Who should develop the materials ?

A. Professional Materials Writers

determined by the publishers from an analysis of
market needs
very experienced and competent
familiar with realities of publishing
have the potential of the new technologies and
they write full-time for a living
wrote systematic, well-designed, teacher
-friendly, and thorough books
However, the professional
materials ‘ writers of
Amrani (2011) are
considered by Tomlinson
(20010 as:

• Often lack energy and

imagination
• Sometimes insufficiently
relevant
• Appealing to the actual
learners who use them
• Dudly Evans and St. John
(1998) state that only a small
proportion of good teachers
are also designers of course
materials.

• Tomlinson ( 2013) found that

teachers throughout the
world only need a little
training, experience, and
support to become materials
writers who can produce
imaginative materials of
relevance appeal to their
learners.
 UNDERSTANDING THE
LANGUAGE TEACHING
MATERIALS DEVELOPMENT
is anything which is used by
teachers or learners to
facilitate the learning of
language (Tomlinson, 1998).
(e. g. videos, DVDs, s,
YouTube, dictionaries,
Grammar books, newspaper,
teacher’s instruction)
 UNDERSTANDING THE
LANGUAGE TEACHING
MATERIALS DEVELOPMENT
is anything which is used by
teachers or learners to
facilitate the learning of
language (Tomlinson, 1998).
(e. g. videos, DVDs, s,
YouTube, dictionaries,
Grammar books, newspaper,
teacher’s instruction)
• SLA is the process by which people
acquire and/or learn any language in
addition to their first language.

• It is also the name of the academic

discipline which studies that process.

• Some SLA researchers use the term

’acquisition’ to refer to the
informal, subconscious process of
gaining from a language exposure
and use while reserving the term
‘learning’ to refer to the
deliberate, conscious study of a
language in order to be able to use
it.
There is considerable
controversy in the field as to
which of these processes is the
most likely to help a learner to
develop the ability to use a
language effectively, but most
researchers seem to agree that
learning is insufficient and
needs to be at least
supplemented by acquisition.
Some researchers also differentiate
between ‘acquisition’ and
‘development.’

• Tomlinson (2007) says that

acquisition is the initial stage of
gaining basic communicative
competence in a ‘language’ and
‘development’ is the subsequent
stage of gaining the ability to use
the language successfully in a
wide range of media and genres
for a wide variety of purposes.
• “Language acquisition does not
require extensive use of
conscious grammatical rules and
does not require tedious drill.”

• Acquisition requires meaningful

interaction in the target
language –natural
communication- in which
speakers are concerned not
with the form of their
utterances but with the
messages they are conveying
and understanding.
 The Basic Principles of SLA
( Second Language Acquisition)
relevant to the development of
materials for the teaching of
languages:

1. Materials should achieve impact through

Novelty
Variety
Attractive presentation
Appealing content
Achievable challenge
 The Basic Principles of SLA
( Second Language Acquisition)
relevant to the development of
materials for the teaching of
languages:

2. Materials should help learners to feel at ease.

• Most learners feel more comfortable with written
materials with lots of white space.
• Learners are more at ease with texts and illustration
that they can relate to their own culture.
• Learners are more relaxed with materials which are
obviously trying to help them to learn.
 The Basic Principles of SLA
( Second Language Acquisition)
relevant to the development of
materials for the teaching of
languages:

3. Materials should help learners to develop

confidence.

Relaxed and self-confident learners learn

faster (Dulay, Burt and Krashen in
Tomlinson, 2011)
 The Basic Principles of SLA
( Second Language Acquisition)
relevant to the development of
materials for the teaching of
languages:
4. What is being taught should be perceived by
learners as relevant and useful.
• In ESP, by relating them to their interests and to real
life tasks, which the learners need or might need to
perform in the target language.
• In general English, by narrowing the target readership
and or by researching what the target learners are
interested in and what they really want to learn the
language for.
 The Basic Principles of SLA
( Second Language Acquisition)
relevant to the development of
materials for the teaching of
languages:
5. Materials should require and facilitate learner self-
investment.
• To get learners interested in a written or spoken
text, to get them to respond to it globally and
affectively and then to help them to analyze a
particular linguistics feature of it.
• Involving the learners in mini projects
• Involving learners in finding supplementary materials
for particular units in a book
 The Basic Principles of SLA
( Second Language Acquisition) relevant
to the development of materials for the
teaching of languages:

6. Learners must be ready to acquire the points being

taught, both in terms of linguistic, developmental
readiness, and of psychological readiness too.

• By materials which ensure that the learners have gained

sufficient mastery over the developmental features of the
previous stage before teaching a new one.
• By materials which get learners to focus attention on features
of the target language which they have not yet acquired so
that they might be more attentive to these features in future
input.
 The Basic Principles of SLA
( Second Language Acquisition)
relevant to the development of
materials for the teaching of
languages:
7. Materials should expose the learners to
language in authentic use.

Materials should stimulate learner

interaction which they need and find in real life
situations.
 The Basic Principles of SLA
( Second Language Acquisition)
relevant to the development of
materials for the teaching of
languages:
8. The learners’ attention should be drawn to
linguistic features of the input.

The important thing is that the learners

become aware of a gap between the
interlanguage and the equivalent feature in the
target language.
 The Basic Principles of SLA
( Second Language Acquisition)
relevant to the development of
materials for the teaching of
languages:
9. Materials should provide the learners with
opportunities to use the target language to
achieve communicative purposes.
• Information or opinion gap activities which require learners to
communicate.
• Post-listening and post-reading activities which require the learners to
use information from the text.
• Creative writing and creative speaking activities (writing a story).
• Formal instruction given in the target language either or the language
itself.
 The Basic Principles of SLA
( Second Language Acquisition)
relevant to the development of
materials for the teaching of
languages:
10. Materials should take into account
that the positive effects of instruction
are usually delayed.
Instruction is gradual rather than an
instantaneous process (Delayed effect of
Instruction)
 The Basic Principles of SLA
( Second Language Acquisition)
relevant to the development of
materials for the teaching of
languages:
11. Materials should take into account that
learners differ in learning styles.

12. Materials should take into account

that learners differ in affective
attitudes.
 The Basic Principles of SLA
( Second Language Acquisition)
relevant to the development of
materials for the teaching of
languages:

13. Materials should maximize learning

potential by encouraging intellectual,
aesthetic, and emotional involvement
which stimulates both right and left
-brain activities.
 The Basic Principles of SLA
( Second Language Acquisition)
relevant to the development of
materials for the teaching of
languages:
14. Materials should provide opportunities
for outcome feedback.

15. Materials should help the learner to

develop cultural awareness and
sensitivity.
 The Basic Principles of SLA
( Second Language Acquisition)
relevant to the development of
materials for the teaching of
languages:
16. Materials should reflect the reality of
language use.

17. Materials should help learners to learn

in ways similar to the circumstances in
which they will have to use the
language.
 The Basic Principles of SLA
( Second Language Acquisition)
relevant to the development of
materials for the teaching of
languages:
18. Materials should help to create
readiness to learn.
19. Materials should achieve affective
engagement.
20. Materials reflect the reality of language
use.
Richards (2001) suggests a
rather different and briefer
list of the qualities each unit
in the materials should
reflect:

• Give learners something

they can take away from
the lesson.
• Teach something learners
feel they can use.
• Give learners a sense of
achievement.
• Practice learning items in
an interesting and novel
way.
• Provide a pleasurable
learning experience.

• Provide opportunities
for
a. individual
practice
b. personalization
c. self-assessment
for learning