Edinburgh University Press

Chapter Title: Materials and …

Book Title: Materials Evaluation and Design for Language Teaching

Book Author(s): Ian McGrath
Published by: Edinburgh University Press. (2016)
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Chapter 10

Materials and . . .

This chapter is rather different from those that have preceded it. It is concerned with
the relationship between materials and . . .
1. learning
2. ideology
3. culture
4. syllabus
5. method
6. research
7. teacher education.
The intention is to provide an opportunity for consideration of a number of spe-
cial topics that could not easily be incorporated within the framework adopted
for the previous chapters but also, and this is much more important, to illustrate
the absolute centrality of materials in language education. In formal (e.g. state
school) systems, materials, mediated by teachers, are a key link in the externally
determined design chain which potentially runs from curriculum to syllabus
and leads to public examinations. In any language learning setting, materials –
­published, teacher-­produced or learner-­produced – provide much of the content
of the teaching–learning encounter. They are an in-­class resource for learners
and teachers – what learners learn with; and an out-­of-­class resource for learn-
ers – what they learn from. Published textbooks also link teachers and learners to
the outside world. They are a means to access not only the target language and
possibly its culture(s) but also the accumulated knowledge and experience – of
language, learning, learners, teaching and teachers – of those involved in making
the books, all of whom have striven to produce materials that are perceived as
relevant, interesting and useful. It is this centrality which argues strongly for the
inclusion of a ‘materials’ component in pre-­service and in-­service teacher educa-
tion programmes. The same centrality makes the study of language l­earning–
teaching materials, and their development, classroom use and evaluation, not
only a legitimate but also a hugely important focus of research for teachers and
teacher educators.

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 Materials and . . .  217

1 MATERIALS AND LEARNING

Learners can learn more than language from the materials used in language learning
classes. What is learnt – or there to be learnt – is most obviously embodied in the
materials as content, but certain other types of learning may also result. Some of
these outcomes will be intended and positive; others may be negative. A particularly
useful introductory reading on this topic is Littlejohn and Windeatt (1989).

1.1 Learning from content

In the global ‘structural’ (audiolingual) textbooks of the late 1960s and early 1970s,
lessons typically began with specially written dialogues and stories about fictional
people. While these texts were sometimes interesting and occasionally amusing,
for the most part they were content-­less. They were no more than language teach-
ing texts. In some countries, however, there were, and still are, locally produced
textbooks containing texts – such as literary extracts and historic speeches, familiar
tales, and stories about local heroes – which have clearly been selected for their
content. The specific reasons for the inclusion of particular texts or text-­types may
be as varied as the texts themselves: for instance, ‘great literature’ and speeches may
be justified on cultural or inspirational grounds while local content can offer some
security in a sea of unfamiliar language. Textbooks are also a way of reinforcing a
sense of national or cultural identity (e.g. Lund and Zoughby 2007). Nowadays, of
course, when there is so much emphasis on the use of authentic texts, one of the key
criteria for the choice of one text rather than another is its intrinsic interest, and one
of the features that makes a text potentially interesting is its content.
Cook (1983, cited in Littlejohn and Windeatt 1989: 157) lists six forms of
‘real content’ in materials: (1) content from another academic (school) subject;
(2) student-­contributed content (see Chapter 8) – which would presumably include
students talking about themselves; (3) the language itself, that is, as an object
of analysis; (4) literature; (5) culture; and (6) ‘interesting facts’. Littlejohn and
Windeatt suggest two further forms of ‘carrier content’: (7) learning to learn (see
below); and (8) specialist (i.e. ESP) material in a student’s own discipline. One of
the chapters in Halliwell (1992) deals with integrating language work with other
subjects in the primary school, and coursebooks, especially for primary-­age learners,
have begun to introduce what they present as a CLIL focus, often in the form of a
number of linked activities relating to topics in science, geography or technology,
for instance. This might be seen as (1) in Cook’s typology.

1.2 Learning from process

Not only do learners learn from what they read (or hear), they also learn from
interaction with others and from the process of carrying out tasks. This learning
goes beyond the merely linguistic (e.g. negotiating meaning; arguing a point of
view). One of the arguments for group tasks is that they encourage socialisation and

