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The Complete Guide to the
Theory and Practice of Materials
Development for Language Learning


Brian Tomlinson

University of Liverpool
UK




Hitomi Masuhara

University of Liverpool
UK

















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Preface

This book is a celebration of a journey that began officially in 1993 with our foundation of MATSDA (the Materials Development Association). Brian became the first Chair and Hitomi the first Secretary. Together we developed an association dedicated to bringing together researchers, writers, publishers and teachers to work towards the development of effective materials for L2 learners. At the same time Brian designed and delivered a dedicated MA in materials development at the University of Luton, and Hitomi (who was doing her PhD at the University of Luton at the time) started to contribute to it as a tutor. This MA was taken in reduced form to the National University of Singapore and then in its original full form to Leeds Metropolitan University when we moved there and started to deliver it together in 2000. It was also cloned (with permission) at IGSE (the International Graduate School of English) in Seoul. This MA, the MATSDA journal Folio, and the annual MATSDA workshops and conferences, as well as publications on materials development by us and by many others, have helped to create a situation in which students and teachers in training all over the world are now taking courses on materials development and many of them are devoting their postgraduate research to issues of relevance to it.

Since 1993 we have continued our research and have published, separately and together, on issues relevant to the principles and procedures of materials development for language learning. In 2004 we published a brief guide to materials development for teachers in Southeast Asia to use when writing or adapting materials (Tomlinson & Masuhara, 2004) and in 2010 we edited and published a collection of chapters reporting research on materials development from all over the world. Our 2004 book has been republished in Brazil, China, and South Korea and copied all over Southeast Asia. We are told that it has helped thousands of new or unqualified teachers to gain the awareness and confidence needed to make materials their own. Our 2010 book is now being supplemented by other edited collections of research reports from all over the world (e.g. Masuhara, Mishan, & Tomlinson, 2017; Maley & Tomlinson, in press), and McGrath (2013), Garton & Graves (2014) and Harwood (2014) have recently published books containing reports of worldwide research on materials development.

In 1998 Brian stated that there was a growing interest in exploring issues related to “the writing and exploitation of materials' and yet ‘very few books have been published which investigate these issues” (Tomlinson, 1998: vii). Since then there has been an explosion of interest in materials development both as a field of academic study and as a practical undertaking, and fortunately there have been many resources developed to cater for this interest. In Tomlinson (1998) there is reference to the founding in 1993 of MATSDA as an association dedicated to the bringing together of researchers, writers, publishers, and teachers in a concerted effort to facilitate the development of effective materials (www.matsda.org). MATSDA is still going strong, Brian is now the President, and Hitomi is still the Secretary, and we have just organized with the University of Liverpool our thirtieth MATSDA conference. Other associations are also offering great support to students and practitioners of materials development (e.g. MAWSIG, the materials writing special interest group of IATEFL, as well as special interest groups of the American association TESOL and the Japanese association, JALT). There are now a number of journals dedicated to or focusing special issues on materials development (e.g. the MATSDA journal Folio, a new MAWSIG journal ELT Materials Review, the JALT newsletter Between the Keys, The European Journal of Applied Linguistics and TEFL, Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching). And there are many books focusing on both practical and theoretical issues in materials development (see Chapter 1).

At least four things have changed since Tomlinson (1998). One is the shift of emphasis from a focus on materials development for language teaching to a focus on materials development for language learning (e.g. Tomlinson & Masuhara, 2010). The second is an increased interest in research for materials development, with the emphasis not on achieving academic respectability but on evaluating the effectiveness of innovative interventions. The third is the massive increase in digital delivery of materials for language learning bringing with it numerous new affordances for language learning, but more a change so far we would argue in mode of delivery than in pedagogical approach (see Chapter 8). And the fourth is the coming together of materials development for the learning of English with materials development for the learning of other second or foreign languages. For example, we have had contributions to MATSDA conferences and to the MATSDA journal Folio relating to materials for the learning of Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish, and we have both run materials development workshops for teachers of all those languages in countries around the world. In this book most of our references and examples relate directly to materials for the learning of English but all the principles and procedures we recommend are equally relevant to materials development for the learning of any second or foreign language. Also our references and examples in most chapters relate specifically to print materials, although we would argue that the principles that inform them apply equally to digital materials too. We have done this deliberately so as not to exclude those many teachers who as yet do not have easy and reliable access to the Internet (or even to conventional electronic materials) in their teaching environment, and we have devoted a sizeable chapter (Chapter 8) to the development and exploitation of digital materials.

What we have done in the Complete guide to the theory and practice of materials development for language learning is to combine the practicality and accessibility of our 2004 guide with the academic rigor of the 2010 reports on materials development in action. It has been our ambition for a long time to produce a book, which will be of value to all types of participants in what we find to be the exciting field of materials development. We want it to help teachers, researchers, students, publishers and writers to know, understand and be constructively critical of what has been achieved to date. We want it to help them to develop, adapt, use, publish, review and research materials for themselves. And we want the strong opinions and approaches we put forward in this book to inspire readers to think for themselves and to develop and apply strong opinions and approaches of their own.

References

  1. Garton, S., & Graves, K. (Eds.). (2014). International perspectives on materials in ELT. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
  2. Harwood, N. (Ed.). (2014). English language teaching textbooks: Content, consumption, production. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
  3. Maley, A., & Tomlinson, B. (Eds.). (in press). Authenticity in materials development for language learning. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars.
  4. Masuhara, H., Mishan, F., & Tomlinson, B. (Eds.). (2017). Practice and theory for materials development in L2 learning. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars.
  5. McGrath, I. (2013). Teaching materials and the roles of EFL/ESL teachers: Practice and theory. London: Bloomsbury.
  6. Tomlinson, B. (Ed.). (1998). Materials development in language teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  7. Tomlinson, B., & Masuhara, H. (2004). Developing language course materials. Singapore: RELC Portfolio Series.
  8. Tomlinson, B., & Masuhara, H. (Eds.). (2010). Research for materials development in language learning: evidence for best practice. London: Continuum.