LEARNING CONTENT

Introduction:
Language learning is indeed difficult to second and foreign language learners
yet if achieved with proficiency and fluency, it is a very fulfilling success. In core courses
such as mathematics and science, English is used as the medium of instruction and
communication. This emphasizes the importance of using this language in an English
course highlighting its accuracy and fluency. Students are expected to use the L2
language in a formal setting such as classroom discussion. When students are trained
to use this, teachers should already be experts in the said task so as not to affect the
quality of instruction and communication.
In connection, this module will surely guide and teach you to be competent L2
speakers for you are expected to become future educator. Being student in this course
should train you to be the person you desire to become.
Furthermore, this module contains the basic and introductory principles and
procedures in constructing effective learning materials for these are really essential in a
classroom discussion. Again, this should also serve as your training ground in coming
up with interesting, effective, facilitating, and quality learning materials that will help you
and your future students in the course of your endeavor.
So, let us prepare ourselves for fun driven knowledge and skill enhancement
activities!

Lesson Proper

Defining materials and materials

development
What is Material?
 The matter or substance from which something can be made
 Tool or apparatus for the performance of a given task
 Having a logical connection with a subject matter or the consequential
events or facts, or the knowledge of which would significantly affect a
decision or course of action
What is learning material?
 ‘Material’ includes anything which can be used to facilitate the learning of a
language. They can be linguistic, visual, auditory, or kinesthetic, and they
can be presented in print, through live performance or display, or on
cassette, CD-ROM, DVD or the internet.
 It can be instructional in that they inform learners about the language.
 It can be experiential in that they provide exposure to the language in use.
 It can be elicitative in that they stimulate language use.
 It can be exploratory in that they seek discoveries about language use.
 Anything which is used by teachers or learners to facilitate the learning of a
language.
 Anything which is deliberately used to increase the learners’ knowledge
and/or experience of the language.
What are authentic materials?
 Any material which are not designed for learning and teaching purposes
such as magazines, newspaper, TV broadcasts, recorded real telephone
conversation, which are used in classroom instruction.

Every lesson created by a teacher should contain specific learning

objectives from the curriculum. Effective lesson planning will also include a
clear, differentiated sequence of learning that the children will follow to
meet the chosen objectives. As part of that learning sequence, teachers
create opportunities for learning. Teaching/Learning Materials enable
teachers to offer more interactive, interesting, and engaging learning
activities.

What is material development?

 Materials development is both a field of study and a practical undertaking.
 As a field it studies the principles and procedures of the design,
implementation, and evaluation of language teaching materials.
 As an undertaking it involves the production, evaluation, and adaptation of
language teaching materials, by teachers for their own classrooms and by
materials writers for sale or distribution.
 Anything which is done by writers, teachers, or learners to provide sources
of language input and to exploit those sources in ways which maximize the
likelihood of intake.
 The supplying of information about and/or experience of the language in
ways designed to promote language learning.

Principles of second language acquisition

(SLA) relevant to the development of
materials

1. Materials should achieve impact

Impact is achieved when materials have a noticeable effect on learners,
that is when the learners’ curiosity, interest and attention are attracted. If
this is achieved, there is a better chance that some of the language in the
materials will be taken in for processing.

Materials can achieve impact through:

1. novelty (e.g., unusual topics, illustrations, and activities)
2. variety (e.g., breaking up the monotony of a unit routine with an
unexpected activity; using many different text-types taken from many
different types of sources; using several different instructor voices on a CD)
3. attractive presentation (e.g., use of attractive colors; lots of white space;
use of photographs)
4. appealing content (e.g., topics of interest to the target learners; topics
which offer the possibility of learning something new; engaging stories;
universal themes; local references)
5. achievable challenge (e.g., tasks which challenge the learners to think)

2. Materials should help learners to feel at ease

 Research has shown... the effects of various forms of anxiety on
acquisition: the less anxious the learner, the better language acquisition
proceeds. Similarly, relaxed, and comfortable students apparently can learn
more in shorter periods of time. (Dulay, Burt and
Krashen 1982)

Materials can help learners to feel at ease in several ways. For example,
most learners:
 feel more comfortable with written materials with lots of white space than
they do with materials in which lots of different activities are crammed
together on the same page;
 are more at ease (absence of difficulty) with texts and illustrations that they
can relate to their own culture than they are with those which appear to
them to be culturally alien; and
 are more relaxed with materials which are obviously trying to help them to
learn than they are with materials which are always testing them.

