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?
. 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.