Principles of effective materials development

By Licda. Belinda Davis M.

According to Brian Tomlinson language learning materials should be driven by learning and teaching principles rather than be developed ad hoc or in imitation of best-selling coursebooks.
Many experienced authors rely on their intuitions about what works amd make frequent of activities in their repertoire that seem to fit with their objectives.
Materials should be coherent and principled applications of:
- Theories of language acquisition and development
- Principles of teaching.
- Our current knowledge of how the target language is actually used.

- The results of systematic observation and evaluation of materials in use.   

Proposals for principled approaches to the development of ELT materials
Materials writers need is an inventory of flexible frameworks to help them develop eefective materials for target learners in principled and coherent ways. we must determine what the principles are that shoul drive the procedures.
Principle of language acquisition 1

A prerequisite for language acquisition is that the learners are exposed to a rich, meaningful, and comprehensible input of language in use.
Principles of materials development
1. make sure that the materials contain plentiful spoken and written texts.
2. the language the learners are exposed to is authentic in the sense that it represents how the language is typically used.
3. Make sure the language input is contextualized.
4. Learners should be exposed to sufficient samples of language in authentic use to provide natural recycling of language items and features.

Principle of language acquisition 2
Learners nned to be engaged both efefctively and cognitively in the language experience.
Principles of materials development
1. Prioritize the potential for engagement by basing on affective and cognitive engagement.
2. Make use of activities that make the learners think about what they are reading or listening to and respond to ir personally.
3. Use activities that make the learners think and feel before, during and after using the target language for communication.

Principled of language acquisition 3
Learners who achieve positive affect are much more likely to achieve communicative competence than those who do not.
Principles of materials development
1. make sure the texts and tasks are interesting, relevant and enjoyable.
2. Set achievable challenges, which help raise self-esteem.
3. Stimulate emotive responses through music, song, art and so on.