Issues in materials

development and design

WEEK 2
October 13, 2015

What are materials?

Any materials for learning and teaching languages
What are materials???

Attitudes to coursebooks
Metaphors
A coursebook is(fill in the metaphor)
Recipe, springboard, holy book, compass, survival kit,
supermarket, crutch, straitjacket
What does each metaphor here mean?
Which metaphor can you identify with?
What about your own metaphor of a coursebook?

Metaphors
Control, choice, support?
What do you think the teachers attitude toward
textbooks in Turkey?
Do we teach the book or revise it for our own teaching
style, learners styles etc?

Arguments for coursebook based

teaching
Why teachers and learners need coursebooks:
It is a map
Provides examples
Offers variety
Defines what will be learned and tested
Reinforces what the teacher has done so students can
prepare
Provides structure for teaching
Saves time
Offers support
Easy to keep track of

Arguments against coursebook

based teaching
Teachers book deskilling the teachers and marginalizes
him/her
Teachers become technicians not expert engineers
Textbooks take away the initiative from teachers
Teachers do not make any decisions

Teachers as materials evaluators

Who determines the textbook to be used?
Decision which book to use should be done by teachers.
Top down vs. bottom up?

Material development and

evaluation
Cyclical process
Pre use evaluation
In-use evaluation
Post-use evaluation

Why talk about materials?

Is materials design an atheoretical activity?
No pre-prepared materials can ever meet the needs of a
given class, adaptation is always necessary
Good provider of materials will be able to:
Select appropriately from what is available
Be creative with what is available
Modify activities to suit the learners needs
Supplement by providing extra activities

Why talk about materials cont

Materials design is often understudied but it should be
studied and theorized
While some scholars propose that teachers should
create their own materials (Tomlinson, 2003), others
argue that teachers should become better consumers of
textbooks

Materials and the TESOL

curriculum
Material designers must consider the following in order
to be successful:
Approach
Nature of language and of language teaching and learning

Design
Specification of content, and of the roles of teachers,
learners, and materials

Procedure
Variety of pedagogical activities that can be drawn on

Materials and TESOL curriculum

cont
Materials designers must also consult the SLA literature
when considering which structures to focus on
There is a debate about the use of authentic materials
What do you consider as being an authentic material?
Should authentic dialogues be modified or should they
stay as in its original form?
Even though materials may be designed as authentic it
may not be suitable to the local context?

3-Circle Model of World English

Created by Braj B. Kachru
(1989) & cited in almost all the
major studies of EIL
Details the use of English in
other countries
Numbers in this circle are dated
as of 2003 (Crystal).

Materials and TESOL curriculum

cont
Whose English will inform the curriculum?
Whose needs should material writers take into account?
How do materials construct teacher and learner roles?
Should learners be independent, collaborate in the
material development or should there be some authority
given to developers and practitioners?

Content Analysis
Quantitative and qualitative analysis
In textbooks and materials the focus is on
Cultural content analysis
Linguistic content analysis
Language
Pragmatics
Genre

Limitations of content analysis

Reliability issues in quantitative analysis
Generalizability issues in qualitative analysis
Disconnected from the context-classroom
Messages conveyed by the textbooks-cultural issues and
uncomfortable messages given in textbooks

Challenge of materials writing:

Authors and publishers accounts
Experienced vs. novice designers
Contextual factors
Teachers factors
Suitability of materials to different teachers, schools,
learning styles
Textbooks as commercial artifacts-money is the bottom
line True?
Reflection, attention to detail, and research in materials
design

Future challenges for materials

design
No commonly accepted theory of textbooks
Ethnographies of materials production
Ethnographies of materials use in variety of contexts
Students reactions to the textbooks