Feature Article

Five Design Principles for Language

Learning Materials Development

Bridget Green, Editor of WAESOL

Abstract
Creating teacher-authored materials can be a challenging task for a variety of reasons.
While relying on coursebooks to provide a ready-made structure to our classes, we often
design our own materials to meet some of the specific needs and interests of our learners.
Teachers usually approach the task of materials development through intuition and trial
and error without a clear understanding of the principles of design that might help us in
the creation of successful materials. This article outlines five research-based design
principles that form the foundation of materials development and gives practical
suggestions for how to put these into practice to produce materials that are aesthetically
appealing, well scaffolded, authentic, affectively and cognitively engaging, and
consistently revised and updated.

Key Words materials design principles, aesthetics, scaffolding, authenticity, affective

and cognitive engagement, revising

Introduction

As language teachers, we often find ourselves having to create our own materials since
commercially available coursebooks often do not match our particular learning context or
meet our learners’ varied levels, needs, and cultural and educational backgrounds. Even
with the most successful textbook, we sometimes design our own materials just to
provide a needed change of focus in the classroom and further personalize and localize
the input. With many now having moved to online learning, designing materials suitable
for online platforms adds an extra layer of complexity since it can be difficult to find ones
that fit our students’ needs. However, because of a lack of training or experience, we
commonly approach the task of materials development through intuition and trial and
error, and may not recognize the shortcomings of our own materials (Howard and Major,
2004). Poorly designed materials can do more harm than good: “We can promote
learning by changing the instructional materials presented to students and managing
intrinsic and extraneous cognitive load. Conversely, we can have a negative effect on

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learning by increasing extraneous cognitive load” (Feinberg and Murphy, 2000, p. 354).
Beginning with a deep understanding of the process of second language acquisition
gained through research, some vital principles of materials design for language teachers
can be extrapolated. This paper will outline key principles that should inform materials
design as well as practical guidelines to follow when creating our own materials, whether
paper-based or digital, including a focus on aesthetics, scaffolding, authenticity, affective
and cognitive engagement, and revision. Although originally directed at new teachers,
experienced teachers may also benefit from being reminded of these principles as they
continue to create and update materials.

Theory into Practice: Where do we start?

It is important to start with the research that underpins our current understanding of how
second languages are learned. Briefly stated: comprehensible input + output + affective
and cognitive engagement + time leads to meaningful and purposeful interaction which
leads to language acquisition (adapted from Mishan, 2015, p. 25). That is, exposure to
meaningful language input (which is rich, comprehensible, relevant, and varied)
combined with purposeful output and negotiated interactions (which flow from real-
world texts and tasks and result in noticing and intake) will motivate, challenge, and
stimulate learners in a welcoming and respectful environment (which fosters risk
tolerance and creativity). Learners who are allowed sufficient time and repeated
exposures to increasingly complex and recycled language input will acquire language that
is more fully automatized and encoded in long-term memory. Although not strictly
necessary for language acquisition, formal instruction and corrective feedback are helpful
elements that can systematically provide opportunities to experience language-rich input
as well as structured opportunities for focused attention on form, leading to more fluency,
accuracy, and complexity in language output (Green, 2020). I find it useful to keep a
visual summary of these essential elements of second language acquisition in view (see
Figure 1) while designing materials as a reminder of the goal.

Keeping in mind our current understanding of how languages are acquired, the following
five design principles should be applied to teaching materials so that the theories of
language acquisition can be put into practice

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Figure 1: SLA essentials infographic

1 Aesthetics: Make it appealing

First impressions matter. When encountering visual materials for the first time, learners
form an immediate first impression of its appeal based on how cluttered the page is
(Tuch, Presslaber, Stöcklin, Opwis, and Bargas-Avila, 2012). The most common error in
materials development by novice designers is a cluttered page with text that is laid out
with no thought to the cognitive load imposed by such visual complexity. So use the
space well. Spread out. Think of the page(s) as a blank canvas. Just as painters do not

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generally leave a large blank space at the bottom of a canvas, materials writers should
avoid a blank space at the bottom of the page. Sufficient white space, which allows the
learners’ eyes to rest, is key to an uncluttered look. Also, if you expect learners to use the
space to fill in responses and work with peers, be sure to allow enough room for them to
write. Double space any text that has blanks to fill; extend the blanks to a uniform length
of 15 underlined spaces for a single word, longer for a phrase. If the space is at the end of
a line, use the tab marker to extend the underlined blank to the end. Low visual
complexity—spreading out content, leaving sufficient white space, and leaving room for
students to write their answers—makes content much more engaging to learners (Tuch et
al., 2012).

