Reflection Outlines Day 3 Material development PDF.pdf
- 1. 3 Day Reflective Journal Material development Kern Chad Fredericks 61503641188 Lecture: Prof. Dr. Imran Khan 1
- 2. 361-301 Material Development Student Name: Kern C. Fredericks - 61503641188 Dates: 9th December 2024 Topics: Day 3 – Principles and Procedures of Material Development 2
- 3. Day 3 : Key Vocabulary and Definitions Principled Development: The process of creating materials based on theories of language acquisition and teaching principles, rather than imitation or intuition. Rich Input: Language input that is meaningful, comprehensible, and diverse in its use, offering learners exposure to authentic language in various contexts. Affective Engagement: Emotional connection and motivation learners feel during language activities, crucial for effective learning. Cognitive Processing: Deep thinking activities that engage learners in analysis, prediction, or evaluation of language use. Authenticity: The inclusion of real-world language use in materials, re fl ecting how language is genuinely used. Inner Speech: The internal dialogue learners use to process and plan language use, aiding in comprehension and production. Noticing: A process where learners become consciously aware of speci fi c language features in input, facilitating language acquisition. Outcome Feedback: Evaluation focused on the communicative success of learner output rather than merely correcting errors. 3
- 4. Day 3 : Key Concepts and Explanations Language Acquisition Principles: Tomlinson emphasizes that learners acquire language best when exposed to authentic, rich, and meaningful input. This input should include a variety of text types and contexts, such as dialogues, narratives, and descriptive passages. Repeated exposure allows learners to internalize language patterns over time. The idea is to provide learners with opportunities to observe how language operates in real-life scenarios, making the learning process more natural and intuitive. Engagement: Engagement, both affective and cognitive, plays a crucial role in language learning. When learners connect emotionally to the material—through relatable content or stories—they are more motivated and likely to retain information. Similarly, tasks that require analysis, prediction, or problem-solving engage their cognitive faculties, helping them process language deeply. For example, a story about overcoming challenges might inspire empathy, while an analytical task like identifying patterns in the story’s structure could stimulate intellectual curiosity. Contextualization: Language is most meaningful when presented in context. Instead of isolated grammar drills or vocabulary lists, learners bene fi t from seeing language in use —whether in conversations, advertisements, or formal letters. This contextual approach helps learners understand nuances such as tone, register, and cultural appropriateness. For instance, students analyzing a casual email versus a formal one can grasp differences in style and vocabulary 4
- 5. Day 3 : Key Concepts and Explanations Learner Autonomy: Encouraging students to take responsibility for their learning builds independence and con fi dence. Materials can achieve this by offering choices, such as selecting between texts or deciding how to approach a task. For example, students might choose to present their fi ndings in a group discussion, a written report, or a visual presentation, allowing them to use their strengths and preferences to engage with the language. Mental Resources: Tomlinson highlights the importance of tapping into learners’ natural mental resources, such as visualization and inner speech, which they already use in their L1. Activities that encourage learners to imagine scenarios or mentally rehearse responses can enhance their L2 comprehension and production. For instance, asking students to visualize their favorite holiday destination before writing about it activates these mental faculties, making the language more personal and engaging. Noticing in Input: The process of noticing involves learners becoming consciously aware of speci fi c language features, such as grammar structures or collocations, within a text. This awareness helps bridge the gap between understanding and using language effectively. For example, after reading a story, learners might be tasked with identifying all the past tense verbs and discussing their functions, which reinforces their understanding of verb usage. Communicative Tasks: Real-life communication is at the heart of effective language learning. Activities should require learners to use language to achieve speci fi c goals, such as persuading, informing, or requesting. For example, a task might involve learners planning a community event, which requires them to negotiate, assign roles, and create promotional materials. These tasks simulate authentic language use and encourage learners to practice fl uency, accuracy, and appropriateness in context. 5
- 6. Day 3: Summary 6 Effective material development is driven by theoretical foundations and a thorough comprehension of learner needs, according to Tomlinson's principles. Learners must receive rich, meaningful input in order to become pro fi cient communicators. For improved understanding and engagement, the input must be important to the experiences of the learners and contextualised. Since emotions and mental processes are important factors in language acquisition, he also supports resources that encourage affective and cognitive engagement. Lessons can be made more memorable and learners motivated by tasks and texts that stimulate their interest or connect to personal experiences. Another signi fi cant topic is learner autonomy. Resources that give students autonomy and choice encourage them to take an active role in their language learning process. Also, Tomlinson emphasises the importance of techniques like inner speech and noticing, which aid students in successfully internalising linguistic patterns. Last but not least communicative exercises are essential for improving language pro fi ciency in everyday situations. Through the creation of activities that closely resemble real-world interactions, students can practice using language to accomplish particular objectives while getting helpful feedback.
