Role of Materials Development for English Language Learning and Teaching

[Anta]

Role of Materials Development for English Language Learning and Teaching

                                            -Dipika S. Patel and Manish A. Vyas

Abstract

Teaching/learning materials is one of the very crucial elements that have to exist to conduct teaching/learning activities. Whatever materials used by teachers, generally serve as the basis for much language input that the learners receive and the language practice that occur in the classroom. Teachers are materials developers, in that they involved every day in matching materials to the needs of their learners. In order to do this, they select, adapt and supplement materials when preparing their lessons and they make decisions about their materials throughout their lessons in response to their learner’s reactions. This paper describes teaching/learning materials development for ELT. This paper discusses materials development from the theoretical points of view of its principles and procedures of the development through its practical undertaking from evaluating; adapting, supplementing and creating own materials.

 

Key Words: Materials development, characteristics, evaluation



1.   Introduction

English language has been acknowledged by most countries in the world as an international language. Consequently, English has to be used in international communication both orally and in written communication, for general as well as specific needs. Therefore, people in countries where English is used as a second or foreign language have to learn it, if they want to be able to communicate internationally.

English teachers usually teach their students by using available textbooks. However, such learning materials which are really suitable with the needs of the students are not always available. This condition should not discourage the teachers as far as they have the objective(s) of the teaching or are familiar with the need(s) of the students. By having the objectives of the teaching/learning or being familiar with the needs of the learners, the teachers can develop their own materials for the learners to achieve the objectives or to fulfill the needs of the learners.

A decade ago Tomlinson(1998) edited collection entitled ‘Materials Development in Language Teaching’ made little reference to the contribution of computers, apart from a discussion of corpus data and concordances and Alan Maley’s observation that man stand on the threshold of a new generation of computerised materials for language teaching. The absence of a focus on computer-assisted language learning materials in that collection was remarked on (Johnson, 1999; Levy, 2006), as an indicator of the divide between CALL and the wider field of language teaching. In the decade since Tomlinson’s book, opportunities for language learning and teaching have been further transformed by the rapid development of a wide range of technology mediated resources, materials, tasks and learning environments. The place of these developments in the field of language teaching has been the subject of debate. Coleman (2005), for example, argues that current research and practice in CALL has the potential to enhance our understanding of language learning and teaching, but that it remains in a relatively marginal position.

Language materials are those resources that can be used to facilitate language learning such as course books, videos, graded readers, flash cards, games and websites (Tomlinson, 2012). Materials can inform the learner about the target language; guide the learner in practicing the language (instructional function); provide the learner with experience of the language in use (experiential function), encourage the learner to use the language (eliciting function); and help the learner to make discoveries about the language (exploratory function). Therefore materials development describes the processes through which materials are produced and/or used language learning including materials evaluation, adaptation, design, exploitation, and research. According to Tomlinson (2012), these processes should interact in the making of language-learning materials.

This paper aims at giving insightful ways for teachers to develop learning materials suitable for their student’s difficulty level, needs and objective(s) of the teaching the teachers have designed. This paper includes the definition of materials development, the principles and procedure of materials development, characteristics of teaching materials and the concluding remarks.

2.   Materials Development

Before discussing materials development as a field of study and the practical undertaking of it, I would like to make sure what is meant by materials in materials development? Materials are anything which has been used by teachers and learners to facilitate the learning of a language (Tomlinson, 2011). The defining characteristic of materials is that the materials designer builds in a pedagogic purpose. Materials can be in the form of a textbook, a workbook, a cassette, a CD-ROM, a video, a photocopied hand-out, a newspaper, a paragraph written on a whiteboard or anything which presents or informs about the language being learned (Tomlinson, 1998). These materials can be instructional, experiential, elicitative, or exploratory. The material is instructional when it informs the learners about the language. It is experiential when it provides exposure to the language in use, elicitative when it stimulates language use, and exploratory when it seeks discoveries about language use in natural settings.

What is materials development?

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 of language teaching materials. Tomlinson (2012); Dick and Carey (1990) suggest ten components of the systems approach model, that is, identify an instructional goal, conduct an instructional analysis, identify entry behaviours and characteristics, write performance objectives, develop criterion-referenced test items, develop an instructional strategy, develop and/or select instructional materials, design and conduct the formative evaluation, revise instruction, and conduct summative evaluation. Each of these components is closely related to each other in the systems approach model.

To design/develop an accurate teaching material, each component in the systems has to be considered. In other words, suitable teaching/learning materials should be able to fulfil each of the other components in the system approach.

