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Developing Materials for
Language Teaching
Edited by
Brian Tomlinson
www.bloomsbury.com
The chapters first published in Developing Materials for Language Teaching, 2003
This ebook collection first published 2014
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any
form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without
prior permission in writing from the publishers.
eISBN: 978-1-4742-1054-6
All Chapter Numbers Refer to the First Edition, PB ISBN: 9780826459176 (now out of print)
2 Selection of Materials 37
Rani Rubdy
5 Adapting Classroom Materials 86
Carlos Islam and Chris Mares
12 Developing Electronic Materials for Language Teaching 199
Beverly Derewianka
13 Hyperfiction: Explorations in Texture 221
Claudia Ferradas Moi
15 Materials for Beginners 256
Carlos Islam
17 Talking like Texts and Talking about Texts: How Some Primary
School Coursebook Tasks are Realized in the Classroom 291
Irma K. Ghosn
18 Materials for Specific Purposes 306
Roger Barnard and Dorothy Zemach
25 Materials for Language Awareness 422
Rod Bolitho
26 Materials for Cultural Awareness 426
Alan Pulverness
29 Materials Development and Teacher Training 479
Christophe Canniveng and Mertxe Martinez
30 A Practical Experience of Institutional Textbook Writing:
Product/Process Implications for Materials Development 490
Patrick Lyons
31 Personal and Professional Development through Writing:
The Romanian Textbook Project 505
Ruxandra Popovici and Rod Bolitho
CHAPTER
2
Selection of Materials
Rani Rubdy
Introduction
The coursebook has become an almost universal element of ELT, playing as it
does a vital and positive part in the everyday job of teaching and learning of
English (Hutchinson and Torres, 1994). The plethora of material that continues
to be produced unabated bears ample testimony to its perceived importance not
simply as one of the main ‘tools of the trade’ in the language classroom but as
‘the visible heart’ of any ELT programme (Sheldon, 1988: 237). As Cunnings-
worth has noted, the wealth of published material that is available on the market
today makes the selection of the right coursebook a challenging task, requiring
teachers to make informed and appropriate choices when selecting coursebooks
and supporting materials (Cunningsworth, 1995: 1).
What makes it vital to develop even more accurate and revealing ways of evalu-
ating and selecting coursebooks is that materials themselves have evolved into
more complex objects. While in the early days ELT coursebooks contained mainly
reading texts accompanied by a set of comprehension questions and a few
grammar and vocabulary exercises, materials today frequently offer ‘packages’ for
language teaching and learning which include workbooks, teachers’ guides,
audio and video support and even CALL programmes with precise indications of
the work that teachers and learners are to do together in a way that effectively
structures classroom lessons (Littlejohn, 1998: 190). Indeed, materials have more
and more come to be viewed as ‘an embodiment of the aims, values and methods
of the particular teaching learning situation’ (Hutchinson, 1987: 37) to the
extent that, as Hutchinson observes, the selection of materials probably repre-
sents the single most important decision that the language teacher has to make.
The selection of materials involves matching the given materials against the
context in which they are going to be used and the needs and interests of the
teachers and learners who work within it, to find the best possible fit between
them. This calls for major strategic decisions based on informed judgement and
professional experience, forcing teachers to identify their priorities: As Littlejohn
rightly observes, ‘We need to be able to examine the implications that use of a set
of materials may have for classroom work and thus come to grounded opinions
about whether or not the methodology and content of the materials is appro-
priate for a particular language teaching context’ (Littlejohn, 1998: 190–1).
38 Rani Rubdy
To combat this trend of over-reliance on the textbook, a strong case has been
made for the promotion of teacher-generated materials (Block, 1991; Dubin,
1988) and for greater learner involvement in materials adaptation (Clarke, 1989;
Riggenbach, 1988), more in tune with a learner-centred philosophy that char-
acterizes contemporary classrooms. Block (1991), for instance, contends that the
way core language is contextualized in many commercial materials often renders
it irrelevant and outdated. He maintains that the personal touch that the teacher
can bring to his/her materials is unparalleled by the stereotypical activities that
characterize many of them. Clark (1989) pleads for creative learner involvement
in materials adaptation and shows how giving learners a more contributory role
can serve not only to make existing materials more relevant but also more
motivating for the learner.