Visual clutter is sometimes exacerbated by formatting choices. Try to avoid adding boxes
around titles, headings, vocabulary lists, or basically anything that is within the main
body of the work as this creates visual noise that increases the cognitive load. Use
hanging indents for all numbered content. Choose only one formatting intensifier (use
bold or italics or underline) rather than piling them on. Make titles slightly larger than
headings, which should be slightly larger than the 10- or 12-point body text.
Traditionally, titles and headings should be in a sans serif font (without the spiky bits on
the ends of the typeface) and text in a serif font (with the spiky bits on the end), but more
important is choosing a font that is easy to read and not distracting.

Text-heavy handouts sprinkled with outdated clip art are all too common in some
teacher-authored materials. Using colorful, evocative images may improve not only
motivation, but learning as well—the picture-superiority effect is a well-researched
phenomenon in which images are recalled far better than labels on memory tests
(Whitehouse, 2006); images make materials more aesthetically appealing to learners and
attract more readers than content without images (Ma, 2016). However, cognitive load
and retrieval demands can reverse the picture-superiority effect (Carpenter and Olson,
2012). If the content is challenging, it is not enough merely to decorate our pages with
colorful images; we must include retrieval activities that encourage learners to more
elaboratively process the images so that the connection between language and concept is
better encoded. (See Figure 2 for an example of a crowded landscape with unconnected
images, unhelpful bullets, inconsistent headings and underlines, a lack of
contextualization and personalization, unused space, etc.)

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Figure 2: Materials with a heavy cognitive load

Thus, materials developers should insert clear, colorful images that aid learners’
comprehension near the content that we hope to highlight and should build in activities
that ensure students connect the content and the image(s) in a constructive way. For
example, after a vocabulary activity, ask the students to connect the images to one or
more of the words or phrases that are being practiced; later, ask students if they can
recall, or better, reproduce any of the images and the words they illustrate. Using a
variety of evocative images will help learners better understand and remember the
content if the images are used as a tool for learning and not just ornamentation. As long
as you are only using your materials for teaching, you should be able to use Google
image search for teaching, research, and study. (Read the Statement on the Fair Use of
Images for Teaching, Research, and Study for more information.)

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2 Scaffolding: Break it down

Design principles for language learning materials must acknowledge the central role that
scaffolding plays in making language input accessible by breaking learning into
manageable chunks, progressing from simpler to more complex tasks, and providing
language support along the way since “if too much cognitive load is created through poor
instructional design, or dealing with complex materials, then learning is compromised
because insufficient working memory resources are available to be devoted to the
processes required to learn” (Ayres and Paas, 2012, p. 827). Although teachers naturally
provide that support in their classroom while teaching, these vital steps may be omitted in
materials we develop. When teaching online, whether synchronously or asynchronously,
it is even more important to scaffold carefully since peer and teacher support are much
harder to access. If we design materials with clearer, more explicit instructions and
examples, keeping students’ independent work uppermost in mind, we may resist the
urge to hurry through the very steps that assure that learners know what to do. Including
careful scaffolding also gives teachers another opportunity to talk less and for groups of
students to interact more as they work together to negotiate meaning, which contributes
to better language acquisition by encoding learning in long-term memory.

Begin by making instructions simple, clear, concise, and direct. Think carefully about the
steps that need to be laid out before and after exposure to the central input. Notice, for
example, the instructions in Figure 3 which begin with “Put the words in the correct
blanks below.” This sudden leap into the center of the action passes over essential
scaffolding steps that invite the learner to care about the topic being discussed by
previewing the title and activating learners’ background knowledge and attitudes about
the topic being discussed by previewing the title and activating learners’ background
knowledge and attitudes about the topic itself.