Materials design is a special case of the application of the sophisticated kind of thinking that expert teachers possess. Includes

Analysing potential lesson content and identifying how to transform into teaching resource
Identifying linguistic goals
Developing instructional tasks as basis for the lesson
The teaching/learning materials already developed for specific target learners have to be implemented in the real learning/teaching situation. The implementation of the learning/teaching materials in the real situation in this step is meant to try out the teaching/learning materials whether they are suitable for the target learners. If not, then the learning/teaching materials have to be revised based on the data obtained from the try out to the target learners. This is called the evaluation step.

Language teaching has five important components: students, a teachers, materials, teaching methods, & evaluation. Nunan(1992) states that teaching materials are often the most substantial and observable component of pedagogy. In addition, Cunnings worth (Richards, 2003) summarized the role of materials particularly textbook, in language teaching as a resource for presentation materials; a source of activities for learners practice and communicative interaction; a reference source for learners on grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, source of stimulation and ideas for classroom activities; a syllabus; a support for less experienced teachers who have yet to gain in confidence.

Generally, teachers tend to use all guidance provided by a textbook. However, it is a fact that a textbook does not always meet the variety of conditions in a language class (Ur, 1996; Richards, 2003). Sometimes, teachers need to explore teaching materials outside textbooks and modify them in order to be relevant to the need and demands of particular group of students. Teacher’s experiences and understanding of their students are very important in materials development, so that the students will be motivated in learning the target language. Then, what is materials development? According to Tomlinson (1998) materials development refers to anything which is done by writers, teachers or learners to provide sources of language input in ways which maximize the likelihood of intake. In doing so, materials developers, including teachers, may bring pictures or advertisements in the classroom, compose a textbook, design a student worksheet, read a poem or an article aloud. Therefore, whatever they do to provide input, they also take into account any related principle to make the learners able to learn the language effectively.

There are at least two things to be elaborated about materials development. It is both a field of study and a practical undertaking. As a field of study, it studies the principles and procedures of the design, implementation, and evaluation of language teaching materials. As a practical undertaking, it involves the production, evaluation, and adaptation of language teaching materials, by teachers for their own classrooms and by materials writers for sale or distribution (Tomlinson, 2001).

Materials Development as a Field of Study

As a field of study, materials development studies the principles and procedures of the design, implementation, and evaluation of language teaching materials.

Materials Development as a Practical Undertaking

As a practical undertaking materials development is anything where writers or learners provide sources of language input, and exploit it in ways that maximise the likelihood of intake and stimulates output.

Learning/teaching materials, in practice, can be developed / produced by evaluating learning materials, adapting, supplementing and creating own materials (Pinter, 2006). Teachers usually use any textbook available to teach their students. What they can do is usually trying to evaluate the textbook they have to use to teach their students. In evaluating the textbook, teachers observe what works and what does not work and they add their own style/preference and interpretation to the textbook. If they think that the textbook is in line with the curriculum/syllabus, the textbook can be used to teach their students.

Teachers will evaluate and select textbooks according to how appropriate they seem for the given context. Well-designed textbooks can support inexperienced teachers a lot because they act as training materials. Textbooks can also be evaluated by exploring teachers and learners experiences and opinions about the textbooks as used in the classroom. This evaluation can result in the most effective textbooks which can be used in the classroom. This result, however, cannot be valid for different students and teachers and in different time.

Another thing to remember is that adapting teaching materials, especially from the authentic text, does not always work well. In adapting the authentic text to become learning materials, a teacher has to remember the English that the students have to learn from the adapted texts. Still, we have to allow the students to have an effort to cope with more challenges from the adapted texts.

A teacher has to be conscious that gradually the students will have to struggle themselves to face the authentic texts without having any adaptation.

Supplementing the existing textbooks used to teach is another effort to cover the weakness of the available textbooks that does not match with the syllabus/ curriculum or objectives of the teaching/learning. The supplementary teaching/learning materials can vary according to the availability of the materials or the creativity of the teachers.

Creating own materials is the teachers last effort to develop learning materials instead of adapting or supplementing the existing textbooks or authentic texts. There should be fundamental bases in order to create own materials, among others, teaching objectives or instructional goals (Dick and Carey, 1990), student’s needs, and topic-based planning (Pinter, 2006).

