I am Robyn Moallemi, a French language teacher at the University of Brighton, teaching CEFR levels A1 and A2 and currently studying the MA MALT. As part of the module English Language Teaching Materials I have created this blog and will be writing weekly posts to further explore readings and discussions we have in class. I hope that in writing these weekly blogs, I will develop my critical awareness of the materials I use, as well as capture my journey towards becoming a “reflective practitioner” (Schön 1983), critically reflecting on my professional experience (Wallace 1991, p. 26).
At the beginning of the first seminar we were asked: “what do you want to get out of this module?” My instinctive response was to understand materials better so that I can improve my teaching and my learners’ learning. I know it is a broad and general response but true nonetheless. How can this module help me to do this? I hope it will enable me to learn how to be more objective and more critical of the materials I choose. Having a greater understanding of materials’ design process and principles, the different types of medium, function, usability, authorship and intended learners of the materials will give me knowledge that I currently just assume, through practice, and will hopefully make me more critical and reflective in my materials’ choice.
The theme for the first seminar was ELT materials now, where language teaching materials were reinforced as being “anything that can be used to facilitate the learning of a language” (Tomlinson 2012 p.143) and can be instructional, experiential, elicitative and exploratory (Tomlinson 2001: 66). In my teaching I am fortunate to be able to use any materials, as long as I achieve the learning objectives of the course and as a result, use textbooks, websites, CDs, DVDs, materials made by me, materials made by the leaners, magazines and anything that I feel will help the learners’ learn – will capture their interest, excite and motivate them to want to use the language. All of the materials I try to use “are not prescriptions but engaging texts, activities, advice, and suggestions” that I can “personalise, localise and adapt” (Masuhara et al 2008 in Masuhara 2011, p.262). As a non-native speaker of French I really appreciate the value that materials bring to the class and see them as a window onto the language and its culture, an ‘authentic’ and alternative More Knowledgeable Other (Vygotsky 1978).
The pre-seminar task was to record what materials I used and how I used them in three of my lessons that week. Table 1.0-1e7fecj demonstrates the materials used in just two lessons. The lessons were very different from other weeks as it was the first week back after the mid-year assessments and one of the objectives of both classes was to give individual feedback to each of the learners on their assessments. I profited from this opportunity to implement differentiated instruction (Tomlinson 1999), a research interest of mine, for the first hour of the two-hour lesson. In the FR401 class, learners were provided with five learning centres (Tomlinson 1999) with an array of different activities that reflected their learner needs based on the results of their assessments. The activities were openly rudimental in instruction and activity but the intention was for the learners to recall what they had learnt and to practice either individually, in pairs or groups, depending on their preference. Activities included verb conjugation, role-plays for en train, en ville and au café and a vocabulary and syntax activity. Learners could choose which activities to complete and could complete one or several, depending on their time management and motivation. The materials used were teacher prepared by myself in order to truly respond to their learner needs. They were printed on paper and the emphasis was on the learner to produce the content. In this sense I wouldn’t feel comfortable placing them as either materials as content or materials as language (McGrath 2013, p.13) as they were not stimuli per se nor did they offer examples of language in use. Instead I would categorise them as elicitative (Tomlinson 2001, p.66), drawing out what had already been learnt, demonstrated in the learners’ production of content.
Materials used in the second hour of the lesson focused on a new topic la maison and were all compiled in a handout, which I produce for every student, every lesson. Although we use a textbook for the module, the materials are adapted, localised and modified to suit my learners (Richards 2015, pp.623-624) as are other materials resourced, designed and developed. Although it’s not necessary to do so, this handout compiles all of the materials, acting as a bespoke course book for the learners as well as a learning resource and revision tool. The first activity was an online listening activity from a language education website, where learners had to listen to a text and fill in the gaps. They discussed their answers in pairs and then researched the vocabulary of any unknown words. This exploratory activity (Tomlinson 2001: 66) and material as content (McGrath 1013, p. 13) aimed to comfortably challenge my learners when meeting a new topic and vocabulary. Their understanding of syntax and exploration of new vocabulary led onto the second activity, where they worked in pairs to recall activity 1 and label a house with rooms and furniture. The final activity was both exploratory and experiential and enabled learners to produce language and personalise the newly learnt vocabulary by constructing questions and responses to find out specific information in an authentic conversation. I always use language production activities such as this because they “move(s) learners from a primarily semantic use of language (as takes place in comprehension) to a syntactic use. In other words, through production, learners are forced to impose syntactic structure on their utterances” (Gass in Doughty and Long 2003, p. 227).
