LANGUAGE LEARNING MATERIALS DEVELOPMENT
[Sir Carlo Joseph R. Juguan, LPT] -Lecturer
ESSENCE OF INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS
Instructional Materials
• Instructional materials refer to those alternative channels of Communication, which a classroom
teacher can use to Concretize a concept during teaching and learning process. (Amadioha, 2009)
• An instructional material is any systematic description of the techniques and exercises to be used in the
classroom teaching. (Brown, 1995)
• They are didactic material things which are supposed to make learning and teaching possible. (Obanya,
1989)
• They are human and non-human materials and facilities that can be used to ease, encourage, improve
and promote teaching and learning activities. They are defined as resources that organize and support
instruction, such as textbooks, tasks and supplementary materials." (Remilliard and Heck 2014)
• Teaching Aids are objects (such as a book, picture or map) or devices (Such as DVD or computer) used
by a teacher to enhance or enliven classroom instruction. (Shukla, 2018)
• The role of materials (particularly textbook) in language Teaching as a resource – for presentation
materials; activities for leaners’ practice and communicative interaction; for Learners on grammar,
vocabulary, pronunciation stimulation and ideas for classroom activities; a support for less experienced
teachers. (Cunningsworth as cited in Richards,2003)
DEVELOPMENT OF INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS
• “Materials development is basically dealing with selection, adaptation and creation of teaching
materials.” (Nunan, 1991)
• “Materials development refers to anything which is done by writers, teachers or learners to provide
sources of language Input in ways.” (Tomlinson, 1998)
•”The importance of materials-as-content acts as a stimulus for communicative interaction and
materials-as-language serves the purpose of information about the target language and carefully
selected examples of use.” (MCGrath, 2013)
•”Teacher-produced materials play an important role in bridging the gap between the classroom and
the World outside.” (Pardo and Tellez,2009)
MATERIALS EVALUATION
•“Materials evaluation is the activity which measures the value of a set of learning materials by making
judgments about the effect of the materials on the people using them including its measure and appeal
to the learners; materials validity/flexibility; materials ability to interest the learners;
Materials potential learning value; delivery & assessment.” (Tomlinson and Masura, 2004)
• When evaluating the quality of a textbook’s exercises or activities, there has to be considerations on
their contribution to language acquisition, balance in format and varying and challenging exercises.”
(Garnier, 2002)
• “Evaluation is essential in obtaining data in order to revise instruction to make it more efficient and
effective. This includes enhancement/revision of the instructional materials, to make them as effective
as possible. These ideas give you a clearer picture on the need to assess instructional materials. “(Dick
and Carey, 1985)
1. Alignment of purpose
• See to it that the materials intended for use are aligned to the learning outcomes.
2. Capacity of the learners
• Make sure that the learning materials do not bore the students with advanced knowledge and skills
and frustrate those who with lesser capability to perform.
• In other words, the material should embrace the idea of inclusivity.
3. Localization and contextualization
• Materials are familiar to the students and when experiences are authentic.
• Once customs and traditions are taken into consideration, students value their culture.
4. Physical appearance of the Instructional material
• Provide sufficient but attractive graphics that can capture the interest of the students.
• The content, style and structure should be considered to ensure Continuance of engagement.
5. Challenge for lifelong learning
• Therefore, an instructional material should likewise contain challenging activities that guide the
students in the development of their critical and creative thinking skills may they be on paper or on
technology.
ADAPTATION OF INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS
• The adaptation of learning materials denotes the process of modification of the original composition
of the material to suit to the context of the intended learners.
• This ushers alignment of the learning outcomes, learning content, learning activities and assessment
optimizing appropriacy and relevance.
•”Effective adaptation is a matter of achieving congruence, among several related variables like the
teaching materials, methodologies, students, course objectives, the target language and its content as
well as the teacher’s own personality and teaching style.” (McDonough and Shaw, 2003)
• “Adaptation is one or more of a number of techniques: supplementing, editing, expanding,
personalizing, simplifying, modernizing, localizing, or modifying cultural/situational content.” (Madsen
and Bowen as cited in MCGrath, 2002)
1. Choose a renowned and credible Author
• A lot of authors contribute similar and differing ideas on that adaptation of instructional materials.
• Read their credentials and give preference to those acclaimed experts.
2. Ask permission from the author of the chosen instructional material or simply acknowledge
him/her in the adapted material.
• Once a permission from the author is secured, you have the authority to adapt or use his/her material.
• If this is not feasible, acknowledgement of the author will suffice.
3. Modify certain ideas to suit to your purpose and context
• Examine the suitability/alignment of the material to the desired purpose and to the group of students,
then feel free to make modifications.
