Materials Development: Course Overview and Introduction: The Role of Teaching Materials

TE 20303
MATERIALS DEVELOPMENT
Week 1
Course overview and introduction: The role of teaching materials
TE 20303 MATERIALS DEVELOPMENT

Lecture: Wed (8.00 10.00 a.m.) Venue:BT4 Tutorials: Tues 3.00 -4.00 pm (BT4) 1 group (face-to-face) Online tutorial
Course Overview
Main aim: To provide a synthesis between principles and practice by making links between b/grd issues in AL where appropriate, and at the same time looking at the practical design of materials and methods.
Specific Objective
1. To understand the most common design principles for teaching materials; 2. To critically evaluate the principles upon which language learning materials are based; 3. To assess the relevance of teaching materials to own teaching context
First half (Wk 1 7)

Look at principles on which materials and methods are based: Wk 1 looks at the educational f/w of materials which is relevant to ELT practitioners Wk 2 linking research (SLA) to best practice Wk 3 Provides an analysis of the growth of the communicative approach to language teaching & the implications for materials. Examine some critiques of the comm appro & try to analyse some of the post-comm trends in design principles over the last decade, notably the multi-syllabus & process syllabus, & how these relate to actual teaching materials.
Wk 4 & 5 considered a pair in that the issues discussed require much cross-referencing Wk 4 & 5 Offers a number of working models for examining & evaluating textbooks. Understanding the principles of textbook construction
Wk 6 & 7 - Offers a working model for teachers to evaluate materials for adoption & selection purposes. Concerned with how teachers, from this understanding of their learners and the materials they are working with, can adapt these materials to meet the demands of their learners in a given situation.
Second half (Wk 8 -13)

Putting theory into practice Attempt to relate the principles raised and discussed in part 1 to each individual skills in turn. Wk 9 -12 - see how the theory related to each individual skill of R, S, L & W has affected approaches to the design and use of materials in the respective areas Wk 13 & 14 summing up - Addressing student diversity in the language classroom
Lecture Week 1: Overview

What are Language learning materials? What is Materials Development? What are our roles in Materials Development?
Overview
What are Language learning materials? What is Materials Development? Our roles in Materials Development.
What are Language Learning Materials?

Anything which is used by teachers or learners to facilitate the learning of a language. Materials could be cassettes, videos, CDRoms, dictionaries, grammar books, readers, workbooks or photocopied exercises. They could also be newspapers, food packages, photographs, live talks by invited native speakers, instructions given by a teacher, tasks written on cards or discussions between learners.
Cont
anything which is deliberately used to increase the learners knowledge and/or experience of the language. (Tomlinson, B. (Ed.). (1998). Materials development in language learning. Cambridge: CUP)
What is Materials Development? Materials development is the planning process by which a teacher creates units and lessons within those units to carry out the goals and objectives of the course. In a sense, it is the process of making your syllabus more and more specific.
[Graves, Kathleen. (2000). Designing Language Courses: A guide for teachers. Boston: Heinle & Heinle. P149]
Cont
Materials development refers to anything which is done by writers, teachers or learners to provide sources of language input and to exploit those sources in ways which maximise the likelihood of intake: in other words the supplying of information about and/or experience of the language in ways designed to promote language learning.
[Tomlinson, B. (Ed.). (1998). Materials development in language learning. Cambridge: CUP]
Materials development takes place on a continuum of decision-making and creativity which ranges from being given a textbook and a timetable in which to cover it to developing all the materials you will use in the class from scratch. x=======x======x========x least responsibility most responsibility & decision making & creative
Where is your position in this continuum?

Neither extreme is desirable. Little room to make decisions and to put to use what they have learnt from experience, which in effect deskills the teacher The majority of teachers not paid or do not have the time to develop all the materials for every course that they teach.
What ought to be done?

Just because a teacher does not have responsibility for choosing materials, does not mean she cannot exercise creativity in using them. Teachers can be involved in materials development from the moment they pick up a textbook and teach from it. Because a teacher will inevitably have to make decisions about how long to spend on certain activities, which ones to skip or assign for homework if there isnt enough time, which ones to modify so that they are relevant to the particular group of students.
What is the basis for materials design? How is Materials Development seen in the larger context of the language teaching & learning process? Materials and methods cannot be seen in isolation, but are embedded within a broader professional context. (See Mackey,1970, & Strevens (1976. 1977) & Sterns (1983) models of language learning/teaching process) Analogy teacher & materials = driver & cars.
McDonough and Shaw (1993:5) give this framework for materials use
McDonough & Shaws (1993) Framework
learners Context Educational settings
Implementation of goals
Syllabus construction
Materials, classroom methods
Statement of goals related to the learners and conditioned by the setting -> leads to selection of an appropriate type of syllabus content & specification. The broad syllabus outline will in turn have direct implications for the more detailed design & selection of materials and tests, the planning of individual lessons, and the management of the classroom. Our focus throughout this course will be concerned with maximising learning opportunities via providing rich comprehensible input = materials (& also methods) .
Conclusion
Our professional activities as language teachers are not carried out in a vacuum and, in Richards (1985:11) words, Planning a successful language programme involves consideration of factors that go beyond mere content and presentation of teaching materials. Although we work in specific situations with specific groups of learners, according to a specified set of aims, our work can be described along a number of shared and generalizable dimensions.
Cont
These dimensions are: The characteristics of learners; The range of factors in the teaching situation itself; and the syllabus types available to us as a profession.
Further reading
Chapters 1 and 2 of Richards, J. C. (1985): The context of Language Teaching. Cambridge: CUP

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TE 20303

Course overview and introduction: The role of teaching materials

TE 20303 MATERIALS DEVELOPMENT

First half (Wk 1 7)

Second half (Wk 8 -13)

Lecture Week 1: Overview

What are Language Learning Materials?

Where is your position in this continuum?

What ought to be done?

McDonough & Shaws (1993) Framework

learners Context Educational settings

Materials, classroom methods

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