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Course materials: design,selection and use 2

Penny UrITDI

January, 2016

This session

Stakeholders: Who has a say in what the course materialsinclude and what they look like?

Research: How far is the composition of materials based onevidence from the research?

Criteria: What are the most important criteria for choosingcourse materials?

Culture: What cultural ‘messages’ do our coursebooksconvey?

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StakeholdersPeople who have a say in the

design and content of materials

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Stakeholders

The Ministry of Education

The school / institution

The teacher

The parents or employers of learners

The students themselves

The publishers

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Motives?

Each stakeholder is has his or her own motives

and priorities.

Sometimes these correspond with each other

– sometimes there may be conflict.

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THE MINISTRY OF EDUCATION

• Make popular innovations (earn votes)

• Raise measurable levels of achievement

• Publish clear standards (Curriculum)

• Make sure materials implement the Curriculum

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THE SCHOOL

• Get high grades, examination successes

• Raise and maintain standards

• Please the parents or employers

• Save money

• Make a profit

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THE TEACHERWant course materials that are:

• Easy to use• Learning-rich• Interesting

• Comprehensive• Coherent, organized

• Not too long• Appropriate for my students

• Fit my own teaching style

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THE PARENTS AND EMPLOYERS

(Many are not interested; but those that are want

materials that are…)

• Cheap

• Easy to understand

• Familiar/ readable

• Recyclable

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THE STUDENTS

Want materials that are:

• Easy to cope with

• Interesting, fun, up-to-date

• New

• Attractive to look at

• Prestigious, ‘serious’

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THE PUBLISHERS

Mainly want to make a profit, so need materials to be:

• Attractive

• Teacher-friendly

• Based on conventional, familiar methodologies

• As expensive as the market will tolerate

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Conflicts?

1. Publishers vs parents and schools

2. Ministry vs teachers / pupils

3. Schools + Ministry vs pupils and teachers

4. Teachers vs pupils

5. Parents vs teachers?

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Comments?

Have you, as a teacher, found yourself coming

under pressure from other stakeholders in

your choice or use of materials?

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Research:How far are is materials

composition based on evidencefrom the research?

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Materials writers rarely use theresearch

Tomlinson (2012), Section 5:

‘Reports of how writers actually write materials reveal that they relyheavily on retrieval from repertoire, cloning successful publications andspontaneous “inspiration”’ (152)

Prowse (2011)

‘most of the writers quoted here appear to rely heavily on their ownintuitions, viewing textbook writing in the same way as writing fiction,while at the same time emphasizing the constraints of the syllabus.’

Even if they articulate principles: these are rarely based on researchevidence.

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Various principles (referred to inTomlinson, 2012: section 5.2)

1. Students are engaged in communication

2. Use of authentic texts / natural language

3. Allow a silent period

4. Plenty of review and recycling

5. Take into account different learning styles

6. Foster learner autonomy (learning to learn)

7. Make sure students ‘notice’ language to be learnt

8. Don’t use ‘mechanical’ grammar exercises

• common sense (e.g. 4, 5, 6, 7)

• current ‘communicative’ beliefs (1, 2, 3, 8)

• research (4?)

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Some research indicates lack ofapplication of research to materials

e.g.

Koprowski (2005): vocabulary ‘chunks’ badly

selected

Richards (2006): Most writers are not familiar

with the research, do not take into account

research findings.

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Possible research findings that mightbe useful: Example 1: lexical sets.

Erten & Tekin, 2008; Nation, 2000;

Papathanasiou, 2009; Tinkham, 1997; Waring,

1997.

It’s not a good idea to teach together for the

first time words grouped in lexical sets such as

colors, parts of the body, numbers.

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Learners were presented with two sets of items from anartificial language, and told their ‘meanings’; one set allrelated to the same domain, the other did not.

rain =mosheecar = blaikelfrog = umau

shirt = achenjacket = kawvassweater = nalo

shirt = mosheejacket = umausweater = blaikel

rain = achencar = nalofrog = kawvas

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The learners consistently learned theunrelated items better.

The research was later replicated, with similar results.

Waring (1998), Erten & Tekin (2008), Papathanasiou (2009)

When asked, learners said that they found they were

confused because words had similar meanings.

i.e. if you learn two words with similar meanings (or forms?)

the learning of one ‘interferes’ with learning the other.

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Implications for materials design• Don’t provide whole lists of items from the

same lexical set to be learnt together for the

first time.

• Provide new items with others that they

would connect with thematically (or co-

occur in a sentence)

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Possible research findings that mightbe useful: Example 2: Vocabulary

Staer, 2009: Vocabulary is the major factor in

predicting good listening comprehension.

... and reading comprehension: Laufer & Ravenhorst-

Kalovski, 2010.

Importance of deliberate teaching of vocabulary and

review (Zahar et al., 2001)

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Implications

Course materials should devote space and

time to focused vocabulary teaching and

review.

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Possible research findings that mightbe useful: Example 3: Inferencing

Learners can’t usually guess meanings of

words from context (Nassaji, 2003)

Guessing words from context does not

improve retention (Mondria, 2003)

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Implications

Course materials should require learners to

guess from context only when the context is

‘pregnant’.

In general it’s better simply to tell students the

meanings of new items.

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Possible research findings that might beuseful: Example 4: Corpus linguistics

Corpora can furnish us with detailed information about

word and phrase frequency.

The English Vocabulary Profile

http://vocabulary.englishprofile.org/staticfiles/about.h

tml

Schmitt, N., & Martinez, R.. (2012). A phrasal

expressions list. Applied Linguistics , 33(2), 299-320.

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Implications

The selection of lexical items to be taught and

reviewed in materials should be informed by

corpus research.

