After more than 40 years’ experience of developing, evaluating, reviewing, using, and researching materials for language learning we are now very clear about our preferred approaches.
Working as a Team
We have developed materials as single authors, in pairs, in small teams and in large teams. As a single author you can enjoy the luxury of doing it your way but this can be a problem too. You are questioned, advised, and sometimes commanded by your editor but you are not pushed, challenged or stimulated by a like-minded practitioner. In our experience, after a while you begin to lose impetus, energy and inspiration and near- ing the end of the book your exhausted aim can become just to get it finished. Writing in pairs can be more stimulating and supportive but often differences become irrec- oncilable and you can still get exhausted nearing the end. Working in a small team overcomes many of the problems mentioned so far but we have found that if members of a small team feel their views and ideas are being ignored they can become resent- ful (especially if they are prestigious academic or a very experienced materials writers)
5 The Development of Materials
and the harmony of the team is disrupted. This has happened to us on projects and we have spent time reassuring our disgruntled colleague(s) of their value to the team that could have been more profitably devoted to the development of materials. We have found that working with large teams (with six or preferably more members) is the most efficient and effective way of developing materials, particularly if the teams contain a spread of age, experience, and expertise, if they are stimulated first by facilitators, if they are working to commonly agreed principles and frameworks and, especially, if they are working together in a congenial place (rather than at a distance) where they can get to know and respect each other whilst developing a sense of collegiality and comrade- ship. When such conditions prevail, materials can be developed very quickly and the initial enthusiasm and energy can be maintained. Members of the team can be stimu- lated by the ideas and samples of good practice of their colleagues, a collective pride soon develops that drives and sustains the team and problems and weaknesses can be overcome by colleagues and facilitators without undue attention and loss of face. We have worked in or with large teams on projects developing coursebooks for primary and secondary schools in China, for teacher language improvement in Ethiopia, for a university in Turkey, and for secondary schools in Namibia. We have also worked with large teams in one-week workshops at which materials were developed for national use in Botswana, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mauritius, Seychelles, and Vietnam and for institu- tional use in Belgium, Hong Kong, Luxembourg, and Vietnam. We are not claiming that all the materials developed by these large teams were amazingly effective but in most cases the innovative materials that were developed were popular with students and were considered to be effective in helping them to become more communicatively competent. An interesting example of large team materials development was on the PKG (By the Teacher for the Teacher) program, a nationwide World Bank in-service teacher development project in Indonesia (Tomlinson, 1990) during which communica- tive materials making use of TPR Plus (Tomlinson, 1994a) extensive reading and discov- ery approaches (Tomlinson, 1994c; Bolitho et al., 2003) were developed by instructors at national workshops and by teachers at coffee afternoons in their homes. Not only were the materials incredibly popular with the secondary school students in the one class per school that participated in the project (e.g. these classes had much lower absentee rates than the others) but the students even performed a lot better on end-of-year traditional examinations.
Another interesting example was the writing of the Namibian secondary school coursebook On target(1995). Thirty teachers from all over Namibia came to Wind- hoek for six days. Some were young and inexperienced, some were very experienced, all were enthusiastic volunteers, and most had some sort of expertise to offer (e.g. a chief examiner, a dramatist, a poet, a musician, an artist). In 6 days they wrote ini- tial drafts of a complete coursebook by dividing into teams, following an agreed and flexible text-driven framework (Tomlinson, 2013b), sharing their drafts and revising them after feedback from advisors and by a monitoring team. The result was an inno- vative and communicative coursebook, which was considered to be a great improve- ment on its predecessor, and very proud teachers who not only had enhanced their skills and self-esteem but could not wait to help train teachers to use the materials back in their regions. Not everybody was happy though. The editors pointed out the many mis- takes and the improvements they had to make, as did the prestigious academics, who sometimes monitored the materials produced at national workshops on the PKG pro- gram in Indonesia.
