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September 2010 Tomlinson PDF
September 2010 Tomlinson PDF
http://sisaljournal.org
Brian Tomlinson
Leeds Metropolitan University, UK
Corresponding author:
brianjohntomlinson@gmail.com
ISSN 2185-3762
This article may be used for research, teaching and private study purposes. Please
contact the author for permission to re-print elsewhere.
SiSAL Journal, Vol. 1, No. 2, September, 2010, 72-86
Introduction
Like all language learning materials, self-access materials need to be
developed from principles driven by what is known about the needs and wants of the
target users. In my view, there should be a specification of universal principles,
delivery specific principles, and local principles before deciding what self-access
materials to develop and how to develop them. Universal principles are principles of
language acquisition and development (Tomlinson, 2007a) which are applicable to all
learners everywhere regardless of their age, level, objectives, and context of learning.
Delivery specific principles are those which are peculiar to the means of delivering
the materials (i.e. through self-access). Local principles are those which are peculiar
to the specified target learners.
Universal Principles
It is important to start the materials development process by developing
universal principles. Otherwise, obvious local needs and wants dictate decisions and
important learning principles are forgotten.
Ideally the universal principles should derive from the beliefs about language
acquisition and development shared by the materials developers and agreement should
be reached before the materials design process starts (Tomlinson, 2003a). The best
way of doing this is for each developer to write down the basic beliefs they hold about
how language is best acquired and developed. The team then discusses each other’s
beliefs and decide on those that they all agree with. These beliefs are then converted
into criteria which are used both to drive and to evaluate the materials which are
subsequently produced. For example:
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To be really useful for development and evaluation purposes, the criteria should be
unambiguous, answerable, specific, and valid (Tomlinson & Masuhara, 2004).
Before continuing to the development of delivery specific criteria, it is useful
to list for each universal criterion procedures for self-access materials that match the
principle. For example, extensive reading, extensive listening and extensive viewing
are self-access procedure which match the principle of rich exposure to language in
use (see Principle of Language Acquisition 1 below).
Obviously the actual principles used will depend on the beliefs of the
developers. Here is a sample of some of the universal principles which I have made
use of in materials development and evaluation.
A pre-requisite for language acquisition is that the learners are exposed to a rich,
meaningful, and comprehensible input of language in use (Krashen, 1999; Long,
1985).
In order to acquire the ability to use the language effectively the learners need
a lot of experience of the language being used in a variety of different ways
for a variety of purposes. They need to be able to understand enough of this
input to gain positive access to it and it needs to be meaningful to them.
(Tomlinson, 2010a, p. 87)
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extensive reading see Fenton-Smith (forthcoming 2011) and for ideas for noticing
activities after video clip viewing see Stillwell, McMillan, Gillies, and Waller
(forthcoming 2011).
3. Make sure that the language the learners are exposed to in all their self-access
materials is authentic in the sense that it represents how the language is typically
used. If many of their texts are inauthentic because they been written or reduced to
exemplify a particular language feature then the learners are unlikely to acquire
the ability to use the language typically or effectively.
For discussion of the value of authentic materials see Day (2003), Gilmore (2007),
and Mishan (2005).
In order for the learners to maximise their exposure to language in use they need
to be engaged both affectively and cognitively in the language experience (Arnold,
1999; Tomlinson, 1998a, 1998c, forthcoming 2010, forthcoming 2011a).
If the learners do not think and feel whilst experiencing the language, they are
unlikely to achieve language acquisition and development. Thinking whilst
experiencing language in use helps to achieve the deep processing required for
effective and durable learning (Craik & Lockhart, 1972) and it also helps learners to
transfer high level skills such as predicting, connecting, interpreting and evaluating
(Tomlinson, 2007a). “Feeling enjoyment, pleasure and happiness, feeling empathy,
being amused, being excited and being stimulated are most likely to influence
acquisition positively but feeling annoyance, anger, fear, opposition and sadness is
more useful than feeling nothing at all” (Tomlinson, 2010a, p. 89). This is true of
learners’ responses to the content of what they are reading, writing, listening to or
saying but the emotions stimulated by the self-access learning experience need to be
positive and pleasurable (Hurd, 2008).
