The Routledge Handbook of Materials Development for Language Teaching

Julie Norton, Heather Buchanan, Julie Norton, Heather Buchanan

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9780815382577
• eBook ISBN: 9781000539783
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

The Routledge Handbook of Materials Development for Language Teaching is the definitive resource for all working in this area of language and English language teaching. With 34 chapters authored by leading figures from around the world, the Handbook provides an historical overview of the development of language teaching materials, critical discussion of core issues, and an assessment of future directions.

The contributions represent a range of different international contexts, providing insightful, state-of-the-art coverage of the field. Structured in nine sections, the Handbook covers:

• changes and developments in language teaching materials
• controversial issues in materials development
• research and materials development
• materials for language learning and skills development
• materials evaluation and adaptation
• materials for specific contexts
• materials development and technology
• developing materials for publication
• professional development and materials writing

Demonstrating throughout the dynamic relationship between theory and practice, this accessible Handbook is essential reading for researchers, scholars, and students on MA programmes in ELT, TESOL, and applied linguistics.

Part 1
Changes and developments in language teaching materials

1 The discipline of materials development

Brian Tomlinson

DOI: 10.4324/b22783-2

Introduction

The term ‘the discipline of materials development’ is used in this chapter to refer to the academic study of all the different processes made use of in the development and use of materials for language learning and teaching. ‘Such processes include materials evaluation, materials adaptation, materials design, materials production, materials exploitation and materials research’ (Tomlinson 2012:143–144). All of these processes are important and should ideally ‘interact in the making of any materials designed to help learners to acquire a language’ (Tomlinson 2012:143–144). By materials I mean anything which can be used to facilitate the learning of a target language.

So materials could be a coursebook, a CD ROM, a story, a song, a video, a cartoon, a dictionary, a mobile phone interaction, a lecture or even a photograph used to stimulate a discussion. They could also be an exercise, an activity, a task, a presentation or even a project.

(Tomlinson and Masuhara 2018:2)

Materials can be informative (in that they inform the learner about the target language), instructional (in that they guide the learner to practise the language), experiential (in that they provide the learner with experience of the language in use), eliciting (in that they encourage the learner to use the language) or exploratory (in that they help the learner to make discoveries about the language).

(Tomlinson 2012:143)

It was not until the 1990s that materials development for language learning began to become accepted as an academic discipline. Before that it was often dismissed in tertiary institutions as a practical pursuit without any tradition of research or any theoretical underpinning, and publications focused on advice on how to evaluate and select materials (e.g. Cunningsworth 1984), adapt materials (e.g. Madsen and Bowen 1978), or write materials (e.g. Byrd 1995). I remember in the early ’90s proposing the development of an MA in Materials Development at a British university and subsequently a module in Materials Development for an MA in Applied Linguistics at a prestigious university in Asia. Both proposals were initially resisted by academics who insisted that materials development was insufficiently academic to be the focus of postgraduate study. However both proposals were eventually accepted by committees who I managed to persuade of the potential value of the academic study of the processes, procedures, and products of materials development for language learning. In 1993 I founded MATSDA (www.matsda.org), an international materials development association dedicated to bringing together teachers, researchers, writers, and publishers to work together to inform the field of materials development for language learning. Other universities began to develop materials development modules on their MAs, and publications began to appear theorising the process of materials development and reporting research (for example, Harwood 2010; McGrath 2002; Tomlinson 1998, 2003). Proposals for PhDs on aspects of materials development began to be accepted, and such studies eventually led to further research-informed publications (for example, Garton and Graves 2014; Harwood 2014; McGrath 2013; Tomlinson 2013b, 2016b; Tomlinson and Masuhara 2010), and to presentations at conferences.

Nowadays materials development is accepted throughout the world as an academic discipline. It has become a very popular focus for MA and PhD research, and there are now many books and journals reporting the theories and findings of materials development research (for example, ELT Journal and Folio, the journal of MATSDA, as well as the publications mentioned above).

The first MATSDA Conference in 1993 featured mainly presentations on ideas for the development of effective materials. Most of them were principled but very few focused on the application of theory to practice or reported research findings. In contrast, at the MATSDA/SISU Conference at the Shanghai International Studies University in 2018, 45 of the 75 accepted presentations presented research findings and suggested implications for the development of materials, 14 proposed ways of developing research-informed materials, and 16 described academic materials development courses designed to help teachers develop both theoretical awareness and practical expertise.

