Integrating
SFL in Designing Syllabus for ESL Classroom
Agus Dwi
Priyanto
The idea of competence in language teaching is
not really new. This was initiated in the 1960’s and 1970’s when communicative
approach occurred. Even, writing in 1954, Hill (in Coleman, 1996) suggested us,
the English teachers in Indonesia, to adopt the so called
communicative language teaching.
However, what happened in practice is still a kind of ritual. The
activities are just the same, from day to day. Observing English classrooms in Indonesia, Coleman (1996) even takes a
parallel from English teaching in Indonesia to Wayang
Kulit performance where the teacher, like the dalang, speaks all the time, without any
respect from the students or the audiences. That is to say, students may do
anything they want (sometimes irrelevant to the material taught at that time),
exactly like the audience in wayang kulit performance. They can chat with others, eat, or
even sleep while the teacher or the dalang is
presenting the story. Another parallel to this is sambutan
(or public address), where the person delivering his speech always addresses
his audience respectfully, while the audience may pay full attention, less
attention, or even busily spend all the time of the speech by chatting with the
person next to him or her.
Not only the way of teaching, the syllabus and
material taught in English classrooms in Indonesia also needs our concerns. This can
be seen from the output. Many students get 3.5 or even 4 for their English; it
means that they can do the test easily. However, they have no even confidence
to speak in English. They know all the grammatical rules and are able to
complete grammatical exercises correctly, but they are not able to say what
they want in real situations. There must be something wrong with the system on
English Language Teaching (ELT) in Indonesia.
Many scholars have talked and written about
communicative language teaching. Few, however, talk about the material. It is
very difficult to create a syllabus and material that can be used together,
nationally wide. This is partly because the material for English classroom is
different from one context to another. Through this paper, I would like to
share an idea on creating a communicative syllabus and selecting materials for
English teaching, with the help of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL).
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Priyanto, A. D. (2003, August). Integrating competence-based
approach for ESL classroom. Paper
presented at the NUESP [Network of University ELT
Service Providers] National Conference, Jember, Indonesia.
Website: www.geocities.com/eltindonesia
Email: eltindonesia@yahoo.com