EFL Syllabus Design: Challenges of Implementation in Burkina Faso

Abstract

The widespread use of English in the social, political, economic, and international business spheres compels non-English speaking countries to revise their English language curricula to meet the needs of the global economy. In Burkina Faso, educational policy makers have revised the English as a foreign language (EFL) syllabi from middle to high school with the expectation of helping students achieve communicative competence. However, the delayed implementation of these new syllabi unveils a discomfort from the perspective of both teachers and teacher supervisors. This paper provides a critique of the syllabi of quatrième (4ème) – the US equivalent of 8th grades. It draws from document analysis and stakeholder interviews to highlight the discrepancies between the theory of the vision and the reality of the practice and assess the extent to which the syllabus promotes or hinders communicative competence. The overreaching argument is that despite tremendous efforts invested in the conception of syllabi, these tools hardly help implement communicative language teaching (CLT) in their classrooms.