Dick and Carey (1990) suggest a long procedure to develop instructional materials after identifying instructional goals. There are five steps between identifying instructional goal up to the instructional materials development: conducting instructional analysis, identifying entry behaviours and characteristics, writing performance objectives, developing criterion-referenced test items, and developing instructional strategy. The next step is developing and selecting instructional materials. With these steps Dick and Carey want to emphasize on the accuracy of all the components in the system approach of instructional design, including the accuracy of developing and selecting instructional materials.

A teacher can also develop learning materials on the basis of the student’s needs (Pinter, 2006). This situation would happen when a teacher is facing new students. In order to meet the students’ needs of English, an English teacher has to find out what English competence the students want to achieve. After knowing the English competence that the students want to achieve, the teacher develops the learning materials to help the learners achieve the English competence they want.

Creating own materials based on Topic-based planning means that the materials developed for the learning materials should be based on the topic already chosen and, therefore, all the activities in all areas of the curriculum should be related to that one broad topic.

 

3.   Principles in Developing Materials

 There are sixteen principles that Tomlinson (Richards, 2001) summarizes of what he thinks many Second Language Acquisition (SLA) researchers would agree to be the basic principles of SLA relevant to the materials development for the teaching of languages.

These principles are briefly outlined as follows:

Material should achieve impacts, help learners to feel at ease and to develop confidence
What is being taught should be perceived by learners as relevant and useful?
Materials should require and facilitate learner self-investment, provide the learners with opportunities to use the target language to achieve communicative purposes.
Materials should take into account that- positive effects of instruction are usually delayed, learners have different learning styles & differ in affective attitudes
Materials should permit a silent period at the beginning of instruction, should not rely too much on controlled practice & should provide opportunities for outcome feedback
In addition, Crawford (Richards-Renandya2002) states that materials obviously reflect the writer’s views of language & learning, and teachers (& students) will respond according to how well these match their own beliefs and expectations. Thus, suggests some points to be considered in providing effective materials:

Language - is functional and must be contextualized; should be realistic and authentic; requires learner engagement in purposeful use of language
Classroom materials will usually seek to include an audio visual component
Second language learners need to develop the ability to deal with written/spoken genres
Materials need to be flexible enough to cater to individual and contextual differences
 4.   Materials Development Procedures

 What is the role of teaching materials?

Material should facilitate learners’ ability to study and self-investigate. This can be achieved if the material or course-ware helps the learners’ to achieve this by facilitating grasp of the topic and by engaging in learner-centered discovery activities and tasks. Teaching materials are of many kinds: textbooks, audio and video cassettes, handouts, charts, teaching aids of various kinds which can all be used for different purposes by the teacher. Generally, most teaching situations depend on the textbook. Content is the medium which translates the objectives into learning outcomes. In other words the content reflects the objectives of the course. For instance, if the aim of the course is to develop reading comprehension skills of the learners, the material will include abundant reading material to help impart comprehension ability. The reading material will be orchestrated to the learners’ present level of competence and should revolve round the themes that hold the interest and motivate the target learners’ group. In the same way, if the aim is to help the learner use the language as a second language in everyday situations, the content should include the situations and the language necessary for initiation, negotiation etc. Teachers cannot be effective in the classroom without teaching materials. The teaching materials are to be made available with the students as well. Many disciplinary problems will arise in case the learners are not bound by the “book” to follow in the classroom. Closely related to the roles of teachers and learners is the role of textbook materials. Any textbook is based on assumptions about learning, and the design of its activities implies certain roles for teachers and learners and assumes certain dispositions towards learning styles. In the early 1980s Allwright (1981) and O’Neill (1982) debated the role of learning materials in articles entitled respectively ‘what do you want teaching materials for?’ and ‘why use textbooks?’ Even the most enthusiastic and conscientious teacher rarely has time to produce whole courses or a substantial amount of personally created materials. It is therefore important that the criteria are established for choosing and designing the material as per the course content and syllabus. It is therefore important that teachers establish criteria for designing the appropriate materials as per the scope of the syllabus. Only through this process can teachers benefit from the syllabus and curriculum and supplement them with additional materials in the form of extra help.

