Speaking of criteria…

‘What is the set of criteria that will determine how we evaluate materials? And most importantly, what are the criteria we need to make use of if we want to create our own materials?’. This is how I ended my previous post after our first session with Paul. In our second session these questions were brought up again and we had to work in groups to decide on the set of our own criteria in terms of materials and how we evaluate them. I instantly thought: ‘That’s great! Time for some answers!’.

We first had to write down our own views on what materials should/shouldn’t/must/mustn’t be. I thought this was a difficult thing to do, but at the same time it made me reflect and connect everything to my teaching practice. What do I want to achieve with the materials I use? Why am I using various materials instead of others? Then I thought that as teachers, we all make numerous decisions every day and these decisions have a direct impact on our learners and their needs, so, my next thought was: ‘They’d better be good ones!’

One thing that has influenced what I do in class and what materials I use is student autonomy. Especially after our methodology module, my reflective essay, and my first observation this is something that has really triggered my interest and made me realise that the ultimate goal of teaching is probably the idea of helping learners to become more independent. How about materials who help teachers reach this aim then?

Another thing that came to mind almost straight away was the idea of real-life communication. Bearing my learning background in mind as well as how I was taught English, I can probably say that the materials I used as a learner didn’t necessarily promote real-life communication. What they definitely did was make me more aware of the formalities of the language; Here comes another list of vocabulary and a lot of grammar tables! What I appreciate now, as a teacher of English, is that I have the power to change that, I can choose to guide my students towards the direction of effective communication and the materials I use should do so as well.

After we all had some ideas on paper, we got into groups and had to narrow them down to fifteen. That was a bit hard but it was also interesting to see what other teachers thought and how our beliefs were aligned with each other or not. I’m glad that we all seemed to be on the same wavelength and agreed on most of our ideas! One thing someone wrote that caught my attention was that ‘materials should not have mistakes in them’. How true! How many times I’ve come across teacher’s books or even student’s books with inaccurate explanations/instructions. When we create our own materials, this is something I will definitely not forget!

After this stage Paul handed out new statements about materials based on books and bibliography on materials. We had to add these to ours and decide which twenty-one we wanted to keep. A lot of our ideas were similar to the ones in the bibliography, so I guess that’s good thing! I completely agree with the statement that ‘materials should provide the learners with opportunities to use the target language to achieve communicative purpose’ and the one about materials taking ‘into account that learners differ in learning styles.’ (Tomlinson, 2011). I would also like to add something to the latter statement: materials should also take into account students’ different needs. Student-senteredness and autonomy were present in our final selection as well and I was delighted to see that other colleagues value independent learning as much as I do. We then went around the room and had a look at what other people had picked. Everyone seemed to have great ideas most of which will stay with me throughout my teaching journey.

                 

                                             

All in all, I think this was an interesting session most importantly because I had the opportunity to see what other teachers from different backgrounds thought about materials. Especially in a world where some of us will go on to create our own materials, I think this is something to always keep in mind.

References

Tomlinson, B. (2011) Introduction: principles and procedures of materials development. In: Tomlinson, B. (ed). Materials Development in Language Teaching. (2nd ed) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp.1-31. (Principles drawn from second language acquisition research.)

 

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1 Comment

  1. Constantine Kourakis

    Agreement among language teachers on a set of materials-related criteria can be quite hard and is surprising as well as positive that you were on the same wavelength.
    I agree with you that many materials don’t promote real-life communication and don’t equip students with the necessary skills, sub-skills, pragmatic and sociocultural knowledge in order to handle authentic situations. Been there myself as a language learner. Yet, the criteria one decides on essentially depend on the learners’ profile, needs and national/cultural background. Age and gender, for example, can lead to different materials selections. Boys tend to have different interests from girls or teens certainly have different interests from adults. Most importantly, the learners’ needs is a decisive factor. I do believe in teaching students real-life communication skills to prepare them for the outside-classroom challenges, but a group of EAP students would only focus on how to write good essays.

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