Assignment

Course ID: ELT 312

Course Name: Syllabuses and Course Design
Section: 01

Submitted By:

RAIHAN RAHMAN
ID: 1830006

Submitted To:
Ms. Mithila Mahfuz
Senior Lecturer,
Department of English and Modern Languages,

School of Liberal Arts & Social Sciences.

Independent University, Bangladesh

Submission Date: September 5, 2020

1
 Midterm Questions:
1.
A. Describe 1 advantage and 1 limitation of each type of syllabus design: forward design and
backward design.
B. In our IUB context, which do you think is better from the above two? Why?
C. From your experience, give 1 example of a syllabus that follows forward design.

2.
A. Describe with example 2 problems that English teachers face when trying to develop a needs
analysis questionnaire for university level students in Bangladesh.
B. Describe 2 problems such students may face when responding to a needs analysis survey.
C. Give an example of a good question to find out the motivation of a student in learning
English.
(Each answer need not exceed 100-200 words.)

Answer to the Question (1):

(A)
Advantage of Forward Design: Here, when the teachers are designing lessons, units, or
courses, they often focus on the activities and instruction. Hence, it can be said that teachers
usually focus more on teaching and provide flexibility for individual student learning styles and
special needs.
Limitation of Forward Design:
Here, the teacher usually does not explicitly define the learning goals of the course. Thus, the
teachers do not have a better idea of what they want the students to get out of learning activities.
Besides, this design keeps the possibility of doing certain activities and tasks for the sake of just

2
doing them because maybe not every task and piece of instruction has a purpose that fits in with
the overarching goals and goals of the course.

Advantage of Backward Design:

The reason teachers find Backward Design helpful is that it inherently promotes “intentionality”
during the design process. Backward design first encourages the teacher to establish the purpose
of doing something before putting something into the curriculum. As a result, Backward Design
is an efficient way of providing instructions for teaching and developing lessons, units, and
courses. As soon as the learning objectives or desired outcomes have been specified, teachers
have an easier time developing assessments and instruction around well-balanced and sensible
learning outcomes.

Limitation of Backward Design:

Student learning and understanding is the primary focus of this design. Teachers frequently focus
on the activities and instruction instead of the outputs of the instruction during designing lessons,
units, or courses. Thus, one might say, “Teachers often focus more on teaching instead of
learning”. This point of view can lead to the misconception that learning is the activity when
learning is derived from a careful consideration of the meaning of the activity.

(B)
In IUB context I believe “Backward Design” is better than forward design because the designer
begins the process by detecting desired learning goals of the IUB students. This design clearly
answers why are they doing what they are doing, and this is very important to a university level
student. As IUB students are university level students, they will learn better when they can see
how it helps to fulfill their purposes. It gives them the “Big Picture” and so students do not feel
that they are learning unnecessary things and doing activities for the sake of just doing it. IUB
Student learning and understanding will be measured more accurately through a Backward
Design approach because it leverages what IUB students will need to know and understand
during the design process to progress.
C) The typical sequence that a Forward Design syllabus follows is:
 Content, Methodology (process), Outcomes.
From my experience, there is an example of a syllabus that follows forward design-
ELT 305: Discourse in ELT. The teacher of this course follows these (in the lesson plans) to
teach us-
 First, the teacher selects Topic(s) for a lesson 
 Secondly, the teacher selects instructional Method(s) based on the topic.
 Thirdly, the teacher chooses Resource(s)/Study Material(s)
 Fourthly, the teacher provides a Learning Outcome(s). 
To assess student understanding of the topics, the teacher chooses essay questions. As the teacher
of this course considers the learning activities first then attempt to draw connections to learning
goals of the course, it is pre-determined, and teacher directed. Thus, it is clearly seen that “ELT
305: Discourse in ELT” course follows a Forward Design.

3
 Ans to The Question No: (02)
(A)
2 problems that English teachers face when trying to develop a needs analysis questionnaire for
university level students in Bangladesh are given below:
1. Applicability and relevance of the Questionnaire: IUB receive wide
variety of students from mixed curricular backgrounds. For example- Bangla
Medium, English mediums, and Arabic Medium institutions. It is a mixture of
learner variables. Thus, it is difficult to develop a questionnaire that is
applicable for all kinds of students.
2. Detecting Standard Proficiency Level:
It is difficult to understand the proficiency level of the
students. For example, if the questionnaire has only “YES/NO” options then,
it is difficult to determine their grammar or fluency etc. The students may skip
partially or entire questionnaire if the questionnaire is too long and time
consuming.

(B)
The problems students come across when asked to respond to a questionnaire are
given below:
1. Understanding the question: Very often students cannot properly
understand the questions. As a result, students cannot provide authentic and
accurate information due to lack of proper understanding. Alternatively,
students of high proficiency might find the questionnaire worthless and waste
of time. 
2. Underestimate/ Exaggerate personal needs: Often students Underestimate
or Exaggerate his/her needs. For example: students of pre-intermediate level
may evaluate themselves as upper-intermediate, or even advanced, which
leads to a wrong interpretation of learner lacks and needs. Similarly, there are
students with extraordinary competencies but low psychological motivation,
which leads to them presenting their levels at a lower scale than they are.
Therefore, students may not ultimately be able to present their true evaluation
of self and state their problems.

(C)

To find out the motivation of a student to learn English, the student can be asked this question
given below – 
What is your purpose of learning English? (select 2 options max)

1. For academic progress.

2. To get good jobs.
3. To communicate with foreigners. 
4. To feel socially acceptable by the English-Speaking friends.

4
5. To watch movies or Sing Songs