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218   Materials Evaluation and Design for Language Teaching

teamwork; they also make possible learning by observation of others. Moreover, spe-
cific types of task can provide practice in such ‘transferrable skills’ as, for example,
collecting and classifying information, reasoning, critical thinking, creativity and
problem-­solving, all of which can be linked to the development of digital literacy.
Littlejohn and Windeatt’s (1989) incisive discussion of the ‘hidden curriculum’
in language learning materials draws attention to a number of other less benign pos-
sible results of the classroom procedures embedded in materials. One of these has to
do with power relations in the classroom, as reflected in a choral substitution drill:
pupils will hear the ‘model sentence’ and each substitution somewhere between
15 to 20 times, depending on the way the class is grouped . . . For the pupils,
the experience of simply repeating sentences after the teacher’s prompts would
appear to demonstrate clearly that their role in the classroom is largely a power-
less one in which they mechanically follow instructions. The fact that this is done
in chorus adds the sense of anonymity and being ‘one of the mass’ upon which
much social control – inside and outside the classroom – seems to rest. (Littlejohn
and Windeatt 1989: 167)
Now while this could be dismissed as a rather jaundiced view of a single procedure
which has certain (limited) linguistic and psychological justifications, other exam-
ples are more convincing. For instance, their analysis of one set of materials leads to
the following conclusions:

At its simplest level, the picture that may be presented by the above sequence
of sections is that learning English involves reading texts in detail, attending to
items of vocabulary, rules of grammar and punctuation, and writing isolated
sentences. At a deeper level, however, it can be seen that each time the learners
are required to do something, the activity involves closely following a model or
referring back to a text. Once can say, therefore, that an underlying message being
transmitted to the learners is that to learn English one must complete a series of
short, controlled exercises that require reproduction of already presented linguis-
tic facts with little in the way of personal creativity, expression or interpretation.
(Littlejohn and Windeatt 1989: 163)
Commenting on a functionally oriented set of materials, they suggest that the
absence of any explicit reference to grammar, vocabulary and punctuation may give
learners the impression that:

learning English essentially involves learning fixed phrases into which one can slot
different items . . . The material may distinguish itself from the first course book
by its emphasis on pairwork throughout, but underlying the series of exercises we
have a similar view of language learning. (Littlejohn and Windeatt 1989: 163)
They conclude:
Depending on the prior experience of the individual learner, the view of language
learning projected by material can be of central importance since it may shape

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 Materials and . . .  219

learners’ perceptions of their own abilities and of the steps they need to take to
progress further. (Littlejohn and Windeatt 1989: 164)

1.3 Learning to learn

Many coursebooks these days include specific sections designed to raise learners’
awareness of what they can do to become more effective learners. Such sections may
take the form of suggestions on how to organise one’s learning (e.g. how to store
new vocabulary); they may encourage self-­assessment (e.g. of progress, learning dif-
ficulties or learning preferences) or reflection on attitudes. Alternatively, they may
be much less explicit and be woven into tasks. One assumption behind skimming
and scanning activities, for instance, is that learners who are accustomed to reading
word by word and sentence by sentence will eventually learn to adjust their reading
strategy to their reading purpose. Other activities, such as working out meaning
from linguistic clues and context, may combine explicit instruction with practice.

1.4 Attitudes and values

Littlejohn and Windeatt’s examples of how attitudes and values can be represented
in materials include the following:
1. A coursebook contains hundreds of photographs of people in different roles.
Only two of these photographs are of black people. One is a muscular athlete
and the other a manual worker.
2. In the first twenty-­five pages of another coursebook there are more than thirty
references to smoking and drinking.
What we have here are not a couple of isolated instances but undeniable pat-
terns, reinforcing a stereotype in the first example and apparently endorsing certain
behaviours in the second. As evidence that this might have an effect, Littlejohn and
Windeatt refer to a survey of studies on sexism in materials by Porreca (1984). One
study:
found a direct correlation between the length of time spent using Alpha One
Reading Program (which apparently portrayed girls as ‘stupid, dependent, whining
and tearful’ and boys as ‘active and aggressive’) and the degree to which pupils’
attitudes matched those in the materials. (Littlejohn and Windeatt 1989: 172)
To judge only from the few details provided of the study, learners’ age might have
been one factor in their susceptibility.
Drawing on the educational literature on outcomes, Littlejohn and Windeatt
(1989) make a distinction between referential learning (i.e. learning from content)
and experiential learning (learning through doing), suggesting that of the two expe-
riential learning may exert a more powerful influence. If this is the case, concerns
about content in materials may be a little exaggerated. Littlejohn and Windeatt’s
own conclusion is as follows:

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220   Materials Evaluation and Design for Language Teaching

In order to begin to argue that such features of materials may bring about par-
ticular kinds of learning outcomes . . . one needs to show that specific values or
attitudes are pervasive throughout the text (Gordon, 1984) . . . Without this
evidence, one may simply object to the inclusion of certain items on the grounds
that they offend our moral sensibilities. (1989: 173; original emphasis)

Harwood’s (2014b: 4–7) review of a number of cultural content analyses draws

attention to the fact that social values can change over time. This is not simply a
matter of recognising the spread of consumerism or the cult of the celebrity, but
also understanding that cultural values and attitudes are not necessarily universally
shared, and creating opportunities to discuss these rather than taking their accept-
ance for granted. Gray’s (2013) collection, for example, considers such issues as
identity, ideology and commercialisation in relation to materials in use in English,
French, Spanish, German and CLIL classrooms.

