Principles of Effective Materials Development

Principles of Effective Materials Development

By Prof. MSc. Orietta Vélez Dumani

e-mail: orievelez@gmail.com

When teachers of English talk about materials, we usually refer to both, materials that we can buy at a store, the commercial ones, and those we create or modify, the "home made" ones, which will help us accomplish our objectives in class, on a daily basis. Nevertheless, there seems to be much more into this subject.

Several authors have dedicated time and effort to do research about the materials development and design, as Hardwood, N. (2010) explains, based on teaching and learning principles. As Tomlinson, B. (Ed.)(1998) says, principled frameworks are necessary to help materials writers achieve principled coherence, so that we can provide the best opportunities for our learners to become effective users of the target language, and master it. According to him, there are some principles of language acquisition as well as principles of materials development that may be useful in developing materials to be used effectively, so we can improve our practice.

Amongst the principles of language acquisition which I consider relevant, as the author does, is this one in which learners should be exposed to rich, meaningful, comprehensible input. From my own teaching practice, I have found that constant exposure to extensive reading benefits students in acquiring vocabulary, language patterns, facts and opinions that help them develop the four skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing. That is why, the teachers must assure the materials developed are going to provide input in all areas, by being meaningful and useful the way the language is typically used.

Another language acquisition principle that I also consider relevant deals with the affective and cognitive experiences of the learners. These are aspects that mark a person's life experience in a positive or negative manner. If the materials developed appeal to the learner's emotions in a positive way, they will become engaged in their learning process feeling great satisfaction, gaining high self-esteem, and facing their future with optimism.