20

Developing Materials for

Speaking Skills
Dat Bao

T his chapter first highlights some prevalent methodological trends that have
influenced and shaped many essential components in the development of material
design for spoken language. Second, a practical framework is proposed for designing
materials for speaking skills. Then, the chapter presents a rational for effective
instructional materials for the discussed skills, proposes a set of criteria for evaluating
materials for speaking, and finally throws light on some methodological aspects that
deserve further scholarly attention.

Overview
Setting the scene: Speaking skills and
the need for relevant materials
One way to understand the notion of speaking skills, as suggested by Bygate (1987,
pp. 5–6), is by viewing them in two basic aspects: motor-receptive skills and interaction
skills. The former involves a mastering of sounds and structures not necessarily in any
particular context. The latter involves making decisions about what and how to say
things in specific communicative situations to convey the right intentions or maintain
relationships. This perception can be further understood by observing that these two
sets of skills must not represent ‘clear-cut distinctions’ (Littlewood, 1981, p. 16) or
‘two-stage operations’, but from the start structure must be taught in relation to use
(Johnson, 1982, p. 22). Moreover, much research on language awareness also suggests
that the teaching sequence does not have to be structures before communication of

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meanings, but content-based activities can organize for learners to experience and
respond to meanings first. Arguably, speaking skills are best developed when learners
learn to eventually take control of their own performance from an insider perspective
(e.g. from the learner), rather than being constantly dictated by external manipulation
(e.g. by the teacher).
Second language materials, as viewed by Tomlinson (2010, 2011), should be created
not only by writers but also by teachers and learners, in a creative process which
stretches to the real classroom. Tomlinson’s perception coincides nicely with Nunan’s
(1989) view that teaching communication should be seen as a process rather than a
set of products. It is also closely related to what Breen (1984, p. 47) calls the ‘process
syllabus’. According to this syllabus, when materials are scripted by a writer, they
appear in the form of a predesigned plan rather than the final production and are open
to reinterpretation by the users of that plan, for example teachers and learners. Both
the designer’s original construction and the users’ reinterpretation of this plan have
the right to join each other in a creative process shaped by participant experiences,
attitudes and knowledge. It is through such interaction that predesigned sketches
can be best processed and earn conditions to develop into appropriate materials that
promote language learning. In other words, task implementation in the classroom
serves as a practical tool for relevant materials to be jointly created.
This understanding helps explain why many coursebook activities composed from
the writer’s own assumptions while disregarding the users of the books often have
problems working in the real classroom. It also explains why adaptation of coursebooks
is constantly called into play, especially when the writer’s vision of classroom process
fails to harmonize with the teacher’s vision, the learner’s needs and the local contexts.
Ideally, if materials are constructed for speaking skills, the interactive process by
the designer and the users should take place through speaking, since it would be
unrealistic for participants to simply sit there and silently imagine how talk might work
from a written script. Section 4 of this chapter will return to this issue with proposals
for assessing the quality of materials for speaking.

Trends in materials for speaking skills

Arguably, trends in material design progress in parallel with trends in methodology. This
should not surprise us since activities in coursebooks are precisely where principle and
practice are brought together. In fact, materials published over the past five decades
have been clear indicators of how the key principles of communicative approaches
are incorporated into speaking activities. Although this chapter limits itself to spoken
language, it does not seem possible at the moment to separate general trends in
materials for speaking from those for other basic skills, since these materials are all
subject to similar debates.
If in the mid-1960s, the learning of linguistic systems was emphasized as the
main method to master a second language (Johnson, 1982), the 1970s witnessed a

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 DEVELOPING MATERIALS FOR SPEAKING SKILLS 409

‘communicative revolution’ (McDonough, 1993, p. 20) in which ‘meaningful activities’