Task 10.1
1. Do you think it is important that materials should offer opportunities for
learning more than language? Can you think of any other forms of posi-
tive non-­linguistic learning that might result from working with published
materials? Select a lesson in the coursebook you are using or any other
coursebook that is available. Is there any evidence that the author intended
to provide for the learning of more than just language? If not, and if you are
in favour of material serving more than one learning purpose, how could
you adapt the lesson so that it can fulfil one or more purposes?
2. Do you agree with the view that experiential learning is likely to have a more
powerful effect than referential learning, and that referential learning would
only have any effect if it pervaded the materials? Do you have any evidence
to support your view?

2 MATERIALS AND IDEOLOGY

Ideology, like culture, can be built into materials by design, as when a country
wishes to promote a particular set of national values. It may also be less conscious,
but no less manifest, in the nature of the reality depicted visually and verbally in
materials, in the relationships and roles envisaged for teacher and learner, and per-
haps most subtly in the language selected for inclusion.
Dendrinos’s (1992) book on The EFL Textbook and Ideology draws attention
to the extent that ideological positions, conscious or unconscious, underlie every
aspect of textbook writing and design. The following quotations indicate some of
Dendrinos’s concerns:

the EFL textbook . . . will contain material whose purpose will be the linguistic
acculturation of learners and therefore their subjugation to social conventions.
(1992: 152)

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 Materials and . . .  221

Themes, topics and titles of units, and how these are articulated, are in themselves
revealing in relation to the social reality to be constructed for textbook users.
(1992: 175)
pictures, illustrations, photographs, etc. are social constructs and they ideologi-
cally position their addressees towards realities . . . (1992: 165)
the selection of language functions to be transmitted and acquired is arbitrarily
and ideologically loaded . . . (1992: 165)
[and this selection will] contribute to the development of different conceptions of
social reality and determine how the pupil as a social and institutional subject will
interact with that reality. (1992: 170)
Littlejohn and Windeatt’s discussion of values and attitudes has been referred to
in section 1 on materials and learning. In a later paper, Littlejohn (1997) turns his
attention to ‘ideological encodings’ in self-­access tasks. Taking as a reference point
Lum and Brown’s (1994) list of twenty exercise-­or activity-­types, he analyses these
with respect to the role that they imply for the learner, using three questions for this
purpose:
1. What role in the discourse is proposed for the learner: initiate, respond or
none?
2. What mental operation is to be engaged?
3. Where does the content for the task come from? From within the task itself,
from the teacher or from the students?
(Littlejohn 1997: 186)
His conclusions are: (1) with one or two exceptions, the exercises offer very little
scope for learners to initiate, that is, to use their own words; (2) only a fairly narrow
range of mainly low-­level mental processes is involved; and (3) in most cases, there
is no opportunity for learners to be creative, that is, to express their own ideas. This
leads Littlejohn to the paradox that ‘in ideological terms, there is, thus, a clear ten-
sion apparent here in the ostensible aim in the provision of self-­access facilities and
its realization in practice’ (1997: 188).
So how might a teacher respond to the concerns expressed above?
In relation to the problem of self-­access tasks, Littlejohn suggests a number
of changes in the way self-­access is organised which would give the learner more
freedom. These include a shift in activity-­types towards activities which encourage
learner initiation and creativity; the use of ‘example’ answers rather than keys; the
possibility of peer feedback; and involving learners in the preparation of exercises
(as suggested in Chapter 7). (For further suggestions and examples of alternative
exercise-­types, see Tomlinson 1998e.)
As for the values and attitudes represented in materials, Littlejohn and Windeatt
offer the interesting idea that materials might themselves be made an object of ‘criti-
cal focus’ (1989: 175). Learners might, for instance, be encouraged to comment on
the attitudes or values that seem to lie behind the selection of texts, topics or visuals

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222   Materials Evaluation and Design for Language Teaching

or, more broadly, on the way in which the materials influence both what they do in
the classroom and their views about language, language learning and their own role.
Language-­practice activities included in Davis et al. (1998) ask learners to analyse
and evaluate their coursebooks and ‘interview’ the imagined author sitting in the
hot seat in front of them.
For Dendrinos, the questions are linguistic and the answers lie in linguistic
research:
Questions . . . which could serve as a point of departure for the investigation of
one or more textbooks are questions such as: what categories of verbs (mental,
action, feeling, process verbs) are selected to define and delimit the behaviours, atti-
tudes, feelings, relationships of the people presented in the textbook? What nouns
and adjectives are selected to describe people as institutional subjects (as men and
women, parents and children, employers and employees, teachers and pupils, etc?).
What type of comparative/contrastive statements are made in relation to what, and
which are the entities being compared and ultimately favoured? (1992: 181–2)

