Which term refers to a syllabus organized around general areas of meaning used in most grammars, such as frequency, location, duration and possibility?

Which term refers to a syllabus organized around general areas of meaning used in most grammars, such as frequency, location, duration and possibility?

• A. Notional Syllabus
• B. Deixis
• C. Phoneme
• D. Polysemy

Answer: (A)

Organizing a syllabus around semantic notions rather than grammatical forms is being tested. A notional syllabus structures content by general areas of meaning—such as frequency (how often something happens), location (where something occurs), duration (how long an event lasts), and possibility (what can happen). This approach ties language learning to real communicative needs, showing students how grammar and vocabulary work together to express these meanings in context.

Deixis is about words whose meaning shifts with the speaker’s context (like this, here, now). It’s a useful linguistic concept, but it isn’t a framework for organizing a curriculum. Phoneme is the smallest unit of sound in a language, a phonology concept, not a way to structure a syllabus. Polysemy refers to a single word having multiple related meanings, a lexical phenomenon, not a method for arranging instructional content.