(Mockridge-Fong, 1979, p. 91) replaced mechanical language exercises. This change,
however, was not perceived by many teachers and learners as a beneficial revolution
at all since it took away all the confidence learners used to have thanks to what they
perceived as systematic and sufficient grammatical input. In view of this, the 1980s
saw attempts to make the communicative approach less extreme, so as not to put
too much emphasis on use and ignore the learners’ need for linguistic knowledge
(Morrow, 1983; Scott, 1983; Swan, 1983, 1985; Dubin and Olshtain, 1986). Examples
of the reaction against the strong version of the communicative approach were the
criticism that the new methodology was attempting to replace the structural approach
(Dubin and Olshtain, 1986); the criticism that in fact the new method had not made
the learning of grammatical knowledge any easier than before (Swan, 1985); and the
appeal not to deny the value of a structural framework in supporting rules for use (Scott,
1983). Alongside these debates, scholarly efforts were invested in how to harmonize
the opposing tendencies, by considering the fact that form and use in second language
teaching should not be mutually exclusive.
By virtue of this compromise view, the early 1990s saw the idea of a multidimensional
syllabus becoming more explicitly and systematically addressed, which opened up new
possibilities for encompassing a more comprehensive series of teaching dimensions
such as functions and notions, roles and skills, themes and situations. The main purpose
of this type of syllabus, as pointed out by (McDonough and Shaw, 1993, p. 50), is ‘to
build on a range of communicative criteria at the same time as acknowledging the
need to provide systematic practice in the formal proprieties of the language’.
The recognition of learner differences and the importance of divergent responses in
learning have been reflected in materials developments over the decades. Educators
and materials writers alike demonstrated a tendency to resist activities in which
discussions invite right and wrong answers because that would reduce learning
complexity (see, for example, Turner and Patrick, 2004; Meyer and Turner, 2006;
Patrick et al., 2007; Graff, 2009). Learning complexity has also been demonstrated in
today’s English language teaching materials when they are no longer represented in
a single textbook but come as a multidimensional package (Littlejohn, 1998; McKay
and Tom, 1999; Lyons, 2003) and this expanded view is a response to the evolving
of pedagogical beliefs (Murray, 2003) as well as a reaction to the implementation of
all the technological advances in the industry to the extent that it seems like a stand-
alone textbook could become a thing of the past. The concept ‘textbook’ might imply
that teachers are somehow ‘deficient’ in their ability and knowledge and thus have
to solely rely on the textbook as their primary source of knowledge. A textbook can
become a ‘tyrant’ within the classroom (Williams, 1983), demanding there be no room
for deviation from it or for personalized learning.
Since the classroom environment is often not heterogeneous but mixed to some
degree in linguistic proficiency, interpersonal skill, age, academic background, gender,
personality, language aptitude, learning style and other factors (see, for example,
Woodward, 2001), one of the major concerns of language materials is the capability of

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‘catering for the diversity of needs which exists in most language classrooms’ (Nunan,
1991, p. 209). Language teaching is full of choices and alternatives (Dougill, 1987;
Graves, 2001), and no one is totally sure of which way is right. For an example of this
trend, let us examine three activity samples that deal with a similar theme, namely
describing objects, taken from three English coursebooks published in 1978, 1991 and
1999.
In Streamline English (Hartley and Viney, 1978, 1996), Lesson 6: A Nice Flat (see
Figure 20.1) students are asked to describe a room from a given picture. There is
no freedom of choice and hardly any peer interaction involved in this task since all
information comes directly from the same visual. Every learner performs the same
role.
In Interchange – English for International Communication. Book 3, Activity ‘Same
or Different?’ in Unit 12 (Richards, Hull and Proctor, 1991) students are provided with
several sets of pictures depicting different object items and invited to discover how
these items differ by asking each other questions. This activity utilizes the decoding
and encoding of information gaps, which encourages students to exchange factual
data. There is still no freedom of choice but at least learners are given the opportunity
to interact for a purpose. There are two different roles to perform: information seeker
and information provider.
In Language in Use Pre-Intermediate (Doff and Jones, 2002), Activity 1 of Unit 3:
Talking about Places (see Figure 20.2) invites learners to look at a picture of five
different doors and imagine the rooms behind them. Since there are no right or wrong
answers, students are encouraged to process meanings from their own experiences
and perspectives. Besides providing freedom of choice, this material takes learners
beyond the level of information gap into two new areas: reasoning gap, which involves
deriving data by inference and perception, and opinion gap, which encourages personal
feelings and attitudes.
Many examples like this one can be found across coursebooks over the years. They
demonstrate a shift from mechanical rehearsal of language structure to more interactive
exchange of factual information, and another shift from interactive exchange of factual
information to more dynamic processing of personal opinions. It has to be admitted,
however, that changes in course materials do not always represent a move from the
out-of-date to the latest, but may happen in reverse. For example, it is observed by
Tomlinson (1998) that sometimes a coursebook sells successfully not because it has
something new to offer, but because it goes back to what is old.
By and large, many conscious efforts for improvement made by course-writers over
the decades have enabled materials design to evolve towards increasingly sophisticated
levels. Sometimes such evolution causes practitioners to feel worried about how
to handle all this sophistication effectively in teaching. For example, in the 1980s,
some theorists believed that the more sophisticated the syllabus, the more difficult
to implement it in the classroom (Eskey, 1984). However, materials development in
recent years tends to prove the opposite: as course design becomes more thoughtful,

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 DEVELOPING MATERIALS FOR SPEAKING SKILLS 411

FIGURE 20.1 A nice flat.