Notwithstanding these developments, there are those who argue that ‘course-
books provide teachers and learners with a range of professionally developed
materials within tried and tested syllabus structures’, allowing teachers to spend
their valuable time more on facilitating learning than materials production (Bell
and Gower, 1998: 116). Advocacy of coursebooks has come from scholars who
strongly believe that coursebooks should be seen as a means of ‘re-skilling’ rather
than ‘de-skilling’ teachers (O’Neil, 1982; Hutchinson and Torres, 1994; Edge and
Wharton, 1998) and that, provided they are used flexibly, they can be adapted
and supplemented to meet the needs of specific classes (Bell and Gower, 1998:
117). They state the following advantages for the use of coursebooks:
Not surprising, then, to see why the selection of materials has come to involve
‘considerable professional, financial and even political investment’ – not just by
teachers and learners – but other stakeholders as well, such as administrators,
educational advisors, education ministries and state governments, making the
task a high profile one (Sheldon, 1988: 237). Conflict of interests can arise
between commercial agencies who view ELT books as big business and use
aggressive marketing strategies to exploit the situation and those committed to
the choice of a coursebook simply for its value for effective classroom use. This
explains the current polarization of views, fluctuating between the perception
that coursebooks are valid, labour-saving tools, on the one hand, and the belief
that they are just ‘skilfully marketed’ ‘masses of rubbish’ (Brumfit, 1980: 30), on
the other.
We are reminded of Allwright’s considered view about the limited usefulness of
ELT materials, expressed some two decades ago: ‘The whole business of the
management of language learning is far too complex to be satisfactorily catered
for by a pre-packaged set of decisions embodied in teaching materials’ (Allwright,
1981). Hence the feeling that published materials can at best only represent
‘poor compromises between what is educationally desirable on the one hand and
financially viable on the other’ (Sheldon, 1988: 237), thus justifying Cunning-
sworth’s (1984) cautionary note about coursebooks being good servants but bad
masters.
The debate has raised many important questions regarding the relationship
between ready-made ELT materials and the teaching and learning process that
warrant serious consideration. Some of these have been identified by Bell and
Gower (1998: 117), as summarized below:
These questions help refocus attention on precisely the kinds of issues that are
problematic about ready-made ELT materials for which those arguing in favour of
teacher and student-generated materials see them as providing solutions in being
able to address more effectively such aspects of classroom lessons as teacher
responsibility, creativity and investment as well as learner initiative and receptivity –
indeed, just the kind of intangible attributes that inhere in good materials, or to be
more precise, in materials that provide a ‘good fit’. Because such materials are
likely to be directly responsive and relevant to the specific needs of a particular
group of teachers and learners and the circumstances of their learning, they are
likely to optimize teacher and learner contributions to the learning process and
thereby enhance learning itself. At the same time, reduced reliance on pre-
determined content and greater control over the teaching–learning process entails
greater teacher and learner freedom, creativity and choice, thus contributing to
the desirable educational goals of independence and autonomy for both.
Ellis speaks of the strong surge of interest in the goals, roles and methods of
evaluation in recent years (Alderson and Beretta, 1992; Rea-Dickins and Ger-
maine, 1992; Weir and Roberts, 1994), and attributes this trend primarily to the
increase in the influence of mainstream educational theory and in part to the
need to carry out large-scale programme evaluations for external funding agen-
cies like the ODA, the British Council and USAID (Ellis, 1998: 217). He goes on
to make a distinction between macroevaluations of such large-scale projects, typic-
ally carried out for accountability and/or developmental purposes and micro-
evaluations. The latter are carried out by teachers on a day-by-day and lesson-by-
lesson basis and focus less on the programme as a whole and more on what
specific activities and techniques appear to ‘work’ in the context of a particular
lesson. By this definition, materials evaluation, selection and adaptation fall
under the purview of microevaluation, as does the evaluation of teachers’ and
learners’ classroom behaviours. Ellis argues that since it is microevaluation which
is compatible with many teachers’ perspective about what evaluation involves,
encouraging teachers to adopt a micro- rather than a macroperspective to
evaluation will help them undertake evaluation that accords with their own
perspective.
