Comparative Аnalysis of Syntactic Content in Serbian and English Language Curricula for Grades 5 to 8

Developing and enhancing language competence is one of the fundamental goals of both mother tongue and foreign language teaching. Syntax, as one of the subsystems of the overall language system, represents a complex and rather challenging task – both from the perspective of teaching practice and from that of curriculum designers. In this regard, the aim of this paper was to compare and contrast how syntax is conceptualized, structured, and operationalized in Serbian and English language teaching programs for upper primary grades. A content analysis was applied. The corpus consisted of Serbian and English language curricula for grades 5 through 8 of primary school in Serbia. The results of this comparative analysis of the Serbian and English syntactic curricula for upper primary grades (5 to 8) reveal distinct approaches in how syntax is conceptualized and presented. Furthermore, the findings suggest that curricula should be more strongly directed toward the mastery of basic skills, i.e., toward the acquisition of key competencies – in this case, language competence. The pedagogical implications of this paper primarily concern the recommendations directed at both educational policy makers and curriculum designers, as well as the teachers implementing these programs in classroom settings.