Participatory Pedagogy: A Case Study of Learner's Participation in Content Development

This was an experiment in participatory pedagogy¡ in which the researcher involved 24 Nigerian university students of French in determining the content of a 6 week Grammar Course in French. The objective of the study was to ensure content relevance in content development in order to guarantee and sustain learner''s interest in Grammar learning tasks. The content development exercise comprised 3 phases¡ namely the collation of the raw data of students’ interest inventory¡ conducting the needs analysis of the interest areas and breaking the interest areas into teachable modules. The teachable modules that evolved out of the process of co-construction formed the basis for the teaching that ensued. The modules which are presented in this paper¡ while a later paper evaluated the student performance at the end of the programme¡ make a case for the adoption of learner''s participation in content development.