At this point, another distinction that will be useful to make is that between the
evaluation of materials (see Chapter 1 (Tomlinson) in this volume) and their
selection. Evaluation, like selection, is a matter of judging the fitness of some-
thing for a particular purpose. However, while it is true that the selection of
materials inevitably involves, or subsumes, a process of evaluation, evaluation can
be undertaken for a variety of purposes and carried out in a variety of ways. In the
selection of materials, on the other hand, what assumes primary importance is the
analysis of learner needs and interests and how these are addressed. Conse-
quently, in the selection of materials usually it is the most appropriate rather than
the best that wins.
42 Rani Rubdy
through (Ellis, 1998: 220). For instance, Breen and Candlin’s (1987) interactive,
step-by-step guide to coursebook evaluation envisages two phases, one addressing
the ‘overall usefulness’ of the materials and another aiming at ‘a more searching
analysis’ with a particular group of learners and classroom situation in mind.
Arguing for the need to look below surface features to discover the value system
and assumptions underlying materials design, Hutchinson (1987) likewise views
evaluation as an interactive process involving a subjective and objective analysis of
materials and the extent to which they match teacher and student needs in a
given context. More recently, McDonough and Shaw (1993) have also proposed
two complementary stages, beginning with an ‘external evaluation’ and moving
on to an in-depth ‘internal evaluation’ of two or more units in terms of pre-
sentation of skills, grading and sequencing of tasks, kinds of texts used and the
relationship between exercises and tests.
Sheldon’s very useful framework (1988) covers a range of criteria from those
relating to purely practical factors like availability and physical characteristics
such as layout and graphics to more psychological and psycholinguistic aspects
such as learner needs and learning objectives, their assumed background, target
age range, culture, conceptual and schematic development, expectations and
learning preferences. Organizational factors such as provision of linkage,
sequencing/grading, stimulus/practice/revision, recycling and internal and
external coherence as well as criteria that address appropriacy, authenticity,
cultural bias and flexibility are also given considerable importance.
To date, the most comprehensive and thorough is Cunningsworth’s (1984,
1995) proposal for materials evaluation, taking as it does the learner’s context
and learning principles as its starting point. The general guidelines identified
(1995) and the criteria they inform are presented alongside useful case studies,
illustrated with clear examples from current published materials relating to areas
of grammar, phonology and discourse as well as the language skills.
Focusing on materials as a pedagogic device, Littlejohn’s (1998) analysis contains
two main dimensions: publication, which refers to the ‘tangible’ or physical aspects
of the materials, and design, which relates to the thinking underlying its pro-
duction and use – including its aims, how the tasks, language and content in the
materials are selected and sequenced and the nature and focus of the content.
Utilizing Breen and Candlin’s (1987) notion of process competence, Littlejohn is
interested in what learners are precisely asked to do by drawing upon their
knowledge, abilities and skills and the modes of classroom participation the activities
foster. An extremely useful aspect is his ability to show how it works in practice as
one moves through the different ‘levels’ of analysis, from a consideration of the
more easily identifiable aspects to the more abstract and complex.
Finally, Tomlinson’s (1998) ‘Introduction’ to Materials Development in Language
Teaching provides an overview of many of the tenets and basic principles of second
language acquisition that are currently relevant to an understanding of what good
materials, as well as principled judgements about them, should contain. The
value of materials for Tomlinson lies in their effectiveness in encouraging learn-
ers to make discoveries for themselves through self-investment, through intel-
44 Rani Rubdy
of materials holds for language learning and assess their suitability to the particu-
lar circumstances of a given context, without losing a sense of their complexity.
These I will term Psychological Validity, Pedagogical Validity, and Process and
Content Validity.
