Materials

Materials

5.1 Definition

“Instructional materials generally serve as the basis for much of the language input learners receive and

the language practice that occurs in the classroom….. materials may also serve as a form of teacher training-

they provide ideas on how to plan and teach lessons as well as formats that teachers can use”(Richards, 2001, p.

251) .

5.2 Roles of Materials

In language teaching, materials have several roles. Cunningsworth (1995, p.5) summarized them as:

 A resource for presentation materials (spoken and written)

 A source of activities for learner practice and communicative interaction

 A reference source for learners on grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, and so on

 A source for stimulation and ideas for classroom activities

 A syllabus (where they reflect learning objectives that have already been determined)

 A support for less experienced teachers who have yet to gain in confidence.

5.3 Different Materials for Different Purposes

5.3.1 Adopting Materials

It is the easiest for a teacher to simply adopt a textbook, open to page one and begin teaching

systematically through the prepared materials. In this process, it is important to:

 decide what type of materials is desirable (books, realia, videotapes, journals, pictures, etc.)

 locate these types just in case they might prove useful

 evaluate/review the list to pare down to only those materials that should be seriously considered so that

final choices can be made

students and the changing conditions in the program.

5.3.2 Developing Materials

If the tentative needs, objectives, and tests do indeed describe a program, and if all efforts to adopt materials for

purposes of teaching those objectives fail to uncover suitatble materials, it may be necessary to consider

developing them from scratch” Brown, 2000, p. 163). Developing materials represents a tremendous amount of

work.

In order to develop materials, Graves (1995, p. 156) suggested different aspects to be taken into consideration:

 Learners:

 Make relevant to their experience and background

 Make relevant to their target needs

 Make relevant to their affective needs

 Learning:

 Engage in discovery, problem solving, analysis

 Develop specific skills and strategies

 Language:

 Target relevant aspects (grammar, function, vocabulary, etc.)

 Integrate four skills of speaking, listening, reading and writing

 Use/understand authentic texts

 Social context:

 Provide intercultural focus

 Develop critical social awareness

 Activity/task type:

 Aims for authentic tasks

 Vary roles and groupings

 Materials:

 Authentic (texts, realia, etc.)

 Varied (print, visual, audio, etc.)

5.3.3 Adapting Materials

Nation and Macalister (2010, p. 161) stated that “once a course book has been chosen, teachers may

wish to make substantial changes to it. There are several reasons for doing this and these could be classified as

responding to the environment, taking account of needs, or putting principles into practice”. Some of which are

classified in the following points:

 It does not include all the activities that the teacher has used successfully before.

 The course book material does not fit comfortably into the time available for the course.

 The course book contains that is unsuitable for the learners’ level of proficiency or age.

 The course book does not involve the learners in the curriculum design process.

To adapt a course book, the teacher can do the following:

 Add or omit contents: the teacher may add exercises to give extra practice to items that are frequently

used in the language or which requires extra time to learn. The teacher skips over confusing or

unimportant parts of a lesson.

 Change the sequencing of the content: the teacher introduces some items earlier in the course because

they are needed to do added activities.

 Change the format: instead of beginning the lesson with a dialogue, the teacher puts it towards the end

of the lesson and uses other exercises in the lesson to prepare for it.

 Change the presentation: the teacher uses different techniques than those used in the book.

 Add and omit monitoring: the teacher encourages the learners to make tests to check each other’s

learning of what is in the lesson.

or to let them see their progress.

(Nation and Macalister, 2010, p. 162)

5.4 Authentic versus Created Materials

Richards (2001, p. 252) claimed that “Authentic materials refers to the use in teaching of texts,

photographs, video selections, and other teaching resources that were not specially prepared for pedagogical

purposes”. According to Hadley (1993 as cited in Graves, 1995, p. 156), “authentic material refers to spoken

and written texts that are used by native speakers in the real world”.

Created materials “refers to textbooks and other specially developed instructional resources” (Richards, 2001,

p. 252).

Many researchers summarized the advantages of authentic materials in the following points:

 They have a positive effect on learner motivation.

 They provide authentic cultural information about the target culture.

 They provide exposure to real language rather than artificial texts…that have been specially written to

illustrate particular grammatical rules or discourse types.

 They relate more closely to learners’ needs and hence provide a link between the classroom and

students’ needs in the real world.

 They support a more creative approach to teaching.

5.5 Content Materials versus Process Materials

Cadlin (1979) suggested two different types of materials: content and process materials. Content-based

materials are materials which provide data and information-texts which illustrate the language in use and

dictionaries, grammar, etc. which give direct access to the rules. Process materials are materials which provide
learners with frameworks for activities in which the data and information provided by the content materials can

be applied and practised.