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Figure 3: Unscaffolded materials

Students may or may not know the vocabulary being used, so taking the time to read the
vocabulary list and mark the words they know allows them to fully engage with the work
to come (see Figure 4). Building in thinking time as well as time for peer teaching is also
a way to reduce teacher talking time, leading to a more effective learning environment.
Well-scaffolded material should include examples, explicit opportunities for peer
interaction, a (re)focus on the image, and crucially, the learners’ responses to the content
of the text. In Figure 4, notice the 3 invitations to interact with peers (Talk to your
classmates about the topic. Check with a partner. When you’re finished, check with a
partner.), discuss the image (What vocabulary word does the image show?), and respond
personally to the content of the article (What do you know about this topic? Did the
article surprise you?)

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Figure 4: Scaffolded materials

Note, too, that the image of going up and down stairs in Figure 3 does not illustrate the
idiomatic meaning of ‘ups and downs’ in this context (‘the mixture of good and bad
experiences that happen in any situation or relationship’), while the one in Figure 4 does.
It is important to choose images that clearly illustrate the words or concepts you hope the
students will retain.

Cognitive load theory is about more than just the complexity of the text that is presented
to students: “the manner in which information is presented to learners and the learning
activities required of learners can also impose a cognitive load” (Paas, Renkl, and
Sweller, 2003, p. 2). The lack of confidence one feels when struggling to learn another
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language can be mitigated by well-designed materials that are clear and easy to navigate.
Materials that are carefully scaffolded like those in Figure 4 can increase retention and
help learners feel more engaged, supported, and successful because with the reduction in
the cognitive load, students feel confident that they know what to do and can focus on the
input being presented.

3 Authenticity: Don’t reinvent the wheel

It is widely accepted that exposure to authentic input is more beneficial for language
learners than are simplified, contrived texts (Mishan, 2005; Tomlinson, 2013). If
possible, we should choose varied authentic content that match the learners’ needs and
interests, and develop affectively- and cognitively-engaging scaffolding around it.
Choosing authentic, real-world, culture-rich examples of language in use–songs,
commercials, advertisements, podcasts, artwork, movie trailers, official forms, tiktok
videos, and on and on–are especially motivating to learners and it is scaffolding that
makes them accessible. Creating materials that support learners, focus their attention on
select aspects of language, and guide them towards noticing, understanding, and using
language is the only way to make authentic content accessible.

However, teachers are often required to use textbooks which may or may not incorporate
authentic language; for the purposes of this discussion, therefore, we will focus on
developing the texts already on offer in an authentic way as well as supplemental texts
that we develop to support learning objectives. When scaffolding input, we sometimes
fail to use authentic learner resources and instead rely on our own knowledge, however
faulty. Take for example a teacher-authored handout for the song Ironic by Alanis
Morissette developed for an intermediate-EFL class (see Figure 5), which presents 26
vocabulary words with their definitions in a matching activity. [Insert Figure 5 here.]

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Figure 5: Teacher-authored vocabulary matching exercise

Leaving aside the excess of items presented and the lack of a designated space to write
answers, or an example to lead the way and alleviate some of the visual overload, the
definitions themselves are problematic–spoons is defined as ‘kitchen utensils for soup’;
turned as ‘verb meaning to change your age by one more year’ and crashed as ‘had an
accident.’ It seems clear that these definitions were invented on the fly without much
thought to the difficulty of the defining language (since utensils is far less common than
spoons) or the nuances of the word (since crash means to have an accident specifically
‘in a car, plane, etc. by violently hitting something else’. When making our own
materials, it is very important to use those authentic learner tools/teacher resources that
are readily available, such as learner dictionaries like the Oxford Learner’s Dictionary
and, for lower level students, the Longman’s Dictionary of Contemporary English, in
order to make the input more accessible. (Note that in both of these learner’s dictionaries,
spoon is illustrated with an image—by far the simplest method of conveying the meaning
of the term.)