Reading Masuhara (2011) encouraged me to reflect on my choice and design of materials and helped me see how my wants as a teacher, as well as learner needs, influence choice. Masuhara refers to teachers wants as “distinguished from needs when there is preference, despite the fact that it may not be necessary, obligatory, encouraged or assumed” (2011, p.243). The learning centres were a want, my want to see how they could work and if they could be successful, as was the rationale for the elicitative activities as a revision tool. Although I felt this hour of the class was extremely worthwhile and effective, it was not necessary in terms of the module’s syllabus, nor obligatory, encouraged or assumed. However, feedback from students post-lesson was extremely encouraging and positive, suggesting that my wants are not in isolation from the learner needs but perhaps my interpretation and my own individual prescription of how to meet their needs. As I have already said, I want to improve my teaching and my learners’ learning – a want where the desired outcome is to meet their needs.
Connected to this is an acronym that I had never heard of – PARSNIP – which stands for Politics, Alcohol, Religion, Sex, Narcotics, Isms and Pork. These topics can be problematic in how they are received by learners and as such, many commercial publishers avoid them. However, on personal reflection I have included many of these taboo subjects in my class, not as a focus but as a sub-theme of a particular topic i.e. au restaurant includes ordering drinks, of which alcohol is part of the menu, especially in France where wine is part of their culture I would feel disloyal if it were omitted. Likewise pork features on the menu of the restaurant. In the days after BREXIT and the US presidential election, both extremely pertinent issues, I included them as a starting point of discussion for students to give their opinion in the target language. I personally feel that although topics such as these can be problematic, they are equally stimulating and can allow learners to personally engage with the language and use it with purpose. As a result, language is authentic and responses are honest and personal. As a teacher it is difficult not to vocalise my opinion or portray my feelings and I do understand how in doing so, my actions could cause upset or isolate learners with different opinions. Teaching a mixed class of international students, this is something that I will pay attention to and pre-assess before such topics are brought up.
To end this post and my reflections from this week, I see now more than ever the power and control we as teachers have in the classroom, as the More Knowledgeable Other (Vygotsky 1984) to support and guide our learners because we “personalise, localise and adapt” (Masuhara et al 2008 in Masuhara 2011, p.262) the course book. We should not feel led or dictated to by the course book but instead use it as a resource. The materials themselves also have the capacity to be a More Knowledgeable Other and in using materials we are expanding our potential to challenge and support the development of our learners. Our choice of materials and how we use them ultimately reflect us; who we are in terms of our beliefs, attitudes and values but also our experience of the materials and experience in teaching (Allen 2015). Over the next week I will be reading about the principles and frameworks for materials design and look forward to investigating how my own materials design fits in with this research and arguably what it suggests about me and my teaching.
Allen, C. (2015) Marriages of convenience? Teachers and coursebooks in the digital age. ELT Journal 69 (3): pp. 249-263. doi: 10.1093/elt/ccv005.
Gass, S, M. (2003) Input and Interaction in Doughty, C, J., and Long, M. (2003) The Handbook of Second Language Acquisition, Blackwell Publishing: Oxford (pp 224 – 255)
Masuhara, H. (2011) What do teachers really want from coursebooks? In: Tomlinson, B. (ed) Materials Development in Language Teaching. (2nd edn) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 236-266.
Schön, D.A. (1983), The reflective practitioner: how professionals think in action, Temple Smith, London.
Tomlinson, B. (2012) Materials development for language learning and teaching. Language Teaching 45 (02): pp. 143-179.
Tomlinson, C. (1999) The differentiated classroom: Responding to the Needs of all Learners. New Jersey: Pearson.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978) Mind and society: The development of higher mental processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Wallace, M.J. (1991) Training foreign language teachers: a reflective approach, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.