The role of materials

In The Name Of the Most High

Chabahar Maritime University

Faculty of Humanities

The role of Materials

Professor :

Dr. Khoshsima

Student :

Z. Dehghan

May 2014

The

role of

Materials

Overview

The purpose of materials

Writers or providers of materials

Teacher-generated material

Learner-generated material

Materials and technology

The purpose of material

As a source of language

As a learning support

For motivation and stimulation

For reference

1 )As a source of language

Where classroom is the primary source of language ,

the materials need to maximize exposure to the language.

2 )As a learning support

As a learning support, materials need to be reliable.

To enhance learning , materials must involve :

1. learners in thinking about language

2. Learners in using the language

The activities need to stimulate cognitive not mechanical process.

The learners need a sense of progression.

3)For motivation and stimulation

Materials need to be challenging yet achievable.

To offer new ideas and information while being grounded in

the learners' experience and knowledge; to encourage fun

and creativity.

4)For reference

Many ESP learners have little time for class contact and rely on a mix of classes , self-study and reference material.

For self-study or reference purposes , materials need to be complete , well laid out and self-explanatory.

The materials should have overt organization-through informative contents pages and an index.

Writers or providers of materials?

All this places high demands on the materials and great pressure on materials writers.

Producing one hour of good learning material demands hours of preparation time. Each stage of finding suitable carrier content , matching real content to learning and real world activities is time-consuming.

Preparing new materials from scratch for every course taught is impractical , even if the teacher had the ability.

What all ESP practitioners have to be is good providers of materials.

A good provider of materials will be able to:

Select appropriately from what is available;

Be creative with what is available

Modify activities to suit learners' needs ; and

Supplement by providing extra activities(and extra

input)

Selecting materials involves making choices and decisions.

Considering these criteria for the analysis of materials:

factors about the learners , the role of materials, the topics, the language.

Initial questions to ask when selecting materials include:

Will the materials stimulate and motivate?

To what extent does the material match the stated learning objectives

and your learning objectives?

To what extent will the materials support that learning?

1)Selecting from what is

available

Situations can vary according

to:

Freedom to choose from any material

Small range of material to

choose from

Given materials have

to be used

2)

Being creative with what is

available

• extract what is no longer true;

• Separate what they already know from what is new;

• Extract what is true and re-write or re-tell it.

Where carrier content is out of

date, learners

could:

Reasons for modifying materials:

1) There are too many activities, so either there is repetition

or too many different objectives are dealt with at one time.

2) The activities focus too strongly on carrier content.

3) The activities are too mechanical.

4) The activities focus too quickly on the detail of the carrier

content.

5) An activity is linguistically flawed.

3 )

Modifying activities to suit

learners’ needs

The skills ESP practitioners need in order to provide extra input and activities:

Matching carrier content to real content;

Providing variety;

Grading activity level to learning and language level;

Presenting the material well.

Supplementing by

providing extra input and

activities

Teacher-generated material1 .Matching carrier content to real content

Process for preparing new materials

Starting point A Starting point B

Have some carrier content Need materials for specific objective

Determine its real content Search for suitable carrier content

Match real and carrier content to course framework

2.Providing variety

Variety in the micro skills

Variety in activity types

Variety in interaction

3 .Grading exercises

Grading concerns with the amount of support provided to enable learners to do a set of exercises;

It provides learners with tasks at different levels of difficulty.

one way to achieve this is by setting tasks at three levels:

1) Unsupported2) Partially supported3) Fully supported

4. presenting the material well The final and important step is to present the material well.

It includes writing good, consistent rubrics, planning layout and

proofing.Focus on learning

Learner-generated materialFramework materials

• Framework materials set a context within which the learners fit their own carrier content and their existing language competence.

• They supplement rather than replace more traditional materials.

• They may be used at:

a practice stage after specific language input

or

as a starting point for a deep-end approach.

• They are enjoyed most by people with right-brained learning style. With mixed learning styles, they complement the more left- brained material.

• Learners who have only experienced traditional, teacher-centered education, may need help and time to adjust to framework materials.

Devising frameworks

First, using published frameworks devised and tested by others.

For devising frameworks the golden rule would be” keep it simple”.

The visual variables within the framework include: shape , size, color ,relative positions and connections.

The content variables are primarily whether the framework generates particular language or generates particular interaction.

Activities that are devised by the learners

Text

comprehension

Note-taking / information transfer

Vocabulary development:

Materials and technology

Technology offers the possibility of alternative materials and classroom interaction.

After audio and video cassettes, the next major technological change was the use of computers and CD-ROM.

The Internet is bringing further changes as courses can now be downloaded from all over the world.

Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by it's ability to climb a tree, it will live it's whole life believing that it is stupid.

-Albert Einstein