TESOL

Reflection on Ideas for Materials Development

The lecturer started her lecture defining Material development . It is stated that it is a practical

undertaking involving the production, evaluation, adaption and exploitation of materials intended to facilitate

language acquisition and development . Materials development can be a field of study in which we learn more

about the principles and procedures of the design, Implementation and evaluation of language teaching

materials . And it can be a field of Practical undertaking where it refers to anything which is done by writers,

teachers or learners to provide sources of language input to use them in ways which maximize the intake and

to stimulate a purposeful output .

Material developers might write textbooks, tell stories, bring advertisements into the classroom, express

an opinion, provide samples of language use or read a poem aloud. Whatever they do to provide input, they do

so ideally in principled ways related to what they know about how languages can be effectively learnt.

Thus we can differentiate between authentic material and non authentic material . Authentic materials refer to

materials that have not been designed or adapted for use in an English language classroom such as magazines,

newspapers, video clips and song lyrics . While , non authentic material refers to anything that has been

designed specifically to aid the teaching process such as worksheets, text books and instructional CD’s or

DVD’S . Clearly, it is very effective to let students participate in designing and making materials . Materials

should be linked to real life situations and been practice in class .

It is also useful that teachers use materials that focus on cultural aspects of English speaking countries to

help develop cultural competence and understand the variation of English language use in different contexts .

Teachers should identify what their students want to learn , this will help to create materials that are relevant

and effective . Another important thing is how to choose the right format of the material . It should be based

on the level of the students and the topic of the lesson . At the end , it is helpful to ask students for feedback

on your materials . This will help to improve the material and evaluate them to get the best outcomes .

H. Al-Ibrahim