The New General Service List of core high-frequency vocabulary words is another
corpus-based resource that allows teachers to move beyond their intuition when choosing
which vocabulary words to gloss by listing words in order of frequency beginning with

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K1 (the 1,000 most common words) and moving on to K34. Spoon, for example, is in the
K5 category (5,415) whereas utensil is K11 (11,826). Another useful tool is a vocabulary
profiler such as LexTutor, which reveals that over half (fifteen items) of the words
glossed (afraid, case, death, dreams, fly, free, kids, pack, pardon, sign, suit, turn,
wedding, whole, and wife) in Figure 4 are K1 and therefore may not need to be glossed at
all, but may be recalled. In contrast, six of the words (row, advice, flight, crash, traffic,
and knife) are K2, two are K3 (ironic, damned). Knowing, rather than intuiting, the
frequency and therefore usefulness of the vocabulary is vital. When addressing the needs
of high-intermediate and advanced students of English, materials developers should also
access the New Academic Word List which expands on Coxhead’s (2000) version.

Another teacher resource that should be on every ESL/EFL materials developer’s menu
bar is the Corpus of Contemporary American English. COCA allows teachers to test their
intuition about frequency and collocations. (From COCA, we learn, for example, that
spoon occurs in the corpus 8,281 times, while utensil occurs only 188 times.) Further,
when developing activities such as gap fills to practice vocabulary in use, COCA is
useful for supplying authentic sample sentences that, when clicked on, provide more
contextualization from which to draw, thus again avoiding reinventing the wheel. For
those who lack the time to invest in learning how to use COCA, Google Ngram Viewer is
a corpus made up of the scanned books available in Google Books and is a quick, visual
way to check for frequency of written words.

The focus on authenticity should extend to the language used to describe learning
activities as well; when developing materials, avoid teacher-centric language such as
“Vocabulary Practice”, “Pre-Listening Task”, “Reading Comprehension”, as well as the
use of Roman numerals, in favor of the more authentic and learner-centered “Building
your vocabulary”, “Before you listen”, “Did you understand?” and Arabic numbers.

Finally, and perhaps most important, the language you choose to use should move
beyond the usual native-speaker-centric, formal language that is prevalent in many
coursebooks to better mirror the English that is used globally and that learners will most
likely encounter (Kiczkowiak, 2020). Find examples of the authentic speech of successful
English speakers from the culture(s) of your students; remind them that as speakers of
global English, they will most likely be communicating with others using English as a
lingua franca.

4 Affective and Cognitive Engagement through personalization and higher-order

thinking

Cognitive engagement comes as a result of materials that are intellectually stimulating

and meaningful. Choosing topics that challenge learners and that they care about, or
come to care about, leads to more productive language exposure (Mishan, 2015), but how
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do we do that? Use frequent needs assessments to help you focus on what is relevant to
the learners, what motivates, interests, and intrigues them, but also on what surprises,
amazes, and challenges them, and present those topics in a variety of ways that meet
different learning styles. Ask them how they learn best and try to present materials that
clearly respond to that information. Materials that are explicitly designed to engage
learners cognitively and affectively can lead to intrinsic motivation in those who seem
checked out during class.

Show your students the levels of learning in Bloom’s taxonomy and the need to do more
than just memorize lexical items. To retain language, we need to analyze, evaluate, and
create; we need to use language as a tool to communicate our whole selves. Develop
materials that reflect this. Begin by contextualizing the input and allowing learners to
share their own knowledge and experience. Personalize materials. Instead of the usual
inner-circle, native-speaker personas, substitute your and your current students’ names
and interests when appropriate. Thus, Tom and Sue ______ (watch) a movie yesterday
becomes, for example, Abdullah and Kenji ________ (watch) the FIFA World Cup final
match yesterday. For vocabulary practice, including of academic words like obtain and
impact, rather than a word bank followed by a teacher-authored gap-fill, ask leading
questions such as What has been difficult for you to obtain in this country? Which person
has had the greatest impact on you? By responding to these questions (in full and
complete answers that include reasons and details), learners demonstrate their
understanding of the target vocabulary in a way that is both creative and personal, and
which builds community as we come to know each other better.

