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A critical review of recent trends in second language syllabus design and curriculum developmentTo date, numerous books and research articles have focused on the notion of syllabus design and curriculum development. Nevertheless, very few works have had an inclusive and concise look upon the issue. This paper is an account of current trends on syllabus design and curriculum development in Second Language Acquisition in the recent past decades. This is hopefully intended to offer a descriptive and critical interpretation of the existing syllabuses in the domain of language learning and teaching. After a brief introductory remark on curriculum and syllabus types, 13 of the most prominent syllabuses in SLA will be elaborated on separately. In pursuit of doing so, definition, rationale, merits, and drawbacks attributed to each syllabus will be touched upon. Although the emergence of some of these syllabi coincides with each other, while presenting them, it has been tried to follow a roughly chronological order of their emergence.
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Echoes from teacher discourse: an inside-out perspective Echoes from teacher discourse: an inside-out perspectiveResearchers in teacher education have paid increasing attention to teacher reflectivity and its relevance for teaching/learning practices. However, to our knowledge, there has been no investigation of teacher reflectivity from
 the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). In this paper we draw mainly on SFL to examine aspects of the relationship between teachers and learners as construed in self-evaluative reports written by 4 Brazilian teacher-trainees. These reports – self-reflections on the trainees’ own teaching
 practices – were collected as part of work developed in a Teaching Practicum Course taken by these trainees. In addition to SFL, in our discussion of results we also draw on research related to teacher education/reflectivity (e.g., Freeman & Johnson, 1998; Richards & Lockart, 1996).
 The linguistic structures described and interpreted in order to unravel the roles these trainees ascribe to themselves and their students reveal a selfcentered positioning of the trainees as social participants whose practices are shaped by conceptions traditionally established by a culture of schooling
 which maintains the emphasis of teaching on the transmission of knowledge. Results also reveal asymmetry between teachers and students inasmuch as the latter are construed as playing a secondary role, with little responsibility in the process of teaching/learning a foreign language. The study may contribute to enhance the search for awareness of contrasts between new views of language teaching/learning and traditional perceptions such as the ones conveyed in the reports analyzed. Researchers in teacher education have paid increasing attention to teacher reflectivity and its relevance for teaching/learning practices. However, to our knowledge, there has been no investigation of teacher reflectivity from
 the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). In this paper we draw mainly on SFL to examine aspects of the relationship between teachers and learners as construed in self-evaluative reports written by 4 Brazilian teacher-trainees. These reports – self-reflections on the trainees’ own teaching
 practices – were collected as part of work developed in a Teaching Practicum Course taken by these trainees. In addition to SFL, in our discussion of results we also draw on research related to teacher education/reflectivity (e.g., Freeman & Johnson, 1998; Richards & Lockart, 1996).
 The linguistic structures described and interpreted in order to unravel the roles these trainees ascribe to themselves and their students reveal a selfcentered positioning of the trainees as social participants whose practices are shaped by conceptions traditionally established by a culture of schooling
 which maintains the emphasis of teaching on the transmission of knowledge. Results also reveal asymmetry between teachers and students inasmuch as the latter are construed as playing a secondary role, with little responsibility in the process of teaching/learning a foreign language. The study may contribute to enhance the search for awareness of contrasts between new views of language teaching/learning and traditional perceptions such as the ones conveyed in the reports analyzed.
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The Synonymy of the Story and the Message in Abdullah Hussain’s Novel Masuk ke dalam CahayaWhen Abdullah Hussain’s novel Masuk ke dalam Cahaya, which won a consolation prize in an Islamic novel-writing competition in 1983, first met its reading public in the same year, there was no home-grown analytical framework, one dedicated to the Islamic worldview, to evaluate its literary merit and worthiness as an Islamic novel. But now there is the recently and locally-produced Persuratan Baru which, in consonant with Islamic precepts, prioritises true knowledge, and distinguishes between discourse and story, the former to articulate knowledge and the latter to develop and disseminate the knowledge so articulated. It also introduces, in ascending order of literary worthiness, the three categories of persuratan, sastera and picisan with persuratan and picisan occupying the highest and lowest strata respectively. With Persuratan Baru as its critical tool, the article examines the novel’s objective, and the extent to and manner in which the objective realised has been put to the service of disseminating true knowledge. The article argues that Masuk ke dalam Cahaya dismisses discourse as irrelevant, and presents the story and the message or knowledge as synonymous entities. In so doing, the novel prevails as a work of sastera for which story-making and the story serve as its main literary preoccupation.