Implementing a Negotiated Syllabus in the ELA Classroom

Language teaching has no shortage of literature on the design and developmentof syllabi by and for teachers. This paper will report on the author’sexperience of introducing a negotiated syllabus into the ARW classroom. Thiswas the author’s attempt to give students greater involvement in the teachingprocess, to better address their needs, and to try to engage and motivate thestudents in what is often a semester beset with jaded attitudes. A literaturereview is followed by the aims and rationale of the experiment. Afterexamining how the activity was implemented, the paper goes on to discuss thesuccesses and drawbacks of the activity and finishes by detailing some ideasfor a more successful implementation in the classroom. While far from anempirical study, the overall student response seemed to indicate that there ismuch to be gained from teachers adopting some form of negotiated syllabus, asit allows students the opportunity to take a more learner-centred approach tothe syllabus and increases both student engagement and motivation. At thevery least the negotiated syllabus provides students with a more detailedintroduction to the materials and topics to be studied