Teachers, Learners and Materials: Relationship:

The materials are the tools which will be useful for both teachers and learners. Thus, the role of materials is that of an instrument serving the dual purpose. As with any tool or instrument, the effective utilization depends on the user and the tool itself. For this reason, while developing materials immense care should be taken to avoid all sorts of ambiguity. Utmost precision should be taken because that will be the sample which consciously or unconsciously gets absorbed by the users/learners. In order to get the optimum advantage of the materials used, it is essential to know how to adapt, enrich and interpret. It is important to note the teaching material should include specific tasks for conducting in classroom. In selecting the materials for tasks, keep in mind: - Relevance; Authenticity; Focus on process; Potentiality for review and assessment; Feasibility; Learners’ proficiency

Characteristics of Teaching Materials:

Littlejohn and Windeatt (1989) argue that materials have a hidden curriculum that includes attitudes toward- knowledge; teaching/learning; role and relationship of the teacher/student, and values and attitudes related to gender, society, etc. Materials have an underlying instructional philosophy, approach, method, and content, including both linguistic and cultural information. Clarke (1989) argues that communicative methodology is important & is based on authenticity, realism, context, & a focus on the learner. Most people associate the term teaching materials only with course books because that has been their main experience of using teaching materials. However, in fact, the term can be used to refer to anything which is used by teachers or learners to facilitate the learning of the language. Related to that, materials can divide into some types as follows:

Printed materials: Textbook, student’s worksheet, pictures, photographs, newspapers & magazines
Audio materials: cassette & compact disc
Audio visual: video compact disc, film
Interactive teaching materials: web based learning materials, computer assisted instruction.
Authentic materials refers to the use in teaching of texts, photographs, video selections, and other teaching resources that are not specially prepared for pedagogical purposes.
Created materials refer to textbooks and other specially developed instructional resources.
Edge (1993) uses the term “teacher-produced materials” and “student materials” to refer to how the materials are produced or used during the process of teaching/learning in the classroom. Teacher-produced materials play an important role to bridge the gap between the classroom and the world outside. In doing so, teachers might produce their own worksheets for their students.

Student-produced materials

Teachers can ask the students to produce simple maps that they know as the basis for an activity. In this way, students are then using their own knowledge & personal background to produce learning materials for their classmates.

Students as materials

When we see the learners as materials, we can also use our methods to make learning enjoyable. In doing so, teachers could, for instance: ask a student to close his/her eyes & describe what someone else is wearing; describe what someone else is wearing until the rest of us can recognize that person; divide the class into pairs and ask each pair to do one the above

Evaluation of Teaching Materials:

Tomlinson and Manuhara (2004) use the term “materials evaluation” is the activity which measures the value of a set of learning materials by making judgments about the effect of the materials on the people using them. It tries to measure, for example: appeals of the materials to the learners; materials validity/flexibility; materials ability to interest the learners; materials potential learning value; delivery & assessment.

Evaluating Textbook:

When teachers open a page in their textbook, they have to decide whether they should use the lesson on that page with their class. If the language, content and sequencing of the textbook are appropriate, the teacher might want to go ahead and use it. If, however, there is something wrong with the textbook, the teacher has to decide what to do next. Therefore, when evaluating the quality of a textbook’s exercises or activities, four key questions should be answered (Garnier, 2002):

Do the exercises and activities in textbook contribute to student’s language acquisition?
Are the exercises balanced in their format, containing both controlled and free practice?
Are the exercises progressive as the students move through the textbook?
Are the exercises varied and challenging?
Adapting Materials:

Edge (1993) stated that materials exist in order to support learning/teaching, so they should be designed to suit the people & the processes involved. Most teachers are not creators of teaching materials but providers of good materials. For that purpose, teachers may conduct materials adaptation in order that they can provide good materials for their students. Materials adaptation involves changing existing materials so that they become more suitable for specific learners, teachers or situations.

Tomlinson and Masuhara (2004) suggest that the most effective way of conducting a material adaptation is to:
Have a large bank of categorized materials that you can readily retrieve for adaptation.
Have colleagues with whom you can share resources and who are willing to go through the adaptation process together; have colleagues who are happy to give you feedback on your adapted materials.
Be in an environment in which materials evaluation, adaptation & development are encouraged & teacher’s time & efforts are acknowledged.
Revisit adapted materials and improve them.
 

5.   Conclusion

This paper has emphasized the significance of materials development in English language program. Though there are five elements in language teaching and learners should be the centre of teaching. However, materials often control the teaching, since teachers and learners tend to rely heavily on them. Materials that is appropriate for a particular class need to have an underlying instructional philosophy, approach, method and technique which suit the students and their needs. Teachers need to look for good materials, both commercial and non-commercial, all the time. When the teachers decide to adapt authentic or created materials, it means that they are bridging the gap between the classroom and the world.

 

Resource: https://sites.google.com/view/theeltpractitioner/archive/2018/volume-v-number-iii/2-role-of-materials-development-for-english-language-learning-and-teaching