Principles and Frameworks for Design
The framework below is set out by Willis and examines task-based learning, although many of the stages set out are natural stages in my lessons the framework acts as a useful checklist when planning lesson procedures. It introduces the three basic stages of the framework and explains both teacher and learner roles, it’s a framework that I believe many teachers already follow in the classroom.
As I start out in materials design mini-frameworks offer a useful guide for analysis; Mishan and Timmis refer to Hadfield’s “introspective analysis of a limited set of activities she designed.”
More substantial materials should have a clear and logical unit arrangement, starting with open cloze exercises moving onto open ended, more difficult activities, ‘standardizing instructions’ and maintaining level quality through a ‘graded syllabus” . Generative, inventive and educational topics should progress with the learners’ skills. How will grammar be presented? Through texts, conversational extracts or a corpora of utterances. Will noticing be used or a systematic presentation which is practiced and produced by students? Skills: Writing – will examples be provided? Listening will recordings be- authentic or scripted? Reading – which texts will feature? Speaking – how will students approach tasks and pronunciation? Finally students can consolidate what they’ve learnt through a system of reflection and action, revising and revisiting language sufficiently.
Furthermore materials should recognize the cognitive and communicative functions necessary to navigate daily language use and are likely to be more effective if they consider the ‘immediate needs’ and interests of the learner, teaching language skills, manners and social appropriateness and building self-confidence with respect of students’ own cultures. Activities should enable learners to incorporate and scrutinize what they are learning to have legitimacy, completing exercises through a ‘fund of knowledge’ they have built up over the course of a unit or a book. Timmis suggests that materials need to engage learners’ interests, connecting the ‘learning experience in the class to the students’ lives outside the classroom’ with a rich and meaningful exposure to language.
Listening texts in Materials
Pronunciation is a large part of my work with overseas students as most learners have studied years of English outside of an immersion environment and often respond well to pronunciation guidance on their courses. Nunan (1989) noted that commercial materials often failed to authentically reproduce English in listening texts; Intonation is “marked by unusually wide and frequent pitch movement.” Texts avoid assimilation and ellipsis with words excessively enunciated, sentences are short with limited vocabulary, often disregarding slang and colloquial English, Nunan further noted that transcripts generally have more explicit references with ‘texts rarely marred by noise”. BBC podcasts can prepare students with realistic listening texts on a variety of subjects, supplementing pre-existing materials.
Clandfield, L et al (eds) No Nonsense Guide to Writing ELT Ch.8 No Nonsense Guide to Writing
Graves, K. (2000) Designing Language Courses: A Guide for Teachers. Boston, MA MA.:Heinle & Heinle
Hann,N. et al. (2010) ESOL materials: practice and principles. In Mishan, FF. & Chambers,A. (eds). Perspectives on Language Learning Materials Development. Oxford Peter Lang. pp.223-248
Hutchinson, T. & Waters, A. (1987) English for Specific Purposes: A Learning-centred Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (See chapter 10: Material design pp.106-127).
Jolly. R.D & Bolitho, R. (2011) A framework for materials writing. In Tomlinson, B. (ed). Materials In Tomlinson, B. (ed) Materials Development in Language Teaching. (2nd ed) Cambridge; Cambridge University Press pp.107-134
Mishan, F. & Timmis, I. (2015) Materials Developent for TESOL. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. (Chapter 4: Materials design: from process to product. pp 163 – 182)
Nunan, D. (1989) Designing Tasks for the Communicative Classroom Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Safari, F. & Rashidi, N. (2011) A Model for EFL Materials Development within the Framework of
Critical Pedagogy (CP). English Language Teaching 4 (2): pp. 250. doi: 10.5539/elt.v4n2p250.
Tomlinson, B. (2013) Developing principled frameworks for materials development. In Tomlinson, B. (ed). Developing Materials for Language Teaching. (2nd ed) London: Bloomsbury. pp 95 -118
