SYLLABUS INTRODUCTION

by John Jennings

This introduction to the syllabus published by the Department of Education and Science and the NCCA is an excellent statement of the objectives of an English course. This introduction is referring to the syllabus for both Paper 1 and Paper 2.

1. Each person lives in the midst of language. Language is fundamental to learning, communication, personal and cultural identity, and relationships. This syllabus aims at initiating students into enriching experiences with language so that they become more adept and thoughtful users of it and more critically aware of its power and significance in their lives.
2. This syllabus builds on the aims of the Junior Certificate English syllabus, which emphasise the development of a range of literacy and oral skills in a variety of domains, personal, social, and cultural. In the Leaving Certificate course, students will be encouraged to develop a more sophisticated range of skills and concepts. These will enable them to interpret, compose, discriminate and evaluate a range of material so that they become independent learners who can operate in the world beyond the school in a range of contexts.
3. English at this level must excite students with aesthetic experiences and emphasise the richness of meanings and recreational pleasure to be encountered in literature and in the creative play of language. Students should be engaged with the voice of literature, learn to dialogue critically with it, and so come to understand its significance and value.

An English course at Leaving Certificate must also be wide-ranging enough to accommodate not only vocational needs and further education, but also the life long needs of students and the language demands, both oral and written, that are placed on them by the wider community.

4. The term 'language' includes verbal and visual forms of communication. In this syllabus the role of the media, film and theatrical experience will be significant. Developing students' powers of discrimination and interpretative abilities in relation to these media and the encouragement of performance and of creative productions will be integral elements of this syllabus.
5. This syllabus will seek to ensure that the varied traditions within the Irish cultural context are adequately represented.
6. Resources will be chosen to give the fullest recognition possible to the experiences of both sexes.
7. Language is not a neutral medium of expression and communication It is embedded in history, culture, society, and ultimately personal subjectivity. In the contemporary world the cultural relativity of a person's own use of language needs to be highlighted. To achieve this end, a range of resources will be selected from different periods and cultures and students will be encouraged to approach them in a comparative manner. In encountering this diversity, students should develop an understanding of how the language a person uses shapes the way that person views the world.
8. All products of language use - oral, written, and visual - can be described by the general term 'text'. All texts create their own view of reality by using a specific linguistic style within specific categories of language forms, which can be called 'genres'. Thus a song, an advertisement, a dialogue, a public speech, a child's book, an expository essay, a legal document, a scientific report and a poem can all be classified as genres. It is the overall purpose of this syllabus to empower students so that they can become sophisticated users and interpreters of many genres.

The Leaving Certificate syllabus specifies the following requirements in preparing for Paper 1 of the examination for the Language of Information. The Language of Information provides resources and materials on the areas outlined in the syllabus. The details which follow under the heading The Syllabus Requirements are quoted directly from the syllabus.

The Syllabus Requirements
Students should encounter a range of texts composed for the dominant purpose of communicating information, e.g. reports, records, memos, bulletins, abstracts, media accounts.

Comprehending
Students should be able to:

• Give an account of the gist of a text.
• Specify appropriate details for relevant purposes.
• Summarise the information they obtained from a text.
• Comment on the selection of facts given: evaluate the adequacy of the
• information and indicate omissions.
• Identify the point of view of an author.
• Outline the values assumed in a text.
• Indicate the genre of a text.
• Comment on the language use, structure and lay-out.

The Leaving Certificate syllabus specifies the following requirements in preparing for Paper 1 of the examination for The Language of Argument. The Language of Argument provides resources and materials on the areas outlined in the syllabus. The details which follow under the heading The Syllabus Requirements are quoted directly from the syllabus.

The Syllabus Requirements
Students should encounter a range of texts with an argumentative function. The range of texts should encompass material which offer models of both deductive reasoning and inductive reasoning as used in journalistic, philosophical, scientific and legal contexts.

Comprehending
Students should be able to:

• Outline the stages of an argument and identify the conclusion.
• Identify the reasoning structure evidenced in key words or phrases e.g. therefore, because, nevertheless, etc.
• Distinguish between statements/propositions and examples.
• Distinguish between opinion, anecdote and evidence.
• Evaluate the validity of an argument.
• Attempt to identify assumptions present.
• Outline the values being asserted.

