CURRICULUM AND MATERIAL DEVELOPMENT

Written by:

IKRAR

161052501069

CLASS C

GRADUATE PROGRAM
ENGLISH EDUCATION DEPARTMENT
STATE UNIVERSITY OF MAKASSAR
2017
 MATERIAL DEVELOPMENT
1. Material development is both field of study and practical undertaking as a field of
study. It studies the principal and procedure of design, implementation, and evaluation
of teaching material. As undertaking it involves the production, evaluation, and
adaptation of language teaching material, by teachers for their own classroom.
2. Material evaluation is measuring the value of a set learning material and making
judgments about the effect of the material for the people using them.
3. Two principles of developing material
Most evaluations by teachers are impressionistic. However, evaluations should be
driven by an articulated set of principles. In developing a set of principles, it is useful to
consider the following:
a) The Evaluators Theory of Learning and Teaching
All teachers develop theories of learning and teaching, which they apply in their
classroom (even though they are often unaware of doing so). It is useful for teachers to
try to achieve an articulation of their theories of teaching by reflecting on their practice.
In this way, they can learn a lot about themselves and about the learning process, and
they can use their theories as a basis for developing criteria for the evaluation of
materials.
Here are some theories which have articulated by Brian Tomlinson as a result of
reflection of other teachers practice:
1) Language learners only succeed if learning is a positive, relaxed and enjoyable
experience

2) Language teachers teach most successfully if they can gain some enjoyment
themselves from the materials they are using

3) Learners only learn what they really need or want to learn

4) Materials should help learners to connect the learning experience in the classroom
to their own lives outside it

5) Materials should engage the emotions of the learner. Laughter, joy, excitement,
sorrow and anger can promote learning; neutrally cannot.
 b) Learning Theory
It is important that evaluations consider the findings of learning research and
decide which are convincing and applicable. In this view, these include:
1) Deep processing of language is required if effective and durable learning is to take
place. This means that the focus should normally be on meaning.

2) Affective engagement is essential. Positive attitudes towards the learning

experience, self-esteem, and emotional involvement are important determiners of
successful learning.

3) Making mental connections is a crucial aspect of the learning process. In order for
learning to be successful connections need to be made between the new and the
familiar, between what is being learned and the learners life, and between the
learning experience and its potential value in the future.
4) Multi-dimensional processing of language is essential for successful learning and
involves the learner creating mental representations through sensory imaging
(especially visualization), emotional associations and the use of the inner voice.
5) The learners should be given opportunities to use the target language to achieve
communicative purposes.
6) Materials should take into account that learners differ in learning styles.
4. Types of material evaluation
a. Pre-use evaluation
Pre-use evaluation involves making predictions about the potential value of
materials for their users. Often it is impressionistic, subjective and unreliable. However,
making an evaluation criterion-referenced can reduce (but not remove) subjectivity
and can certainly help to make an evaluation more principled, rigorous, systematic and
reliable. This is especially true if two or more evaluators conduct the evaluation
independently and then, average their conclusions. For example, in the review of eight
adult EFL course conducted by Tomlinson et al (2001) the four evaluators devised 133
criteria together and then used them independently to evaluate the eight courses,
before pooling their data and averaging their scores.
b. Whilst-use evaluation
This involves measuring the value of materials whilst using them or whilst observing
them being used. It can be more objective and reliable than pre-use evaluation as it makes
use of measurement rather than prediction. However, it is limited to measuring what is
observable (e.g. Are the instruction clear to the learners?)
Some of the things it can measure are:
1) Clarity of instructions

2) Clarity of layout

3) Comprehensibility of texts

4) Achievability of tasks

5) Flexibility of the materials

6) Appeal of the materials

7) Motivating power of the materials

Most of the above can be estimated during an open-ended, impressionistic
observation of materials in use but greater reliability can be achieved by focusing on
one criterion at a time and by using pre-prepared instruments of measurement. For
example, clarity of layout can be measured by asking, Do the learners know where to
go next on the page? and the achievability of the tasks can be measured by asking, Can
most of the learners do most of the tasks successfully?
c. Post-use evaluation
Post-use evaluation is the most valuable type of evaluation as it can measure the
actual effects of the materials on the users. It can measure such short term effects as
motivation, impact, achievability and instant learning and such long term effects as
durable learning and application. It can answer questions such as:
1) Why do the learners know which they did not know before starting to use the
materials?

2) What do the learners still not know despite using the materials?

3) What can the learners do which they could not do before starting to use the
materials?
4) What can the learners still not do despite using the materials?

