The Integrated Memory and the Integrated Syllabus

Abstract

Currently, in Malaysian secondary schools we have what has been termed an integrated syllabus. This paper examines the integrated syllabus in terms of what we know about the structure of memory, comparing what seems to be a generally held notion of what constitutes an integrated syllabus with the understanding of memory found most prominently in the works of Earl Stevick (1980, 1982, 1986).

Language learning, in a very obvious way, is a matter of getting words, patterns, and meanings from short-term into long memory and from long-term into permanent memory. This, of course, is not to say anything which is not obvious. From this, it follows that successful language teaching techniques are those that augment or are at least compatible with the way these memory processes work, while less successful techniques are those which fail to augment the memory processes, or which even hinder the processes.