3. Materials should help learners to develop confidence

Relaxed and self-confident learners learn faster (Dulay, Burt and Krashen
1982).
Most materials developers recognize the need to help learners to develop
confidence, but many of them attempt to do so through a process of
simplification. They try to help the learners to feel successful by asking
them to use simple language to accomplish easy tasks such as completing
substitution tables, writing simple sentences, and filling in the blanks in
dialogues.
This approach is welcomed by many teachers and learners. But in my
experience, it often only succeeds in diminishing the learners. They
become aware that the process is being simplified for them and that what
they are doing bears little resemblance to actual language use. They also
become aware that they are not really using their brains and that their
apparent success is an illusion. And this awareness can even lead to a
reduction in confidence.

4. What is being taught should be perceived by learners as relevant and

useful
 Most teachers recognize the need to make the learners aware of the
potential relevance and utility of the language and skills they are teaching.
And researchers have confirmed the importance of this need. For example,
Stevick (1976) cites experiments which have shown the positive effect on
learning and recall of items that are of personal significance to the learner.
And Krashen (1982) and Wenden (1987) report research showing the
importance of apparent relevance and utility in language acquisition.
In ESP (English for specific purposes) materials it is relatively easy to
convince the learners that the teaching points are relevant and useful by
relating them to known learner interests and to ‘real-life’ tasks, which the
learners need or might need to perform in the target language. In general
English materials this is obviously more difficult; but it can be achieved by
narrowing the target readership and/or by researching what the target
learners are interested in and what they really want to learn the language
for.

5. Materials should require and facilitate learner self-investment

Many researchers have written about the value of learning activities that
require the learners to make discoveries for themselves. For example,
Rutherford and Sharwood-Smith (1988) assert that the role of the
classroom and of teaching materials is to aid the learner to make efficient
use of the resources to facilitate self-discovery. Similar views are
expressed by Bolitho and Tomlinson (1995); Bolitho et al. (2003),
Tomlinson (1994a, 2007) and Wright and Bolitho (1993). It would seem that
learners profit most if they invest interest, effort and attention in the learning
activity.
Materials can help them to achieve this by providing them with choices of
focus and activity, by giving them topic control and by engaging them in
learner-centered discovery activities. Again, this is not as easy as
assuming that what is taught should be learned, but it is possible and
extremely useful for textbooks to facilitate learner self investment.

6. Learners must be ready to acquire the points being taught

Certain structures are acquired only when learners are mentally ready for
them. (Dulay, Burt and Krashen 1982) Meisel, Clahsen and Pienemann
(1981) have put forward the Multidimensional Model in which learners must
have achieved readiness in order to learn developmental feat (i.e. those
constrained by developing speech-processing mechanisms –e.g. word
 order) but can make themselves ready at any time to learn variational
features (i.e. those which are free –e.g. the copula ‘be’).
Pienemann (1985) claims that instruction can facilitate natural language
acquisition processes if it coincides with learner readiness and can lead to
increased speed and frequency of rule application and to application of
rules in a wider range of linguistic contexts. He also claims that premature
instruction can be harmful because it can lead to the production of
erroneous forms, to substitution by less complex forms and to avoidance.
7. Materials should expose the learners to language in authentic use

Krashen (1985) makes the strong claim that comprehensible input in the
target language is both necessary and sufficient for the acquisition of that
language if learners are ‘affectively disposed to “let in” the input they
comprehend’ (Ellis 1994: 273).

