Available at http://iatefl.britishcouncil.
org/2010/ English Language Teaching Materials: Theory and
sessions/2010-04-10/elt-journal-debate-clil-
content-and-language-illusion (accessed on
9 October 2012).
Paran, A. Forthcoming. ‘CLIL: panacea or policy-
borrowing myth?’ Applied Linguistics Review 4/2.
Somers, T. and J. Surmont. 2012 ‘CLIL and
immersion: how clear-cut are they?’ ELT Journal
66/1: 113–16.
The reviewer
Amos Paran is Senior Lecturer in Education
at the Institute of Education, University of
London, where he teaches on the MA TESOL
and supervises doctoral students. He started
his professional career in Israel, teaching EFL
in secondary schools, and then taught at the
Centre for Applied Language Studies, University
of Reading. His main research interests are
reading in a foreign language and the use
of literature in language learning. His latest
book, co-edited with Lies Sercu, is Testing the
Untestable in Language Education (Multilingual
Matters), which contains papers about assessing
and testing autonomy, language and content,
intercultural competence, and literature in EFL/
ESL contexts.
Email: a.paran@ioe.ac.uk
doi:10.1093/elt/ccs072
Reviews
Practice
N. Harwood (ed.)
Cambridge University Press 2010, 436 pp., £33.80
isbn 978 0 521 12158 3
Academic interest in teaching-learning materials,
as reflected in publications about materials,
continues to grow (see, for example, Alexander
2007; Mishan and Chambers 2010; Tomlinson
and Masuhara 2010; Tomlinson 2011). This recent
collection of 17 commissioned papers is intended
for ‘students, teachers, teacher trainers, and
Downloaded from http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/ at Michigan State University on February 11, 2015
researchers in the field of ELT/TESOL with an
interest in teaching materials’ (p. 3). The papers
are divided into four sections:
Part A Issues in materials evaluation and
design (an introductory paper by
the Editor, Nigel Harwood);
Part B Perspectives on materials (four papers);
Part C Materials for the language syllabus
(five papers);
Part D Materials for academic and specific
purposes (seven papers).
There is a short but typically cogent preface by the
Series Editor, Jack Richards; discussion questions/
tasks, most of which appropriately involve
reflection, evaluation, and adaptation/design, are
provided at the end of each chapter; and there
are author and subject indexes. Spelling and
punctuation follow American conventions.
Nigel Harwood’s excellent opening survey, which
includes a helpful review of content analysis
research, offers a broad sweep through a number
of well-rehearsed issues and reiterates the call for
more research into teachers’ use of materials.
This is followed by papers on the influence of
second language acquisition research on the
design of grammar materials and communicative
tasks (Rod Ellis): the role of technology in
materials development and delivery (Hayo
Reinders and Cynthia White), and the need for
principles (Brian Tomlinson). All these writers
are at pains not to overstate their cases. By
contrast, the author of the final paper in Part B,
Sarah Benesch, is a forceful advocate for critical
praxis. Part C contains papers on the teaching
of reading skills in the context of content-based
instruction (Norman Evans, James Hartshorn,
and Neil Anderson); essay writing in preparation
for the University of Cambridge ESOL First
Certificate examinations (Christopher Tribble); the
141
development, as part of a strategy for teaching
listening, of self-evaluative metacognitive skills
(Christine Goh); awareness raising concerning the
features of spoken language (Rebecca Hughes);
and lexis for academic seminars (Martha Jones
and Norbert Schmitt). With one exception, the
papers in Part D pick up the thread of materials
for academic and specific purposes. Two papers—
on university essay writing (Martin Hewings) and
the teaching of citation (Nigel Harwood)—focus
on the needs of postgraduate students in the
context of their university courses. Two further
papers address, through different means, the
needs of professionals who wish to publish
in English: a ‘super-specialized’ EAP course
(Christine Feak and John Swales) and a heuristics-
based approach to the social context in which
multilingual writers produce texts (Mary Jane
Curry and Theresa Lillis). Two papers then deal
with materials for specific occupational purposes:
nursing (Susan Bosher) and Business English
(Jo Angouri). The final chapter (Cori Jakubiak
and Linda Harklau) describes approaches to
community-based adult literacy programmes.
It is easy to point to holes in any collection (in
this case, the absence of chapters on grammar
and phonology in Part C, for instance) or to query
what has been included (why these perspectives?),
where specific papers have been placed, or the
balance of contents (why five papers on writing?).
Those with experience of editing such a collection
will, of course, know how difficult it is to fit papers
into watertight sections, and that what looks at the
planning stage like a coherent and comprehensive
set of contents can be affected by authors failing
to write exactly what was asked for or failing to
deliver at all.
Quibbles apart, the papers included cover a
good range of topics, with General English, ESL,
EAP, and ESP all represented. One limitation,
however, is that all the contributors are based in
tertiary-level institutions; and a second that these
institutions are located in the United Kingdom,
United States, New Zealand, and Singapore.
In some cases, moreover, their target students
were very specific. Evans et al., for instance,
were writing for ‘low-advanced, University bound
learners studying biology in an intensive English
program’ (p. 31) and Feak and Swales describe a
course for postdoctoral fellows in perinatology (a
subspeciality of obstetrics). An obvious concern,
therefore, is relevance for a wider audience. This
was a potential problem for those writers in Parts
C and D reporting on materials development,
142 Reviews
who had to find a way of presenting their
experience in a way that would have value for
different categories of reader. The contributors
typically tackle this problem by presenting a set
of principles and/or emphasizing a particular
approach rather than the influence of context or
level of learner. These tactics notwithstanding,
only Goh’s paper contains any examples of
materials specifically intended for primary- or
secondary-level teaching.
One effect of this emphasis on principled,
systematic planning is that what we are typically
offered is a neat and tidy package, a rationale
for specific choices rather than the exploration
Downloaded from http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/ at Michigan State University on February 11, 2015
of choices. In that sense, the messiness of the
design process (the internal or collegial debate
over texts, formats, instructions, item formulation,
organization, layout, and the interplay of factors
that influence these and other decisions), as
well as the recursiveness of the drafting process,
are unfortunately absent from these papers.
Evaluation receives only passing attention, and in
only a few of the papers. Jones and Schmitt carried
out a limited evaluation study, but acknowledge its
several limitations; apart from this, there is little
consideration of the observed effects on learners
(cf. Tomlinson and Masuhara op.cit.).
On the positive side, there are interesting
discussions of approaches to needs analysis,
of the construction of corpora, and the use of
internet-based materials, including corpora,
although one section in Alexander (op.cit.)
has a more explicit focus on writing for online
environments. A range of relevant issues facing
the materials developer are also discussed. These
include the nature of authenticity, writer ‘voice’,
the need to take account of the social dimension
of materials use, the desirability of using learner
materials as input, and productive skills teaching
versus the practice of language features and
functions, aptly summarized by Tribble as
‘learning to write vs writing to learn’ (p. 161).
Another issue raised by a reading of some of
the papers, but not explicitly discussed by the
authors, is whether language use inevitably leads
to language development.
Surveys and perspectives papers of the sort
included here are always welcome, and in my
own teacher education courses I will probably
also refer to the contributions by Tribble and
Goh. However, the papers that really caught my
interest were those that dealt with situations
outside my own experience. The title of the paper
by Feak and Swales (‘Writing for publication:
corpus-informed materials for postdoctoral
fellows in perinatology’) might deter most
casual readers. In fact, this is a fascinating and
admirably lucid account of how a systematic
approach to (ESP) course planning and
materials development was applied in a new
context. Jakubiak and Harklau’s review of the
state of community-based ESL (based largely
on the USA) draws a helpfully clear distinction
between three broad approaches to materials
design: competency-based (basic English, with
an emphasis on the acquisition of life skills),
holistic (including whole language and language
experience), and Freirean or participatory.
These are distinguished theoretically and
References
Alexander, O. (ed.). 2007. New Approaches to
Materials Development for Language Learning.
Oxford: Peter Lang.
Mishan, F. and A. Chambers (eds.). 2010.
Perspectives on Language Learning Materials
Development. Oxford: Peter Lang.
Tomlinson, B. (ed.). 2011. Materials Development
in Language Teaching (second edition). Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Tomlinson, B. and H. Masuhara (eds.). 2010.
Research in Materials Development for Language
Learning. London: Continuum.