Composing
Students should be able to:

• Put forward a theory or hypothesis
• Justify a decision
• Attempt an overview.

Students should encounter a range of texts which have a persuasive function, eg. political speeches, advertising in all media, satiric texts, some forms of journalism.

Comprehending
Students should be able to:

• Identify the techniques being used to persuade eg. tone, image, rhythm, choice of words, selection of detail.
• Evaluate the impact of a passage in achieving its desired effect.
• Indicate to which audience it is addressed.
• Analyse the value-system advocated and/or implied by the text.
• Outline whose interests it serves.

Composing
Students should be able to compose in a range of contexts:

• Newspaper articles
• Advertising copy
• Public relations/propaganda/political statements.

(End of quotation from the syllabus.)

The Leaving Certificate syllabus specifies the following requirements in preparing for Paper 1 of the examination for The Language of Narration. This section provides resources and materials on the areas outlined in the syllabus. The details which follow under the heading The Syllabus Requirements are quoted directly from the syllabus.

The Syllabus Requirements
Students should encounter a wide range of texts which have predominately a narrative function. This should involve students in encountering narratives of all kinds.

Comprehending
Students should be able to:

• Develop an awareness of their own response to texts and analyse and justify that response.
• Indicate aspects of the narrative which they found significant and attempt to explain fully the meaning thus generated.
• Outline the structure of the narrative and how it achieves coherence within its genre.
• Develop an awareness of narrative characteristics of different genres and how the language in these genres is chosen and shaped to achieve certain effects.
• Approach narrative texts from a variety of critical viewpoints e.g. analyse and compare texts under such categories as gender, power and class and relate texts from different periods and cultures.
• Compare texts in different genres on the same theme.

Composing
Students should be able to compose in a range of contexts: Anecdote, Parable, Fable, Short Story, Autobiographical sketch, Scripts, Dialogues.

(End of quotation from the syllabus.)

The Aesthetic Use of Language
This text deals with aspects of the The Language of Aesthetics appropriate to Paper 1 of the examination as is outlined in more detail later in this introductory discussion. Students should remember that both papers in the examination carry equal marks and good grades on paper 1 will require adequate practice and experience in doing Comprehending and Composing assignments. The Leaving Certificate syllabus specifies the following requirements for the study of The Language of Aesthetics for Paper 1 and Paper 2 of the examination. This section provides resources and materials on the areas outlined which are not studied from the prescribed texts selected for special study for Paper 2.
The details which follow under the heading The Syllabus Requirements are quoted directly from the syllabus.

The Syllabus Requirements
Students should encounter a wide range of texts in a variety of literary genres for personal recreation and aesthetic pleasure. This would include engaging with fiction, drama, essay, poetry and film in an imaginative, responsive and critical manner. (These genres are primarily studied from the prescribed texts on the syllabus for Paper 2. Editor).

Comprehending
Students should be able to:

• Develop appropriate stances for reading and/or viewing in all literary genres. This means students should approach drama scripts from a theatrical perspective, view films as complex amalgams of images and words and read poetry conscious of its specific mode of using language as an artistic medium. Engage in interpretative performance of texts. (The references to Drama, Poetry and Film refer to Paper 2 of the examination. This article deals only with Paper 1 of the examination. Editor.).
• Develop an awareness of their own responses, affective, imaginative, and intellectual, to aesthetic texts. Explore these responses relative to the texts read, generate and justify meanings and build coherent interpretations.
• Re-read texts for encountering rich and diverse levels of suggestion, inference and meaning.
• Attempt to compare and evaluate texts for the quality of the imaginative experience being presented.

Composing
Students should be able to:

• Compose within the aesthetic forms encountered.
• Compose "interventions', i. e. alternative scenarios based on texts studied.
• Keep Response Journals - expressive of their growing acquaintance with a text over a period of time.
• Compose analytical and coherent essays relative to a text.

(End of quotation from the syllabus.)