Few researchers would agree with such a strong claim that exposure to
authentic use of the target language is necessary but not sufficient for the
acquisition of that language. It is necessary in that learners need
experience of how the language is typically used, but it is not sufficient
because they also need to notice how it is used and to use it for
communicative purposes themselves.

Materials can provide exposure to authentic input through the advice they
give, the instructions for their activities and the spoken and written texts
they include. They can also stimulate exposure to authentic input through
the activities they suggest (e.g., interviewing the teacher, doing a project in
the local community, listening to the radio, etc.).

8. The learners’ attention should be drawn to linguistic features of the

input

There seems to be an agreement amongst many researchers that helping

learners to pay attention to linguistic features of authentic input can help
them to eventually acquire some of those features. However, it is important
to understand that this claim does not represent a back-to-grammar
movement. It is different from previous grammar teaching approaches in
several ways.
In the first place the attention paid to the language can be either conscious
or subconscious. For example, the learners might be paying conscious
 attention to working out the attitude of one of the characters in a story but
might be paying subconscious attention to the second conditionals which
the character uses. Or they might be paying conscious attention to the
second conditionals, having been asked to locate them and to make a
generalization about their function in the story.
The important thing is that the learners become aware of a gap between a
particular feature of their interlanguage and the equivalent feature in the
target language. Such noticing of the gap between output and input can act
as an ‘acquisition facilitator’.

9. Materials should provide the learners with opportunities to use the

target language to achieve communicative purposes

Most researchers agree that the learners should be given opportunities to

use language for communication rather than just to practice it in situations
controlled by the teacher and the materials. Using the language for
communication involves attempts to achieve a purpose in a situation in
which the content, strategies and expression of the interaction are
determined by the learners. Such attempts can enable the learners to
‘check’ the effectiveness of their internal hypotheses, especially if the
activities stimulate them into ‘pushed output’ (Swain 1985) which is slightly
above their current proficiency.

They also help the learners to automatize their existing procedural

knowledge (i.e., their knowledge of how the language is used) and to
develop strategic competence (Canale and Swain 1980). This is especially
so if the opportunities for use are interactive and encourage negotiation of
meaning (Allwright 1984:157).

In addition, communicative interaction can provide opportunities for picking

up language from the new input generated, as well as opportunities for
learner output to become and informative source of input (Sharwood-Smith
1981). Ideally teaching materials should provide opportunities for such
interaction in a variety of discourse modes ranging from planned to
unplanned (Ellis 1990:191).

10. Materials should take into account that the positive effects of
instruction are usually delayed
 Research into the acquisition of language shows that it is a gradual rather
than an instantaneous process and that this is equally true for instructed as
well as informal acquisition. Acquisition results from the gradual and
dynamic process of internal generalization rather than from instant
adjustments to the learner’s internal grammar. It follows that learners
cannot be expected to learn a new feature and be able to use it effectively
in the same lesson.

They might be able to rehearse the feature, to retrieve it from short-term

memory or to produce it when prompted by the teacher or the materials.
But this does not mean that learning has already taken place. The
inevitable delayed effect of instruction suggests that no textbook can really
succeed if it teaches features of the language one at a time and expects
the learners to be able to use them straightaway.

11. Materials should take into account that learners differ in learning
styles

Different learners have different preferred learning styles. So, for example,
those learners with a preference for studial learning are much more likely to
gain from explicit grammar teaching than those who prefer experiential
learning. And those who prefer experiential learning are more likely to gain
from reading a story with a predominant grammatical feature (e.g. reported
speech) than they are from being taught that feature explicitly.

This means that activities should be variable and should ideally cater for all
learning styles. An analysis of most current coursebooks will reveal a
tendency to favor learners with a preference for studial learning and an
apparent assumption that all learners are equally capable of benefiting from
this style of learning.