When in doubt, ask, don’t tell. Give choices. Choice is essential for stimulating cognitive
and affective engagement (Mishan, 2015), and texts, tasks, and activities should
incorporate as many opportunities for learner choice as possible including the choice of
topics, presentation formats, and assessment approaches. Try to allow for choices at the
individual, pair, group, and full class. Making a choice in conjunction with others allows
for negotiation, compromise, and group cohesion.

Include explicit instructions that give students permission to take the time they need to
learn. After instructions on how to, for example, do an activity, you can add, If there are
any you don’t know, skip them, and come back later. This allows students to de-stress and
do their best without the expectation that they need to get it all correct on the first
attempt.

Include frequent checks of their affective and cognitive responses to the text, and their
rating of its level of difficulty and interest. To increase motivation, provide explicit
information about the relevance of what they are learning by including corpus data about
the usefulness of the language being presented when possible. For example, when

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presenting affixes, include information such as “The 15 prefixes listed here represent
79% of the most common prefixes used in American high school textbooks!” Ask them to
supply their own response to the relevance by asking often how they feel about what they
are learning and whether it is useful to them. For example, follow up activities with a
Likert scale asking How difficult was this? How useful was this? or What did you learn?
Ask Why are we learning this? What is the best way to remember it? Move beyond
micro-comprehension of details to global meaning, personal connection, and local
context. Ask, for example, What do you think? Is this true for you? What happens in your
country? In what way does this challenge your beliefs about this topic? These questions
allow learners to respond critically to the core message of the content, to analyze its
personal and cultural meaningfulness, and to create a culturally appropriate response.
Even a rejection of the content is an engaging and creative response if it’s accompanied
by reasoned explanations. These metacognitive practices, or thinking about thinking, can
lead students towards the habit of higher-order responses to what they learn.

5 Revision: Keep making it better

Perhaps the most important principle that leads to the production of good materials is
revision. Tomlinson (2013) reminds us that “Good materials developers are thinking
developers who have confidence in their ability and in their materials but who are
prepared to rethink and revise their principles and beliefs in response to further stimulus
and information” (p. 493). Good developers take immense professional pride in
excellence but recognize that materials development is a long-term process. Think of
each use of your materials, therefore, as a ‘pilot’, or initial test, which you are assessing
for consistency and clarity. After the first use, clear up any confusion. If you do not have
time to revise immediately, add a quick note in red at the top of the page to remind you of
changes to make later. Every time you return to re-use material, update it to reflect your
growing knowledge of the latest research, what works with your current group of
students, and what does not. Encourage the sharing of materials among your colleagues
so that each subsequent use can lead to better materials development. (Always add your
name to the footer in 6-point type to document your own progress as well as to limit
plagiarism and the use of materials outside of the group or level of learners for which
they were intended.) This recursive process of development, adaptation, and re-use is
never completely finished as each iteration of our materials invites further improvements.

Conclusion

Materials developers should have a deep and growing understanding of the essential
elements of language acquisition in mind as they apply the following five design
principles (see Figure 6) to their in-class and online materials development:

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 • Aesthetics: present visually appealing content while using the space well
and incorporating evocative, relevant images that aid comprehension;
• Scaffolding: progress from simpler to more complex tasks, elicit background
knowledge of language and culture, build in thinking time, interaction, and
noticing while encouraging learners to respond to global meaning;
• Authenticity: include stimulating, current content and focus on meaning
while scaffolding real-world tasks with learner-centered language using
authentic language and helpful teacher resources;
• Affective and cognitive engagement: encourage learner responses to
language and culture through a variety of relevant (personal, local,
contextualized) input that matches your students’ needs and interests, and
incorporates Bloom's depth of learning; and
• Revision: systematically edit, update, rethink, and revise materials for
consistency and clarity.

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 Figure 5: Principles of material design infographic

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Author
Bridget Green, Bridget Green has 35 years’ ESL/EFL teaching experience in the US,
Japan, Spain, and elsewhere and 20+ years’ teacher-training experience. She has two
master’s degrees–in International Studies and in TESOL. She has worked as an in-country
English Language Specialist in Uganda, a Virtual Specialist in Morocco, and an
instructional designer for the embassy in Belgrade producing one-minute instructional
videos for social media. Bridget is also the editor of WAESOL Educator, a professional
journal for English language teachers in Washington state.

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