4. Validate the material by experts of the field
• Make sure that the adapted material is reviewed by content experts.
• They have ample knowledge about the validity and reliability of its content
DEVELOPING SPECIFIC TYPES OF MATERIALS
MATERIALS FOR THE TEACHING OF VOCABULARY
Vocabulary
• A list of target language words (Nunan, 2000)
• a set of lexeme comprising “single words, compound words and word idioms” (Richards and Schmidt,
2002)
• synonymous to lexis and lexicon (Jackson and Amvela,2000)
• Vocabulary refers to all the words in a certain language that people Use to communicate.
• Vocabulary acquisition does not only refer to knowing the meaning of words but also to
understanding its orthography, pronunciation, context, and conjugation.
• Vocabulary acquisition is encompassing and one’s vocabulary mastery is a building block to language
proficiency.
1. Diagnose
• Diagnose to identify the vocabulary level/size of your students.
• Knowing your student’s vocabulary strengths and weaknesses will help you decide later on as to what
strategies and materials best suit their level.
2. Determine
• Determine student’s interest and learning inclinations.
•You may use Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligence test as well to get an idea as to student’s
strengths.
• Banking on students strengths and interests helps increase learning success.
3. Decide
• Decide what strategy to Use to teach vocabulary for certain groups.
• This will also be based on students’ vocabulary level and what word focus you would like to
emphasize.
• identify and choose possible LMs and resources that will help
Facilitate teaching and learning vocabulary.
4. Develop
• Develop your own materials or adapt already existing materials putting in mind the vocabulary
learning activities which cover the different aspects of knowing a word.
• Consider availability of such materials or any alternative materials you can use.
Diagnose> Determine> Decide> Develop
Aspect: Form/Component: Spoken
Learning Activities:
• Reading aloud of stories, poems, novels.
• Let learners enunciate the words properly.
Suggested Materials/Resources:
• Picture Books or Blown-up Books (for HS)
• Local, national, or international short stories
• Fiction and non-fiction novels
Aspect: Form/ Component: Written
Learning Activities:
• Dictation exercises from words to phrases
• Pointing of spelling rules based on word dictation exercises
Suggested Materials/Resources:
• Osmo Words (for Grades 1-8)
• Spelling Bee or Spelling Word Quiz (for Grades 4-12)
• Wordscapes (for Grades 6-12)
Aspect: Form /Component: Word Parts
Learning Activities:
• Completion of word tables and word maps
• Chunking of complex words and labeling parts as affix or root
• Building complex words from affixes and root
Suggested Materials/Resources:
• Greek and Latin Word Charts
• Crosswords, Board games, or Bingo Cards
Aspect: Use
Component: Grammatical Functions
Learning Activities:
• Matching sentence halves and rearranging words to form sentences
Suggested Materials/Resources:
• Dictogloss (practicing sentence structure)
• Word Maze (practice of word order)
• Wordwall (practicing putting words together)
MATERIALS FOR THE TEACHING OF GRAMMAR
Criteria in Selecting and Creating Materials for Teaching Grammar – (Tomlinson, 2013)
1. the age and level of the learners who will use the materials.
2. the extent to which any adopted methodology meets the expectations of learners, teachers and the
educational culture within which the learners and teachers work.
3. the extent to which any contexts and co-texts which are employed in order to present the grammar
area(s) will be of interest to learners.
4. The nature of the grammatical areas to be dealt with, in terms of their form, their inherent meaning
implications (if any) and how they are used in normally occurring spoken and/or written discourse.
5.The extent to which any language offered to the learners for them to examine the grammar used
represents realistic use of the language and the extent to which activities for learners to produce
language containing the target grammar will result in meaningful utterances and the ones which bear
at least some resemblance to utterances which the learners would be likely to want to produce in their
own, non-classroom discourse.
6.Any difficulties that learners can be expected to encounter when learning these areas of grammar,
especially with regard to any similarities or differences inform, function and form/function relationship,
between the target language and their mother tongue.
AUTHENTIC MATERIALS (Kilickaya, 2004 in Mestari, 2017)
• Authentic materials are exposures to real language and use in its own community.
• These materials which can be in different forms afford students the opportunity to see how langUage
works for real life and out of classroom context.
• They see how the target language becomes a tool for communication in their own community.
Authentic Materials (Kilickaya, 2004 in Mestari, 2017)
a. audio and video materials
b. visual materials
c. printed materials
d. digital materials
Materials for Enhancing Listening and Speaking Skills
Materials and Activities for Listening (Tomlinson, 2013)
• listening to the teacher reading poems, short stories, extracts from novels, etc.