Styles of learning which need to be catered for in language-learning

materials include:

 visual (e.g., learners prefer to see the language written down)

 auditory (e.g., learners prefer to hear the language)
 Kinesthetic (e.g., learners prefer to do something physical, such as
following instructions for a game)
 studial (e.g., learners like to pay conscious attention to the linguistic
features of the language and want to be correct)
 experiential (e.g., learners like to use the language and are more
concerned with communication than with correctness)
 analytic (e.g., learners prefer to focus on discrete bits of the language and
to learn them one by one)
 global (e.g., learners are happy to respond to whole chunks of language at
a time and to pick up from them whatever language they can)
 dependent (e.g., learners prefer to learn from a teacher and from a book);
and
 independent (e.g., learners are happy to learn from their own experience of
the language and to use autonomous learning strategies).

12. Materials should take into account that learners differ in affective
attitudes

The learner’s motives, emotions, and attitudes screen what is presented in

the language classroom... This affective screening is highly individual and
results in different rates and results. (Dulay, Burt and Krashen 1982).

Ideally language learners should have strong and consistent motivation and
they should also have positive feelings towards the target language, their
teachers, their fellow learners and the materials they are using. But, of
course, ideal learners do not exist and even if they did exist one day, they
would no longer be ideal learners the next day.

Each class of learners using the same materials will differ from each other
in terms of ling- and short-term motivation and of feelings and attitudes
about the language, their teachers, their fellow learners, and their learning
materials, and of attitudes towards the language, the teacher, and the
materials.

One obvious implication for the materials developer is ‘to diversify language
instruction as much as possible based upon the variety of cognitive styles’
(Larsen-Freeman and Long 1991) and the variety of affective attitudes
likely to be found amongst typical class of learners. Ways of doing this
include:

 providing choices of different types of text;

 providing choices of different types of activities;
 providing optional extras for the more positive and motivated learners:
 providing variety;
 including units in which the value of learning English is a topic for
discussion;
 including activities which involve the learners in discussing their attitudes
and feelings about the course and the materials;
 researching and catering for the diverse interests of the identified target
learners;
 being aware of the cultural sensitivities of the target learners;
 giving general and specific advice in the teacher’s book on how to respond
to negative learners (e.g. not forcing reluctant individuals to take part in
group work).

13. Materials should permit a silent period at the beginning of instruction

It has been shown that it can be extremely valuable to delay L2 speaking

for beginners of a language until they have gained sufficient confidence in
understanding it. This silent period can facilitate the development of an
effective internalized grammar which can help learners to achieve
proficiency when they eventually start to speak in the L2. There is some
controversy about the actual value of the silent period and some learners
seem to use the silence to avoid learning the language.

The important point is that the materials should not force premature
speaking in the target language, and they should not force silence either.
Ways of giving learners the possibility of not speaking until they are ready
include:
 starting the course with a Total Physical Response (TPR) approach in
which the learners respond physically to oral instructions from a teacher or
CD.
 starting with a listening comprehension approach in which the learners
listen to stories in the target language, which are made accessible using
sound effects, visual aids and dramatic movement by the teacher; and
 permitting the learners to respond to target language questions by using
their first language or through drawings and gestures.
14. Materials should maximize learning potential by encouraging
intellectual, aesthetic, and emotional involvement which stimulates
both right- and left brain activities

A narrowly focused series of activities which require very little cognitive

processing (e.g. mechanical drills; rule learning; simple transformation
activities) usually leads to shallow and ephemeral learning unless linked to
 other activities which stimulate mental and affective processing, However,
a varied series of activities making, for example, analytic, creative,
evaluative and rehearsal demands on processing capacity can lead to
deeper and more durable learning.

For this deeper learning to be facilitated, it is very important that the content
of the materials is not trivial or banal and that it stimulates thoughts and
feelings in the learners. It is also important that the activities are not too
simple and that they cannot be too easily achieved without the learners
making use of their previous experience and their brains.

