
Advantages and disadvantages
4. What do you need to be careful about in using a process syllabus?

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Case Studies
1. Examine a case study of the implementation of a negotiated syllabus to see what parts
of the curriculum design process were negotiated and what parts were not negotiated.
2. Examine a case study of a negotiated syllabus to see the steps that were followed in
the negotiation. See, for example, Littlejohn (1983), Savage and Sorer (1992), Boon
(2005) or Macalister (2007).
158 Negotiated Syllabuses

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