This paper reports a longitudinal quasiexperimental study that investigated the effectiveness of a theme-based syllabus versus an essentially grammatical syllabus with functional elements for young Turkish learners of English (aged 10-11) in a primary school setting. The theme-based syllabus rested on two different theoretical premises, one being Widdowson's (1990) notion of systemic versus schematic knowledge in language learning and the other being Cummins' (1981) two-dimensional concept of language proficiency, involving basic interpersonal/communicative skills and cognitive/academic language proficiency. Two intact groups were randomly assigned to one of these syllabus types and received instruction for two years. Results indicate that the experimental group outperformed the control group both in listening and reading/writing skills. (Contains 3 notes, 4 tables, and 2 figures.)