PRESENTED BY: YUSNITA, PURWATI AND RATNA Understanding Language Teaching Materials Development.

PRESENTED BY:

YUSNITA, PURWATI AND RATNA

Understanding Language Teaching Materials Development

Teaching Learning Materials

Materials can be:

Informative (informing the learner about the target language)Instructional (guiding the learner in practising the language)Experiential (providing the learner with experience of the language in use)Eliciting (encouraging the learner to use the language)Exploratory (helping the learner to make discoveries about the language).

Examples of materials:

VideosDVDsEmailsYouTubeDictionariesGrammar booksReadersNewspaperTeacher’s instruction

What does ‘Materials development’ mean?

‘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. Ideally, all of these processes should be given consideration and should interact in the making of language-learning materials.Materials development is both a field of study and a practical undertaking. As a field it studies the principles and procedures of the design, implementation and evaluation of language teaching materials

Frameworks for materials development

Richards (1995:102-103) describes frameworks as the process of designing a “design or frame for a unit in a textbook” which can “serve as a formulae which the author can use in writing the book”

Flores (1995:60-62) also describes frameworks that outline a lesson format with the following basic stage:

Key components in lesson format

StarterInputGeneral informationLanguage focusTasks

Basic stages in outlining a lesson format

Listening with Understanding

Reading for Understanding

LiteratureWriting

Using Grammar in Oral Interaction

Identification of need for materials Exploration of need Contextual realization of materials Pedagogical realization of materials Productions of materials Student use of materials Evaluation of materials against agreed

objectives

Jolly and Bolitho (1998:97-98) have an interestingly different approach to frameworks and focus not on a unit frameworks but on a framework for developing materials, which involves the following procedures:

The basic principles of SLA relevant to the development of materials for the teaching of languages

1. Materials should achieve impact

Novelty Variety Attractive

presentationAppealing contentAchievable

challange

2. Materials should help learners to feel at ease

Most learners feel more comfortable with written materials with lots of white space

Learners are more at ease with texts and illustration that they can relate to their own culture

Learners are more relaxed with materials which are obviously trying to help them to learn


3. Materials should help learners to develop confidence

Relaxed and self-confident learners learn faster

(Dulay, Burt and Krashen in Tomlinson, 2011: 10)

4. What is being taught should be perceived by learners as relevant and useful

By relating teaching points to interesting and challenging classroom tasks and by presenting them in ways which could facilitate achievement of the task outcomes desired by the learners.


5. Materials should require and facilitate learner self-investment

By providing learners with choices of focus and activities

Involving the learners in mini-projects

Involving learners in finding supplementary materials for particular units in a book

6. Learners must be ready to acquire the points being taught

By materials which create situations requiring the use of variational features not previously taught

By materials which ensure that the learners have gained sufficient mastery over the developmental features of the previous stage before teaching a new one

By materials which get learners to focus attention on features of the target language


7. Materials should expose the learners to language in authentic use

The advice they give

The instructions for their activities

The spoken and written texts they include

The activities they suggest

8. The learners’ attention should be drawn to linguistic features of the input

It is important to understand that learners need to pay attention to linguistic features of authentic input

The important thing is that the learners become aware of a gap between the interlanguage and the equivalent feature in the target language


9. Materials should provide the learners with opportunities to use target language to achieve communicative purposes

Information or opinion gap activities which require learners to communicate

Post-listening and post-reading activities which require the learners to use information from the text

Creative writing and creative speaking activities (writing a story)

Formal instruction given in the target language either on the langugae itself

10. Materials should take into account that the positive effects of instruction are usually delayed

To facilitate the gradual process of acquisition, it is important for materials to recycle instruction and to provide frequent

11. Materials should take into account that learners differ in learning styles

12. Materials should take into account that learners different in affective attitude

Styles which need to be catered:visual, auditory, kinaesthetic, studial, experiential, analytic, global, dependent, independent.

The important point for materials developers is that they are aware of and cater for different of preferred learning styles in their materials.

One implication is to diversifylanguage instructions. Ways ofdoing this: Providing choices of different text

and types of activities Providing optional extras for the

more positive and motivated learners; and variety

Including units in which the value of learning English is a topic for discussion, involve the learners in discussion

Being aware of the cultural sensitivies

Specific advice to respond to negative learners

The basic principles of SLA relevant to the development of materials for the teaching of

languages

13. Materials should permit a silent period at the beginning of instruction

14. Materials should maximize learning potential

It is extremely valuable to delay L2 speaking for beginners until they have gained sufficient exposure

Possible ways include:- Starting the course with TPR- Starting with listening

comprehension approach- Permitting to respond by

using first language or through drawings or gestures

It is done by encouraging intellectual, aesthetic, and emotional involvement which stimulates both right and left brain activities

It is important that the content is not trivial or banal to lead to deeper and more durable learning.