Materials Development for Language Learning
Our preference then is for materials to be developed in large teams and our advice to maximize the likelihood of success is to:
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recruit 20 or more team members;r
recruit only enthusiastic volunteers;r
recruit mainly teachers (who have skills and insights to both offer and to gain) rather than academics (who have reputations as experts to protect);r
ensure a mix of ages, skills and experience;r
get the team to write its materials together in the same place rather than at a distance;r
appoint an experienced leader who can stimulate the writers and help to establish principles and a flexible framework on the first day before becoming a member of a small advisory / monitoring team (as was done on the Namibian project described above).For other observations on writing materials in a large team see Popovici and Bolitho (2003) and Lyons (2003), and for endorsements of “local authors” writing “materials for their own context” and for “team authoring,” which is likely to result in rich materials in terms of ideas, thinking styles, flexibility, and understanding—see Bolitho (2015, p. 7).
Articulating Principles
After assembling the team of writers the next step is to articulate the principles which you intend to drive your materials. This is best done by brainstorming individually, then sharing and justifying your principles, then agreeing together on a common set of prin- ciples and then converting the principles into criteria (as in Chapter 3) to be used both in the development and the evaluation of the draft materials.
As we said in Chapter 3 we find it useful to agree on both universal criteria (i.e. for any learner anywhere) and local criteria (i.e. for the specific target context of learning). We recommend starting with universal criteria to make sure that you do not get obsessed with meeting local expectations or examination requirements at the expense of vital prerequisites for language acquisition. Here is a small sample of the criteria we devel- oped for a materials development project from agreed principles and from a profile of the target context of learning. The materials were intended for first-year students at an English medium university in Turkey who had good examination scores in English but struggled to communicate effectively in both informal and formal oral and written com- munication.
A Sample of our Universal Criteria The materials should:
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expose the learners to authentic samples of oral English in use;r
expose the learners to authentic samples of written English in use;r
require the learners to use English for purposeful communication;r
require the learners to participate in authentic interaction in English;r
encourage learners to seek experience of communication in English outside the class- room;r
provide opportunities for the learners to make discoveries for themselves about how English is used for communication;5 The Development of Materials
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be affectively engaging;r
be cognitively engaging;r
provide achievable challenges to all the learners;r
expose the learners to a variety of text types;r
expose the learners to a variety of task types;r
recycle texts for different purposes;r
provide learners with a choice of texts;r
provide learners with a choice of tasks.A Sample of our Local Criteria The materials should:
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be meaningful to young adult Turkish students;r
be relevant to young adult Turkish university students;r
respect young adult Turkish students as intelligent individuals;r
prepare young adult Turkish university students for academic communication in English;r
prepare young adult Turkish university students for social communication in English;r
be respectful to Turkish culture.Making Use of Frameworks
We have found that taking time to decide on principled and flexible frameworks prior to starting to write the materials not only helps to achieve coherence and consistency but actually saves the writers time once they have got used to making use of the frame- work(s). We have found the following frameworks to be very useful for the achievement of these purposes, with text-driven frameworks being our preferred choice.
Text-Driven Frameworks
In a text-driven approach a core written / spoken / visual text is used to drive the unit of materials instead of predetermined teaching points. What the learners and the teacher do is determined organically by interaction with the text rather than by a syllabus or content map. This means that an authentic text that is likely to be meaningful, affec- tively engaging and cognitively engaging can be chosen rather than a text that has been contrived or selected to illustrate teaching points regardless of its likely appeal to the learners.
Our preferred materials-development framework is as follows:
1. Select a core textsuitable for the target learners (ideally from a bank of potentially engaging texts built up over a period of time—many years in our case).
2. Experience the text again as a reader / listener / viewer rather than as a materials developer looking for teaching points.
3. Reflect on your experience of the textand in particular on what was happening in your mind so that you can create a similar experience for your learners to replace their likely inclination to study a text word by word.
