Basic concepts of language

learning materials

By
Porntip Bodeepongse
 What is materials?
• Anything used by teachers or learners
to facilitate the learning of a language
or to increase Ss’ knowledge or
experience of the language, e.g.
cassettes, videos, CD- Roms,
dictionaries, grammar books, readers,
workbooks, photographs, live talks by
invited native speakers, instructions
given by a teacher, etc.
 Materials development
• Anything done by writers, teachers or
learners to provide sources of language
input and to exploit those sources in
ways in which maximize the possibility
of intake (= to promote language
learning)
 Materials evaluation
• Attempts to measure the value of
materials
• Attempts to predict whether or not the
materials will work, that is, learners will
be able to use them without too much
difficulty and will enjoy the experience
of doing so
 Teaching
• Anything done by materials developers
or teachers to facilitate the learning of
the language
• Teaching can be direct (=transmitting
information overtly to the learners) or
indirect (=helping learners to discover
things for themselves).
 Language Learning
• Conscious process consisting of
the committing to memory of
information relevant to what is
being learned
• Subconscious development of
generalisations about how the
language is used and skills to apply
them to acts of communication
 Language Learning (cont.)
• Implicit (learners are not aware of when
and what they are learning)

• Explicit (learners are aware of when and

what they are learning)
• Explicit learning of both declarative and
procedural knowledge is valuable in helping
learners to pay attention to salient
features of language input and in helping
them to participate in planned discourse.
Materials should achieve impact.
• Impact achieved when materials have
a noticeable effect on learners.
• Materials can achieve impact through:
• Novelty
• Variety
• Attractive presentation
• Appealing content
• Choice of topics, texts and activities
= achievement of impact
 Materials should help Ss to feel
at ease.
• Materials with lots of white space
• Texts and illustrations that relate to
Ss own culture
• Materials that try to help Ss learn
rather than testing them or causing
humiliation
• Materials that relate the world of the
book to the world of learners
 Materials should help Ss to
develop confidence.
• Relaxed and self-confidence learners
learn faster. (Dulay, Burt & Krashen,
1982)
• Activities which try to ‘push’ Ss
slightly beyond their proficiency
• Stimulating tasks
• Problematic tasks
• Achievable tasks
Relevant and useful materials
• Relating to known learner interests
• Real-life tasks that Ss need to
perform in the target language
• Relating teaching points to interesting
and challenging classroom tasks
• Presenting tasks in ways which could
facilitate the achievement of task
outcomes desired by Ss
 Materials should require and
facilitate Ss self-investment.
• Requiring Ss to make discoveries for
themselves
• Helping Ss to make efficient use of
resources in order to facilitate self-
discovery
• Learners profit more if they invest
interest, effort and attention in the
learning activity.
 How to facilitate Ss’ self-
investment
• Getting Ss interested in a written or
spoken text
• Getting them to respond to it globally and
affectively
• Helping to analyse a particular linguistic
feature in order to make discoveries for
themselves
• Involving them in mini-projects
• Involving them in finding supplementary
materials etc.
 Learners must be ready to
acquire the points being taught.
• Instruction can facilitate natural
language acquisition processes if it
coincides with learner readiness and can
lead to increased speed and frequency
of rule application and to application of
rules in a wider range of linguistic
contexts. (Pienemann, 1985)
Krashen’s comprehensible input

• The need for roughly-tuned input which

is comprehensible (what Ss are familiar
with) but which also contains the
potential for acquiring other elements
of input which Ss might or might not be
ready to learn = i + 1
How to achieve Ss’ readiness
• Materials which create situations
requiring the use of variational features
not previously taught

• Materials which ensure that Ss have

gained sufficient mastery over the
developmental features of the previous
stage before teaching a new one
How to achieve Ss’ readiness (cont.)
• Materials which roughly tune the input
so that it contains some feature which
is slightly above each learner’s current
proficiency level
• Materials which get Ss to focus
attention on features of the target
language which they have not yet
acquired so that they might be more
attentive to these features in the
future input
Materials should expose learners
to language in authentic use.
• Through the advice given to Ss in the
materials
• Through instructions for activities
• Through spoken and written texts
included in the materials
• Through the activities
However, the input must be comprehensible
enough for Ss to respond to it.
• The input should vary in style, mode,
medium and purpose and rich in features
which are characteristic of authentic
discourse in the target language.

• The materials should stimulate learner

interaction with the input rather than
just passive reception of it.

