Adopting and Adapting Syllabi by Instructors of English Language Departments at University Level: An Applied Study

Abstract

Syllabus is a crucial instructional resource that assists educators with clarification and simplification of subjects and sheds light on the content of a course of study, step by step. It is a crucial aspect of university teaching to provide syllabi for all their offered modules; thus, every instructor requires one to teach a class properly. Instructors, however, always use syllabi to improve their performance and make their teaching better suit students’ needs to learn and gather information to enhance their university education. This study examines how instructors deal with syllabi in terms of designing, adopting and adapting or only adopting them. It; therefore, sheds light on instructor’s expertise in curriculum design in general and the process of syllabus creation and adoption especially. Therefore, eighteen (18) university instructors from the University of Sulaimani and Komar University of Science and Technology have been chosen to answer a questionnaire of six (6) main questions and two (2) sub-questions on syllabus design and adoption. The results show that most of the instructors are unaware of the needed procedures for both designing and adapting previously designed syllabi by experts. Moreover, they do not always take environment analysis into consideration as much as they care about students’ needs when making adjustments to the syllabi that they adopt. Eventually, the study sums up with conclusions and recommendations.