Source: Hartlet, B. and Viney, P. (1996), Streamline English – Departure (38th edn). Oxford: Oxford
University Press.

it also tries to make language teaching easier in the classroom by aiming for less
teacher preparation (e.g. by improving teachers’ manuals).
Examining publishers’ claims over several decades is another way to recognize
change in materials development. It shows us a gradual transfer from a strictly
communicative focus towards a more balanced view in teaching both grammar and
communication, justified on the grounds that form and use are not necessarily two
opposing areas. For example, during the late 1960s and early 1970s, such expressions
as ‘real-life contexts’, ‘functionally based’, ‘meaningful and effective communication’
are seen to fill publishers’ claims; then since the early 1990s, the key concepts have
included ‘systematic development in combination with other three skills practice’,
‘core grammar structures’ and ‘different learning styles and teaching situations’
(McDonough and Shaw, 1993, pp. 22, 25, 46). Textbooks in today’s context, apart
from being communicative, have a tendency to focus on themes of global significance
and harmless topics to suit as many contexts as possible. They take care not to touch
on cross-culturally sensitive and controversial topics that may cause damage to any
set of cultural values (see, for example, Sampedro and Hillyard, 2004). However, in
trying to be culturally harmless and free from provocation, materials often remove
excitement (Leather, 2003), romanticize the world (Banegas, 2010) and introduce

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 412 DEVELOPING MATERIALS FOR LANGUAGE TEACHING

FIGURE 20.2 Talking about places.

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aspirational language rather than truthfully reflect a variety of real-life spoken styles
(Gray, 2002, 2010).

A proposed framework for developing

materials for spoken language
This section proposes an approach comprising five recommendations to guide how
materials can be developed for speaking skills, namely: (1) conceptualizing learner
needs, (2) identifying subject matter and communication situations, (3) identifying
verbal communication strategies, (4) utilizing verbal sources from real life and (5)
designing skill-acquiring activities.

Conceptualizing learner needs

Materials design should begin from who learners are in order to link language study
not only to learners’ future use but also to their present receptivity. As Brindley (1989,
p. 70) indicates, it is important to look at both subjective needs and objective needs
in the learner. The former comprises such areas as learners’ speaking proficiency
and difficulties plus real-life conversational situations outside of the classroom, all of
which will help the teacher decide what to teach. The latter includes such aspects as
personality, learning styles, cultural preferences and expectations of the course, all of
which will help the teacher decide how to teach. As an example of needs, research
on English materials in Korea and Japan has shown that many Korean learners enjoy
learning English in order to express themselves while many Japanese learners prefer
to learn it to understand and discuss foreign cultures (Yuasa, 2010). Needs assessment,
as suggested by Graves (1996), should be viewed as an ongoing process which takes
place before, during and after the course. Seeking to know learner needs, after all, does
not mean describing learners but more importantly, it means actually involving learners
in the process of developing materials and giving them a voice in their materials.

Translating needs to subject matters and

communication situations
Knowledge about learner needs will serve as the foundation on which experiential
content is selected for instructional materials. As learners reveal what they want to do
with the target language, they also directly or indirectly imply the type of environment
where the language is to be used. It is now important to also explore the context of such
environments and form some idea of what skills their society requires of an effective
speaker. The more specifically learners state their needs, the more appropriately the

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subject matter can be established towards appropriate sets of topics, situations,

functions, strategies, registers, and key structures; as well as the sources to build all
these components with.
In general, this step is a preliminary effort to outline the instructional content of
the target material. Among the more difficult components to search for are perhaps
communication strategies, and authentic sources for composing features of natural
speech. To support these endeavours, the sections below will discuss some helpful
techniques to make these tasks possible.

Identifying verbal communication strategies

An interesting experiment on spoken English is reported by Tay (1988). In this study,
samples of real, spontaneous speech by ten Singaporean university students were
played for 100 British listeners (who were from London and had never been to Singapore
before) to listen to and rate their intelligibility. Five speakers scored more than 80 per
cent, two more than 70 per cent; the highest was 89.1 per cent and the lowest 56.4
per cent. As factors that impair intelligibility were sought and analysed, it turned out
that the main obstacle was not predominantly pronunciation. Instead, some of the
more striking problematic features were identified as interaction strategies, styles and
registers, whose implications should be considered for transferring to materials design
for oral communication.
Conversational strategies must be incorporated in teaching materials because they
are essential tools to serve the communication of meanings. One way of doing so is by
designing tasks for learners to act upon their interlocutor’s speech rather than merely
concentrating on their own. For example, learners can be helped to practice building
talk upon talk, dealing with interaction pressures such as stealing and sustaining turns,
handling unrehearsed discourse, controlling their level of diplomacy and courtesy,
choosing when to move on to a new topic, winding down a conversation, recognizing
signals when their partner wants to leave the conversation and so forth. Research
has demonstrated that when learners are helped to be aware of the use of speaking
strategies they will go a long way in improving speaking skills (Huang, 2006).
It is therefore essential to build into materials many practical devices that can help
facilitate oral production and overcome those communication difficulties arising under
time pressure. Bygate (1987, p. 14) suggests five of them: (1) using less complex
syntax, (2) making do with short phrases and incomplete sentences, (3) employing fixed
conversational phrases, (4) adding filler words to gain time to speak and (5) correcting
or improving what one has already said. These techniques have meaningful implications
for instructional materials since they help materials designers become more aware of
what is the normal process of speech production. They also help learners realize how
temporary and flexible spoken language can be and how therefore imperfection can be
tolerated as part of the interactive process.

