Saint Joseph College of Sindangan Incorporated

Sindangan, Zamboanga del Norte

Module 3

References: Tomlinson, Brian (2011). Material development in Language Teaching (2nd Ed.).
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Objectives: At the end of the module the students are expected to:

1. answer comprehension question;

2. weigh the importance of each material used;
3. remember personal experiences with learning language (funny or nostalgic).

TOPIC:

Materials should take into account that the positive effects of instruction are usually delayed

Research into the acquisition of language shows that it is a gradual rather than an instantaneous

process and that this is equally true for instructed as well as informal acquisition. Acquisition results

from the gradual and dynamic process of internal generalization rather than from instant adjustments to

the learner’s internal grammar. It follows that learners cannot be expected to learn a new feature and

be able to use it effectively in the same lesson. They might be able to rehearse the feature, to retrieve it

from short-term memory or to produce it when prompted by the teacher or the materials. But this does

not mean that learning has already taken place. I am sure most of you are familiar with the situation in

which learners get a new feature correct in the lesson in which it is taught but then get it wrong the
following week. This is partly because they have not yet had enough time, instruction and exposure for

learning to have taken place.

The inevitable delayed effect of instruction suggests that no textbook can really succeed if it

teaches features of the language one at a time and expects the learners to be able to use them

straightaway. But this incremental approach is popular with many publishers, writers, teachers and

learners as it can provide a reassuring illusion of system, simplicity and progress. Therefore, adaptation

of existing approaches rather than replacement with radical new ones is the strategy most likely to

succeed. So, for example, the conventional textbook approach of PPP (Presentation-Practice-Production)

could be used to promote durable learning if the objective of the Production phase was seen as

reinforcement rather than correct production and if this was followed in subsequent units by more

exposure and more presentation relating to the same feature. Or the Production phase could be

postponed to another unit which is placed after further exposure, instruction and practice have been

provided. Or the initial Production phase could be used to provide output which would enable the

learners to notice the mismatch between what they are doing and what proficient speakers typically do.

In my view, in order to facilitate the gradual process of acquisition, it is important for materials to

recycle instruction and to provide frequent and ample exposure to the instructed language features in

communicative use. This is particularly true of vocabulary acquisition, which requires frequent, spaced

and varied recycling in order to be successful (Nation 2003, 2005; Nation and Wang 1999).

It is equally important that the learners are not forced into premature production of the

instructed features (they will get them wrong) and that tests of proficiency are not conducted

immediately after instruction (they will indicate failure or an illusion of success).

(The above text explains why grammar and other language features should be taught from elementary

to tertiary level.) Usahay makabungol sigi paminaw ug what is grammar? What is noun? Apan some

students really need to be reminded. As language teacher you should have a patience of a mother. Sa

una grade six ko nabungol ko ug paminaw anang prefix ug suffix.. makalagot gd si maam sigi balik balik,,

hhehhe nigawas si Ladylou ug nanikop ug isda sa suba.. nakasab an lagi kay gabasa basa. When I became

a language teacher hahahhahaha I realized nga akong ubang classmates kingahanglan diay sila ato.. ug

kay kontrabida man au ko kay nakasabot na lagi,, lagot ko sa among maestra that time,,jjajajajja I enjoy

recalling that moment..Hangtod karon maglagot gd ko mutan aw sa among maestra jajjajajajjaja bitaw

gipasaylo na nako siya ,,, kapoya gd,, hahhahahahahah nabunalan lagi ko. That’s the beginning of

wisdom.)

Materials should take into account that learners differ in learning styles Different learners have

different preferred learning styles. (Some students preferred to sing, some like to act it out. We have

multiple ways to learn, that’s why we have to vary our activities and approaches.) So, for example,

those learners with a preference for studied learning are much more likely to gain from explicit grammar

teaching than those who prefer experiential learning. And those who prefer experiential learning are

more likely to gain from reading a story with a predominant grammatical feature (e.g. reported speech)

than they are from being taught that feature explicitly.

This means that activities should be variable and should ideally cater for all learning styles. An

analysis of most current coursebooks will reveal a tendency to favor learners with a preference for

stadial learning and an apparent assumption that all learners are equally capable of benefiting from this

style of learning Likewise an analysis of the teaching and testing of foreign languages in formal
education systems throughout the world will reveal that stadial learners (who are actually in the

minority) are at an advantage.

Styles of learning which need to be catered for in language-learning materials (Multiple intelligences by

Gardner---- please refer to it.)

include:

• visual (e.g. learners prefer to see the language written down);

• auditory (e.g. learners prefer to hear the language).