Questions such as these, Dendrinos hopes, will ‘serve as stimuli for those responsible
for the evaluation of textbooks to assess them not only as teaching aids but also as
media for pupil pedagogization’ (1992: 182).
While accepting that critical language awareness of the sort advocated by Dendrinos
can expose ideologically based attitudes, Waters (2009, 2010) maintains that it should
be seen as a complement to existing pedagogical traditions. He further argues that ‘teach-
ing ideas such as “the learner-­centred approach”, “learner autonomy”, “­ authenticity”,
and so on’ are also ideologically based, as is the ‘hostility towards textbooks, the
“direct” teaching of grammar, [and] “structure” in language teaching’ (Waters 2010).
Seen from the perspective of ‘critical pedagogy’, these ideas and attitudes are a response
to and an attempt to redress perceived power imbalances between, say, textbook and
teacher or teacher and learner. However, for Waters, their unquestioning acceptance,
without reference to their suitability in context, is also problematic.

Task 10.2
1. Do you feel that Dendrinos’s concerns are justified? Choose a textbook,
one that you use normally or whatever is available. Examine it for evidence
to support or counter her comments.
2. What do you think of the suggestion that materials might be made an
object of critical focus? Look through a textbook for one or more features
on which you would like learners to reflect critically. Discuss these – and
ways of encouraging reflection – with your classmates or colleagues.

3 MATERIALS AND CULTURE

It has been suggested that knowing a language is inseparable from understanding
the culture in which the language is spoken, that is, that without cultural knowledge

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 Materials and . . .  223

of fairly specific kinds, one cannot fully understand what is said or written (Brown
1990). This view raises a variety of issues in relation to the selection and develop-
ment of materials. For example:
• what one means by ‘culture’ and ‘cultural knowledge’
• the extent to which it is possible to generalise about the culture of, say, a
number of countries in which the target language is spoken
• what cultural knowledge is likely to be needed by a particular category of stu-
dents in a particular context
• the accuracy (representativeness, topicality) with which social realities are
portrayed
• what students are expected to take from or do with the knowledge that is
presented.
Faced with the challenge of designing an English course for Moroccan secondary
schools, where English is a second foreign language and studied only in the final
three years, Adaskou et al. (1990: 3–4) were obliged to confront all these issues.
They distinguish between four senses of culture:
1. The aesthetic: ‘Culture with a capital C: the media, the cinema, music (whether
serious or popular) and, above all, literature.’
2. The sociological: ‘Culture with a small c: the organisation and nature of
family, of home life, of interpersonal relations, material conditions, work and
leisure, customs and institutions.’
3. The semantic: ‘The conceptual system embodied in the language . . . Many
semantic areas (e.g. food, clothes, institutions) are culturally distinctive
because they relate to a particular way of life.’
4. The pragmatic (or sociolinguistic): ‘The background knowledge, social skills,
and paralinguistic skills that, in addition to mastery of the language code,
make possible successful communication.’
Adaskou et al. could see the need for a cultural component in senses 3 and 4, but
were dubious about the relevance of 1 and 2, given the likely needs of the learners
and the lack of any explicit reference in the official syllabus to this kind of cultural
knowledge. However, they saw it as important to consult teachers, teacher trainers
and inspectors. From the resulting discussions with groups of teachers, and question-
naires to and structured interviews with all three groups, a clear consensus emerged.
Most English teachers felt that the use in coursebooks of foreign milieux would invite
cultural comparisons and lead to discontent with students’ own material culture; and
that the patterns of behaviour normal in an English-­speaking social context would
not be desirable models for young Moroccans. The informants also felt that the learn-
ers would be no less motivated to learn English if the language were not presented in
the context of an English-­speaking country. Field trials and subsequent feedback not
only confirmed this view but indicated that learners were more motivated to learn
English when the language was presented in contexts with which they could identify.
Adaskou et al.’s conclusion suggests, however, that teacher attitudes may be even

