Blog 3 - Kassa Valz

Blog 3 

“What a Million Syllabuses Can Teach Us” (2016) is a creative article that provides insight into the newly establish study of syllabuses.

As I reflect back on my academic career and the multitude of syllabi I have read, I believe there are only a few in which I truly benefited from. Professors (in my opinion) should assign texts which students can use after they have completed their course. While completing my undergrad in Applied Linguistics are Carleton University many of the text assigned in the TESL certification stream are still relevant now, many of them I still use when teaching an ESL course (i.e. activities, tasks, tests) discussed in the text.  

Throughout the M.Ed. program a vast majority of my courses provided journals for the required reading, which I am in complete support. Not only because it saves us poor students’ some money, but the fact that most of the journals are directly related to the course themes with empirical research within the selected field.

Highly organized syllabi are very important for students in many ways, first it provides a general overview of expectation and the direction the course will be taking. It should provide the required reading and assignment due dates so students can structure their time around school work, employment, readings and social life outside of studying. Additionally, the syllabus can also provide an overview of the professor themselves, who will be teaching the course and how unambiguous and rigorous they might be in their academic practice. If a syllabus is extremely detailed, which provides students with certain font requirements for assignments, or specific limitations on presentation etc., this can give students an insight on what to expect from the professor in terms of evaluation and expectation.  

I remember when working for a private language school I was required to provide a syllabus for students (EAP) and I based my syllabus off of one of the language courses I took during my undergrad. I used the same themes and topics which were discuss in my beginner American Sign Language course at Carleton and it proved very beneficial as it gave me a starting point as to what topics could be taught to beginner language learners. So to conclude I agree that syllabuses can teach us a million things possible even more.