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One way of doing this is to make use of controversial texts which are likely to
provoke a reaction. Another way is to encourage learners who have read, listened
to or viewed the same text to get together and discuss it. Yet another way is to set
tasks for the learners to complete which have non-linguistic outcomes which can
only be achieved through thinking about the task and developing strategies for its
completion (van den Branden, 2000). Problem solving tasks are particularly useful
for stimulating engagement, especially if you get the learners to record their
thinking process as well as their solution (Mishan, forthcoming 2010).
2. Make use of activities which get learners to think and feel before, during, and after
using the target language for communication. One way of getting learners to do
this is to get them to record their views on a topic before, whilst, and after viewing
a video clip which focuses on different attitudes towards this topic (e.g. the giving
of aid to African countries).
3. Develop materials in which the learners select or find their own text to use with a
set of generic activities and materials which provide a choice of routes and
activities for the learners to select from (Maley, 2003, forthcoming 2011;
Tomlinson, 2003b).
Language learners who achieve positive affect are much more likely to achieve
communicative competence than those who do not (Arnold, 1999; Tomlinson,
1998c).
Language learners need to be positive about the target language, their learning
environment, and their learning materials. They also need to achieve positive self-
esteem and to feel that they are achieving something worthwhile (de Andres, 1999).
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their success (e.g. encourage the learners to put together spoken and written
compilations of “performances” they are happy with in the self-access centre).
Language learners can benefit from noticing salient features of the input.
If learners notice for themselves how a particular language item or feature is
used (Schmidt & Frota, 1986; Tomlinson, 2007b) they are more likely to develop
their language awareness (Tomlinson, 1994; Bolitho et al., 2003). They are also more
likely to achieve readiness for acquisition (Pienemann, 1985). Such noticing is most
salient when a learner has been engaged in a text and then returns to it to make
discoveries about its language use. This is likely to lead to the learner paying attention
to similar uses in subsequent inputs and to increase the potential for eventual
acquisition.
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For more detailed discussion of these and other language acquisition principles
see Tomlinson (2010a). Gardner and Miller (1999) advocate the use of authentic
materials, providing a variety of types of materials to cater for different learning styles,
guiding learners to contribute to the development of their own self-access materials,
and making use of activities in self-access centres which promote learner enjoyment.
McGrath (2002) considers ways of making use of authentic materials in self-access
centres, making use of technological advances, and developing materials which “go
beyond familiar closed formats” (p. 149). McDonough and Shaw (2003) point out the
“danger in providing too much that is related to classroom work [is that]: the materials
become ‘further practice’ or ‘follow up activities’ rather than allowing the students to
explore and learn new things by themselves” (p. 216). Mishan (2005) focuses on the
importance of helping self-access learners respond to authentic texts and Cooker
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(2008) draws attention to the widening role that authentic materials, graded readers,
and drama-based language learning materials can play in a self-access centre.
1. The materials should aim to offer learners more than they could get from a
taught course or from unsupported immersion.
The materials should offer more learning time, more experience of the
language, more variety of experience of the language, more individual support, and
more feedback.
Barker (2010) states that no university course in Japan can give students
sufficient learning time for them to develop communicative competence. His
suggestion is to encourage ULI (unstructured learner interaction) outside the
classroom through, for example, social clubs in which the medium of interaction is
always English. His research demonstrates the value of such encouragement but even
that is not enough. If we want our students to acquire more language and to develop
their ability to use it effectively in a variety of contexts, modes, and genres
(Tomlinson, 2007a), then we need to offer access to materials which offer them a lot
more learning time.
Many learners doing language courses spend much of their time focusing on
examples of the language and insufficient time experiencing language in use. Self-
access materials should not offer them even more examples of the language but
should offer more experience of the language in use instead (Tomlinson, 1998b,
forthcoming 2011b). Language courses also tend to focus on a narrow range of genres
and text types and to provide few opportunities for the teacher to find time to provide
individual support and feedback in relation to the learner’s needs and wants. Self-
access materials can and should provide more variety, support, and feedback,
especially if they help learners to contribute to the development of materials likely to
cater for their needs and wants (Cooker, 2010).
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2. The materials should aim to help the students to become truly independent so
that they can continue to learn the language forever by seeking further
contact with it.
Ideally self-access materials should be training learners to become less and
less dependent on self-access materials and more capable of gaining from any
exposure to the language in use that they experience. One way of doing this is to add a
final activity to self-access materials which encourages the learners to seek extra
authentic texts and to try to make discoveries from them (Tomlinson, 2010b). Another
way is to actually advise the learners how to become more independent (Cooker &
Torpey, 2004).