Downloaded from http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/ at Michigan State University on February 11, 2015

methodologically with appropriate illustration. The reviewer
The authors make the point that a competency- Ian McGrath is a widely experienced teacher,
based approach is the most widespread because trainer, and trainer trainer. He recently returned
its effects are most easily measurable, whereas to the UK after two years at the National
the other approaches described may better meet Institute of Education, Singapore, teaching
the needs of a very varied constituency. Although in-service courses on materials evaluation
Curry and Lillis also offer a novel perspective and design, advising on quality assurance,
on materials development, the paper I found researching, and writing (mainly about learner-
most thought-provoking—and linguistically generated materials). His latest book, Materials
challenging—was that by Benesch, who describes and the Roles of EFL/ESL Teachers (Bloomsbury),
a project in which her ESL students considered and a second edition of his widely used Materials
the pros and cons of a military recruitment Evaluation and Design for Language Teaching
presence on a US campus. She acknowledges (Edinburgh University Press) will both be
that this might smack of teacher indoctrination/ published in 2013.
politicization but argues that she chose the topic Email: IanMcGrath29@gmail.com
because it was relevant to students’ lives and doi:10.1093/elt/ccs071
that, rather than imposing her own opinion on
students, she found that her views changed in the
course of the project.
In conclusion, this is a useful addition to the
growing body of literature on materials. One of the
points made in both the Preface and Introduction
to the volume is that materials writing is still
regarded in some quarters as an atheoretical
activity. The contributors to this collection, who
draw on both theory and research, provide an
effective counter to that view. They also offer
a variety of interesting examples of materials
and approaches to materials design which
have relevance beyond the immediate contexts
described. The collection is likely to be of most
interest to experienced teachers of EAP, ESP, and
researchers. Teacher educators teaching more
general post-experience courses in course design
and materials development will probably wish to
use it selectively.

Reviews 143