Today we discussed  principles and frameworks that underpin the design of ESL materials. First, we came up with our own, self-made principles and narrowed them down to 12.

Here are the ones that I wrote.

1. Materials should be engaging and motivating.

This is an extremely important but equally difficult point to achieve.  We want our learners to be engaged in a lesson as we all know it is the best way to learn.  We want materials that are up- to- date, interesting, relevant and  fun.  However, how realistic is it to design these ultimate engaging materials if everyone has a different idea of up –to- date, interesting, relevant and fun.

I recently came across a blog post which talks about a simple songs gap fill website where the average time of engagement is 20 minutes. Twenty minutes of engagement is pretty  incredible considering the simplicity of the activity. What is the secret? Personalisation. The learners were so involved because they could choose their favourite song and that’s what made them stay on the website for so long.  And the more time our learners spend learning and using the language, the better.  The idea of mediating resources according to the unique needs of each learner is a driving force behind adaptive learning and there is a lot of buzz about it, but so far there hasn’t been a single successful ESL product to implement it.

2. Materials should integrate life skills and digital literacy skills.

I feel that apart from allowing learners to develop their reading, listening, writing and speaking skills, materials should help to develop a range of life skills.

I feel that very often there is a mismatch between what students acquire in the classroom and what is required in the real world. They are given a decent grasp of English grammar, a reasonably broad vocabulary range and strategies to jump through the various hoops of examining boards. However,  little emphasize is put on developing, for example,  teamwork skills, communication skills or digital literacy skills- the set of skills they need to really take advantage of the language they acquired.

3. Materials should take into consideration the nature of language learning

Although SLA is a relatively new field to me as we have just started this module, it is already obvious that there is a connection between the theories about language learning and the ESL materials. Unfortunately, I am still unsure about the true meaning of SLA and can’t give sufficient examples. However, I could already notice that some course books are changing the way they present the language according to the developmental sequences of SLA.

4. Materials should provide a positive user experience

Not only did you fail to learn something; you had a horrible time trying. – ELTjam’s working definition of bad UX (user experience)

Nick Robertson (2016) talks about  user or rather learner experience in relation to digital ELT materials but I believe it can be applied to print as well.  I’d prefer to use the term user experience as for me the user is a teacher as well as a student.

I’m sure many teachers could remember the time they were using a course book that was so badly designed that it totally ruined your lesson.  I can definitely remember a couple of times as a newly qualified teacher I tried to follow a course book, realised after 10 minutes of the class that it wasn’t working but due to lack of experience was unable to deviate from the book.  As a result I could only continue a very painful, for me and my students, lesson. I was surprised nobody left the room. Of course, as an experienced teacher, now  I can easily improvise, adapt or abandon a course book and use my own materials, but it shouldn’t be the case.

The same I believe applies to learners. Publishers proved them with tons of material. Take the course book I’m using at the moment – English File 3^rd edition. My students are provided with: a coursebook, a workbook, a DVD,  a  student website, English File app, Oxford Online Skills Program, iTutor.  But some of these resources are so complicated to navigate that most of my learners give up after their first attempt.

I wish the publishers wouldn’t leave it all to the teacher, and focus on designing a course book that could deliver a positive user experience.

5. Materials shouldn’t use technology for the sake of using technology.

As I mentioned in my earlier post, I am a great supporter of EdTech, however, sadly I came across too many products where technology has done more harm than good.

Take, for example, New Total English course book and its new ActiveTeach software. The publisher made a great effort to promote this multimedia platform – in my school we had a presentation by Pearson’s rep demonstrating how it works. And I’m not denying, it is a good tool, however, it seems that they spent all  their time and money on developing the digital component of the course and completely ignored their printed materials. The course book and the teacher’s book were horrible to use. They were full of typos, the questions and answers didn’t match, the context was only slightly updated and mostly recycled. Everyone who used it in my school had a terrible experience and I felt bad for the Pearson’s rep who came back a couple of weeks later to get some feedback as most of it was extremely negative.

I truly believe learning can be transformed by technology but it shouldn’t be done just for marketing purposes.

Kerr ,P. (2014) ” A guide to adaptive learning in ELT” accessed on 1/02/2016https://adaptivelearninginelt.wordpress.com/2014/01/20/a-guide-to-adaptive-learning-in-elt

Robinson, N. (2016)  “We need to talk about LX” accessed on 09/02/2016  http://eltjam.com/we-need-to-talk-about-lx/