1. Chapter 5 Goals, Content and Sequencing
The aim of this part of the curriculum design process is to make a list of the items to teach in the order in which they will be taught.

2. Chapter 5 Goals, Content and Sequencing
Content and sequencing must take account of the environment in which the
course will be used, the needs of the learners, and principles of teaching and
learning. The table below lists some of the factors to consider.

3. Chapter 5 Goals, Content and Sequencing
Guidelines for Deciding on or Checking the Content
and Sequencing of a Course
ENVIRONMENT
Learners
The ideas in the course should help learning in the classroom.
The ideas in the course should suit the age of the learners.
The content should take account of what learners expect to see in an English course.
The sequencing of the content should allow for some learners being absent for some classes.

4. Chapter 5 Goals, Content and Sequencing
Guidelines for Deciding or Checking the Content
and Sequencing of a Course
Teachers
The language in the course should be able to be modelled and comprehended by the teacher.
Situation
The number of lessons in the course should suit the school term or year.
The ideas in the course should increase the acceptability and usefulness of the course outside the classroom.

5. Chapter 5 Goals, Content and Sequencing
Guidelines for Deciding or Checking the Content
and Sequencing of a Course
NEEDS
Lacks
The content should suit the proficiency level of the learners.
Wants
The content should take account of what learners want.
Necessities
The content should be what learners need.
PRINCIPLES
The content should be based on relevant principles of those studied in chapter 4.

6. Chapter 5 Goals, Content and Sequencing
Goals and Content
The goals of a language lesson can focus on one or more of the following:
Language (areas: vocabulary, structure, phonology, and functions),
Ideas,
Skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing), or
Text (Discourse) (A connected series of utterances either spoken or written; a text or conversation).

7. Chapter 5 Goals, Content and Sequencing
Goals and Content
It is possible to plan or evaluate the content of courses by looking at each of these four areas, within each of which choices have to be made regarding the units for planning and checking the course. For example, in the area of language, the units may be based on vocabulary, verb forms and verb patterns, sentence patterns, or language functions.

8. Chapter 5 Goals, Content and Sequencing
Goals and Content
Often a combination of language units is used. Some courses may combine vocabulary control with control of verb and sentence patterns. Others cover language items through organizing lessons around topics. Even if the selection of content for a course is based on topics, themes or situations, it is useful to check to see that the language items that are covered are the most useful ones.

9. Chapter 5 Goals, Content and Sequencing
Goals and Content
Making sensible, well-justified decisions about content is one of the most important parts of curriculum design. If poor content is chosen, then excellent teaching and learning result in a poor return for learning effort.

10. Chapter 5 Goals, Content and Sequencing
Goals and Content
Some curriculum designers break goals down into smaller well-specified performance objectives. This is especially useful for monitoring and assessing learners’ progress.

11. Chapter 5 Goals, Content and Sequencing
Goals and Content
Even if a course designer does not want to go to this level of detail, there is value in setting smaller goals for the various strands or skill subdivisions of a course. The way these smaller goals are detailed will depend partly on the unit of progression for the course.

12. Chapter 5 Goals, Content and Sequencing
The Units of Progression in the Course
The units of progression in a course are the items that are used to grade the progress of the course.
For example, if the starting point of a course was language items, and, in particular, vocabulary, the units of progression would be words, and at a broader level, word frequency levels which are similar to those used in grading the levels of simplified readers.

13. Chapter 5 Goals, Content and Sequencing
The Units of Progression in the Course
The units of progression can be classified into two types:
those that progress in a definite series, such as vocabulary levels, and
those that represent a field of knowledge that could be covered in any order, such as topics.
The order of items within a field is determined by pedagogical considerations and constraints such as keeping the learners’ interest, making use of available resources, and allowing for recycling of material.

14. Chapter 5 Goals, Content and Sequencing
The Units of Progression in the Course
There is a big difference between progress (learning) and progression (how the course moves forward).
Although certain units of progression may be used to select and sequence the material in a course, it is useful to check that other units are covered in the course and that other units are at an appropriate level.

15. Chapter 5 Goals, Content and Sequencing
The Units of Progression in the Course
For example, a course that uses topics as its units of progression should also be checked to see that vocabulary is at the appropriate level for the learners and that there is reasonable coverage of useful vocabulary.