• Kinesthetic (e.g. learners prefer to do something physical, such as

following instructions for a game);

• stadial (e.g. learners like to pay conscious attention to the linguistic

features of the language and want to be correct); • experiential (e.g. learners like to use the language

and are more

concerned with communication than with correctness);

• analytic (e.g. learners prefer to focus on discrete bits of the language and

to learn them one by one);

• global (e.g. learners are happy to respond to whole chunks of language

at a time and to pick up from them whatever language they can);

• dependent (e.g. learners prefer to learn from a teacher and from a book);

• independent (e.g. learners are happy to learn from their own experience
of the language and to use autonomous learning strategies).

A learner’s preference for a particular learning style is variable and depends, for example, on

what is being learned, where it is being learned, whom it is being learned with and what it is being

learned for, For example, I am happy to be experiential, global and kinesthetic when learning Japanese

out of interest with a group of relaxed adult learners and with a teacher who does not keep correcting

me. But I am more likely to be analytic and visual when learning French for examination purposes in a

class of competitive students and with a teacher who keeps on correcting me. And, of course, learners

can be helped to gain from learning styles other than their preferred style. The important point for

materials developers is that they are aware of and cater for differences of preferred learning styles in

their materials and that they do not assume that all learners can benefit from the same approaches as

the ‘good language learner’ (see Ellis 1994:546-50).

Materials should take into account that learners differ in affective attitudes

The learner’s motives, emotions, and attitudes screen what is presented in the language

classroom... This affective screening is highly individual and results in different rates and results. (Dulay,

Burt and Krashen 1982).

Ideally language learners should have strong and consistent motivation and they should also

have positive feelings towards the target language, their teachers, their fellow learners and the

materials they are using. But, of course, ideal learners do not exist and even if they did exist one day,

they would no longer be ideal learners the next day. Each class of learners using the same materials will
differ from each other in terms of ling- and short-term motivation and of feelings and attitudes about

the language, their teachers, their fellow learners and their learning materials, and of attitudes towards

the language, the teacher and the materials. Obviously, no materials developer can cater for all these

affective variables, but it is important for anybody who is writing learning materials to be aware of the

inevitable attitudinal differences of the users of the materials.

One obvious implication for the materials developer is ‘to diversify language instruction as much

as possible based upon the variety of cognitive styles’ (Larsen-Freeman and Long 1991) and the variety

of affective attitudes likely to be found amongst typical class of learners. Ways of doing this include:

• providing choices of different types of text;

• providing choices of different types of activities;

• providing optional extras for the more positive and motivated learners:

• providing variety;

• including units in which the value of learning English is a topic for

discussion;

• including units in which the value of learning English is a topic for

discussion;

• including activities which involve the learners in discussing their attitudes

and feelings about the course and the materials;

• researching and catering for the diverse interests of the identified target
learners;

• being aware of the cultural sensitivities of the target learners;

• giving general and specific advice in the teacher’s book on how to respond to negative learners (e.g.

not forcing reluctant individuals to take part in group work).

Materials should permit a silent period at the beginning of instruction

It has been shown that it can be extremely valuable to delay L2 speaking for beginners of a

language until they have gained sufficient confidence in understanding it. This silent period can facilitate

the development of an effective internalized grammar which can help learners to achieve proficiency

when they eventually start to speak in the L2. There is some controversy about the actual value of the

silent period and some learners seem to use the silence to avoid learning the language.

However, I think most researchers would agree that forcing immediate production in the new

language can damage the reluctant speaker affectively and linguistically and many would agree with

Dulay, Burt and Krashen that:

Communication situations in which students are permitted to remain silent or respond in their

first language may be the most effective approach for the early phases of language instruction.

This approach approximates what language learners of all ages have been observed to do

naturally, and it appears to be more effective than forcing full two-way communication from the very

beginning of L2 acquisition. (1982:25-6)

 The important point is that the materials should not force premature speaking in the target

language and they should not force silence either. Ways of giving learners the possibility of not speaking

until they are ready include:

• starting the course with a Total Physical Response (TPR) approach in which the learners respond

physically to oral instructions from a teacher or CD.

• starting with a listening comprehension approach in which the learners

listen to stories in the target language, which are made accessible

through the use of sound effects, visual aids and dramatic movement by

the teacher;

• permitting the learners to respond to target language questions by using

their first language or through drawings and gestures.

A possible extension of the principle of permitting silence is to introduce most new language

points (regardless of the learners’ level) through activities which initially require comprehension but not

production. This is an approach which I call TPR Plus and which we used on the PKG Project in

Indonesian secondary schools. It usually involved introducing new vocabulary or structures through

stories which the learners responded to by drawing and/or using their first language, and through

activities in which the whole class mimed stories by following oral instructions from the teacher (see

Barnard 2007; Tomlinson 1990, 1994b).