The battle now though is not to gain academic acceptance for the discipline of materials development but to ensure a positive interaction between materials development as a practical pursuit and materials development as an academic discipline. We need to make sure that teachers and materials writers are able to access and apply relevant research findings when they develop, select, adapt, and use materials. We also need to make sure that researchers are aware of the realities of language learning in the classroom and that they gain insights and awareness from contact with practice. Fortunately this awareness has been demonstrated in many recent publications about materials development, for example Garton and Graves (2014), Harwood (2010, 2014), Masuhara et al. (2016), McDonough et al. (2013), McGrath (2013, 2016), Mishan and Timmis (2015), Mukundan (2008), Tomlinson (2011a, 2013b, 2013c, 2016b), and Tomlinson and Masuhara (2010, 2018). Nearly all the writers in these books are both practitioners and researchers, and their focus is on both theoretical principles and their practical realisations. This is true too of recent special materials development editions of the journals Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching (Tomlinson 2016c) and the European Journal of Applied Linguistics and TESOL (Tomlinson 2015). Unfortunately there is little evidence as yet that actual commercially produced materials are being effectively informed by research and theory (Tomlinson and Masuhara 2013). This is not too surprising as the commercial imperative warns against the economic risks of radical change and supports the perpetuation of approaches which sell well. A good example of this is the presentation, practice, production (PPP) approach which, in one unit, can introduce a language item, structure, or skill through description and exemplification, provide controlled and guided practice of it, and get students to produce it. This is an approach which has driven the best-selling coursebooks of the last 50 years (Tomlinson and Masuhara 2013) despite being discredited by many researchers (for example, Mishan 2013; Tomlinson 2011b; Tomlinson and Masuhara 2018; and Willis and Willis 2007). It is, though, an approach which appeals to teachers because it can help them to cover a large curriculum quickly and to administrators because it can help them to timetable and to standardise. However, according to the researchers referred to above, the apparent learner success achieved by PPP can only be an ephemeral illusion effected by short-term memory as language acquisition requires multiple, spaced, and engaged encounters in contextual use as well as multiple opportunities for communicative use.

Critical issues and topics

Teaching vs. learning

Most publications on materials development used to focus on the teaching of the target language. This emphasis was reflected in such titles as Evaluating and Selecting EFL Teaching Material (Cunningsworth 1984). Nowadays the focus is much more on materials development for the learning of a target language, and this shift is reflected in such titles as The Complete Guide to the Theory and Practice of Materials Development for Language Learning (Tomlinson and Masuhara 2018). This shift mirrors a change in attitude towards materials which to a large extent has been influenced by an awareness that learners do not learn what teachers teach but what they want and need to learn, as well as by SLA research which demonstrates the need for language learners to experience a rich and massive exposure to the target language in use, to be affectively and cognitively engaged, to gain opportunities to use the language for communication, and to be given opportunities to make discoveries for themselves (Tomlinson 2016a).

In theory the teacher’s role as an implementer of materials has become much more as a provider of opportunities for learning than a giver of knowledge, though this is not always reflected in the writing of coursebooks nor in actual practice in the classroom. In Tomlinson (2014a) I argue for teacher quality talking time (not teaching time) and say that teachers need to talk to their learners in order to:

• Provide their learners with exposure to the target language in use (especially as in many contexts they are the learners’ only source)
• Engage their learners both cognitively and affectively
• Develop a positive rapport
• Provide communicative feedback

(Tomlinson 2014a:70)

Explicit vs. implicit learning

Related to the question of whether a language can be taught or not is the question of what contributes most to language acquisition, explicit learning in which the learner is making a deliberate attempt to learn a specific language item, feature, or skill or implicit learning in which the learner is focused on communication but finds out something incidentally (and often subconsciously) about the language too.

Traditionally, teaching methodologies and materials have focused on explicit learning as a product of explicit instruction from teachers and books. However for the last 50 years many researchers have been questioning the value of such approaches and proposing more focus on implicit learning. For example, Krashen (1981) proposed that comprehensible input was necessary and sufficient for language acquisition; Swain (1995) argued for the value of pushed output in which learners acquired communicative competence from their attempts to communicate; Elley and Manghabai (1981) demonstrated the value of extensive reading in facilitating language acquisition; and Ellis (2016), Long (2015), and Skehan (1998) have for many years provided evidence of the value of implicit learning. Also a number of experiments have taken place in which learners have been immersed in the target language instead of being taught it, for example, the Canadian Immersion Project in which young lea...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of illustrations
• Acknowledgements
• List of contributors
• Introduction and overview
• PART 1 Changes and developments in language teaching materials
• PART 2 Controversial issues in materials development
• PART 3 Research and materials development
• PART 4 Materials for language learning and skills development
• PART 5 Materials evaluation and adaptation
• PART 6 Materials for specific contexts
• PART 7 Materials development and technology
• PART 8 Developing materials for publication
• PART 9 Professional development and materials writing
• Index