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224   Materials Evaluation and Design for Language Teaching

more important than learner attitudes: ‘Students use a particular course only once,
but teachers will use it many times. And it is cultural content, more than any other
single aspect, that in our opinion influences teachers’ attitudes’ (1990: 10).
In other situations, where learners are more likely to travel to Britain or another
English-­speaking country or where the syllabus has a defined cultural component,
it is conceivable that a different view might prevail. After all, words conjure up
concepts or images. ‘Breakfast’ represents a meal that may vary in both its content
and the time at which it is taken. ‘Home’, ‘school’, ‘polite’ and ‘big’ may all be
translatable, but still be understood in distinctively different ways by speaker and
hearer. Anyone who knows another language well will be able to supply examples
of words for which there is no exact translation equivalent. We can therefore say
that in this sense materials embody cultural content, and that knowledge of this
content is essential if one is to understand the language. Language learning materi-
als, as has been suggested in a previous section, can also be made to carry cultural
content. This may be about some culturally neutral aspect of real life (insofar as
anything can be culturally neutral), some exotic culture, or about specific cultural
features present in the world of the learner or that of the speech communities in
which the target language is the mother tongue. Cultural content of the latter kind
is no longer exclusively to be found in coursebooks. For instance, Helbling’s World
Around is ‘an intercultural journey through the English-­speaking world’ (Cleary
2008: 4) which includes the West Indies and India as well as the more obvious
destinations. In contrast, Oxford University Press’s New English File Culture Link
(Fitzgerald and Harraway 2011), which has been conceived as an extension to the
pre-­intermediate and intermediate levels of the main coursebook, focuses mainly
on the UK and USA, youth culture and CLIL topics. The subtitle of Garnet’s Past
Simple (Ronder and Thompson 2012) reflects its even narrower focus, on ‘learning
English through history’, in this case British history presented chronologically and
thematically through integrated language activities.
How speech communities are represented is, of course, a matter of concern:
EFL books whose aim is to present reality in today’s Britain over-­represent the
white middle-­class population with their concerns about holidays abroad and
leisure time, home decoration and dining out, their preoccupation with success,
achievement and material wealth. Absent, or nearly absent, are the great variety
of minorities, people of African, Indian, Pakistani descent who make up a con-
siderable part of the population; and the problems of the homeless and the unem-
ployed, of the socially underprivileged, of the illiterate masses are rarely or never
mentioned . . . Generally, an idealized version of the dominant English culture
is drawn, frequently leading populations of other societies to arrive at distorted
conclusions based on the comparison between a false reality and their own lived
experience in their culture. (Dendrinos 1992: 153)
Similar points about the exclusion of minorities can be made about textbooks pro-
duced in and for specific contexts (see, for example, McGrath 2004 on textbooks in
Hong Kong). On ‘taboos’ more generally, see Gray (2002) and Thornbury (2010).

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 Materials and . . .  225

For Gray and Block, there are both political and ideological dimensions to repre-
sentation: ‘what is selected for inclusion is determined by parties with vested inter-
ests (such as publishers, authors, Ministries of Education, educational institutions,
commercial language schools, etc)’ and ‘the forms the representations take tend to
reproduce existing power relations, particularly with regard to class, race, gender and
sexual orientation (Azimova and Johnston, 2012)’ (2014: 46). As the ordering of the
power relations in the final part of this quotation might suggest, Gray and Block’s
preoccupation in their paper is with social class, and the conclusion of their analysis
of eight UK textbooks published in the four decades from 1970 until 2009 is that
there has been a shift away from the depiction of working-­class characters. Gray
and Block see this as the ‘writing out of the working class from language learning
­materials’ which amounts to ‘a failure to educate students (by providing them with
a very skewed picture of the world) and a simultaneous betrayal of working class
language learners, who are denied recognition’ (2014: 45–6). Although the concerns
that gave rise to the study are serious and the methodology adopted combined quan-
titative and qualitative analyses, the sample of textbooks is small and itself skewed
(both books chosen to represent the 1970s were by the same author, Robert O’Neill,
and three of the remaining six books are different editions of the Headway series).
The possibility exists, therefore, that the results of the study, which for the last three
decades are neither as marked nor as clear-­cut as the authors appear to suggest, are
a product of the textbook sample. Replication studies which would permit a more
broadly based conclusion would be helpful.
One argument against a bicultural approach is that, taken to an extreme, it may
be seen as a form of cultural imperialism (Alptekin and Alptekin 1984; Phillipson
1992; Pennycook 1994; Gray 2010), as a result of which one culture is overwhelmed
by the flow of potentially misleading information from the other. Alternatively,
when learners see no possibility of travelling to an English-­speaking country or even
interacting directly with native speakers of English, it may be perceived as an irrele-
vance (Altan 1995). In a world in which English has assumed a global importance, it
has been argued, a multicultural approach would be more appropriate (Prodromou
1992a). Altan’s (1995) suggestion is that what might be thought of as international
culture (human rights, interactive media, Japanese business practice, the ecu being
his examples) or general knowledge be used as the content for practice in the
receptive skills of listening and speaking but that practice in the productive skills
should relate to the learner’s own sociocultural context. Underlying this distinction
between ‘input’ culture and ‘output’ culture is the belief that language learning is
complexified by the introduction of a cultural component and that in any form
other than the kind of general knowledge an educated person might be expected to
have about the world he or she lives in, this is unnecessary.
Pulverness and Tomlinson argue that one of the problems with the treatment of
culture in most coursebooks is that the selection of what to focus on has been ‘arbi-
trary’, but also ‘that learners are not required to respond to it in terms of their own
experience or integrate it into new structures of thought and feeling’ (2013: 444).
They suggest that rather than dealing with culture on the level of information,