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Utilizing verbal sources from real life

In many cases, preparing materials might just be one-third of the job, that is providing
opportunities for learning. Implementing and modifying them are what helps bridge the
gap between plans and effects. To modify materials, besides printed sources such as
magazine articles or pictures as a springboard for communication, course developers
can also utilize many verbal interactions taken from real life and in the classroom.
One method to seek for practical teaching ideas, as suggested by Tay (1988) is by
taping learners’ peer group interaction in the target language and analysing it. It is
through this type of exercise that typical conversational difficulties or obstacles can
be identified and translated into problem-based strategies for the teaching of verbal
communication. Arguably, this is a realistic way of allowing learners to take part in the
material-design process.
Another method is by finding opportunities to compare naturally occurring
conversations with the designer’s versions which deal with the same topic.
Researchers have provided evidence that many conversations composed from the
writer’s own assumptions of spoken language do not always reflect actual contexts
of use, especially when they skip over many essential strategies required by real-life
communication situations. (See dialogue scripts discussed by Cunningsworth, 1995,
p. 26; Carter, Hughes and McCarthy, 1998, pp. 68–9 for examples.)
Keeping a diary might also be a realistic way to collect resources for designing
speaking activities with. Such resources can come from overhearing conversations in
public places, from radio or television interviews, from watching drama or movies, or
even from our interaction with native speakers in the target language. Any such data,
provided that it is relevant to teaching themes, can always be recycled and developed
into instructional materials for the classroom.

Designing skill-acquiring tasks

Once communication content is outlined and its components are selected, the
decisive step is to create relevant tasks that help learners in three essential aspects: to
acquire new language, to learn rules of interaction and to experience communication
of meanings – though not necessarily in this sequence.
(a) To acquire new language, learners should be helped to internalize new language
before making it become available to discuss topics. Teaching new language includes
not only presenting linguistic structures but also helping learners to self-discover form
and function. For internalization to happen, such language must be pushed further into
an experiential process, by introducing a series of small orientation tasks that guide
learners towards readiness in both content and language for the communicative topic
that will come later. Examples of such tasks can be ranking exercises, brainstorming
for key words and expressions, generating ideas around the topic and so on.

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(b) To learn rules of interaction, learners can be provided with conditions to help
them become aware of fundamental skills and develop verbal strategies in the target
topic. This is made possible by having learners read several dialogues within the topic,
by getting them to listen to conversations read by the teacher or from the tape and by
drawing learner attention to and encouraging them to discuss characteristics of verbal
communication.
(c) To experience communication of meanings, learners need conditions for coping
with meanings and need purposes for using language. More specifically, they need
content-based activities to get them to interact with peers. This is made possible
by giving learners roles to play, assigning social tasks to be achieved, giving them
motivating and attractive reasons to communicate, utilizing gaps in learner knowledge,
experiences or attitudes to facilitate sincere exchange, inventing conflicts that lead to
personal debates, making up misunderstanding situations to be fixed, creating sticky
situations to get out of and so forth.
It is through this classroom process that materials users earn conditions to be
active contributors in tasks design. It helps the designer see where materials work and
fail to work, which will hint at gaps for modification. This process also helps teachers
to exploit practical contexts to develop a repertoire of activities that can be adapted
every time a course is taught. Such a set of flexible activities might also give individual
teachers opportunities to gradually discover their own strength in using certain types
of materials.

A proposed framework for effective

speaking materials
Drawing from relevant academic discourse and personal experiences in the second
language classroom, this section recommends a rationale for materials design for
speaking. The rationale lays emphasis on a set of dimensions in learner abilities which,
if fully facilitated, will help promote and maximize verbal performance. Effective
materials for oral communication should enable learners to actively (1) share and
process information, (2) control meanings, (3) choose how to participate, (4) utilize
affectivity, (5) utilize individual knowledge, (6) become aware of ellipsis in spoken
language, and (7) move beyond the Initiation-Respond-Feedback model.