4. Create a readiness activitythat could activate the learners’ minds in relation to the topic, theme, setting, etc., of the core text. For example, a readiness activity for a poem
Materials Development for Language Learning
in which a Ugandan woman complains about her husband could be for the learner to think about what women typically complain about in their society or to predict what the Ugandan woman might be complaining about. A readiness activity for a story which is set on a beach could be for the learner to visualize and then maybe draw a beach they know from actual or vicarious experience. A readiness activity for an extract from a contemporary film about Little Red Riding Hood could be for the learner to tell themselves the story they know about Little Red Riding Hood. A readi- ness activity is primarily an individual mental activity which the learner can relate to when they experience the text (just as when using our L1 we automatically relate a text we are experiencing to our own previous life experience). However, sometimes it can be interesting for the learners to compare their mental experiences with other students before going on to experience the text.
5. Create an initial response activitythat could help the learners to experience the text holistically rather than to start decoding it word by word as soon as they encounter it. Examples of initial response activities would be:
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As you read the poem note in your mind the different complaints which Lawino makes about her husband Ocol.r
As you listen to the story try to see pictures in your mind of the beach in the story and of what happens on it.r
As you watch the extract from the film talk to yourself about the similarities and the differences between your version of Little Red Riding Hood and the version in the film.6. Create an intake response activitythat helps the learners to deepen and articulate their personal responses to the text. Examples of intake response activities would be:
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From the evidence in the poem do you think that Lawino is right to complain about her husband? Why?r
Why do you think the “strange creatures” selected that man and that woman to take back to their ship?r
Which version of the story of Little Red Riding Hood do you prefer? Yours or the one in the film? Why?There are no right or wrong answers to these questions and lively discussion can often ensue when learners share their responses in pairs or groups and with the whole class. These discussions are often most productive if there is disagree- ment and if the learners are encouraged to go back to the text to justify their responses.
7. Create a development activityin which the learners use the core text as a spring board to meaningful language production of their own. Examples of development activities would be:
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Write a poem in which Ocol complains about his wife Lawino.r
In groups write They Came from the Sea Part 2. Start your story, “Next week the same thing happened again.” If you like you can brainstorm your story first by mak- ing it up as a circle story in which you take it in turns to contribute the next sentence as quickly as you can.r
As a group write and then practice acting out a film script in which Little Red Riding Hood visits the place where you live.8. Create an input response activityin which the learners return to the text to deepen their understanding of it or to make discoveries about how language is used in it.
Examples of input response activities would be:
5 The Development of Materials
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In groups, identify the language structures and vocabulary that Lawino uses to make her complaints. Then see if you can make generalizations about the language of complaints. For homework, try to find other examples of the language of com- plaints and then next week in your group try to make generalizations about differ- ent ways of making complaints.r
Read “They Came from the Sea,” Part 1, again. Then underline all the examples of the simple past tenses once and all examples of the past continuous twice. Then discuss in groups the differences in the story between the two tenses both in form and in function. For homework try to find other examples of the simple past and of the past continuous and bring them to class next week when you’ll look for other differences between the two tenses.r
In the extract from the film that you watched why did Little Red Riding Hood wear a red hood, why did she get the wolf to pick flowers and why did she pretend to be her grandma?9. Create instructions(see Chapter 16)to get the students to revise the product of the development activity, which they did in 7 above. For example:
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Make use of the discoveries you have made about the language of complaint to help you to revise your poem about the complaints of Ocol.r
Make use of the discoveries you have made about the simple past and the past continuous to help you to revise your story about what happened “the following week.”r
Make use of your answers to the questions about why Little Red Riding Hood did certain things in the film to help you to make her as cunning as possible in your film script about her coming to your area.The framework above can be used flexibly with, for example, one of the stages receiv- ing most of the time and attention, with some of the stages being omitted or with some of the stages being used in a different sequence (e.g. the input response activity before the first development activity).