- 7. Day 3: Application to my Life As an ESL teacher in Thailand, Tomlinson's ideas offer a precise road map for improving my teaching methods. His focus on valuable input motivates me to incorporate real materials into my classes. To ensure relevance and expose students to language used in everyday situations, I could, for example, use stories or local news articles that depict Thai culture. These ideas can also change the way I teach in the area of engagement. I intend to create emotionally engaging activities, like having students write stories based on their own experiences or have discussions about subjects they are interested in, to spark their interest. These techniques not only inspire students but also strengthen their connection with the subject matter. In my case, where students frequently look to the teacher for guidance, stimulating learner autonomy is especially important. Giving them choices for assignments or speeches can enable them to take charge of their education. Allowing students to select a project topic or determine how to present their fi ndings, for instance, promotes their independence and sense of ownership. Tomlinson's emphasis on visualisation and inner speech fi ts in nicely with my attempts to connect L1 and L2 learning. Students' comprehension and fl uency can be improved by asking them to picture scenarios while reading or to mentally practise before speaking. Finally, I aim to incorporate more communicative tasks that mirror real-world interactions. Activities like role-playing a restaurant visit or creating group presentations about local festivals can help students practice using English for practical purposes, making their learning more impactful and long-lasting. 7
- 8. Day 3: Further Questions for Thought and Research 8 1. How can I measure the effectiveness of affective engagement in my materials? 2. What are practical ways to encourage inner speech among beginner learners? 3. How can materials balance rich input with learner readiness for complex features?
- 9. 9 Day 3 : Reading Assignment Principles and Procedures of Materials Development Paper. Principles and Procedures of Materials Development for Language Learning Brian Tomlinson This paper takes the position that language learning materials should ideally be driven by learning and teaching principles rather than developed ad hoc or in imitation of best selling coursebooks. It briefly reviews the literature which contributes positively towards the principled development of ELT materials and comments on its implications for materials writing. It then presents six principles of language acquisition which the author thinks should be given a lot more attention in materials development. It outlines and justifies each principle and then derives from it materials development principles and procedures which teachers and materials writers could apply to the actual development of materials. 1 Introduction In recent years there have been a number of insightful publications which have concerned themselves with how authors typically write ELT materials (for example, Prowse 1998). As Tomlinson (forthcoming 2010) says, this literature reveals that many experienced authors rely on their intuitions about what ‘works’ and make frequent use of activities from their repertoire which seem to fit with their objectives. Very few authors are actually guided by learning principles or considerations of coherence and many seem to make the assumption that clear presentation and active, relevant practice are sufficient to lead to acquisition. My position is that materials should not be random recreations from repertoire nor crafty clones of previously successful materials. Instead they should be coherent and principled applications of: i) theories of language acquisition and development ii) principles of teaching iii) our current knowledge of how the target language is actually used iv) the results of systematic observation and evaluation of materials in use. This is the position which drives this chapter. In it I will focus in particular on applications of theories of language acquisition. 2 Review of the Literature In this section I will briefly review some of the literature which I think contributes positively towards the principled development of ELT materials. In Hidalgo et al (1995) there are a number of writers from South-East Asia who articulate principled approaches to materials development reflecting how they think learners learn languages. Some of them propose frameworks and many list the principles which drive their materials. Tomlinson (1998: 5-22) proposes fifteen principles for materials development which derive from second language acquisition research and experience. Of these I would focus on the following six as those which should drive ELT materials development: The materials should: Expose the learners to language in authentic use Help learners to pay attention to features of authentic input Provide the learners with opportunities to use the target language to achieve communicative purposes Provide opportunities for outcome feedback Achieve impact in the sense that they arouse and sustain the learners’ curiosity and attention Stimulate intellectual, aesthetic and emotional involvement A number of other writers outline principled approaches to developing ELT materials in Tomlinson (1998) as do many writers in Tomlinson (2003). McGrath (2002: 152- 161) reviews the literature on principled approaches, frameworks and procedures for units for materials development, as does Tomlinson (forthcoming 2010), and Tomlinson (2008) proposes ways of applying commonly agreed theories of language acquisition to materials development. 3 Proposals for Principled Approaches to the Development of ELT Materials One of the things which materials writers need to do is to develop flexible frameworks to help them produce effective materials for target learners in principled and coherent ways. This is something I always do before embarking on a materials development project. My framework develops as I progress and it helps me to write quickly and effectively. But before such frameworks are developed the writers need to decide what principles should drive their procedures. Here are the main principles of language acquisition which I follow when developing materials, and some of the principles for materials development which I derive from them. As you read them you might like to evaluate their validity and usefulness and to think of other principles of your own. 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. In order 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 particular language items and features many times in meaningful and comprehensible input in order 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 in order 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. 2 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. 3 Make sure that the language input is contextualised. Language use is determined and interpreted in relation to its context of use. De-contextualised 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. I can, for example, think of at least three different interpretations of, “Give him the keys. Let him drive it.” But I do not know what it really means nor why the speaker has used the imperative until I know who is saying it, who they are saying it to, what the relationship between them is, where they are, what has happened before and what the objectives of the conversation are. Only extended samples of language in contextualised use can provide learners with the ‘information’ they need to develop awareness of how the target language is actually used. 4 Make sure that the learners are exposed to sufficient samples of language in authentic use to provide natural re-cycling of language items and features which might be useful for the learners to acquire. Examples of Materials I use what I call task-free activities to help me to apply Principle of Language Acquisition 1. This involves me at the beginning of every lesson reading a poem or story, or telling a joke or anecdote. There are no questions or tasks after the listening, just written copies of the text for those students who were engaged by it to take home, read and file away. The students are encouraged to ask me questions about the texts at any time and to return to read the texts they have collected many times. I also use extensive reading, extensive listening and extensive viewing to help to apply this principle and I use a text-driven approach to developing units of material in which an extensive text drives the skills and language activities of each unit.