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Other topics

The usefulness of the teacher reading aloud a

new text while students read along

Use of L1

English as a lingua franca

Pronunciation

Language play

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Your comments?

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The problem

Materials writers cannot be expected to keep

up to date with all the research on language

teaching and learning.

BUT

Surely they should make some effort?

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Criteria:What are the most importantthings we want to see in our

course materials?

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Basic components (in every unit)Accuracy: language information and opportunities to review and practice:

• Vocabulary

• Grammar

• Spelling, pronunciation, punctuation...

Fluency: opportunities to use the language for communication

• Listening

• Reading

• Speaking

• Writing

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Other components

• Useful language-learning strategies

• Language awareness (contrast with L1?)

• Cultural awareness: information / activities

• Literature?

• Assessment: tests? rubrics? portfolio guidelines?

• Teacher’s guideAdditional workbook

• Digital supplementary material

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Aspects of design

• Attractive to look at: illustrations, layout

• Clear, easy-to-follow organization

• Not too long

• Appropriate to age group

• Culturally acceptable

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Aspects of design (continued)

• Variation in organization: full-class, group, pair, individual

• Opportunites for engagement at different levels,

• Accessibility for learners with different learning styles

• Variety of tasks and types of outcome

• Interest

• Use of L1 (if for a monolingual group)

What else?

Other aspects that are important to you when

selecting or creating course materials?

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Culture:

What cultural ‘messages’ do ourcoursebooks convey?

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Bias and stereotyping

Try checking out your own materials for

sexism or ageism!

• Check out masculine/feminine prepositions

or nouns in language exercises.

• Check out illustrations.

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Cultural messages

All materials have cultural messages.

Teachers may need to deal with content that is

inappropriate (offensive? distressing?

embarrassing? uncomfortable?)

Gray, 2000.

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Teachers’ responses

Uncomfortable with this text

Negative picture of child rearing

Culture conflicts with students’ own cultural

values.

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Types of adaptation

1. Simply omitted

2. Held a follow-up discussion: do you think this

is a true representation of the culture?

3. Told them it was stereotypical, got them to

tell me their point of view

4. I did it, but made a joke of the whole thing

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A one-way flow of culturalinformation?

Needs to be two-way.

Critical reading: why is this topic being written

about, how is it being written about, what

other ways are there of writing about it?

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Aspects of culture

Cortazzi & Lixian, 1999

• Source culture

• Target culture

• International culture

• Culture of learning

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‘Intercultural competence’

English teaching materials as a vehicle for

promoting intercultural competence

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Idea of ‘mosaic’

I understand and appreciate my own culture

only when I have a chance to compare and

contrast it with other cultures around.

Until I learn about other cultures, I remain

unaware of what is special about my own.

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Implications

• Varied international cultural content rather than

just culture of the English-speaking peoples

• Situations and characters from different cultures

• Literature, including translated literature

• Legitimization of the use of L1 in English teaching

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Assignment

Look at a coursebook you are familiar with.

Choose one aspect of it to focus on (see

suggestions below) , and evaluate it in light of

the criteria we discussed in this session.

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Aspects you might focus on:

• Organization, transparency, user-friendliness

• Presence, or absence, of a specific component

• Balance of accuracy versus fluency focus

• Cultural messages or stereotyping

• Application / non-application of a specific researchinsight

... or a topic of your own choice.

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Cortazzi, M. & Lixian, J. (1999). Cultural mirrors: materials and methods in the EFL Classroom. In Hinkel, E. (Eds.), Culture in Second Language Teaching and

Learning (pp.196-219). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Gray, J. (2000). The ELT coursebook as cultural artefact: how teachers censor and adapt. English Language Teaching Journal, 54(3), 274-83.

English Vocabulary Profile http://vocabulary.englishprofile.org/staticfiles/about.html

Erten, I. H., & Tekin, M. (2008). Effects on vocabulary acquisition of presenting new words in semantic sets versus semantically unrelated sets . System, 36 (3),

407-422.

Koprowski, M. (2005). Investigating the usefulness of lexical phrases in contemporary coursebooks. English Language Teaching Journal, 59(4), 322-331.

Schmitt, N., & Martinez, R.. (2012). A phrasal expressions list. Applied Linguistics , 33(2), 299-320.

Nassaji, H. (2003). L2 vocabulary learning from context: Strategies, knowledge sources and their relationship with success in L2 lexical inferencing. TESOL

Quarterly, 37(4), 645-670

Nation, P. (2000). Learning vocabulary in lexical sets: Dangers and guidelines . TESOL Journal, 9(2), 6-10.

Nitta, R. & Gardner, S. (2005). Consciousness-raising and practice in ELT coursebooks. English Language Teaching Journal, 59(1), 3-13.

Papathanasiou, E. (2009). An investigation of two ways of presenting vocabulary. ELT Journal, 63(4), 313-322.

Richards, J.. (2006). Materials development and research - making the connection. RELC Journal, 37 (1), 5-26.

Staer, L. S.. (2009). Vocabulary knowledge and advanced listening comprehension in English as a foreign language . Studies in Second Language Acquisition,

31, 577-607.

Tinkham, T. 1997. The effects of semantic and thematic clustering in the learning of second language vocabulary. Second Language Research 13(2), 138-63.

Waring, R. 1997. The negative effect of learning words in semantic sets: a replication. System 25(2), 261-74.

Zahar, R., Cobb, T., & Spada, N. (2001). Acquiring vocabulary through reading: Effects of frequency and contextual richness. Canadian Modern Language

Review/La Revue Canadienne Des Langues Vivantes, 57(4), 541-572.

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