SNU In-Service Training Center for Education

English Teacher Education Center

Chapter 8

“The Role of Materials in the Language Classroom: Finding the Balance”

Directions: Read the following summaries of the author’s key points and respond to the focus

questions we gave you in class.

Preplanned Teaching Materials—Helpful Scaffold or Debilitating Crutch? (pages 80-84)

According to the author there are positive and negative aspects to the use of textbooks and

other pre-planned teaching materials. A brief summary of some of the positions:

Possible negative aspects:

1. Each group of students is unique so that pre-made materials cannot meet the needs of

another group of students.

2. Textbooks reduce the teacher’s role; those teachers who use the textbook have a poor

imagination.

3. Cultural prejudices.
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English Teacher Education Center

4. Published materials make decisions about students’ needs (that perhaps should be

made by the teacher and/or students).

5. Some materials fail to present appropriate and realistic language examples.

6. The teacher will follow the textbook exclusively and not respond to the students’

needs.

Possible positive aspects:

1. The textbook (teacher’s manual) can provide a scaffold for the teaching content.

2. Source of information and support

3. Suggestions for teaching.

4. An agent of change.

5. Collaboration among teachers

6. Convenient method of structuring the learning system; plan of lessons

7. May allow students to take more charge (more responsibility) of their learning
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English Teacher Education Center

→ Views on using a textbook. Some see it as a…

Deficiency view: textbooks or pre-made materials compensate (make up) for the teachers’

inabilities.

 Difference view: textbooks are made by experts who are disseminating their knowledge and

best practices for teaching.

 However, according to the author, many teachers view the deficiency view and the difference

view as a challenge to their professionalism. Textbooks should be used as a resource; use it to

get ideas from but not as the only source for teaching

→ “Teaching materials are not neutral…”

→ “Without authentic audiovisual materials, it is difficult for the teacher to

provide culturally rich input…” However, many “teachers still have neither the

time nor access to adequate technology…”

Effective Teaching Materials (pages 84-87)

→ “materials must contextualize the language they present.”

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English Teacher Education Center

→ “language, whether it is input or learner output, should emerge from the context in which it

occurs.”

→ materials should focus more on “language in use”

→ We should expose our students to authentic materials; however, “it is difficult to find such

materials which scaffold the learning process…”—that are at the students’ levels. Therefore,

we can use materials that are “authentic-like”

→ Classroom materials should include an audio visual component because “…we live in an

increasingly multimedia world” and “such materials can create a learning environment that is

rich in linguistic and cultural information…”

→ Should include a variety of reading genre

→ Foster learner autonomy

→ Should be flexible enough to adapt to the variety of students in a classroom and their

corresponding needs

→ Facilitate communicative situations

→ Are a resource for teachers but not a script