Developing Effective Materials

Proposals by Brian Tomlinson:

Tomlinson proposes some principles of language acquisition and principles of materials development that he follows when developing materials. Here are two of them.

• Principle of language acquisition 1:
  

• A prerequisit for language acquisition is that the learners are exposed to a rich, meaningful, and comprehensible input of language in use.

• Principles of materials development:
  

• - provide extensive experience of language that is meaningful to the learner in materials that have much spoken and written texts;
  
• - use authentic language, typically used, so learners may use languagetypically or effectively;
  
• - use language in context to create awareness on how the language is used;
• - provide sufficient samples of language in authentic use:

• Principle of language acquisition 2:
• In order for the learners to maximize their exposure to language in use, they need to be engaged both affectively and cognitively in the language experience.
• Principles of materials development:
• - achieve affective and cognitive engagement;
• - make learners think about the input to respond to it personally;
• - make learners think and feel before, during, and after the activities to use the language for communication.