The maximisation of the brain’s learning potential is fundamental as in suggestopedia: enabling learners to receive information through cerebral process


languages

15. Materials should not rely too much on controlled practice

16. Materials should provide opportunities for outcome feedback

Ellis (1990; 192): controlled practice has little long term effect on accuracy on accuracy and fluency

Dominance is still shown in some low level course books, resulting in many students and teachers wasting their time for drills, listening to and repeating dialogues

If the language that the learner produces is evaluated in relation to the purpose for which it is used, that language can become a powerful and informative source of information about the language use.

It is very important for materials developers yo make sure that language production activities have intended outcome other than just practising language


languages

Principles in Materials Development

Most writers on the process of the materials development focus on needs analysis as starting point. And some writers report starting by articulating their principles.

Bell and Gower (1998:122-125) started by articulating principles which they wanted to guide their writing:

Flexibility

From text to language

Engaging content

Natural language

Analytic approaches

Emphasis on review

Personalized practice

Integrated skills

Balance of approaches

Learner development

Professional respect

Tomlinson (1999b) describes a principled and flexible framework designed to help teachers to develop materials efficiently and effectively.

Penaflorida (1995:172-179) reports her use of the six principles of materials design identified by Nunan (1988):

a. Materials should be clearly linked to the curriculum they serve.

b. Materials should be authentic in terms of text and task

c. Materials should stimulate interactiond. Materials should allow learners to focus

on formal aspects of the languagee. Materials should encourage learners to

develop learning skills, and skills in learning

f. Materials should encourage learners to apply their developing skills to the world beyond the classroom.

A Text-driven Approach to Materials Development

Tomlinson’s own preference is the text-driven approach, in which an engaging written or spoken text drives a unit of materials in which readiness activities activate the learners’ minds in relation to the text, initial response activities stimulate engagement whilst experiencing the text, intake response activities encourage articulation of personal responses, input response activities invite exploration of features of the text and development activities encourage learner production (Tomlinson 2003c).

Table of a summary of the text-driven framework

Stage Procedure Principles Objectives

Text Collection Find or create potentially engaging texts (written or spoken)

Affective engagement is a prerequisite for durable learning

To build a library of text with the potential for engaging learners

Text Selection Select a text suitable in level and theme for your target learners

Texts need to be matched with learners

To find a text with the potential for useful engagement for the target learners

Text Experience Read or listen to the text experientially

Apprehension should come before comprehension

To start from an experience which you can try to help the learners to approximate.

Readiness Activities

Devise activities which could help the learners achieve mental readiness for experiencing the text

Inner speech and the establishment of affective and cognitive connections

Multidimensional way they would automatically use when experiencing an L1 text.

Experiential Activities

Devise whilst-reading or listening activities which will help the learners to process the text in an experiential way

L2 learners tend to process a text in a studies way in an insecure attempt to achieve total comprehension

To help the learners to move away from their tendency to study texts so that they can engage with the text instead experientially

Intake Response Activities

Devise activities which help learners to articulate and develop their mental representation of the text

Learning is facilitated by starting positively from what the learners do know and understand

To encourage learners to process their representation of a text rather than the text itself and to encourage them to be relaxed and confident in their response to texts.

Development Activities

Devise activities which help the learners to use their representation of the text as a basis for language production activities

Mental connections facilitate learning

To help learners express themselves in the target language intelligently and creatively

Input Response Activities

Devise activities which help the learners to go back to the text and to discover patterns and regularities of language use in the text

A good time to analyze a text is just after an enjoyable multidimensional experience of it, Helping learners to make discoveries for themselves can be an effective way of promoting long-term learning

To get the learners to develop their analytical skills and their ability to make discoveries about the use of the target language for themselves.

Trialling Try out the materials with a typical target class

Matching materials to learners needs and wants is an ongoing, dynamic process

To find out how usable and motivating the materials are

Evaluation Use questionnaires, interviews and analysis of the learners’ work to find out what effect the materials had on the learners

Giving learners a chance to evaluate their learning process can not only provide useful information but can also motivate and stimulate learners

To show learners they are respected and to find out what effect the materials had on them

Revision Produce an improved version of the materials

Materials developers and teachers need constantly to improve their materials to achieve a closer match with learners need and wants

To match the needs and wants of the learners

Although the framework above is primarily text-driven it can be adapted to become an activity-driven framework with the text to base the activities on being chosen by the learners from a library of texts either provided for them or built up over a period of time by themselves. Materials can be based on units of the text genres (e.g, advertisement, reports, jokes, announcements, stories, etc) and the learners can be asked to find an appropriate and engaging text from the internet.

Conclusion

Tomlinson’s argument is that the activities in a course should match with learner needs and wants and with principles of language learning, and that they should be developed in ways which provide flexibility of use as well as coherence of connection.

Consideration: target context of use for the materials and principles; experience of the writers; developing a flexible framework.

The writing process will start with the learner as the focus and with principles in mind.

REFERENCES

Tomlinson, Brian. (2011). Materials Development in Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Tomlinson, Brian (Ed.). (2003). Developing Materials for Language Teaching. New York: Cromwell Press.

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PRESENTED BY: YUSNITA, PURWATI AND RATNA Understanding Language Teaching Materials Development.

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