 Materials should maximize learning potential by encouraging intellectual,

aesthetic and emotional involvement which stimulates both right- and left-brain activities.

A narrowly focused series of activities which require very little cognitive processing (e.g.

mechanical drills; rule learning; simple transformation activities) usually leads to shallow and ephemeral

learning unless linked to other activities which stimulate mental and affective processing, However, a

varied series of activities making, for example, analytic, creative, evaluative and rehearsal demands on

processing capacity can lead to deeper and more durable learning.

In order for this deeper learning to be facilitated, it is very important that the content of the

materials is not trivial or banal and that it stimulates thoughts and feelings in the learners. It is also

important that the activities are not too simple and that they cannot be too easily achieved without the

learners making use of their previous experience and their brains.

The maximization of the brain’s learning potential is a fundamental principle of Lozanov’s

Suggestopedia, in which he ‘enables the learner to receive the information through different cerebral

processes and in different states of consciousness so that it is stored in many different parts of the brain,

maximizing recall’ (Hooper Hansen 1992). Suggestopedia does this through engaging the learners in a

variety of left- and right-brain activities in the same lesson (e.g. reciting a dialogue, dancing to

instructions, singing a song, doing a substitution drill, writing a story). Whilst not everybody would

accept the procedures Suggestopedia, most researchers seem to agree on the value of maximizing the

brain’s capacity during language learning and the best textbooks already do contain within each unit a
variety of different left- and rightbrain activities. Materials should not rely too much on controlled

practice

It is interesting that there seems to be very little research which indicates that controlled

practice activities are valuable. Sharwood-Smith (1981) does say that ‘it is clear and uncontroversial to

say that most spontaneous performance is attained by dint of practice’, but he provides no evidence to

support this very strong claim. Also, Bialystok (1988) says that automaticity is achieved through practice

but provides no evidence to support her claim. In the absence of any compelling evidence most

researchers seem to agree with Ellis, who says that ‘controlled practice appears to have little long term

effect on the accuracy with which new structures are performed’ (Ellis 1990:192) and ‘has little effect on

fluency’ (Ellis and Rathbone 1987).

Yet controlled grammar practice activities still feature significantly in popular coursebooks and

are considered to be useful by many teachers and by many learners. This is especially true of dialogue

practice, which has been popular in many methodologies for the last 30 years without there being any

substantial research evidence to support it (see Tomlinson 1995). In a recent analysis of new low-level

coursebooks I found that nine out of ten of them contained many more opportunities for controlled

practice than they did for language use. It is possible that right now all over the world learners are

wasting their time doing drills and listening to and repeating dialogues.

Materials should provide opportunities for outcome feedback

 Feedback which is focused first on the effectiveness of the outcome rather than just on the

accuracy of the output can lead to output becoming a profitable source of input. Or in other words, if

the language that the learner produces is evaluated in relation to the purpose for which it is used, that

language can become a powerful and informative source of information about language use.

Thus, a learner who fails to achieve a particular communicative purpose (e.g. borrowing

something, instructing someone how to play a game, persuading someone to do something) is more

likely to gain from feedback on the effectiveness of their use of language than a learner whose language

is corrected without reference to any non-linguistic outcome. It is very important, therefore, for

materials developers to make sure that language production activities have intended outcomes other

than just practicing language. The value of outcome feedback is focused on by such writers on task

based approaches as Willis and Willis (2007).

ACTIVITIES:

Questions for comprehension: BPED AND ENGLISH (1 -3 )

1. What kind of learning do you prefer?

(you may give an example base your experience)

2. A. Do you believe in the statement below?

It is important for materials to recycle instruction and to provide frequent and ample exposure
to the instructed language features in communicative use.

3. Make a statement ( a two sentence summary of the lesson above,

should be with impact and should embody the main point of the lesson) 50
points

Act.2 (for English majors) Cite one language feature that you think
should be taught thoroughly ( INCLUDING FREQUENT AND AMPLE EXPOSURE)
and students be exposed through communicative use. Discuss. (you may refer
to your own experience.

Act. 2 ( for BPED) Actions, gestures and the like are body language
(includes dancing ,acting etc. ).

1. What do you think should be the first to learn in exercising so it will run
smoothly?

2. Why do we really need some stretching when doing a rigorous activity?

3. Base on your experience and your lessons on PE last semester, is really

learning, repeating and doing well the basics are important in any physical
activity?

4. Is instruction (esp. the language used) a must in any given physical activity?
Why or why not?

***************HAPPY LEARNING*********maam lotlot