16. Chapter 5 Goals, Content and Sequencing
What Will the Progression be Used For?
Progression can be used for a variety of purposes:
❶ Units of progression can be used to set targets and paths to those targets.
❷ Units of progression can be used to check the adequacy of selection and ordering in a course.
❸ Units of progression can be used to monitor and report on learners’ progress and achievement in the course.

17. Chapter 5 Goals, Content and Sequencing
What Will the Progression be Used For?
Although a course may seem to have several units of progression, there is usually one on which the others are dependent. Thus a course may seem to have both a grammar and function progression, but a careful study of what changes in each lesson and what reoccurs may show that it is, for example, the grammar points that determine what functions will occur.
Let us now look briefly at units of progression to see what information is available to guide in the choice and sequencing of the items.

18. Chapter 5 Goals, Content and Sequencing
Units of progression
and Sequencing of a Course
Starting point
Type
Units of Progression
Determinants of Progression
Vocabulary
Series
Words
Frequency level
Occurrence in tasks
Grammar
Grammatical constructions
Frequency
Acquisition stages
Complexity
Language
Field
Functions
ideas
Topics
Themes
Discourse
Topic types
Genre

19. Chapter 5 Goals, Content and Sequencing
Units of progression
and Sequencing of a Course
Starting point
Type
Units of Progression
Determinants of Progression
Situations &
Roles
Field
Situations
Component
skills
Series
Subskills
Order of complexity
Strategies
Outcomes
Real life outcomes
Task outcomes

20. Chapter 5 Goals, Content and Sequencing
Units of Progression
Vocabulary
There is considerable frequency-based research that provides clear indications of what vocabulary learners would gain most benefit from knowing. This research shows strikingly the value of ensuring that learners have good control of the high-frequency vocabulary of the language. Typically,
the first 1,000 words account for 75% of the successive words in a text
the second 1,000 words account for 5% of the successive words in a text
570 academic words account for 10% of the successive words in an academic text.

21. Chapter 5 Goals, Content and Sequencing
Units of Progression
Vocabulary
It is argued that the low-frequency vocabulary of the language (vocabulary not in the most frequent 2,000 words or in the academic word list) does not deserve teaching effort. Rather, strategies for dealing with and learning this vocabulary should receive the teacher’s attention.

22. Chapter 5 Goals, Content and Sequencing
Units of Progression
Grammar
There are several frequency counts of verb form usage in English which can act as the basis for the selection and sequencing of items in a course. Appendix 1 contains a list from H.V. George’s Verb Form Frequency Count.
George suggests that a reasonable basis for Stage 1 of a course (1,500 to 2,000 words over roughly two years of five periods of English per week) would consist of the following verbs.

23. Chapter 5 Goals, Content and Sequencing
Units of Progression
Grammar
Imperative
Don’t + stem (Imperative)
Simple Present Actual and Neutral
Verb + to + stem
Simple Past Narrative and Actual
Past Participle
This group of items accounts for 575 of every 1,000 successive verb forms in written English.

24. Chapter 5 Goals, Content and Sequencing
Units of Progression
Grammar
Many courses use grammar as the major unit of progression. Unfortunately, the selection and sequencing of the items is at the best opportunistic and gives no consideration of the value of learning particular items. Courses thus include a strange mixture of very useful items and items that occur relatively infrequently in normal language use. 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.

25. Chapter 5 Goals, Content and Sequencing
Units of Progression
Functions
There is no standard list of language functions that is accompanied by frequency data. The most widely available list of functions can be organized under the six headings of:
❶Imparting and seeking factual information
❷Expressing and finding out intellectual attitudes
❸Expressing and finding out emotional attitudes
❹Expressing and finding out moral attitudes
❺Getting things done (suasion)
❻Socializing. .

26. Chapter 5 Goals, Content and Sequencing
Units of Progression
Functions
Council of Europe (2001) builds on the earlier list, adding new emphases.
❶ Imparting and seeking factual information
❷ Expressing and finding out attitudes
❸ Suasion
❹ Socializing
❺ Structuring discourse
❻ Communication repair .

27. Chapter 5 Goals, Content and Sequencing
Units of Progression
Functions
Some courses use functions as their unit of progression with each lesson focusing on a different function or set of functions. Often however courses are called “functional” but really have grammatical structures as their units of progression. Each new structure is described in functional terms but it is the sequence of structures determining the sequence of the lessons.