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226   Materials Evaluation and Design for Language Teaching

materials should be designed to raise intercultural awareness by highlighting areas of

language which have ‘cultural significance’ (2013: 444) and equipping learners with
the skills to research and analyse these.
The need to relate all these arguments to specific contexts is underlined by
Prodromou’s (1992a) survey of the interests of 300 Greek students of English,
mostly young adults. This revealed that alongside a very strong linguistic orienta-
tion (84 per cent said they wanted lessons to be ‘about the English language’), there
was an interest in ‘facts about science and society’ and, among intermediate and
advanced-­level students, social problems. British life and institutions was preferred
to the American equivalent (60 per cent and 26 per cent respectively), a finding
explicable, Prodromou suggests, by the high standing of the Cambridge examina-
tions and the ‘bad press’ accorded to the USA in the post-­war period. What is also
of interest is the generally low value given to ‘local’ topics. Prodromou speculates
that this can be explained by ‘the highly charged nature of Greek political life . . .
Discussions of political or semi-­political topics (such as Greek newspapers) can be
unexpectedly divisive’ (1992a: 46).
For Nunan (1991: 211), ‘Learners have an infinite capacity to surprise, and there
is a danger that the claim of cultural inappropriacy may be used as an excuse for
refraining from action. It may also block classroom initiatives which the learners
themselves might welcome.’ Rather than making assumptions about learners’ views,
further context-­specific research is obviously needed. This applies not simply to
experimentation with materials which – contrary to teachers’ expectations – learners
might find interesting but also to materials which it might be assumed they would
perceive as highly relevant. One of the ESL learners in Wu and Coady’s (2010)
study of immigrants to the USA protested that the reading programme he was using
was ‘trying to force him to assimilate into the “American” way of life’ (Wu and
Coady 2010: 159, cited in Harwood 2014b: 18).

Task 10.3
1. Writing in 1995, Altan claimed: ‘“Globally” designed coursebooks have
continued to be stubbornly Anglo-­centric’ (1995: 59). Is this true of the
materials you use? If so, do you see it as a problem?
2. Altan goes on:
There is no such thing as culturally-­ neutral language teaching. ELT
coursebooks convey cultural biases and implicitly communicate atti-
tudes concerning the culture of the target language and indirectly the
learners’ native culture. Passages and units with foreign cultural themes
and topics not only cause difficulties in comprehension, but actually
seem to increase misunderstanding and confusion about the non-­native
culture, leading to a lack of production and of success. When both the
materials we use and the way we use them are culturally adverse, then
inevitably learners switch off and retreat into their inner world to defend
their own integrity. (1995: 59)

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 Materials and . . .  227

Do you think that Altan’s comments on the effects on learners of materi-

als containing foreign cultural themes and topics have relevance for the
­learners you teach?
3. Do you think textbooks should reflect reality? If so, which reality? Whose
reality?

4 MATERIALS AND SYLLABUS

There are two basic ways of representing the relationship between materials and
­syllabus. In the first and still more common, the syllabus determines if not the
selection of materials, at least the way in which they will be exploited for teaching
purposes. This was referred to as a syllabus-­driven approach in Chapter 5. In the
second, materials are selected first, for their intrinsic interest and general linguistic
appropriateness, and a specific linguistic syllabus is then derived from them. We
called this a concept-­driven approach in Chapter 5, but in a more restricted sense it
has also been termed a text-­driven approach (see Chapter 7). In creating materials
for the occasional lesson the individual teacher may start from either of these posi-
tions, but for the teacher who is devising a whole course and for the professional
materials writer this is an issue that requires serious thought. The first part of this
section assumes a syllabus-­driven approach. In the second part, we consider some of
the pros and cons of a concept-­driven approach.