15. Materials should not rely too much on controlled practice

It is interesting that there seems to be very little research which indicates

that controlled practice activities are valuable. Sharwood-Smith (1981)
does say that ‘it is clear and uncontroversial to say that most spontaneous
performance is attained by dint of practice’, but he provides no evidence to
support this very strong claim.

Also, Bialystok (1988) says that automaticity is achieved through practice

but provides no evidence to support her claim. In the absence of any
compelling evidence most researchers seem to agree with Ellis, who says
that ‘controlled practice appears to have little long-term effect on the
accuracy with which new structures are performed’ (Ellis 1990:192) and
‘has little effect on fluency’ (Ellis and Rathbone 1987).

16. 16. Materials should provide opportunities for outcome feedback

Feedback which is focused first on the effectiveness of the outcome rather

than just on the accuracy of the output can lead to output becoming a
profitable source of input. Or in other words, if the language that the learner
produces is evaluated in relation to the purpose for which it is used, that
language can become a powerful and informative source of information
about language use. Thus, a learner who fails to achieve a particular
communicative purpose (e.g. borrowing something, instructing someone
how to play a game, persuading someone to do something) is more likely
to gain from feedback on the effectiveness of their use of language than a
learner whose language is corrected without reference to any non-linguistic
outcome.
 It is very important, therefore, for materials developers to make sure that
language production activities have intended outcomes other than just
practicing language.

Principles and Procedures of Materials

Development

Principle of Language Acquisition 1

A pre-requisite for language acquisition is that the learners are
exposed to a rich, meaningful and comprehensible input of language
in use.

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
(Krashen 1985). They also need to experience language items and
features many times in meaningful and comprehensible input to eventually
acquire them. Each encounter helps to elaborate and deepen awareness
and to facilitate the development of hypotheses needed for eventual
acquisition.

Principles of Materials Development 1

 Make sure that the materials contain a lot of spoken and written texts which
provide extensive experience of language being used to achieve outcomes
in a variety of text types and genres in relation to topics, themes, events,
locations etc. likely to be meaningful to the target learners.
 Make sure that the language the learners are exposed to is authentic in the
sense that it represents how the language is typically used. If the language
is inauthentic because it has been written or reduced to exemplify a
particular language feature, then the learners will not acquire the ability to
use the language typically or effectively. Much has been written on the
issue of authenticity and some experts consider that it is useful to focus
attention on a feature of a language by removing distracting difficulties and
complexities from sample texts. My position is that such contrived focus
might be of some value as an additional aid to help the learner to focus on
 salient features but that prior and subsequent exposure to those features in
authentic use is essential.
 Make sure that the language input is contextualized. Language use is
determined and interpreted in relation to its context of use. De-
contextualized examples do not contain enough information about the user,
the addressee(s), the relationships between the interactants, the setting,
the intentions, or the outcomes for them to be of value to the language
learner.

Principle of Language Acquisition 2

In order for the learners to maximize their exposure to language in
use they need to be engaged both affectively and cognitively in the
language experience
If the learners do not think and feel whilst experiencing the language, they
are unlikely to acquire any elements of it (Arnold 1999). Thinking whilst
experiencing language in use helps to achieve the deep processing
required for effective and durable learning and it helps learners to transfer
high level skills such as predicting, connecting, interpreting, and evaluating
to second language use. If the learners do not feel any emotion whilst
exposed to language in use, they are unlikely to acquire anything from their
experience. 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.
Principles of Materials Development 2
 Prioritize the potential for engagement by, for example, basing a unit on a
text or a task which is likely to achieve affective and cognitive engagement
rather than on a teaching point selected from a syllabus.
 Make use of activities which get the learners to think about what they are
reading or listening to and to respond to it personally.
 Make use of activities which get learners to think and feel before during and
after using the target language for communication.

