Materials development for language learning and teaching by Brian Tomlinson

Materials development for language learning and teaching by Brian Tomlinson

1. This article provide information about the origins and development of Materials and then this article reviews the literature on the evaluation, adaptation, production and exploitation of learning materials.

2. 1. INTRODUCTION

   • ‘Materials development’ refers to all the processes made by practitioners who produce and/or use materials for language learning, including materials evaluation, their adaptation, design, production, exploration and research.
     • Materials can be
       • informative
       • Instructional
       • Experiential
       • Eliciting
       • Exploratory
       • Assessed

3. 2. HISTORY OF PUBLICATIONS ON MATERIALS DEVELOPMENT

   • The first articles about materials development appeared in the seventies and eighties in such journals as ELTJournal and Modern English Teacher.
   • Until the mid-nineties more books on materials development started to appear.
   • The literature on materials development has come a long way, now focusing less on ways of selecting materials and more on the application of theory to practice and practice to theory.
     • Accoding the author could be really useful to read publications exploring the effects on the learners of different ways of using the same materials, or to read publications reporting and applying the results of longitudinal studies not just of the effects of materials on the attitudes, beliefs, engagement and motivation of learners but on their actual communicative effectiveness.

4. 3. MATERIALS EVALUATION

   • 3.1 Establishing criteria and developing evaluation instruments
     • Many of the lists of evaluation criteria in the literature above are specific to a context of learning and cannot be transferred to other contexts without considerable modification.
       • Retrospective evaluation than to predictive evaluation,.
         • With the aim to help teachers to evaluate the effect of the materials they are using and make modifications.
           • Take into consideration the context of the evaluation and their own beliefs.
   • 3.2 Reporting evaluations
     • To provide reliable evidence of the effectiveness of the materials in relation to language acquisition.
       • Obteining feedback

5. 4. MATERIALS ADAPTATION

   • Depending on the context
     • Teachers adapt materials in order to achieve the optimal congruence between materials, methodology, learners, objectives, the target language and the teacher’s personality and teaching style.
       • it is fundamental the participation of the students in the adaptation process of the material.

6. 5. MATERIALS PRODUCTION

   • 5.1 How writers write
     • Context
     • Creativity
     • Use of previous experiences.
   • 5.2 Principled development of materials
     • The language experience has to be contextualized and comprehensible.
     • Learners has to be motivated and engaged.
     • The language needs to be meaningful.
   • 5.3 Practical guidance to writers
     • Materials are humanistic.

7. 6. MATERIALS EXPLOITATION

   • What teachers and learners actually do with materials in the classroom?
     • Researchers use questionnaires and observation to find out how teachers are using different materials and adapt aspects of cultural content.

8. 7. ISSUES IN MATERIALS DEVELOPMENT

   • 7.1 The value of textbooks
     • Offer teachers and students opportunities for localisation, personalization and choice.
     • Coursebooks
   • 7.2 The need for published materials
     • Materials that achieve greater relevance and engagement.
   • 7.3 Pedagogic approaches
     • According to Tomlinson he prefers text-driven approach, in which activities encourage articulation of personal responses, input response activities invite exploration of features of the text and development activities encourage learner production.
   • 7.4 Authenticity of texts and tasks
     • For the Author, 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 out come, rather than practice the language.
   • 7.5 Acceptability
     • To avoid giving offence, and to avoid sexism and racism.
   • 7.6 Humanising materials
     • To help learners to personalise, localise and make meaningful their experience of the target language.
   • 7.7 Ideology in materials
     • It is inevitable that coursebooks communicate a view of teaching and learning, a view of the target language and the culture(s) they represent and the worldview of their producer.
   • 7.8 The roles of new technologies in language-learning materials
     • New technologies in language learning, can provide for teachers and learners of flexibility and choice, and open the window of the real world for learners in their classrooms and their homes.
     • The extinction of face-to-face interactions.

9. 8. Materials development projects

   • Innovation

10. 9. Research in materials development

    • Research and materials and proposing ways of achieving effective applications.
      • Evidence and Findings.

11. CONCLUSION

    • 10.1 The current situation
      • Significant applications.
        • Academic field.
        • Practical undertaking
      • Teachers also seem to be more constructively critical of their coursebooks and to be more willing, confident and able to localize and personalize their coursebooks for their learners.
      • As a conclusion this article let us 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.
    • 10.2 Gaps in the literature
      • Different types of materials.
    • 10.3 The future of materials development
      • Probably teachers will continue working on materials development positively, but materials will increasingly be delivered electronically through computers and smartphones.

Images and files in the map