Curriculum development is a more comprehensive process than syllabus design. It includes the processes that are used to determine the needs of a group of learners, to develop aims or objectives for a program to address those needs, to determine an appropriate syllabus, course structure, teaching methods, and materials, and to carry out an evaluation of the language program that results from these processes (Richards, 2001).
Syllabi, which prescribes the content to be covered by a given course, forms only a small part of the total school program. Curriculum is a far broader concept. It is all those activities in which students engage under the auspices of the school. This includes not only what students learn, but how they learn it, how teachers help them learn, using what supporting materials, styles and methods of assessment, and in what kind of facilities (Rodgers, 1989).