te20303 md lecture 1

8/2/2019 TE20303 MD Lecture 1

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/te20303-md-lecture-1 1/28

TE 20303

MATERIALS DEVELOPMENT

Week 1

Course overview and

introduction: The role ofteaching materials

8/2/2019 TE20303 MD Lecture 1


TE 20303

MATERIALS DEVELOPMENTLecture: Wed (8.00 – 10.00 a.m.)

Venue:BT4

Tutorials: Tues 3.00 -4.00 pm (BT4)

1 group (face-to-face)

Online tutorial

8/2/2019 TE20303 MD Lecture 1


Course Overview

Main aim:

To provide a synthesis between„principles‟ and „practice‟ by making

links between b/grd issues in ALwhere appropriate, and at the sametime looking at the practical design of

materials and methods.

8/2/2019 TE20303 MD Lecture 1


Specific Objective

1. To understand the most commondesign principles for teachingmaterials;

2. To critically evaluate the principlesupon which language learningmaterials are based;

3. To assess the relevance of teachingmaterials to own teaching context

8/2/2019 TE20303 MD Lecture 1


First half (Wk 1 – 7)

Look at principles on which materials and methodsare based:

Wk 1 – looks at the educational f/w of materialswhich is relevant to ELT practitioners

Wk 2 – linking research (SLA) to best practice

Wk 3 – Provides an analysis of the growth of thecommunicative approach to language teaching &the implications for materials. Examine somecritiques of the comm appro & try to analyse some

of the „post-comm‟ trends in design principles over the last decade, notably the multi-syllabus &process syllabus, & how these relate to actualteaching materials.

8/2/2019 TE20303 MD Lecture 1


Wk 4 & 5 – considered a pair in that

the issues discussed require muchcross-referencing

Wk 4 & 5 – Offers a number ofworking models for examining &evaluating textbooks.

Understanding the principles oftextbook construction

8/2/2019 TE20303 MD Lecture 1


8/2/2019 TE20303 MD Lecture 1


Second half (Wk 8 -13)

Putting theory into practice

Attempt to relate the principles raised anddiscussed in part 1 to each individual skills

in turn.Wk 9 -12 - see how the theory related toeach individual skill of R, S, L & W hasaffected approaches to the design and use

of materials in the respective areasWk 13 & 14 – summing up - Addressingstudent diversity in the language classroom

8/2/2019 TE20303 MD Lecture 1


Lecture Week 1: Overview

What are Language learningmaterials?

What is Materials Development?

What are our roles in MaterialsDevelopment?

8/2/2019 TE20303 MD Lecture 1


Overview

What are Language learningmaterials?

What is Materials Development?

Our roles in Materials Development.

8/2/2019 TE20303 MD Lecture 1


What are „Language Learning

Materials‟?

Anything which is used by teachers orlearners to facilitate the learning of alanguage.

Materials could be cassettes, videos, CD-Roms, dictionaries, grammar books,readers, workbooks or photocopiedexercises.

They could also be newspapers, foodpackages, photographs, live talks byinvited native speakers, instructions givenby a teacher, tasks written on cards ordiscussions between learners.

8/2/2019 TE20303 MD Lecture 1


Con‟t

anything which is deliberately usedto increase the learners‟

knowledge and/or experience of

the language.

(Tomlinson, B. (Ed.). (1998).Materials development in language

learning. Cambridge: CUP)

8/2/2019 TE20303 MD Lecture 1


What is „Materials Development”?

“Materials development is theplanning process by which ateacher creates units and lessonswithin those units to carry out thegoals and objectives of the course.In a sense, it is the process ofmaking your syllabus more andmore specific.” [Graves, Kathleen. (2000). Designing Language Courses: A guide for teachers. Boston: Heinle & Heinle. P149]

8/2/2019 TE20303 MD Lecture 1


Con‟t

“Materials development refers toanything which is done by writers,teachers or learners to providesources of language input and toexploit those sources in wayswhich maximise the likelihood ofintake: in other words thesupplying of information aboutand/or experience of the languagein ways designed to promotelanguage learning.” [Tomlinson, B. (Ed.). (1998). Materials development in language learning. Cambridge: CUP]

8/2/2019 TE20303 MD Lecture 1


Materials development takes place ona continuum of decision-making and

creativity which ranges from beinggiven a textbook and a timetable inwhich to „cover‟ it to developing all the

materials you will use in the class„from scratch‟.

x=======x======x========x

least responsibility most responsibility& decision making & creative

8/2/2019 TE20303 MD Lecture 1


Where is your position in thiscontinuum?

Neither extreme is desirable.

Little room to make decisions and toput to use what they have learnt from

experience, which in effect „deskills‟the teacher

The majority of teachers not paid or

do not have the time to develop all thematerials for every course that theyteach.

8/2/2019 TE20303 MD Lecture 1


What ought to be done?Just because a teacher does not have

responsibility for choosing materials,does not mean she cannot exercisecreativity in using them.Teachers can be involved in materials

development from the moment they pickup a textbook and teach from it.Because a teacher will inevitably haveto make decisions about how long tospend on certain activities, which ones

to skip or assign for homework if thereisn‟t enough time, which ones to modifyso that they are relevant to theparticular group of students.

8/2/2019 TE20303 MD Lecture 1


What is the basis for materials design?

How is Materials Development seen inthe larger context of the languageteaching & learning process?

Materials and methods cannot be seen in

isolation, but are embedded within abroader professional context. (SeeMackey,1970, & Strevens (1976. 1977) &Stern‟s (1983) models of language

learning/teaching process)Analogy – teacher & materials = driver &cars.

8/2/2019 TE20303 MD Lecture 1


8/2/2019 TE20303 MD Lecture 1


McDonough and Shaw (1993:5) givethis „framework‟ for materials use

8/2/2019 TE20303 MD Lecture 1


McDonough & Shaw‟s (1993)

Framework

Context

learners

Educationalsettings

Implementation ofgoals

Syllabus construction

Materials,classroom methods

8/2/2019 TE20303 MD Lecture 1


Statement of goals – related to the learnersand conditioned by the setting -> leads to

selection of an appropriate type of syllabuscontent & specification.

The broad syllabus outline will in turn havedirect implications for the more detailed

design & selection of materials and tests,the planning of individual lessons, and themanagement of the classroom.

Our focus throughout this course will be

concerned with maximising learningopportunities via providing richcomprehensible input = materials (& alsomethods) .

8/2/2019 TE20303 MD Lecture 1


ConclusionOur professional activities as languageteachers are not carried out in a vacuumand, in Richards‟ (1985:11) words,

“Planning a successful language

programme involves consideration offactors that go beyond mere content andpresentation of teaching materials”.

Although we work in specific situations with

specific groups of learners, according to aspecified set of aims, our work can bedescribed along a number of shared andgeneralizable dimensions.

8/2/2019 TE20303 MD Lecture 1


Con‟t

These dimensions are:

The characteristics of learners;

The range of factors in the teachingsituation itself;

and the syllabus types available to usas a profession.

8/2/2019 TE20303 MD Lecture 1


Further reading

Chapters 1 and 2 of Richards, J. C.(1985): The context of LanguageTeaching. Cambridge: CUP

te20303 md lecture 1

Documents