Focus on both sharing and processing information

Speaking tasks should not merely organize for learners, during interaction, to share
information but should also enable them to process it. Sharing information means
discovering missing information from one’s knowledge gap by learning about it from
one or more partners. Processing information means communicating by exchanging

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what belongs in learners’ individuality by allowing learners to use their own backgrounds
and personalities.
The latter involves such skills as expressing reactions and preferences, justifying
opinions, suggesting solutions, making personal judgement and decisions – as well as
extracting personal responses from conversation partners. Only when a task manages
to bring out what belongs in learners’ individuality will it be able to elicit the most
authentic and genuine response from them and thereby makes the interaction most
meaningful. Besides, performing new language functions that one has not performed
before will bridge the gap between learners’ existing ability and more advanced
ability. Both discourse and research in SLA have acknowledged that it is through such
active involvement in negotiated interaction that leads to greater second language
development (Long, 1996; MacKay, 1999; Fluente, 2002).

Respect for learner control of meanings

As mentioned earlier in this chapter, communication skills are best developed when
learners learn to eventually take control of their own performance from their own
perspective rather than wait to be directed by the teacher. If a task can create this
condition, it will succeed in reflecting much real-life communication where verbal
utterances come voluntarily from the speaker’s personal decisions.
For this reason, materials should facilitate ‘self-directed learning’ (Tomlinson, 2010,
p. 90) and respect learners’ personal decisions. This can be done by inviting learners to
provide topics of their own interest, raise a question, talk about their own experiences,
bring into the classroom stories that they wish to share with others. This can also
be done by tasks that leave room for learner’s independent thinking and creativity,
stimulate individual attitudes and beliefs, and encourage learners to try their own
interactive tactics to achieve communicative purposes. The significance of creating
these opportunities for learners means allowing them to be involved in the materials
developing process.

Potential for a range of learner choices

In my view good materials allow for learner choices, which can be provided in a number
of different ways. The range of decisions may involve learners choosing their role in a
project that involves many partners, choosing a sub-task in an activity or choosing a
topic from a set of suggested topics.
Where possible, materials should give learners a chance to adapt certain aspects
of the subject matter. In other words, they should allow learners to assess and
decide what they need and do not need from what is provided (Breen and Candlin,
1987). Besides, good materials do not organize interaction by always putting learners
together, thus denying their choice, but, to reflect real-life communication, should also

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encourage learners to sometimes seek their own partners and to decide on the people
they want and need to communicate with.
The significance of allowing all of these decisions is to train learners in developing
active participation, responsibility, autonomy and wider personal involvement – all
of which represent important features of real-life communication. It is not only what
to teach (content) that moves interaction towards the real world, but how to teach
(strategies) also helps learners to develop active learning attitudes that authentic
communication often requires.
Despite all this, it should be noted that giving too much freedom away might risk
causing misunderstanding. Learners may start to feel that the teacher is not capable
of making decisions and thus may begin to lose confidence in the teacher’s leading
role. For a solution, Littlewood (1992) suggests organizing for learners to have low-level
choices within a structured environment or framework still in teacher control in order
to maintain in learners some level of adequacy and security. Over time, the level of
learner choices may be increased when learners have become confident enough to
survive and support their own framework.

Concern for learner affectivity

Learners tend to find it easier to articulate their ideas when they feel emotionally
involved and enjoy what is going on. Good materials therefore must be inspiring
enough to stir and enhance individual learners’ interests, needs and abilities (Brumfit
and Robert, 1993) as well as affective involvement (Breen and Candlin, 1987). ‘There is,
after all, no better motivation for learning a language than a burning desire to express
an opinion in that language or on a subject that one really cares about’ (Eskey, 1984,
p. 67). In addition, good materials should be user-friendly by allowing for the learning
process to be fun (Tomlinson, 1991; Fontana, 1994) – so long as the kind of humour
being employed is not offensive in the learner’s culture.
Besides, affectivity can be made involved by building into tasks some degree of
controversy or that provokes learners to exchange different thoughts, share their diverse
values, and express contrastive attitudes, rather than activities that are likely to indulge
similarity and agreement. Good materials should also suggest ways for the teacher to
make the process adaptable to a broad spectrum of learners (Hunter and Hofbauer,
1989) to avoid the pitfall of catering to one learner group while frustrating another.