4.1 Syllabuses and teachers

Teachers and materials writers require an organisational framework for their work.
A ‘planned’ syllabus (as opposed to an ‘implemented’ syllabus) fulfils this function.
At its narrowest, it is no more than an inventory of items to be taught; in broader
conceptions, these items will be logically derived from a statement of aims and
objectives, related to a time frame, and sequenced. In the broadest (most prescrip-
tive?) form of syllabus specification, teaching procedures and perhaps aids will also
be indicated. (For an early discussion of syllabus content, see the various contribu-
tions to Brumfit 1984; for further discussion of syllabus types, see Nunan 1988c,
White 1988 and, more recently, Richards 2013.)
This syllabus-­first view is economically described by Nunan: ‘the syllabus defines
the goals and objectives, the linguistic and experiential content’ (1991: 208).
When there exists an official syllabus which teachers are expected to follow, this
will be an important factor in materials selection. In some contexts, teachers are
only permitted to use ‘authorised’ textbooks (i.e. those which have passed official
scrutiny); in other cases, it falls to the teacher to check the coverage of a text-
book against the syllabus. If no official syllabus exists to prescribe or to guide,
textbooks are sometimes allowed to take over this function: the textbook syllabus
becomes the course syllabus by default, as it were. The reason why this should not
be allowed to happen is that decisions concerning the syllabus need to be taken
before a textbook is selected (see the discussion in Chapter 4). As Cunningsworth

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228   Materials Evaluation and Design for Language Teaching

has remarked, ‘coursebooks are good servants but poor masters’ (1984: 1). In other
words, coursebooks should not dictate what is done but be selected for what they
can do to help. Logically, therefore, the selection of a textbook would take place
only after some preliminary assessment of needs in the broad sense. As noted previ-
ously, while there may be a rough match between a coursebook syllabus and the
needs of a particular group of learners the match will not be a perfect one (this
applies to any kind of external syllabus). It follows that even when there is an offi-
cial teaching syllabus (or an end-­of-­course public examination which may serve a
similar purpose) a teacher still has a responsibility to establish aims and objectives
for the course which also take other contextual factors and known learner needs
into account. Where no syllabus exists, teachers need to give thought (again, before
selecting a textbook) to what kind of syllabus(es) would be appropriate and how
the syllabus(es) might be specified.
It is one thing to specify what is to be taught; it is quite another to design an
instructional plan. The following quotation from Rossner (1988) indicates some of
the problems:
For the modern language teacher, the task seems endlessly complex: How does
one reconcile the need to get the elements of the new language sorted out with the
need to get used to hearing and understanding, speaking, reading, and writing it?
And on top of that, how does one gradually plan for learners to become adept at
matching form to function? And having done that, how does one plan for learn-
ers to accommodate the language in use to situational constraints imposed by
channels of communication, location, surrounding events, and the participants?
(1988: 141)
This is one reason why teachers tend to base their teaching on textbooks, of course.

4.2 Materials writers and syllabuses

As noted in Chapter 7, Tomlinson (1998e and elsewhere) has been an advocate for
a text-­driven approach:
one of the things we know about language acquisition is that most learners only
learn what they need or want to learn. Providing opportunities to learn the lan-
guage needed to participate in an interesting activity is much more likely to be
profitable than teaching something because it is the next teaching point in the
syllabus. And deriving learning points from an engaging text or activity is much
easier and more valuable than finding or constructing a text which illustrates a
pre-­determined teaching point . . . If the written and spoken texts are selected for
their richness and diversity of language as well as for their potential to achieve
engagement then a wide syllabus will evolve which will achieve natural and suf-
ficient coverage. (1998b: 147)
One of several assertions in the above quotation is that a text-­driven approach
‘will achieve natural and sufficient coverage’. However, a potential limitation of

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 Materials and . . .  229

a ­text-­driven approach is precisely that it does not yield a syllabus with sufficient
coverage. As if recognising this, Tomlinson cites Prowse’s (1998) suggestion that
this problem can be overcome if a checklist is used to monitor coverage. The point
should be made here that while the reference to a checklist is a tacit admission that
some form of external syllabus or self-­generated list of learning items can be helpful,
it is not an abandonment of the principle of a text-­driven approach. Whether or not
a checklist is used there is value in materials designers preparing a grid which shows
when specific items are introduced and recycled and the attention paid at different
points to skill development. Since a grid of this kind should reveal gaps and imbal-
ances in relation to students’ needs and wants, it can function as a monitoring device
even without reference to items in an external syllabus.

