Curriculum design:

Goal, Content, and

Sequencing
Annisa Indah Noer Roni (1202621020)
Dhea Asmaradara (1202621030)
 CONTENT AND SEQUENCING GUIDELINE

Environment Needs Principles

Learners Lacks
Teachers Wants
Situation Necessities
 Goal and Content

01
Goals can focus on more than one unit such as language, ideas, skills, or
text (discourse)

Language unit may be based on:

02 Vocabulary
Verb forms and verb pattern
Language Function
Topics (combination of language
unit)

03 The important thing of curriculum design: making sensible, well

justified.
THE UNITS OF PROGRESSION IN THE COURSE
Two types of items
to measure the course's progress:
Definite series (e.g. Vocabulary level or grammar)
A field of knowledge (e.g. Topic or themes)
The function of the unit of progression
To set the targets
To check the adequacy of selection and ordering in a course
To monitor and report on learners progress and
achievement
 VOCABULARY
Frequency-based research showed value of ensuring that learners have a good
control of the high frequency vocabulary of the language , that is
The first 1,000 words account for 75 per cent of the successive words in a text
The second 1,000 words account for 5 per cent of the successive words in a
text
570 academic words account for 10 per cent of the successive words in an
academic text.
The sequencing of vocabulary should not be based on lexical sets or
the grouping together of opposites or near synonyms
 Grammar
use the frequently use grammar
George (1963b) suggests that a reasonable basis for Stage 1 of a course would
consist of the following verbs.
Imperative Verb + to + stem
Don’t + stem (Imperative) Simple Past Narrative and Actual
Simple Present Actual and Neutral Past Participle
 Function

The most widely available list of functions can be found in Van Ek and Alexander (1980),
organised under the six headings of:
1. Imparting and seeking factual information
2. Expressing and finding out intellectual attitudes
3. Expressing and finding out emotional attitudes
4 . Expressing and finding out moral attitudes
5. Getting things done (suasion)
6. Socialising.
 SKILL, SUBSKILL, AND STRATEGIES

01Some courses use skill and subskills as their units of progression

There are three method of defining subskills:

02
Look at the range of activities covered by a skills
Look at the skill as a process and divided it into part of the process
Use level of cognitive activity
well-known approach for cognitive activity from Bloom’s taxonomy

03 (Bloom, 1956) divided into six level of complexity:(1) knowledge, (2)

comprehension, (3) application, (4) analysis, (5) synthesis, (6)
evaluation.
 Choosing Course Content

01 A course has to be developed to address a specific set of need to cover a

given set of goals

02 For example, writing course content could potentially be planned

around any the following types of content:
- grammar (using present tense in description)
- function (describing what learners like or dislike)
- topics ( writing about world issues)
- processes (using prewriting strategies)
- texts (writing a business letter)
 Ideas
The ideas content of a course according to Cook (1983) :
01 Imaginary happenings.
02 Academic subject.
03 Learner survival needs.
04 Interesting facts.
05 Culture.
 Ideas
There are 2 types of of criteria that can be used to guide and evaluate

the choice of ideas in a language course, which are :

A. The ideas content of the course helps learning in the classroom,

because:
1) The ideas content makes the learners interested and motivated in

their study of the language.

2) The ideas content encourages normal language use.
3) It makes learning easier because the ideas are already
familiar to the learners.
4) The ideas content is familiar to the teacher.
 Ideas
The ideas content of the course increases the acceptability and usefulness

of the course outside the classroom, because:

1) The ideas content helps in the learner’s job, study or living.
2) The ideas content develops awareness of another cultures.
3) The ideas content maintains and supports the learners’ own culture.
4) The ideas content helps learners develop intellectually by making them

aware of important and challenging ideas.

5) The ideas content helps learners develop emotionally and
socially.
6) The ideas content of the course meets the expectations
of the learners and their parents.
 Task-based Syllabus
Ellis (2003b: 4–5) provides nine different definitions of task, one of which is especially
succinct and useful for teachers: “A task is an activity which requires learners to use
language, with emphasis on meaning, to attain an objective” (Bygate et al., 2001).
Willis and Willis (2007: 13) have provided six questions that can help the teacher and
the curriculum designer determine the extent to which an activity is task-like, such as :
• Does the activity engage learners’ interest? • Is success judged in terms of outcome?
• Is there a primary focus on meaning? • Is completion a priority?
• Is there an outcome?
• Does the activity relate to real world
activities?
 Task-based Syllabus
According to Long and Crookes (1992) :
Pedagogic tasks provide a vehicle for presentation of appropriate language samples to
learners and allow negotiation of difficulty (p. 43).
The most appropriate tasks are those that a needs analysis determines are most useful for
the learners. The order of tasks should be determined by the difficulty and complexity of
the tasks.
According to Ellis (2003b: 220–229) :
Criterias that could be used for determining the sequencing of tasks relate to the nature of
the input, the conditions under which the task is performed, the cognitive operations
required, and the task outcomes.
 Task-based Syllabus
Willis and Willis (2007) point out :
Opportunities to focus on language arise naturally during a task cycle.
Teacher may highlight necessary vocabulary at the outset, learners may
focus on the language used to convey their meaning during the task,
and the teacher may close the cycle with a focus on form.
 Sequencing the Content in a Course
Two major divisions are :
1. Whether the material in one lesson depends on the learning that has
occurred in previous lessons (a linear development), or;
2. Whether each lesson is separate from the others so that the lessons can be
done in any order and need not all be done (a modular arrangement).
 Linear Approaches to Sequencing
1.) Spiral curriculum
Developing a spiral curriculum involves deciding on the major items to cover, and then
covering them several times over a period of time at increasing levels of detail.
The blocks of material could be: (c) groups of language functions
(a) lexical sets or areas of vocabulary with less with less useful alternative ways of
frequent members occurring later in the spiral; expressing the function occurring
(b) high-frequency grammatical patterns and later in the spiral;
their elaborations with the elaborations occurring (d) genres with longer and more
later in the spiral; complex examples of the genre
occurring later in the spiral.
 LINEAR APPROACHES TO SEQUENCING
2.) Matrix model
In a matrix model one unit of progression is systematically varied against another, so
that the same items are met with different contexts.
A matrix model has similar advantages to a spiral curriculum in that there are
repeated opportunities to meet and enrich important items.
3.) Revision unit
There will be increasingly more material to revise and material needs to be revised
several times not just once.
The revision unit model matches Brumfit’s (1985) “syllabus with holes” which he
proposed as a way of giving attention to fluency development, the holes being the time
given to recycling old material and suspending the introduction of new material.
 Linear Approaches to Sequencing
4.) Field approach
In a field approach the items to be covered are decided upon and then the learners can
start anywhere with the material and end anywhere as long as it is all covered. A field
approach to sequencing material involves:
(1) deciding what items need to be covered i.e. make up the field,
(2) providing a variety of opportunities to meet these items,
(3) checking that each important item will be met sufficient times.
The appropriate use of a graded reading scheme (Nation and Wang, 1999) is a
field approach. By reading at least five books at the same level all the new
vocabulary introduced at that level should be met, some of it several times.
A MODULAR APPROACH TO SEQUENCING
These units may be parts of lessons, lessons or groups of lessons. Each unit or
module is complete in itself and does not usually assume knowledge of previous
modules.
Modular courses often have some kind of division into obligatory or core modules,
and optional or elective modules, or a division into level 1 modules and level 2
modules and so on.
At beginner levels the sole focus is on a communicative, meaning-focused module.
From intermediate level onwards attention is also given to a language- (or code-)
focused module, with the intention of “drawing attention to form in order to
destabilize learners’ interlanguage” (Ellis, 2003b: 237) and thus avoiding
fossilisation of language errors.
 DETERMINING THE SCOUPE AND
SEQUENCES
Richard (2001) stated that sequencing may be based on the following criteria:
Simple to complex
Choronology
Need
Prerequisite learning
Whole to part or part to whole
Spiral Sequencing
REFERENCES
Richards, J. C. (2001, March 12). Curriculum Development in Language
Teaching. https://doi.org/10.1604/9780521804912
Richards, J. C. (2001). Curriculum Development in Language Teaching.
Cambridge University Press.
Thank You
See you next time!