Utilization of individual knowledge

If students are given an unfamiliar topic to write about, they can take some time to
read or research for that purpose. But if they given an unfamiliar topic to discuss
verbally, they are most likely to give up, due to the pressure of time inherent in oral
communication. For this reason, the content of speaking tasks should not be so
unfamiliar to learners that they do not fully understand (Hutchison and Waters, 1980;

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Hunter and Hofbauer, 1989) and thus do not know how to discuss it. One example of
an unusable activity would be for Thai students to talk about a skiing experience on
the mountain when there is in fact no snow in their country. Conversely, oral topics
should not be so familiar to learners that there is nothing for learners to think about,
and should not be so new in information value that learners have little knowledge to
connect (Hutchison and Waters, 1980). Examples of this would be for two people of
the same country to describe a cultural festival they both know too well about; or to
describe a picture they both see equally clearly.

Rehearsing features of spoken discourse

Being knowledgeable about colours does not make one a good artist. This is because
knowledge has to go through action to be transferred to skills. Materials for speaking
skills therefore must encourage and enable learners to process speech by experiencing
use, by making quick decisions under the pressure of time and by making do with
limited vocabulary. When learners are taking these challenges, they may not be able
to compose perfect sentences, but if we look at naturally occurring conversations
by native speakers of any language we can see that they do not produce perfection
either.
Verbal discourse, according to Brown and Yule (1983), Carter et al., (1998), Luoma
(2004), Richard (2008), Burns and Hill (2013) and Timmis (2013) includes features
such as verbal ellipsis, conjoined short expressions, planned and unplanned speech,
fillers and hesitations, vague and reformulated speech, repetitions, co-constructed
information, and register variations denoting roles and relationships. Besides, good
materials for speaking not only incorporate the above characteristics in texts but also
manage to provide activities that allow those features to be operated when learners
work together. Such tasks should help learners, for example, to make small talk, discuss
personal experiences, take turns through active role-play, give feedback on ideas,
justify positions, make comparisons, persuade a friend, approach an authority for help,
explain difficult situations, raise questions and maintain a topic. They should involve
exchange of opinions, viewpoints, and attitudes; as well as sharing of knowledge and
problem-solving. To facilitate the above, teachers’ manuals might suggest how the
teacher can provide language support and model activities for students who need
help. Effective materials should also identify the types of resources to be used as well
as guide teachers in providing assessment and feedback on students’ performance to
discover what kind of learning has really taken place rather than have students merely
‘talk a lot’ and ‘have fun’.

Moving beyond the Initiation-Respond-Feedback model

The Initiation-Response-Feedback model (IRF), which is the most common pattern
of interaction in most classrooms, is useful in the sense that it allows teachers to

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invite student output and evaluate it. However, this structure is insufficient to maximize
both amount and quality of learner output. Effective materials should be designed in
a way that push classroom talk beyond the feedback stage for example, by turning
that feedback into a question or an inspiring statement that will invite further talk
from the learner so that output is stretched to the maximum degree possible. In other
words, instead of providing an evaluative comment, the teacher will provide further
opportunities for more interaction. If materials manage to suggest ideas for learners
to produce multiple degrees of responses, classroom interaction will be unrestrained,
more chunks of speech will take place and learners will rehearse more language
skills. In fact, the restrictive nature of the IRF pattern has been criticized in much of
today’s SLA discourse (see, for example, Ohta, 2001; Hall and Walsh, 2002; Walsh,
2002). Besides, meaningful interaction is not just about the amount of output being
produced. The push towards increased talk based on the continuous topic content
will also play the role of reducing communication breakdown (Tuan and Nhu, 2010),
engaging learners in deeper thought processes (Myhill and Dunkin, 2005) and helping
learners modify their speech (Lightbrown and Spada, 2006). This should promote more
negotiation of meaning and enhance language acquisition.

Evaluating materials for speaking skills

The questions below are recommended to help educators weigh the impact of materials
for speaking skills and ensure that materials provide not only linguistic support but
also opportunities for meaning to be engaged, as well as space for learners’ cultural
and affective values to operate in the learning process. Such impact, however, cannot
be judged predictively by mere reliance on a checklist but needs to be evaluated
empirically by micro-evaluation of specific tasks through actual teaching practice and
materials modification (Nunan, 1988; Richard and Lockhart, 1994; Ellis, 1997).
Linguistic support – Do the materials provide appropriate and sufficient linguistic
input? Do the materials help students get familiar with many characteristics of spoken
language? Is sufficient vocabulary provided in the materials or do teachers and students
have to generate vocabulary? If so, is there a suggested process for this to happen?
Content-based and affective support – Do the materials satisfy learners with
moments of inspiration, imagination, creativity and cultural sensibilities? Do the
materials contain visuals that inspire and support verbal learning? If so, how does that
happen? Do the speaking activities enable students to utilize their cultural and individual
knowledge? Do the materials provide conditions for unrestrained improvisation? Is the
cultural content relevant to the learners’ cultural sensitivities? Are topics controversial
enough to stimulate debate but not too culturally inappropriate that they upset learners’
feelings?
Skills support – Do speaking activities give students opportunities to both share and
process information? Is the language presented and organized to effectively facilitate

