Materials dev for language learning & Teaching

Materials dev for language learning & Teaching

1. Materials anything that can be used to facilitate the learning of a language, including coursebooks, videos, graded readers, flash cards, games, websites and mobile phone interactions

2. Materials can be informative, instructional, experiential, eliciting and exploratory

3. Materials development’ refers to all the processes made use of by practitioners who produce and/or use materials for language learning, including materials evaluation, their adaptation, design, production, exploitation and research.

   • It was not until the mid-1990s that materials development began to be treated seriously by academics as a field in its own right. Before then it tended to be considered as something that practitioners did or as a sub-section of methodology.
   • However, it has been the books of the mid-nineties onwards (e.g. McDonough & Shaw 1993, 2003; Cunningsworth 1995; Tomlinson 1998a, 2003a, 2008a; McGrath 2002; Harwood 2010a) that have stimulated universities and teacher-training institutions to give more time to how materials can be developed and exploited to facilitate language acquisition
   • Materials development is now not only undertaken by practitioners but is also a field of academic study. As a practical activity it involves the production, evaluation and adaptation of materials. As a field it investigates the principles and procedures of the design, writing, implementation, evaluation and analysis of materials.
     • • History of publications on MD
         • t it was not until the mid-nineties that more books on materials development started to appear. In the USA, Byrd (1995) published a guide for materials writers and in England books were published by Cunningsworth (1995) on choosing your coursebook, Graves (1996) on teachers as course developers and Tomlinson (1998a) on the principles and procedures of materials development.
       • Materials Adaptation
         • Much of the early literature on materials development attempted to help teachers and materials developers to develop criteria for evaluating and selecting materials, for example, Tucker (1975), Davison (1976) and Dauod & Celce-Murcia (1979) .
         • The focus of much of the literature on materials evaluation is on the principles and procedures of conducting evaluations. There are some publications, however, which report on the effectiveness of materials. Many journals publish regular predictive reviews of recent materials, such as ELT Journal, Practical English Teaching, Modern English Teacher, English Teaching Professional, Folio, The Language Teacher, TESOL Journal and RELC Journal.
       • Materials production
         • Reports of how writers actually write materials reveal that they rely heavily on retrieval from repertoire, cloning successful publications and spontaneous ‘inspiration’
           • Despite the typical reliance on repertoire and inspiration reported in the preceding section, some writers do describe establishing principles prior to writing.
             • There are very few publications offering practical guidance to materials writers on how to develop effective materials. However, Byrd (1995) provides advice to materials writers, as does Nunan (1988, 1989). Johnson (2003) gives his informed opinion on the expertise needed to be a good task designer and Spiro (2006) provides advice on how to become an L2 storywriter.
       • MD Projects
         • Much of the innovation in materials development has taken place on projects sponsored by ministries or institutions dissatisfied with what is available to them from commercial publishers, and only a few of these projects have been written up in the literature
       • Materials exploitation
         • There seems to be very little published on what teachers and learners actually do with materials in the classroom.
       • Issues in MD
         • Proponents of the coursebook argue that it is a cost-effective way of providing the learner with security, system, progress and revision, whilst at the same time saving precious time and offering teachers the resources they need to base their lessons on. It also helps administrators to achieve course credibility, timetable lessons and standardise teaching.
         • Opponents of coursebooks argue that they can disempower both teacher and learners, cannot cater for the needs and wants of their actual users, are used mainly to impose control and order (e.g. ‘OK, class, turn to page 46 of your textbook’ – Mukundan 2009b: 99)
         • It has also been argued that textbooks are invested with so much authority that it is difficult for teachers or students to challenge or adapt them (Luke, de Castell & Luke 1989; Dendrinos 1992)
         • there should be localised and more global textbooks which are designed to be flexible and to offer teachers and students opportunities for localisation, personalisation and choice.
         • Over the last forty years, there have been many changes in the methodologies coursebooks claim to be using, but very little change in the pedagogy they actually use.
         • Tomlinson (2003c) has advocated a text-driven approach in which learners first respond to a text personally before exploiting it for creative and analytical activities
         • an authentic text is one which is produced in order to communicate rather than to teach, and an authentic task is one which involves the learners in communication in order to achieve an outcome, rather than practice the language.
       • Conclusion
         • In the last forty years materials development has progressed dramatically, both as an academic field and as a practical undertaking.
         • We are now much more aware of the principles and procedures of materials development that are most likely to facilitate language acquisition and development and are much better at actually developing effective materials. Teachers also seem to be more constructively critical of their coursebooks and to be more willing, confident and able to localise and personalise their coursebooks for their learners.
         • courses and projects are ideal for stimulating teachers to think about how best to facilitate language acquisition and development, to gain self-esteem and confidence and to develop personally and professionally in ways which help them to help others.
       • Research in MD
         • very few materials producers are also academic theorists and researchers and that there is very little research into the design and effects of materials, going on to suggest ways of connecting research and materials development.
         • It is necessary to take materials evaluation forward into a more research-oriented framework, which will enable us to make claims about the effects of materials on the basis of evidence from research.

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