CONTENT AND

SEQUENCING
 CONTENT AND
SEQUENCING

What is THE AIM of

CONTENT and
SEQUENCING?

To make a list of the items to teach in

the order in which they will be taught.
Guidelines for Deciding or Checking the
content and Sequencing of a course

ENVIRONMENT LEARNERS
TEACHERS
SITUATIONS
NEEDS LACKS
WANTS
NECESSITIES
PRINCIPLES
 GOALS AND CONTENT

The goals of language lesson

can focus on one or more of the
following :

Text
Language Ideas Skills, or
(discourse)
Some curriculum designers break goals
down into smaller well-specified
performance objectives (Brown, 1995)

The way these smaller goals

are detailed will depend
partly on the unit of
progression for the course.
UNIT OF PROGRESSION
IN THE COURSE
1st Those that progress in a definite series, such
as vocabulary levels, and

2nd those that represent a field of

knowledge that could be covered in
any order, such as topics.

2 types of units
progression
1st To set targets and paths to those targets

2nd To check the adequacy of selection and

ordering in a course.

3rd To monitor and report on

learners’ progress and achievement
in the course.

What will the progression

be used for?
UNITS OF PROGRESSION
 VOCABULARY
 The sequencing of vocabulary should not be based on
lexical sets or the grouping together of opposites or
near synonyms. (Higa, 1963; Thinkam 1993)
 There should also be the opportunity for learners to
meet the same vocabulary in a variety of contexts and
across the four strands of a course.
Many course use grammar as the major unit of
progression.
Unfortunately the selection and sequencing
of the items as at the best opportunistic and
gives no consideration of the value.
Infrequent items can be usefully introduced in
courses where they are needed to be learned as
memorized phrases rather than as structures to
focus on.

GRAMMAR
There is no standard list of language functions
that is accompanied by frequency data.
The danger with functionally based courses is
that curriculum designers sometimes feel the
need to present several different ways of
Learners usually feel little motivation for
learning to say the same thing in several ways.
This interference trap is easily avoided by
initially presenting only the most useful way of
expressing a function.

FUNCTIONS
Discourse as the basis for units of progression is
more likely to be used in
pre-university courses where learners
systematically cover a range of relevant genres
such as recounts, information reports, and
arguments.

DISCOURSE
Some courses use skills and subskills as their units of
progression. Ex: Reading

Skills, Subskills and

Strategies
The ideas content of a course can take many forms:
1. Imaginary Happenings
2. 2. An academic subject. Ex: agriculture
3. Learner survival needs

Ideas
Six questions that can help the
teacher and the curriculum designer
determine the extent to which an
activity is task-like.
1. Does the activity engage learners’ interest?
2. Is there a primarytask-like.
3. Is there an outcome
4. Is success judged in terms of outcome?
5. Is completion a priority?
6. Does the activity relate to real world activities?

Task Based Syllabus

• It’s two major division:
1. Linear development
2. Modular Arrangement

Sequencing the Content

in a Course
Linear development
- Spiral Curriculum
- Matrix Model
- Revision Units
- Field Approach

Linear Approaches to
Sequencing
 Classroom activities

A Modular Approach to
Sequencing