• listening to teachers delivering a scene from a play
• listening to the teacher telling jokes and anecdotes
• listening to their classmates and peers reading poems, telling jokes and anecdotes, etc.
• listening to other learners reading aloud ‘texts’ which they have enjoyed studying
• listening to others delivering a prepared speech on something that interests them
•watching sports events, news events, documentaries, etc., with commentaries in the target language
• listening to presentations/discussions/debates on topics relevant to the learners
• listening to advertisements, radio programs and podcasts, music and watching TV and films
• engaging in discussion with their peers on controversial topic
Framework for Developing Materials for Spoken Language(Tomlinson, 2013)
A. Conceptualizing learner needs
It is important to gain baseline data as to student’s needs, interests, proficiency level learning style,
motivation, cultural preferences and expectations.
B. Identifying subject matter and Communication situations
Given student’s preliminary data, teachers can now have a picture as to what kind of instructional
content, learning experiences, materials or resources and strategies they will design to suit to the profile
of the learner.
C. Identifying verbal communication Strategies
• In the selection and design of materials for the teaching of Speaking, the teacher should incorporate
conversational Strategies for various speech situations and contexts.
D. Utilizing verbal sources from real life
• To modify materials, besides printed sources such as magazine articles or pictures as a springboard for
communication, course developers can also integrate varied verbal interactions taken from real life and
in the classroom (Tomlinson, 2013).
E. Designing skill-acquiring activities
• The teacher creates relevant, appropriate, authentic and contextualized speaking tasks to help the
learners achieve their goal- to become effective communicators.
Materials for the Teaching of Reading Comprehension and Cultural Awareness
Materials for Improving Writing Skills
Figure 1: A Material Design Model for writing (Hutchinson and Waters, 1987)
Input- text that provides stimulus for thought, context and purpose
Language – opportunities for text analysis and integration of new knowledge
Context- situations, topic and information for engaging communication
Task – culminating communicative activity and writing assignment
Kinds Of Texts Needed As Input (Australian CSWE ESL Curriculum)
Exchanges: Joint construction | Emails, internet chat, letters
Forms: Printed, with respondent space | Simple and complex, Formatted texts
Procedures: Steps to achieved goal | Instructions, procedures, protocols
Informational Texts: Provide news or data | Descriptions, explanations, reports
Story Texts: Retell events and respond to them | Recounts, narratives
Persuasive Texts: Argue for/against a thesis | Expositions, discussions
IMPROVING WRITING SKILLS
•Appliance manuals and furniture with self-assembly manuals provide good examples of instructions
and procedures.
•Recounts and narratives may be found in biographies, short stories, magazine and newspaper articles
and literary sources.
•Journalistic materials are also good sources for exposition and argument texts.
•In adapting materials for writing instruction, teachers can add (supplement what the book offers by
adding extra readings, Tasks or exercises), delete (omit repetitive or too difficult items), modify (rewrite
activities to improve relevance and clarity) simplify (reduce the difficulty of tasks and/or
Explanations and reorder (change the sequence of activities).
MATERIALS FOR DEVELOPING VIEWING SKILLS
Viewing as a Macro Skill
•In this highly visual world, majority of the texts we encounter and create are multimodal.
• Kress (2010) defined multimodal texts as those where the meanings are communicated by more than
one mode-e.g. still or moving pictures, written text, gestures, use of space, etc.
• There are also digital multimodal texts like e-posters, videos, digital stories, slideshows and web pages
that may include hyperlinks, while theatre, storytelling and dance can be classified as live multimodal
texts.
•Barrot (2016) concurred that these skills need to be taught as students are exposed to multimedia
every single day.
•To make it possible, they should have strong media and visual literacies to understand both print and
non print materials.
•With the right teaching pedagogy coupled with relevant materials, teachers can help students think
about the images they are seeing, train them on how to analyze and evaluate texts which are
multimodal in nature.
•Donaghy (2019) succinctly explained what viewing is, why it’s important and how you can implement it
in the classroom maintaining that it is about reading, analyzing, evaluating and appreciating, visual texts
and images.
•As a productive skill, it requires students’ active engagement as they attend and comprehend visual
media, such as those presented in advertising images, television, films, diagrams and symbols, videos
and drama, and sculpture and paintings.
Teaching Viewing Skill
Like any other processes, there are distinct steps before, during and after viewing. Teachers:
•begin by asking students to look quietly for a moment at the Work of art;
•open the discussion with questions that allow students to make them share multiple observations,
inferences and Interpretations;
•ask the students to support their observations, inferences and interpretations by citing evidences
• Can ask more leading questions;
• Can ask whether new information can affect their interpretations; and
• Ask the students to summarize the discussion..