3. The materials should aim to be access-self and not just self-access materials.
Access-self activities should:
1. Be self-access in the conventional sense of providing opportunities for learners
to choose what to work on and to do so in their own time and at their own
pace.
2. Be open-ended in the sense that they do not have correct and incorrect answers
but rather permit a variety of acceptable responses.
3. Engage the learners’ individuality in the activities in such a way as to exploit
their prior experience and to provide opportunities for personal development.
4. Involve the learners as human beings rather than just as language learners.
5. Require a personal investment of energy and attention in order for learner
discoveries to be made (as recommended in Tomlinson, 1994, 2007b, and as
exemplified in Bolitho and Tomlinson, 2005).
6. Stimulate various left and right brain activities at the same time and thus
maximise the brain’s potential for learning and development (as recommended
in Lozanov, 1978, and by Hooper Hansen, 1999, forthcoming 2011).
7. Provide rich, varied, and comprehensible input in order to facilitate informal
acquisition (as recommended, for example, in Krashen, 1999) and to provide
opportunities for selective attention to linguistic or pragmatic features of the
discourse (as suggested by Schmidt & Frota, 1986; Tomlinson, 1994; Bolitho
et al., 2003).
(adapted from Tomlinson, forthcoming 2011b)
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Students need to know what is available to them, what it can offer them, and
what it requires from them. This can be achieved through catalogues, poster
promotion of materials, text messages, providing access to informants to answer
questions, and students being encouraged to spread the word.
7. The students need easy and reliable access to the materials they want to use.
This is a very obvious point but it needs to be stressed as much as possible that
you can have the best self-access materials in the world but they will not be valued or
even used if it is difficult (or even inconvenient) for the students to gain access to
them and to use them.
Other principles of self-access learning have been proposed by Cooker. See Cooker
(2010) for discussion of the following principles for setting up a self-access centre:
1. Self-access learning should be truly self-access.
2. Students should have an integral role in the running of the centre.
3. Language learning should be fun.
4. The learning environment is important.
Local Principles
Local principles are those which are specific to the context of learning which
the students are located in. They will therefore differ from institution to institution.
The most effective way to develop local principles is to start by writing a
profile of typical users of the self-access materials. Such a profile could include the
following variables:
• age
• gender
• levels
• purposes for learning the language
• amount of class learning time
• estimated time available for self-access
• previous experience of using self-access materials
• attitudes to self-access
• learning style preferences
• learner needs
• learner wants
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Information about some of these variables can be gained from records (e.g.
age, gender, levels), but interviews, questionnaires, and focus group discussions might
be needed to gain some of the other information required. The big mistake would be
to rely on what teachers think the answers are. I well remember a materials
development project in which the teachers said their teenage students were only
interested in such topics as pop music, fashion, dancing, and sport, but the students
said they wanted to focus on such topics as teenage pregnancy, marital violence, drug
abuse, pollution, and corruption.
Here is an example of making use of a questionnaire. A questionnaire was
designed to find out about learner preferences and then administered to the target
learners. It was discovered that many of the learners were experiential, auditory, and
dependent and yet “the prevailing learning styles for many of the materials are
analytical, visual and independent” (Tomlinson, forthcoming 2011b). It was decided
to add more extensive readers, more extensive listening material, more text-driven
activities, and more opportunities for interaction with fellow learners and with tutors.
These additional materials were promoted to the target learners and then a
questionnaire eliciting responses to the new additions was administered. Finally
modifications were made to the additional material.
Conclusions
There are many very successful self-access centres and self-access courses
already developed. These, however, could still gain from developing principles as
suggested above and then using them to evaluate their current practice and materials.
New centres and courses could gain a lot from developing their principles and then
using them to drive the development (and subsequent evaluation) of their practice and
materials. What is really important is to remember that self-access materials should be
informed by Delivery Specific Principles and by Local Principles but should be driven
by Universal Principles. Cooker (2008) stresses this point when she criticises
Reinders and Lewis (2006) for listing surface level criteria for self-access materials
which “do not address real learning issues.” She quite rightly insists that criteria for
evaluating self-access materials should be based on such core principles as “the ability
to interest and engage learners, to be meaningful and challenging and to have a
sustained positive impact” (Cooker, 2008, pp. 128-129).
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