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 DEVELOPING MATERIALS FOR SPEAKING SKILLS 421

verbal discussion in chunks of speech? Do the activities enable learners to employ a wide
range of communicative functions and strategies? Do speaking activities encourage
various forms of interpersonal communication, such as monologues, dialogues and
group discussion? Are speaking skills promoted in isolation or integrated with other
skills? If so, is the integration natural enough to reflect real world communication?
Diversity and flexibility – Are the materials flexible enough to serve more than
one type of learning style, proficiency, maturity and interest? For example, are there
supplementary materials to both support less able learners and satisfy more ambitious
learners? Do activities cover a variety of different proficiency levels? Do the materials
provide a variety of speaking activities (such as process-oriented tasks vs product-
oriented tasks, meaning focused tasks versus consciousness-raising exercises,
involving vs engaging tasks)?
Utilizing research trends – What view on methodology is implied in the materials and
how does it reflect recent SLA theories on speaking skills development? (see Burns
and Hill, 2013; Timmis, 2013). Are there conditions for meaningful input, language
rehearsal activities for L2 data processing, opportunities for output production and
formative assessment for learning?

Aspects that deserve more scholarly attention

This discussion spotlights two significant areas that seem to be left out of focus in
many current materials for speaking skills, namely the issues of catering for learner
identity and for cultural localization. These characteristics of course materials are
important considering the reality that many course activities tend to rest too much on
the writers’ own assumptions while ignoring the learners’ actual contexts.

The need for reflection of learner identity

One important ingredient of high-quality materials as highlighted by Bassano and
Christison (1987) is the opportunity for learners to remain themselves in the new
language because being allowed to be who you are, as Johnson (2011) suggests,
gives learners comfort in learning. Being oneself may include aspects such as learners
demonstrating their level of sophistication in the new language rather than remaining
childish due to less advanced L2 proficiency (Tay, 1988; Allwright and Bailey, 1991;
Masuhara et al., 2008) having the freedom to use private speech as a way to engage
with language individually (Anton et al., 2003), being inspired to initiate ways to learn
rather than the teacher making decisions all the time (Block, 2007; van Lier, 2008),
being given conditions for flexibility and choice (Tomlinson, 2012), being encouraged to
use different resources from those of other learners (Bolitho et al., 2003), having the
freedom to develop their own view of the world (Johnson, 2011) and making use of
individual experiences to interpret society (Murphy, 2008).

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 422 DEVELOPING MATERIALS FOR LANGUAGE TEACHING

In view of these needs, materials designers need to make a conscious effort in

providing individual learners with the tools to possibly reflect, to a certain extent, the
type of people they are and what they enjoy verbalizing in the target language. Much
of this has less to do with linguistic levels than the type of language required to serve
the subject matters of individual learners’ interests as well as the kinds of strategies
that help train them in discussing those matters.

The need for cultural localization of materials

Despite all the acknowledged values of communicative language teaching seemingly
on a global basis, in many countries such debates are still surprisingly current (Xiao,
2000; McDonough et al., 2013) and research on the compatibility and incompatibility
of the approach is still ongoing in many parts of the world. In many cases, it is not the
approach itself that gets problematized, but rather the tasks accompanying it that bear
responsibility for learner resistance. For example, when subject matter is not culturally
appropriate in the local learning situations, learners and teachers switch off not only
from the content but also from the method. We bring in a stove to help with the
cooking, but suppose the food we offer is not accepted, then no matter how effective
the stove is, people might refuse to eat. Likewise, we bring in an approach to help with
the teaching, but suppose the content we offer is not accepted, then no matter how
effective the approach is, students might refuse to learn.
From a constructivist viewpoint, the communicative approach experiences the
challenge of contextual constraints in many local educational systems, many local
teachers’ and students’ traditional learning habits. However, from the curriculum
perspective, course materials with little flexibility have ignored the importance
of localizing language tasks and have denied learners of their contextual use. An
evaluation project conducted by Tomlinson et al. (2001) of eight English language
courses demonstrates that very few materials actually provide help in adapting their
global course to specific situations. Even when cross-cultural awareness activities are
provided, they happen to adopt the views of native speakers of English and portray
holiday places outside of non-Western cultures as exotic and somewhat bizarre.
Now and again complaints can be heard from teachers and learners from many
parts of the world about alienating content in global coursebooks. Such content
includes reference to, for example, parking meters, vending machines, snow, ice,
cold mornings, water cisterns and wineries that do not exist in the learner’s countries
(see, for example, Jolly and Bolitho, 1998). Since many courses are written before
they actually travel to the real classroom thousands of miles from the authors, local
users sometimes realize that their cultures have become marginalized and have little
or no room in the materials. In many global course materials, conditions for localization
are often added to many speaking activities as an afterthought rather than being well
blended throughout the course as a major component. One way to check whether the
materials are culturally appropriate and effective is to ask oneself such questions as:

