Roles of Materials in Writing instruction (Hyland, 2003)

Materials are used to provide stimulus to writing, to assist students towards understanding the language
they need to write effectively, and as ideas for organizing lesson activities. In many context, moreover,
language materials may be the only opportunities students have to study target texts.

1. Models – present good examples of the target genre illustrate its distinctive features (lexical,
grammatical, and theoretical)
- Sample text exemplars of rhetorical forms and structures of target genres
 Must be relevant and authentic
2. Language scaffolding – provides opportunities for discussion, guided writing, analysis, and
manipulation of target structures and vocabulary
- Sources of language examples for discussion, analysis, exercises, etc.
 Grammar should be taught inductively (top-down)
 Grammar as a resource of producing text
3. Reference – provides explanations and examples of relevant forms
- Online or paper-based information, explanations and examples of relevant
grammatical, rhetorical, or stylistic form
4. Stimulus – encourages learners to think about and use language
- Sources which stimulates writing. Usually paper or internet texts, but can include
video, graphic or audio material o

SELECTING WRITING MATERIALS

1. What are the proficiency of my students?

2. Why are they learning English?
3. What texts will they need to write in their social, academic, and workplace contexts?
 Determine the broad family of text types with which students need to be familiar
 Exchanges (e.g. emails)
 Forms
 Procedures (e.g. protocols)
 Information texts (e.g. reports)
 Story texts (e.g. narratives)
 Persuasive texts (e.g. opinion texts)

*Remember: AUTHENTICITY

** Although, does authenticity guarantee authentic use? Hmmmm…

*The bottom line is that our materials should not mislead students about the nature of writing.”

TEXTBOKS AS WRITING MATERIALS

Consider the textbooks local relevance (i.e, suitability to the needs of the students, teachers, curricula)

*** Teaching writing is primarily a local and complex endeavor which defies being packaged into a
single textbook”
*Remember the five methods of adapting materials: Adding, deleting, modifying, simplifying, reordering

THE INTERNET

 Some of the many advantages: offers access to an abundance of authentic materials

 Encourages collaborative research and writing projects
 Provides access to dictionaries, corpora, and reference aids
 Provides opportunities for student written communication and dissemination of their work to a
wider audience