• Ss should do something mentally or

physically in response to the materials.
Ss’ attention should be drawn to
linguistic features of the input.
• Either conscious or subconscious

• It’s important that Ss become aware of

the gap between a particular feature of
their interlanguage (Ss’ output) and the
equivalent feature in the target
language (input). Such noticing of the
gap can act as an ‘acquisition facilitator’.
 Opportunities to use the target
language for communication

• Using language for communication

involves attempts to achieve a
purpose in a situation in which the
content, strategies and expression
of the interaction are determined
by the learners.
• The attempts enable Ss to check the
effectiveness of their internal
hypotheses especially if the activities
stimulate them into ‘pushed output’
which is slightly above their current
proficiency.

• They also help Ss to automise their

existing procedural knowledge and to
develop strategic competence.
Communicative interaction
• Opportunities for picking up language
from the new input generated
• Opportunities for learner output to
become an informative source of input
• Teaching materials should provide
opportunities for interaction in a
variety of discourse modes ranging from
planned to unplanned.
Interaction achieved through
• Information or opinion gap activities
• Post-listening and post-reading activities
which require Ss to use information from
the text to achieve communicative purpose
• Creative writing and creative speaking
activities, e.g. writing a story, or
improvising a drama
• Formal instruction given in the target
language either on the language or on
another subject also serves as interaction.
Positive effects of instruction are
usually delayed.
• The acquisition of language is a gradual
rather than an instantaneous process.
• Recycle instruction and provide frequent
and ample exposure to the instructed
features in communicative use.
• It is important that Ss are not forced
into premature production of instructed
features. They will get them wrong.
Ss differ in learning styles.
• Studial learners gain more from explicit
grammar teaching than experiential
learners who gain more from reading a
story with a predominant grammar
feature rather than from explicit
instruction.
• Activities should be variable and cater
for all learning styles.
 Learning styles
• Visual—prefer to see the language written
down.
• Auditory—prefer to hear the language.
• Kinaesthetic—prefer to do sth. physical
• Studial—like to pay conscious attention to
linguistic feature of the language and want to
be correct.
• Experiential—like to use the language and is
more concerned with communication than with
correctness.
 More learning styles
• Analytic—prefer to focus on discrete bits of
the language and to learn them one by one.
• Global—happy to respond to whole chunks of
language at a time and to pick up from them
whatever language she can.
• Dependent—prefer to learn from Ts and books
• Independent—happy to learn from their own
experience of the language and to use
autonomous learning strategies
Preferences for learning styles
depend on:
• what is being learned
• where it is being learned
• who it is being learned with
• what it is being learned for
Material developers must be aware of and
cater for differences of preferred learning
styles and not assume that all learners can
benefit from the same approaches as the
‘good language learner’
Differences in affective attitudes

• language learners should have strong

and consistent motivation and they
should have positive feelings towards
the target language, Ts, fellow learners
and materials.
• ‘to diversify language instruction as
much as possible based on the variety of
cognitive styles’ and the variety of
affective attitudes
 How?
• choices of different types of texts
• choices of different types of activities
• optional extras for more positive and
motivated learners
• variety
• include units in which value of learning
English is a topic for discussion
• include activities for Ss to discuss theit
attitudes and feelings about the course
and materials
• research and cater for Ss’ diverse
interests
• aware of Ss’ cultural sensitivities
• give general and specific advice in the
teacher’s book on how to respond to
negative learners
 Silent period at the beginning
• extremely valuable to delay L2 speaking
at the beginning of a course until Ss
gain sufficient exposure to the target
language and sufficient confidence in
understanding it
• start a course with TPR, listening (or
reading) comprehension
• allow Ss to respond in L1 or through
drawing and gestures
Maximise learning potential by
encouraging intellectual, aesthetic
and emotional involvement which
stimulates both right and left brain
activities
• Content of materials should stimulates
thoughts and feelings in the learners.
• Activities are not too simple and too
easy so that Ss make use of previous
experience and brains.
 Not rely too much on
controlled practice
• Controlled practice
• Spontaneous performance
• Automacity

This have little long term effect on the

accuracy (Ellis, 1990) and fluency (Ellis &
Rathbone, 1987)
 Opportunities for outcome
feedback
• Feedback focused on the effectiveness
of the outcome, not on the accuracy of
the output, can turn into a profitable
source of output.
• Language production activities must
have intended outcomes, not just used
for practising language.