ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the roles of sequencing decisions in instructional design. It refers to approaches typical of contemporary education. The chapter reviews options for instructional sequencing emerging out of specific traditions of language pedagogical research and practice. These pedagogy-driven rationales have focused on ordering diverse components associated with specific language teaching approaches such as grammar translation, situational-functional language teaching, and task-based language teaching (TBLT). Despite the appearance of immediate applicability of such "language learning progressions" to language teaching, the chapter discusses a number of problems that arise when trying to sequence planned instructional interventions in terms of patterns in interlanguage development. It also reviews three more proposals for instructional sequencing in language learning. The proposals are: those based on proficiency scales and standards; those derived from theories of cognitive task complexity; and those informed by the integration of systemic functional linguistics with TBLT and using the notion of genre as the primary unit of instructional design.