Principle of Language Acquisition 3

 Language learners who achieve positive affect are much more likely
to achieve communicative competence than those who do not
Language learners need to be positive about the target language, about
their learning environment, about their teachers, about their fellow learners
and about their learning materials (Arnold 1999). They also need to achieve
positive self-esteem and to feel that they are achieving something
worthwhile.
Above all they need to be emotionally involved in the learning process and
to respond by laughing, getting angry, feeling sympathy, feeling happy,
feeling sad etc. Positive emotions seem to be the most useful in relation to
language acquisition, but it is much better to feel angry than to feel nothing
at all.
Principles of Materials Development 3
 Make sure the texts and tasks are as interesting, relevant, and enjoyable
as possible to exert a positive influence on the learners’ attitudes to the
language and to the process of learning it.
 Set achievable challenges which help to raise the learners’ self-esteem
when success is accomplished.
 Stimulate emotive responses using music, song, literature, art etc., through
making use of controversial and provocative texts, through personalization
and through inviting learners to articulate their feelings about a text before
asking them to analyze it.

Principle of Language Acquisition 4

L2 language learners can benefit from using those mental resources
which they typically utilize when acquiring and using their L1.
In L1 learning and use learners typically make use of mental imaging (e.g.
seeing pictures in their mind), of inner speech, of emotional responses, of
connections with their own lives, of evaluations, of predictions, of personal
interpretations. In L2 learning and use learners typically focus narrowly on
linguistic decoding and encoding. Multi-dimensional representation of
language experienced and used can enrich the learning process in ways
which promote durable acquisition, the transfer from learning activities to
real life use, the development of the ability to use the language effectively
in a variety of situations for a variety of uses and the self-esteem which
 derives from performing in the L2 in ways as complex as they typically do in
the L1.
Principles of Materials Development 4
 Make use of activities which get learners to visualize and/or use inner
speech before during and after experiencing a written or spoken text.
 Make use of activities which get learners to visualize and/or use inner
speech before during and after using language themselves.
 Make use of activities which help the learners to reflect on their mental
activity during a task and then to try to make more use of mental strategies
in a similar task.

Principle of Language Acquisition 5

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, they are more likely to develop their language awareness (Bolitho
et al 2003) and they are also more likely to achieve readiness for
acquisition. Such noticing is most salient when a learner has been engaged
in a text affectively and cognitively and then returns to it to investigate its
language use. This is likely to lead to the learner paying more attention to
similar uses of that item or feature in subsequent inputs and to increase its
potential for eventual acquisition.
Principles of Materials Development 5
 Use an experiential approach in which the learners are first provided with
an experience which engages them holistically. From this experience they
learn implicitly without focusing conscious attention on any features of the
experience. Later they re-visit and reflect on the experience and pay
conscious attention to features of it to achieve explicit learning. This
enables the learners to apprehend before they comprehend and to intuit
before they explore. And it means that when they focus narrowly on a
specific feature of the text, they can develop their discoveries in relation to
their awareness of the full context of use.
 Rather than drawing the learners’ attention to a particular feature of a text
and then providing explicit information about its use it is much more
 powerful to help the learners (preferably in collaboration) to make
discoveries for themselves

Principle of Language Acquisition 6 Learners need opportunities to

use language to try to achieve communicative purposes.
When using language in this way they are gaining feedback on the
hypotheses they have developed because of generalizing on the language
in their intake and on their ability to make use of them effectively. If they are
participating in interaction, they are also being pushed to clarify and
elaborate and they are also likely to elicit meaningful and comprehensible
input from their interlocutors.
Principles of Materials Development 6
 Provide many opportunities for the learners to produce language to achieve
intended outcomes.
 Make sure that these output activities are designed so that the learners are
using language rather than just practicing specified features of it.
 Design output activities so that they help learners to develop their ability to
communicate fluently, accurately, appropriately, and effectively.
 Make sure that the output activities are fully contextualized in that the
learners are responding to an authentic stimulus (e.g., a text, a need, a
viewpoint, an event), that they have specific addressees and that they have
a clear intended outcome in mind.
 Try to ensure that opportunities for feedback are built into output activities
and are provided for the learners afterwards.