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 DEVELOPING MATERIALS FOR SPEAKING SKILLS 423

Will the learners be able to relate the content of the materials to their own situations
and experiences in ways that are meaningful and interesting to them? What are the
most significant issues in the society where our learners live? What are the most
important values and beliefs embedded within their everyday life?
Scholarly insights have been proposed for addressing the above problems. Lin
and Warden (1998) advise research to look into local environments which influence
students’ learning. Maley (2011) suggests not treating many uniquely different teaching
situations as if they were the same. Sridhar (1994) calls for a rethinking of a more
culturally authentic theory. Breen and Candlin (1987) recommend that materials should
have room for learners to express the values important to them. Langley and Maingay
(1984) emphasize the need to establish more cross-cultural comparisons in course
content. Tomlinson (2005) and Lin and Warden (1998) who discuss ELT in Asia suggest
that cultural differences should contribute tremendously to the thrust of the discussion
on any issues about language teaching and learning. Tomlinson (2005) also suggests
having learners exposed to a variety of Englishes being spoken around them as a
way to build practical communication skills rather than blindly follow native speaker
varieties.

Conclusion
This chapter has attempted to touch on several major trends in how methodology has
been affecting materials design for speaking, as well as where practice in such design
has led us. It has suggested and discussed in some detail a framework and a rationale
to serve materials development in the discussed skills; and has also recommended
further areas that deserve a better place in activities for oral communication, which
perhaps should have implications for other skills as well.
Among the main obstacles encountered by material developers in attempting to
replicate genuine communication are its intrinsic unpredictability and relative complexity,
both of which must be regarded as inherent characteristics of spoken language and
must be transferred to instructional materials (Cunningsworth, 1995). The nature of
communication reproduced in many current course materials is often far less complex
than life, perhaps because simplified language is easy to design – into activities that are
easy to teach. However, it should be a never-ending responsibility of material writers to
form a habit of reconsidering what has been written. Developing materials in a second
language is an ongoing, long-term process which involves strategizing in the writer’s
office, applying to classroom action, and modifying on the grounds of real experiences
and real contexts of use. No matter how thoughtfully the material may be planned, it
should be always open to some degree of writer-user interaction for further revision.
This can be done by constantly observing real-life situations, comparing them with
our scripted materials to highlight new features and new skills required for learners to
operate more effectively in unpredictable communication.

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 424 DEVELOPING MATERIALS FOR LANGUAGE TEACHING

No coursebooks will fit all circumstances (Canniveng and Martinez, 2003) but

teachers should be helped to develop the reflecting, analysing and evaluating powers
to create successful lessons for all the students, needs and personalities in any given
situation. Creativity in the classroom can arise through unplanned accidents (O’Neill,
1982) in the classroom, or through the teacher’s creative dialogue (Islam and Mares,
2003) with the textbook and with students, both of which tap into the teacher’s
personalization and adaptation of the materials. Second language materials therefore
should be seen as an idea bank which stimulates teachers’ and learners’ creative
potential (Cunningsworth, 1984). No two audiences are alike: students vary in ability,
age and interests, and may have different cultural and learning backgrounds; classes
vary in size, physical layout and formality; teachers have different teaching styles;
and learners may have widely differing ideas about what and how they need to learn.
Verbal communication in the real world is so dynamic and unpredictable that course
materials for speakers’ performance should cater for such variations by providing open-
ended activities, so that classes can find their own level, and so that both weaker and
stronger students have something to contribute. Materials should encourage students
to contribute their own ideas and draw on their own knowledge, experience, learning
styles, class cultures and individual interests.
As the availability of commercial teaching materials increases, the need for
homemade materials become more urgent than ever before, when more teachers
become aware that ‘increased variety is not the solution for their particular situation’
(Alderson, 1980, p. 134). After all, there should be more projects in which teachers are
given tools and opportunities to design their own courses. This will enable teachers to
produce appropriate materials that harmonize with their students’ wants and needs,
as well as to concentrate on their local contexts of use without having to be distracted
by attempts to please particular publishers or anonymous markets.

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