28. Chapter 5 Goals, Content and Sequencing
Units of Progression
Functions
The danger with functionally based courses is that curriculum designers sometimes feel the need to present several different ways of expressing the same function, for example, several ways of refusing something. This can result in interference between these somewhat similar expressions, making them more difficult to learn because they keep getting mixed up in the learner’s mind.

29. Chapter 5 Goals, Content and Sequencing
Units of Progression
Functions
In addition, 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.

30. Chapter 5 Goals, Content and Sequencing
Units of Progression
Skills, Subskills and Strategies
Some courses use skills and subskills as their units of progression. Reading courses for example may focus on skills such as finding the main idea, reading for detail, notetaking, skimming, reading faster, and reading for inferences.
There are three major ways of defining subskills. One is to look at the range of activities covered by a skill such as speaking and to use these as a starting point for defining subskills. For example, speaking can be divided into interactional speaking and transactional speaking. Transactional speaking can be divided into monologue, dialogue etc.
Strategy = a long term plan of action designed to achieve a particular goal or set of goals or objectives

31. Chapter 5 Goals, Content and Sequencing
Units of Progression
Skills, Subskills and Strategies
Another way is to look at the skill as a process and to divide it into the parts of the process. This is a typical way of approaching writing, dividing the writing process into parts. One possible division of the process is:
having a model of the reader,
having writing goals,
gathering ideas,
organizing ideas,
turning ideas into written text,
reviewing what has just been written, and
editing the written text.
Process divisions can be applied in other skills

32. Chapter 5 Goals, Content and Sequencing
Units of Progression
Skills, Subskills and Strategies
A third way of dividing up a skill is to use levels of cognitive activity.
The most well-known approach of this kind can be found in what is
popularly known as Bloom’s taxonomy (Bloom, 1956). Bloom divides cognitive activity into six levels of increasing complexity:
knowledge,
comprehension,
application,
analysis,
synthesis,
evaluation.

33. Chapter 5 Goals, Content and Sequencing
Units of Progression
Skills, Subskills and Strategies
These levels have often been applied to the construction of reading comprehension activities.
There are now comprehensive lists of strategies for language learning and language use.

34. Chapter 5 Goals, Content and Sequencing
Units of Progression
Task-based Syllabuses
With the shift to communicative language teaching in the 1970s there was an increasing emphasis on using language to convey a message, and as a result increasing attention was given to the use of tasks in the classroom. The realization that many so-called communicative language courses were still largely based upon a sequence of language forms in turn generated interest in task-based, rather than task-supported, syllabuses.

35. Chapter 5 Goals, Content and Sequencing
Units of Progression
Task-based Syllabuses
The interest in task-based syllabuses may be a result of the links that teachers and curriculum designers see between this approach and their own teaching and planning activity. All the same, the use of task-based syllabuses remains the exception rather than the rule, although tasks themselves are widely used. One of the questions that arises is: what is a task? Many different definitions have been proposed.

36. Chapter 5 Goals, Content and Sequencing
Units of Progression
Task-based Syllabuses
“A task is an activity which requires learners to use language, with emphasis on meaning, to attain an objective”.
Here is a sample task which demonstrates how the learner needs to focus on and understand the meaning of the language in order to complete the task successfully.

37. Chapter 5 Goals, Content and Sequencing
Units of Progression
① Name the top corners of the square: B on the left and C on the right.
② Name the corners at the bottom: D on the right and A on the left.
③ Continue AB and call the end of the line E.
④ Continue CD and write F at the end of the line.
⑤ Join EC.
⑥ What should be joined next?

38. Chapter 5 Goals, Content and Sequencing
Units of Progression
Task-based Syllabuses
In the on-going debate about the nature of a task six questions that can help the teacher and the curriculum designer determine the extent to which an activity is task-like have been provided.
• Does the activity engage learners’ interest?
• Is there a primary focus on meaning?
• Is there an outcome?
• Is success judged in terms of outcome?
• Is completion a priority?
• Does the activity relate to real world activities?
These questions could be used in both task-based and task-supported syllabuses.

39. Chapter 5 Goals, Content and Sequencing
Units of Progression
Sequencing the Content in a Course
The lessons or units of a course can fit together in a variety of ways. The two major divisions are whether the material in one lesson depends on the learning that has occurred in previous lessons (a linear development) or 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 = arranged in or extending along a straight or nearly straight line.
Module = an independent unit that can be used to construct a more complex structure, such as an item of furniture or a building.
Modular = employing or involving a module or modules as the basis of design or construction

40. Chapter 5 Goals, Content and Sequencing
Units of Progression
Sequencing the Content in a Course
Linear Approaches to Sequencing
Most language courses involve linear development, beginning with simple frequent items that prepare for later more complex items. Such a development has the disadvantages of not easily taking account of absenteeism, learners with different styles and speeds of learning, and the need for recycling material.

41. Chapter 5 Goals, Content and Sequencing
Units of Progression
Sequencing the Content in a Course
Linear Approaches to Sequencing
The worst kind of linear development assumes that once an item has been presented in a lesson, it has been learned and does not need focused revision. This view does not agree with the findings of research on memory and there are variations of linear progressions which try to take account of the need for repetition.

42. Chapter 5 Goals, Content and Sequencing
Units of Progression
Sequencing the Content in a Course
Linear Approaches to Sequencing
Variations in the linear sequencing of content
These include a spiral curriculum, matrix models, revision units and field approaches to sequencing.
Matrix model to sequencing = Mapping program learning outcomes and course activities in a matrix provides a rich graphical portrait of program content and can be used as a starting point for program assessment
Field approach to sequencing = the curriculum is organized to cut across subject lines and to emphasize relationships between subjects. It is usually organized into a 3 to 5 fields.

43. Chapter 5 Goals, Content and Sequencing
Units of Progression
Sequencing the Content in a Course
Linear Approaches to Sequencing
If we apply this model to a language curriculum, the blocks of material could be:
(a) lexical sets or areas of vocabulary with less frequent members
occurring later in the spiral;
(b) high-frequency grammatical patterns and their elaborations with
the elaborations occurring later in the spiral;
(c) groups of language functions with less useful alternative ways of
expressing the function occurring later in the spiral;
(d) genres with longer and more complex examples of the genre
occurring later in the spiral.

44. Chapter 5 Goals, Content and Sequencing
Units of Progression
Sequencing the Content in a Course
Linear Approaches to Sequencing
Spiral Curriculum

45. Chapter 5 Goals, Content and Sequencing
Units of Progression
Sequencing the Content in a Course
A Modular Approach to Sequencing
The modular approach, breaks a course into independent non-linear units. These units may be parts of lessons, lessons or groups of lessons.

46. Chapter 5 Goals, Content and Sequencing
Units of Progression
Sequencing the Content in a Course
A Modular Approach to Sequencing
Each unit or module is complete in itself and does not usually assume knowledge of previous modules. It is not unusual for a modular approach to be accompanied by criterion-referenced testing with a high level of mastery set as the criterion.
Criterion-referenced testing is designed to measure student performance against a fixed set of predetermined criteria or learning standards —i.e., concise, written descriptions of what students are expected to know and be able to do at a specific stage of their education. In elementary and secondary education, criterion-referenced tests are used to evaluate whether students have learned a specific body of knowledge or acquired a specific skill set.

47. Chapter 5 Goals, Content and Sequencing
Units of Progression
Sequencing the Content in a Course
A Modular Approach to Sequencing
In language courses the language could be divided into modules in several ways. The modules could be skill-based with different modules for listening, speaking, reading and writing, and sub-skills of these larger skills. The modules could be based on language functions, or more broadly situations, dealing with the language needed for shopping, emergency services, travel, the post office and the bank..

48. Chapter 5 Goals, Content and Sequencing
Units of Progression
Sequencing the Content in a Course
A Modular Approach to Sequencing
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.
Ellis (2003a, 2003b) proposes a modular approach for task-based language courses. In his proposal there are two unconnected modules. At beginner levels the sole focus is on a communicative, meaning-focused module.

49. Chapter 5 Goals, Content and Sequencing
Units of Progression
Sequencing the Content in a Course
A Modular Approach to Sequencing
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” and thus avoiding fossilization of language errors. This approach suggests a way to deal with the concerns mentioned above about a lack of attention to accuracy in some task-based language courses.