Understanding Language Teaching

Materials Development

PRESENTED BY:
YUSNITA, PURWATI AND RATNA
 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:

 Videos
 DVDs
 Emails
 YouTube
 Dictionaries
 Grammar books
 Readers
 Newspaper
 Teacher’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

 Starter
 Input
 General information
 Language focus
 Tasks
Basic stages in outlining a lesson format

Listening with Understanding

Using Grammar in Oral Reading for Understanding

Interaction

Writing Literature
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:

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

1. Materials should 2. Materials should help

achieve impact learners to feel at ease

 Novelty  Most learners feel more

 Variety
 Attractive presentation
 Appealing content
 Achievable challange
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
The basic principles of SLA relevant to the development of
materials for the teaching of languages

4. What is being taught should be

3. Materials should help perceived by learners as relevant
learners to develop confidence and useful

 Relaxed and self-  By relating teaching

confident learners points to interesting and
challenging classroom
learn faster tasks and by presenting
(Dulay, Burt and them in ways which
Krashen in Tomlinson, could facilitate
2011: 10) achievement of the task
outcomes desired by the
learners.
The basic principles of SLA relevant to the development of
materials for the teaching of languages

5. Materials should require and 6. Learners must be ready to acquire

facilitate learner self-investment the points being taught

 By providing learners  By materials which create

situations requiring the use of
with choices of focus variational features not
and activities previously taught
 By materials which ensure
 Involving the learners that the learners have gained
in mini-projects sufficient mastery over the
developmental features of the
 Involving learners in previous stage before teaching
finding supplementary a new one
 By materials which get
materials for particular learners to focus attention on
units in a book features of the target language
The basic principles of SLA relevant to the development of
materials for the teaching of languages

7. Materials should expose the 8. The learners’ attention should be

learners to language in authentic drawn to linguistic features of the
use input

 The advice they give  It is important to

understand that learners
 The instructions for need to pay attention to
linguistic features of
their activities authentic input
 The spoken and written  The important thing is that
the learners become aware
texts they include of a gap between the
 The activities they interlanguage and the
equivalent feature in the
suggest target language
 The basic principles of SLA relevant to the development of
materials for the teaching of languages

9. Materials should provide the

learners with opportunities to use 10. Materials should take into
target language to achieve account that the positive effects of
communicative purposes instruction are usually delayed

 Information or opinion gap

activities which require learners  To facilitate the
to communicate gradual process of
 Post-listening and post-reading
activities which require the acquisition, it is
learners to use information from
the text important for materials
 Creative writing and creative
speaking activities (writing a
to recycle instruction
story) and to provide frequent
 Formal instruction given in the
target language either on the
langugae itself
 The basic principles of SLA relevant to the development of
materials for the teaching of languages
11. Materials should take into
account that learners differ in
learning styles
 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.
12. Materials should take into
account that learners different in
affective attitude
One implication is to diversify
language instructions. Ways of
doing 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
 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
14. Materials should maximize
learning potential
 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
 The basic principles of SLA relevant to the development of
materials for the teaching of languages

15. Materials should not rely too 16. Materials should provide
much on controlled practice opportunities for outcome feedback

 Ellis (1990; 192):  If the language that the

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
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
 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 interaction
d. Materials should allow learners to focus on
formal aspects of the language
e. 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 Affective To build a library
potentially engagement is a of text with the
engaging texts prerequisite for potential for
(written or durable learning engaging learners
spoken)
Text Selection Select a text Texts need to be To find a text with
suitable in level matched with the potential for
and theme for your learners useful engagement
target learners for the target
learners
Text Experience Read or listen to Apprehension To start from an
the text should come experience which
experientially before you can try to help
comprehension the learners to
approximate.
Readiness Devise activities Inner speech and Multidimensional
Activities which could help the establishment way they would
the learners of affective and automatically use
achieve mental cognitive when experiencing
readiness for connections an L1 text.
experiencing the
text
Experiential Devise whilst- L2 learners tend to To help the
Activities reading or process a text in a learners to move
listening activities studies way in an away from their
which will help the insecure attempt tendency to study
learners to process to achieve total texts so that they
the text in an comprehension can engage with
experiential way the text instead
experientially
Intake Response Devise activities Learning is To encourage
Activities which help facilitated by learners to process
learners to starting positively their representation
articulate and from what the of a text rather than
develop their learners do know the text itself and to
mental and understand encourage them to
representation of be relaxed and
the text confident in their
response to texts.

Development Devise activities Mental To help learners

Activities which help the connections express themselves
learners to use facilitate learning in the target
their language
representation of intelligently and
the text as a basis creatively
for language
production
activities
Input Response Devise activities A good time to To get the learners
Activities which help the analyze a text is to develop their
learners to go back just after an analytical skills
to the text and to enjoyable and their ability to
discover patterns multidimensional make discoveries
and regularities of experience of it, about the use of
language use in the Helping learners the target language
text to make for themselves.
discoveries for
themselves can be
an effective way of
promoting long-
term learning

Trialling Try out the Matching To find out how

materials with a materials to usable and
typical target class learners needs and motivating the
wants is an materials are
ongoing, dynamic
process
Evaluation Use questionnaires, Giving learners a To show learners
interviews and chance to evaluate they are respected
analysis of the their learning process and to find out
learners’ work to find can not only provide what effect the
out what effect the useful information materials had on
materials had on the but can also motivate them
learners and stimulate
learners
Revision Produce an improved Materials developers To match the
version of the and teachers need needs and wants
materials constantly to improve of the learners
their materials to
achieve a closer
match with learners
need and wants
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.
THANK YOU