5) To what extent have the materials prepared the learners for their post-course use of
the target language?
In other words, it can measure the actual outcomes of the use of the materials and thus
provide the data on which reliable decision about the use, adaptation or replacement of
the materials can be made.
Ways of measuring the post-use effects of materials include:
1) Tests of what has been taught
2) Test of what the students can do
3) Examinations
4) Interviews
5) Questionnaires
6) Criterion referenced evaluation by the users
7) Post-course diaries
8) Post-course reports on the learners by employers, subject tutors, etc.
 Curriculum and Material Development

1. What is material development ?

Material development is both a field of study and a practical undertaking. As a field it

studies the principles and procedures of the design, implementation, and evaluation of
language teaching materials. As an undertaking it involves the production, evaluation, and
adaptation of language teaching materials, by teachers for their own classroom.

2. What is the definition of materials ?

Materials include anything which can be used to facilitate the learning of a language. They
can be linguistics, visual, auditory, or kinesthetic, and they can be presented in print,
through live performance or display, or on cassette, CD-ROM, DVD or the internet.

3. What are the characteristics of materials and what they can provide ?

They can be instructional, experimental, elicitative or exploratory. Beside, they can provide
experience of the language in use they can stimulate language use or they can help learners
to make discoveries about the language themselves.

4. What are the step of developing materials ?

Developing materials can be started by finding written and spoken text with a potential for
affective and cognitive engagement, and then to use a flexible framework to develop
activities that connected to these texts. Later on they would cross-check with the syllabus
and the examination requirements to ensure satisfactory coverage.

5. What the author concerned when writing the materials ?

The author is generally concerned to produce a text that teachers will find innovative,
creative, relevant to their learners needs, and that they will enjoy teaching.

6. What is the relation between professional materials writer and commercial materials ?

Most commercial materials are written by professional materials writers writing to a brief
determined by the publisher from an analysis of market needs. These writers are usually
very experienced and competent, they are familiar with the realities of publishing and the
potential of the new technologies and they write full-time for a living.
7. What advantages and disadvantages of the books written by professional materials
writer.

The book are usually systematic, well designed, teacher-friendly and thorough. But they
often lack energy and imagination and sometimes insufficiently relevant and appealing to
the actual learners who use them.

8. What is Dudley Evans and St John (1998: 173) state about a good teacher ?

They stated that only a small proportion of good teachers are also a good designers of
course materials.

9. What the teachers need to be able to develop the materials ?

The teachers throughout the world only need a little training, experience and support to
become a materials writer who can produce imaginative materials of relevance and appeal
to their learners.

10. Why the materials usually take a long time to produce ?

Materials usually take a long time to produce because these days most of the materials
produced are courses (supplementary books are generally not considered profitable
enough) and because the important review and trialling process takes time.

11. How to produce the materials in fast way ?

It can be done by selected 30 teachers to provide a team or smaller group of varying age,
experience and expertise to make the materials and make some decisions together about
the content of the materials.

12. Write down some positive trends about the current trends in Materials Development

a. There is an increase in attempts to personalize the learning process by getting learners

to relate topics and texts to their own lives, views and feelings (Kay and Jones, 2000)
b. There is an increasing use of the Internet as a source of current, relevant and appealing
text.
c. There is some evidence of a movement away from spoken practice of written grammar
and towards experience of spoken grammar use (carter and McCarthy, 1997)

13. Write down some negative trends about the current trends in Materials Development

a. There is a far greater prominence given in coursebooks to listening and speaking than to
reading and writing.
b. There is an assumption that most learners have short attention spans, can only cope
with very short reading and writing texts and will only engage in activities for a short
time.
c. There is an assumption that learners do not want and would not gain from intellectually
demanding activities while engaged in language learning.

14. Write down some points that should be develop in materials development

a. Greater personalization and localization of materials.

b. Greater flexibility and creativity of use.
c. More respect for the learners.
d. More affectively engaging content.

15. What does MATSDA do to develop the materials ?

MATSDA does some conferences, workshops on materials development, produce a journal,

folio, and provides a forum for the discussion of materials development.

16. What should we do if we interested to join MATSDA and if we want to know more
information about it.

We can contact the secretary of MATSDA, Hitomi Masuhara by her Email

(H.Masuhara@lmu.ac.uk) or we can contact the president Brian Tomlinson by his Email
(B.Tomlison@lmu.ac.id).

17. What MATSDA stand for ?

MATSDA stand for materials development association.

18. Who is the founder of MATSDA ?

MATSDA founded by Brian Tomlinson in 1993