TESOL/Notional-functional approach

The notional-functional approach in ESL is a way of structuring a syllabus around "notions," real-life situations in which people communicate, which are further broken down into "functions," specific aims of communication.

When designing a lesson, teachers in TESOL often choose a real-world situation as their "notion," and choose corresponding functions to teach to prepare students to communicate in that situation in the lesson. For example, a lesson might be about how to buy something at a shop, in which case its notion is shopping and one of its functions might be asking prices.

Functions often lend themselves naturally to specific grammatical patterns or common expressions. In the shopping example, one expression might be the question "how much is this (singular noun)?"

notion	function	expression	difficulty
a superior giving advice	preparing to give advice	Do you have a moment?	2
a superior giving advice	giving advice	you should (verb)	2
a superior giving advice	giving advice	it would be a good idea to (verb)	3
a superior giving advice	giving advice	you might want to think about (verb -ing)	3
a superior giving advice	concluding advice	Thank you for your attention to this.	2
customer to shopkeeper	getting attention	Excuse me.	1
customer to shopkeeper	asking a price	How much is this (singular noun)?	1
customer to shopkeeper	asking a price	How much are these (plural noun)?	1
customer to shopkeeper	buying	I'll take this.	1
customer to shopkeeper	buying	I'll take these.	1
customer to shopkeeper	negotiating	It seems a little expensive.	2
customer to shopkeeper	negotiating	That sounds a little high.	2
customer to shopkeeper	negotiating	Could you give me a discount?	2
customer to shopkeeper	refusing to buy	I'll think about it.	1
considering options	suggesting an option	Maybe we should look at (verb).	2
considering options	making a choice	Let's go with (noun).	2

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