Linguistics Contribution to English Language Syllabus Design

Abstract

Linguistics and language teaching have controversially been considered as two separate disciplines. Yet, in fact, many language teachers consider linguistics as the mother discipline, and they rely on the guidance of the linguist to teach second and foreign languages. The question posed here is related to language syllabus design and linguistics, so to what extent can linguistics contribution provide a comprehensive theory for the language syllabus designer [teacher] in the Algerian context? Does the language teacher eventually rely on the linguistics contribution in designing their course syllabus? The present paper aims to spot the light on the English language teachers’ reliance on the linguistic theory in designing the English language courses in Biskra University as an example. To answer the above questions, a sample of (N=12) university teachers from Biskra University were selected based on the purposive sampling techniques; (N=3) teachers were selected for each level from first year level to Master II level. The data collection tool was mainly an online questionnaire via Google Doc. Through the data collected, we have noticed that (N=10) teacher respondents do not rely on linguistics contributions in their language syllabus design. They claimed that linguistics is only a course to be taught separately; and it is not applicable to the foreign language teaching context at a university level. They further justified that their course design is only based on the student needs’ analysis. Moreover, they stated that in their course design, they mainly focus on the learning theories to understand students’ needs and capacities more than the study of language. In the light of these results, we can recommend the necessity to raise teachers’ awareness to understand and balance the both sides: the language from the side of linguistic theory and the learner from the side of learning theories