In order to maximize the likelihood of learner engagement it is very important that the core texts are selected for their potential to engage the learners affectively and cog- nitively rather than because they exemplify a predetermined teaching point. Ideally the texts and tasks determine the syllabus but, provided the learners are exposed to a variety of genres (e.g. short stories, conversations, instructions for using a machine) and a vari- ety of text types (e.g. narrative, justification, persuasion) we have found that text-driven approaches can be used to cover a syllabus. On theOn target(1995) project in Namibia, the writers were told to forget the new curriculum and to focus on engagement. Every night, though, Brian compared what had been produced with what was expected to be covered in terms of language and skills in the curriculum, which he had attached to his hotel wall. He ticked off all the matches he discovered and by the evening of the penulti- mate day he was delighted (but not really surprised) to find that there was at least a 90%
match. He listed language items and skills that had not been covered, got a senior Min- istry official to agree that some of them were not really essential, and asked the writers the next day to try to include some of the remaining ones “naturally” in their unit.
See Tomlinson (2013b) for further articulation, justification, and exemplification of text-driven approaches and Al-Busaidi and Tindle (2010), McCullagh (2010), Tron- coso (2010), Darici and Tomlinson (2016) and Heron (2016) for reports of text-driven approaches in action.
Materials Development for Language Learning
We also believe very strongly in the value of using TPR Plus frameworks to develop materials. TPR (Total Physical Response) is a comprehension method developed origi- nally by James Ascher (Ascher, 1996; Richards & Rodgers, 2014) to teach beginners by initially getting them to respond physically to L1 oral instructions from their teacher (e.g. “Touch your left foot with your right hand”) and not requiring them to speak in the target language until they have acquired enough language to be ready to do so. TPR Plus (Tomlinson, 1994a) is an approach developed on the PKG program in Indonesia (Tomlinson, 1990, 1995). Like Ascher’s TPR, it involves the learners responding phys- ically to what the teacher tells them but, instead of being only for beginners and being restricted to random responses to commands in the imperative, it can be used at any level to introduce “new” language, the teacher’s utterances connect to build a coherent text (e.g. a story, a song, a recipe, a report of an event, an account of a process, instruc- tions for a game, instructions for painting a mural or assembling a human sculpture) and the learners can be exposed to all verb forms. On the PKG project in Indonesia, for example, students were exposed in 6 weeks to all the language items on the syl- labus for that year and could respond to them with understanding. Examples would be students at an elementary level acting out a story from the teacher’s narrative that con- trasted the use of the past continuous and the simple past or students at an intermediate level miming the process of sewing, cultivating and harvesting a crop whilst responding to passives (e.g. “The seeds are sown at the end of the dry season in shallow channels which have been dug in the soil”) and responding to infinitives (e.g. “If the rains come early the channels need to be covered to stop the seeds being washed away”). Some- times a language-awareness activity is included in the lesson (Islam, 2003) involving the students in making and articulating (in their first language at lower levels) discoveries about a linguistic feature of the input they have acting out (e.g. about the sentence posi- tion and form of Japanese verbs after acting out a song in which they raise, lower, clench, open, and clap their hands).
A typical framework for a TPR Plus lesson would be:
1. A readiness activity(e.g. the students visualize and then draw a beach they know whilst the teacher moves around describing their drawings in the target language).
2. A narrative to mime activity(e.g. the teacher tells a story about strange creatures coming to a beach and taking prisoners back to their ship whilst the students act as people on the beach or as strange creatures).
3. A language awareness activity(e.g. the teacher repeats the story, shows sample sen- tences on power point slides, invites the students to explore a feature of the text in their L1, such as the switch from past continuous to simple past when the action started, and then summarizes in the L2 what the learners say).
4. A development activity(e.g. the students in large groups develop a mime continua- tion of the story).
5. A performance activity (e.g. the students act out their continuation of the story whilst the teacher adds an oral narrative in the target language).
6. An extensive reading activity(e.g. the students are given in their next lesson a writ- ten narrative of the original story and of their continuation of it).
We have also used task-based frameworks based on strong versions of TBLT (Task- Based Language teaching) in which there is no explicit teaching of language either prior to or after the learners doing the task but rather responsive “teaching” when requested during task performance and learner discovery activities after task completion