A diagrammatic representation of these in Figure 2.1 places at the very centre
of the evaluation process the three main elements of the classroom: the learners,
the teacher and the materials to represent the interaction that takes place
between them. Note that the sample of criteria representing the inner concentric
circle has to do with those features that are found to reside overtly in the texts,
tasks and activities and is therefore viewed as elements that are ‘tangible’ or
46 Rani Rubdy
and exploration, all of which are viewed as activating the learning process
through teacher and learner-initiated contributions and hence call for a dynamic
model of evaluation.
Psychological Validity
The need for student-centredness in recent years has made it necessary to con-
duct some sort of needs analysis, whether in the construction of a syllabus or a set
of materials. It follows that a key question in choosing a coursebook would be,
‘How does the book relate to the needs of the learners?’ We know of course that
the need to communicate lies at the heart of all language learning. Since this
involves not just communicating within the classroom but, ultimately, in the real
world outside, the materials must also take into account students’ longer-term
goals. This in turn would entail not merely teaching them ‘how to learn’ within
classroom settings by raising awareness of different styles and strategies but also
enabling them to take advantage of any opportunity to learn outside the class-
room. In terms of materials, this means that the experience of working with the
activities contained in them should provide students with confidence in their
ability to communicate despite difficulties (Hall, 2001: 230–1).
Taking this aspect of student-centredness a step further, one might wish to find
out to what extent the materials have the potential to foster self-directed, inde-
pendent learning. As Tomlinson (1998) notes, the most significant role of
materials is to involve students in decision-making about their own learning. One
way of doing this is to channel their energies towards making existing materials
more relevant and motivating; another would be to involve them in generating
their own materials out of the reading and listening texts provided, as well as
other source materials, to suit their own level and interest. Integral to the plan of
a coursebook can be made this movement from teacher-defined tasks to tasks
identified by students themselves; and from there on to a stage where student
groups define areas of interest to work on and select materials from different
sources on their own to generate task outcomes. The point is, do the materials
have built into them such opportunities for student-initiated resource generation
or is everything specified in advance?
Even where claims are made about fostering learner autonomy, the question to
ask is whether learners are involved in making decisions about their own learning
or do the materials encourage learner autonomy in a conservative sense only,
which means learners do some study without teacher intervention but have no
self-directed goals and have not developed effective learning strategies. Do the
learners have sufficient control over the meanings and interactions that are
generated in the classroom using the materials? As Edge and Wharton (1998:
296) point out, ‘if learners in classrooms can initiate interaction patterns and
create the meanings they want to personally express, then there is more chance
that they will be able to make use of such learning to exploit outside sources for
learning when they find them.’ The following criteria mirror these issues:
48 Rani Rubdy
Rationale/Learner Needs
What are the aims and objectives of the materials?
Have they been clearly spelt out?
Do they cater to the needs, wants, interests and purposes of the learners?
Are the materials appropriate and are they likely to be effective in helping
learners to acquire English?
Do the materials make a positive contribution to heightening and sustaining
learner motivation?
Do the materials give the learners confidence to initiate communicative events
and persist with the attempted communication despite difficulties?
Do the materials cater for the development of language skills that would
enable them to operate effectively in their future academic or professional life?
Self-development
Do the materials/texts engage the learners both cognitively and affectively?
Do the materials credit learners with a capacity for rational thought and prob-
lem-solving?
Do they also involve the learner’s emotions in the learning process?
Do the materials allow for the development of creative and critical thinking
skills?
Do the materials allow scope for the development of a desirable set of atti-
tudes?
Do the materials allow the individual to develop his or her talents as fully as
possible?
88 Carlos Islam and Chris Mares
reasons for adapting materials. There is quite a bit of overlap between the two
lists, but Cunningsworth draws on a knowledge of learner styles and the learner as
a whole, considerations which are absent from McDonough and Shaw’s list.
According to Cunningsworth, adaptation depends on factors such as:
Adaptation is also appropriate when materials are not ideal, as presented in the
following:
Candlin and Breen (1980) focus on adaptation issues that relate to materials
specifically designed for communicative language learning. Their list implies that
published materials are limited in that they do not provide many opportunities
for real communication; instead they simply provide oral practice of linguistic
structures: