Content Selection and Organisation

Introduction

Articulating beliefs and defining the context might be considered as the foundation for

the processes to follow when organizing a syllabus. Needs analysis and aims and objectives

specification could go next. What follows, is what one must plan, organize, and the decisions

about what should be taught first, second, third, and so on. Content is the information to be

learnt at school. It is another term for knowledge. It is a compendium of facts, concepts,

generalisation, principles and theories.

1-Procedures

Smith (1965) in his report on procedures of curriculum development views that the

curriculum could not possibly embrace all the accumulated knowledge. Indeed, only a fraction

of what man has found out about his world can be included in a program of instruction. Content

selection is based on the question “what knowledge is of most worth?” Such question cannot

be answered in the abstract. “It can only be answered in a cultural context where the needs of

the people, the resources, the level of technology and other relevant factors can be realistically

assessed and taken into account” (op-cit). Smith suggests the following guidelines for the

selection of the subject matter:

˗ The subject matter should be appropriate to the cultural level of the people: curriculum building

must take into account the level of technical, and social development of the community and of

the society. There must be a balance between the old and the new. The curriculum should

include enough new knowledge and techniques to challenge the learner and to result in social

progress, but not enough to overwhelm him with novelty.

˗ The subject matter should be closely related to the needs of the individual.

˗ The subject matter should build new needs: it must awaken the people to the improvements

needed.
 The subject matter should conserve the things that have proved their worth: valuable things

endure. If they satisfy human needs for generation after generation, then their worth is said

to be established (f.eg. enduring ideas as freedom, equality...).

˗ The subject matter should foster intellectual growth and the development of specialised

interests: there is a need for subject matter which will ensure the continued intellectual

development of the individual beyond his school years and throughout his life as a member of

society.

˗ The subject matter should be useful in everyday activities. Subject matter needed to develop

the ability to do certain things.

Smith (1965) refers to three procedures of subject matter selection: the analytical procedure,

the experimental procedure and the judgemental procedure.

-The analytical procedure: It consists in the analysis of an activity to discover what must be

known in order to perform it adequately. This procedure consists of certain techniques of fact

finding. The first step is that of deciding upon the particular activity to be studied. Then, it is

analysed into its elements and an appropriate technique is used to find the facts about the various

elements. Five techniques are available. They are namely: interviewing, questionnaire,

working on the job, documentary analysis, observation. These techniques are used in

applying the criterion of utility to subject matter selection. If this criterion is to be followed, the

curriculum worker must find out what knowledge people use in their daily activities as workers,

citizens, family members, and so on. These techniques are used to find out what this knowledge

is. Once such knowledge has been accumulated, curriculum workers still decide upon the

relative value of the various items assuming that not all the knowledge can be taught. In some

cases, the standard of judgement has been the frequency of use; that knowledge used most

frequently being thought more important to teach. In other cases, the question of whether or not

the item of knowledge is essential to the performance of the activity is used as a standard. If the
 item is essential, it is included in the curriculum even though it may not be used as often as

other items.

- The experimental procedure: It attempts to show by an empirical demonstration that subject

matter satisfies a given criterion. As in all cases of experimentation, this procedure follows a

general pattern. It is made- up of four phases: the selection of a hypothesis, deciding upon and

establishing the conditions to be met in the try out, commonly referred to as experimental

conditions, applying means of objectively observing the results and quantifying them when

possible. Finally, checking the hypothesis against the results to see whether or not it is true.

When these universal requirements of the scientific method are translated into a procedure of

content selection, they take the following form:

˗ The subject matter to be tried out in the experiment is selected by applying a criterion as exactly

as possible. This phase constitutes the hypothesis.

˗ The conditions under which the hypothesis is to be tested out are specified and established.

These will include descriptions of teachers and pupils and how they are to work- how the subject

matter is to be organised and introduced to the learner.... control groups may be, and usually

are, needed for the proper execution of this phase of the investigation.

˗ The selection or construction of suitable means of observing, measuring the outcomes of

experiment. Objective tests, rating scales, questionnaires... are required.

The experimental procedure is said to be time consuming and requires more technical

training than teachers usually possess. However, its results are usually commensurate with the

effort the procedure requires.

- The judgemental procedure: It is a refinement of the common sense way of selecting subject

matter. It is not well defined and can be described only in general terms. The outcome of this

procedure is a decision to include certain things and to exclude others. The judgemental

procedure is a matter of attempt to justify choices.

2- Planning Levels

In ELT, Richards (2001), views that there are different levels of planning and

development based on the aims and objectives established in the earlier step of curriculum

development. Content selection and organisation have to go under several processes: The

course rationale, entry and exit levels, choice of content, and sequencing of content.

• The course rationale: It is a brief description of the reasons for the course and the nature of

it. It seeks to answer the questions:

-Who is the course for?

- What is the course about?

- What kind of teaching and learning will take place in the course?

When answering these questions, the course rationale describes the beliefs, values and goals

that underlie the course. It would normally be a two- or three- paragraph statement that has been

developed by those involved in planning and teaching a course and that serves to provide the

justification for the type of teaching and learning that will take place in the course. It provides

a statement of the course philosophy for anyone who may need such information including

students, teachers and potential clients.

• Entry and exit Levels:

In order to plan a language course, it is necessary to know the level at which the program

will start and the level learners may be expected to reach at the end of the course. This is what

Richards (2001) refers to as entry and exit levels and is achieved through different ways among

which proficiency levels before students enter a program and targeted proficiency levels at the

end of it. Information may be available on students’ entry level from their results on

international proficiency tests such as TOEFL. In addition, specially designed tests may be

needed to determine the level of students’ language skills.

-Choice of Content: It is probably the most basic issue in course design. Given that a course

has to be developed to address a specific set of needs and to cover a given set of objectives,

what will the content of the course look like? Decisions about course content reflect the

planners’ assumptions about the nature of language, language use, and language learning, what

the most essential elements or units of language are, and how these can be organized as an

efficient basis for language learning. According to Richards (2001), rough initial ideas are noted

down as a basis for further planning and added to through group brainstorming. A list of

possible topics, units, skills, and other units of course organization is then generated. One

person suggests something that should go into the course, others add their ideas, and these are

compared with other sources of information until clearer ideas about the content of the course

are agreed on. Throughout this process, the statements of aims and objectives are continually

referred to and both course content suggestions and the aims and objectives themselves are

revised and fine-tuned as the course content is planned.

• The distribution of content throughout the course: It is also known as planning the scope

and sequence of the course. For Richards (2001), scope is concerned with the breadth and depth

of coverage of items for the course (what range of content will be covered? and to what extent

should each topic be studied?). On the other hand, the sequencing of content may be based on

the following criteria: simple to complex, chronology, need, pre-requisite learning, whole to

part or part to whole, and spiral sequencing. The planning of the course content involves

mapping the course structure into a form and sequence that provide a suitable basis for teaching.

This involves the selection of a syllabus framework (the choice of a syllabus type: grammatical,

lexical, functional, situational...), and the development of instructional blocks (planning by

modules, planning by units).

3- Curriculum shape: When selecting the shape of the curriculum, “the basic dilemma which

course planners must reconcile is that language is infinite, but a syllabus must be finite” (Dubin
& Olshtain, 1997:51). They present five possible format types: the linear format, the modular

format, the cyclical format, the matrix format, and the story-line format.

• The linear format: It is adopted for discrete element content, particularly grammar and

structures. Issues of sequencing and grading are of paramount importance. Once the sequence

has been determined, internal grading will be presented. Teachers cannot change the order of

units or skip some.

• The modular format: It is well suited to courses, which integrate thematic or situational

contents. Academically oriented units are integrated.

• The cyclical format: It is an organizational principle, which enables teachers and learners to

work with the same topic more than once, but each time a particular one reappears, it is at a

more complex or difficult level.

• The matrix format: It gives users maximum flexibility to select topics from a table of

contents in a random order, the matrix is well suited to situational content.

• The story- line format: It is basically a narrative. It is of a different type than the ones

mentioned and it could be used in conjunction with any of them.

4- Criteria for the Selection of Subject Matter Content

According to Graves (2000), in selecting subject matter content, it is necessary to consider

the following criteria:

a. Self- sufficiency- economy: it means less teaching effort and educational resources,

less learners’ effort but more results and effective learning outcomes.

b. significance: how essential or basic is it to the discipline.

c. validity; is the content accurate, current, and relevant to the aims and intended learning

outcomes?

d. interest: will this content interest the students?

e. Utility/ relevance: what is the discipline/ workplace/ societal value of this content?
 f. learnability: will the students be able to learn the content ( in the time available?

g. feasibility

Balance, articulation, sequence, integration, and continuity are principles that have been

identified in the Palma Principles (1992). Balance refers to the distribution of Curriculum

content fairly in depth and breadth of other particular learning area or discipline. Articulation

avoids glaring gaps and wasteful overlaps in the subject matter. It smoothly connects each level

of the subject matter to the next. Sequence is the logical arrangement of the subject matter. It

refers to the deepening and broadening of content as it is taken up in the higher levels. On the

other hand, integration refers to the horizontal connections needed in subject areas that are

similar so that learning will be related to another, whereas continuity is the constant repetition,

review and reinforcement of learning.

5- Developing Materials

Materials are a key component in language programs. They serve as the language input

the learners receive in the language classroom, and provide specified details about content

(Richards and Rodgers, 1986). They are commonly called ‘content’ in curriculum design and

development (Nunan, 1988).

Hamada (2007) refers to three broad types of materials: aural, reading, and paralinguistic

materials. The aural/ oral materials refer to all types of speech manifestations of classroom

or everyday language. They may be formal, informal, literary or colloquial. The reading

materials refer to script manifestations of classroom literacy language and the paralinguistic

materials refer to the interpretation of gestures, manners and facial expressions in speech and

pictures, tables, diagrams, charts included in writing. On the other hand, Hajjaj (2002) presents

two dichotomies concerning types of materials. He refers to simplified vs. adapted materials

and authentic vs. teacher made materials.

 Materials development refers to anything which is done by writers, teachers or learners

to provide sources of language input and to exploit these sources in ways which maximize the

likelihood of intake. It means creating , choosing or adapting , and organizing materials and

activities so that students can achieve the objectives that will help them reach the goals of the

course (Graves, 2000:150). Materials development encompasses decisions about the actual

materials to use (textbook, text, pictures, worksheets, video, and so on, as well as the activities

students do, and how the materials and activities are organized into lessons (Graves, ibid). the

materials are influenced by the developer’s beliefs and understandings about teaching and

learning. The process involves deciding how to put teaching principles into practice. In

developing materials, there are six main factors to consider: the learner, the curriculum and the

context, the resources and facilities, personal confidence and competence, copyright

compliance, and time (Howard, 1998). Furthermore, Nunan ( 1988: 1-2) suggests that for

materials to be designed effectively, the following principles should be respected:

1. English language teaching materials should be contextualized to: the curriculum they

are intended to address, the experiences, realities, and first languages of the learners,

and the topics and themes that provide meaningful, purposeful uses for the target

language.

2. Materials should stimulate interaction and be generative in terms of language.

3. English language teaching materials should encourage learners to develop learning

skills and strategies.

4. English language teaching materials should allow for a focus on form as well as

function.

5. English language teaching materials should offer opportunities for integrated language

use.

6. English language teaching materials should be authentic in terms of texts and tasks.
 7. English language teaching materials should link to each other to develop a progression

of skills, understandings, and language items.

8. English language teaching materials should be attractive.

9. English language teaching materials should have appropriate instructions.

10. English language teaching materials should be flexible.

Meanwhile, the roles of materials are summarized by Cunningsworth (1995: 7) as being:

- a resource for presentation materials (spoken and written), a source of activities for learner

practice and communicative interaction,

- a reference source for learners on grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation and so on,

- a source of stimulation of ideas for classroom activities, a syllabus (where they reflect learning

objectives that have already been determined), and

- a support for less experienced teachers who have yet to gain in confidence.

Developing materials is a matter of concrete translation of the content of a curriculum in

terms of teaching/learning items that should have a clear connection to established educational

objectives and address the needs of the students for whom they are intended.