Our Recommendations for Using and Developing Digital Materials

We recommend that:

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Digital materials should always be designed and evaluated according to criteria devel- oped to maximize the likelihood of language acquisition.

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Ministries of education and institutions should not impose the use of digital materials just so as to appear to be modern and up to date. Before introducing or further developing the use of digital materials they should consider both their likely learning eﬀectiveness and their cost eﬀectiveness, as well as their relevance to the curriculum and to examination preparation, the training and attitudes of their teachers and the inclinations of their learners.

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Teachers should be helped to increase their awareness of the potential value of digital materials and of the digital materials available for their use.

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In contexts where digital materials are affordable and sustainable consideration should be given to the development of blended learning materials so that the con- siderable benefits of face-to-face interaction and of teacher feedback and support can be retained whilst gaining the additional benefits offered by digital materials of flex- ibility, of convenience and of massively increased opportunities for exposure to and use of the target language.

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Teachers should not lose conﬁdence in the validity of their teaching regardless of whether it is with or without technology and ultimately they should be responsible

7 Developing Digital Materials 

for decisions regarding which digital materials to use and how to exploit them for the beneﬁt of their learners.

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We should all remember that technology is only a tool and what matters is not how marvelous the technology is but how it is used by teachers and learners to facilitate learning.

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Student should always be at the center of their learning, not technology.

Conclusion

We fully endorse the developments that are taking place in the design and delivery of digital materials for language learning. However, at the same time we agree with the voices advising caution, especially with those insisting on principled development, on quality control and on recognition that the majority of language learners in the world do not have access to digital learning materials. These learners would, at least for the time being, be better served by small investments in cheap and available quality paper materials than in expensive digital materials which their institutions might not have the expertise, software, spare parts or even electricity to take advantage of. After all, it is arguable that one relatively cheap “big book” might be more valuable and durable for learners in a classroom than one expensive computer which needs feeding with software, updates, and expertise.

Although many digital materials are designed for self-access use by autonomous learners we would argue for the importance of teacher mediation, support and encourage- ment and of the provision of opportunities for learner interaction with teachers and with other learners. A good example of this is that in the Self-Access Learning Centre at Kanda University in Japan learners working with digital materials can go and talk to a teacher and can work with other learners around the same device if they wish. Brian once conducted a research project for a learning company in Singapore and found that primary school students beneﬁtted more from CALL materials when working two at a computer than when working alone (especially in relation to the development of creative skills).

It is noticeable that we have made very little reference to research into the effectiveness of digital materials. There is some such research demonstrating small gains for learners whose materials are delivered electronically (e.g. Chapelle 2010, 2014; Chapelle & Lui, 2007; Grgurović et al., 2013) but if we were in a low resourced context we would need a lot more and a lot more convincing research to persuade us to risk investment in costly digital delivery of materials which might not be any more effective in facilitating language acquisition than the paper materials already in use.

What Do You Think?

1. Think of a particular language-teaching context and then decide what the advantages and disadvantages would be of using digital materials in that context.

2. Do you think it would be worth trying to introduce blended learning materials (i.e.

combining digital and face-to-face delivery) in the context you thought of in 1 above?

Why?

3. In the context in 1 above, do you think it would be possible to use a ﬂexi materials approach in which all the learners in a class were doing the same generic

 Materials Development for Language Learning

tasks but with texts they have found for themselves individually or in groups from the web? Do you think this would be a useful approach for the learners in your context?

4. What do you think are the potential advantages of each the following? Which do you think has the greatest potential for use in facilitating language acquisition:

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_Weblogs?

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_Webquests?

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Skype?

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Downloadable practice exercises?

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Mobile phones?

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Web libraries of extensive readers?

5. What advice about the use of digital materials would you give to:

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Ministries of Education?

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Examination bodies?

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Publishers?

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Materials developers?

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_Parents?

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_Teachers?

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Language learners?

Tasks

1. Find any example of digital materials available to you and then evaluate their potential eﬀectiveness by answering the following questions about them:

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Which features (if any) are likely to facilitate language acquisition?

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Which features (if any) could inhibit language acquisition?

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Are the materials more ﬂexible than their paper equivalent would be?

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Are the materials more convenient to use than their paper equivalent would be?

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Are the materials cheaper than their paper equivalent would be?

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Do you prefer the materials to their paper equivalent? Why?

2. Specify a group of language learners (i.e. age, level, gender, location, objectives) and then design a unit of blended learning (see Further Reading 3 below) for these learners, which would aﬀord them many of the advantages of both digital and paper materials and of online and face-to-face interaction.

References

British Council. (2015).Technology for professional development: Access, interest and opportunity for teachers of English in South Asia. New Delhi: British Council.

Chapelle, C. A. (2010). The spread of computer-assisted language learning.Language Teaching, 43(1), 66–74.

Chapelle, C. A. (2014). Afterword—technology mediated TBLT and the evolving role of innovator. In M. Gonz´alez-Lloret, & L. Ortega (Eds.),Technology-mediated TBLT.

Researching technology and tasks(pp. 323–334). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Chapelle, C. A., & Lui, H. M. (2007). Theory and research: Investigation of “authentic”

CALL tasks. In J. Egbert & E. Hanson-Smith (Eds.),CALL environments(2nd ed., pp. 111–130). Alexandri a, VA: TESOL Publications.

Cobb, T. (2009). Necessary or nice? Computers in second language reading. In Z. Han & N.

Anderson J. (Eds.),Second language reading research and instruction—crossing the boundaries(pp. 144–172). Ann Arbor: Michigan University Press.

Damasio, A., & Carvalho, G. B. (2013). The nature of feelings: Evolutionary and neurobiological origins.Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 14(2), 143–152.

Dedeney, G., & Hockly, N. (2012). ICT in ELT: How did we get here and where are we going?ELT Journal, 66(4), 533–542.

Felix, U. (2008). The unreasonable eﬀectiveness of CALL: What have we learned in two decades of research?ReCALL, 20(2), 141–161.

Grgurovi´c, M., Chapelle, C. A., & Shelley, M. C. (2013). A meta-analysis of eﬀectiveness studies on computer technology-supported language learning.Recall, 25(2), 165–198.

Hilbert, M. (2011). The end justiﬁes the deﬁnition: The manifold outlooks on the digital divide and their practical usefulness for policy-making.Telecommunications Policy,35, 715–736.

Hilbert, M. (2016). The bad news is that the digital access divide is here to stay:

Domestically installed bandwidths among 172 countries for 1986–2014.

Telecommunications Policy, 40(6), 567–581.

Hockly, N. (2013). Designer learning: The teacher as designer of mobile-based classroom learning experiences.The International Research Foundation for English Language Education,

Immordino-Yang, M. H., & Damasio, A. (2007). We feel, therefore we learn: The relevance of aﬀective and social neuroscience to education.Mind, Brain, and Education, 1(8), 3–10.

Kiddle, T. (2013). Developing digital language learning materials. In B. Tomlinson (Ed.), Developing materials for language teaching(2nd ed., pp. 189–206). London: Bloomsbury.

Maley, A. (2011). Squaring the circle—Reconciling materials as constraint with materials as empowerment. In B. Tomlinson (Ed.),Materials development in language teaching(2nd ed., pp. 379–402). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

McLuhan, M. (1964).Understanding media: The extensions of man. New York: McGraw Hill.

Mishan, F. (2013). Demystifying blended learning. In B. Tomlinson (Ed.),Developing materials for language teaching(2nd ed., pp. 207–224). London: Bloomsbury.

Dalam dokumen The Complete Guide to Materials Development for Language Learning (Halaman 196-200)