4.3 Beyond the linguistic syllabus

The modern coursebook typically includes a complex table showing how the multiple
linguistic syllabuses have been woven together to provide coverage of what a language
learner is judged to need at a particular level. This may take account of the ‘type’ of
English a learner is predicted to need (e.g. British or American) or, in the case of locally
produced or ‘regional’ editions, the learner’s first language. There may even be explicit
recognition of the fact that – within Europe, for instance – a learner can be expected to
be plurilingual and pluricultural, that is, function with different languages and within
different cultures (see, for example, the activities and worksheets in Macmillan’s New
Inspiration series by Judy Garton-­Sprenger and Philip Prowse (2011–)).
As we have seen earlier in this chapter and in previous chapters, however, there
is now widespread acceptance that learners’ needs are not narrowly linguistic. We
might thus have a ‘learning to learn’ thread (or syllabus) running through the book
(or a teacher’s own scheme of work). There may be a content syllabus (e.g. cultural,
EAP, ESP, CLIL). There may also be a cross-­disciplinary focus within an institu-
tion on the development of digital literacy and therefore a concern to ensure the
integration and practice of digital literacy skills within each subject area. While
this reaffirms the view expressed throughout this book that a coursebook will never
be able to meet all the needs of learners in a specific context, it can also be argued
that – to the extent that coursebooks offer a coherent treatment of at least some of
the predictable needs of learners – they can take some of the burden of materials
selection and design off teachers.

Task 10.4

1. ‘Materials design exists at the interface of syllabus design and methodol-

ogy’ (Nunan 1991: 214). What does this mean? Is it true?
2. Most teachers are familiar with language form syllabuses, whether they
relate to grammatical structures, functions or phonological features, and
can make judgements about the adequacy and appropriateness of these
for their own teaching context. However, most modern textbooks will also

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230   Materials Evaluation and Design for Language Teaching

include skill syllabuses and these can only be developed if the teacher has
a clear understanding of what constitutes skilled behaviour and how this
can be developed. This task consists of two steps:
(a) Think of a specific group of learners and a single skill (e.g. speaking)
that is important for all the members of the group. Now try to write
down in as much detail as possible the various things they need to
be able to do in that skill area. You may also be able to identify ena-
bling knowledge and skills that feed into the main skills that you have
noted.
(b) Analyse your coursebook (or any other relevant book that is available)
to see how this skill is dealt with in the book. Is there evidence that the
writer has adopted a systematic approach to skill development (i.e.
that the materials have been based on what can reasonably be called
a skill syllabus)?

5 MATERIALS AND METHOD

In a carefully designed approach to language teaching (e.g. Stern 1983; Richards
and Rodgers 1986) we might expect a high degree of consistency between aims,
objectives, syllabus, materials and method. Thus, materials will embody syllabus
content, and the method that is used to facilitate the learning of that content will be
congruent with overall aims and objectives and with the beliefs about language and
language learning that lie behind these.
Method, normally understood as a coherent set of procedures, can be said to exist
at three levels: (1) the theoretical level – or what is supposed to happen; (2) the level
of materials, insofar as these prescribe what teachers/learners are to do; and (3) the
classroom level. Levels (2) and (3) represent successive stages in interpretation or
approximation.
This section focuses on the relationship between levels (1) and (2), and (2)
and (3). It first raises a number of questions concerning the realism (and, indeed,
the desirability) of the interlocking framework described above. It then turns to
the ­relationship between materials and teacher and the teacher’s role in realising the
intentions of the materials designer.

5.1 Materials as the realisation of principles

Materials represent the first stage in which principles are turned into practice. Here
we consider the extent to which materials really do (and in the case of communica-
tive materials, can) reflect the beliefs that supposedly lie behind them.
Rossner’s (1988) random survey of materials published between 1981 and 1987
found that:

few authors have yet found ways to make available to teachers and learn-
ers resources which can provide a basis for tasks and activities in the EFL

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 Materials and . . .  231

c­ lassroom that truly reflect the ideals of communicative approaches as artic-

ulated by applied linguists . . . Probably truly ‘communicative’ tasks and
activities can only be evolved by teachers who know their learners’ needs and
wants well, and who are used to working within the constraints surrounding
particular teaching and learning situations . . . it goes without saying that
successful classroom language development depends on the ability of teach-
ers to put together coherent sequences of activities which may be based on
published or other ­materials, but which have been adapted, reformulated and
supplemented to respond to the particular needs of those students in that situ-
ation. (1988: 161)
Clarke, writing just one year later and with a similar purpose, comments on the
‘considerable dichotomy between what is theoretically recommended as desirable
and what in fact gets published and used on a wide scale’ (1989b: 73). His help-
fully detailed survey of the literature on communicative principles, and in particular
authenticity, can be summarised as follows:
1. There are two schools of thought on text authenticity, with one group insist-
ing on the real and another arguing that the primary criterion for decisions
concerning the selection of materials should be appropriateness for the learn-
ers. One argument put forward by the latter group is that real materials which
are inappropriate in terms of level or perceived relevance to learners can be just
as alienating as meaningless form-­focused activities.
2. There is agreement that authentic texts should be processed in relation to
the writer’s communicative purpose (i.e. that tasks should be focused on the
writer’s meaning and a response to that meaning).
3. There is concern about context both in relation to the wider context from
which an authentic text has been taken and the sequence of activities within
a lesson.
4. There is an acceptance of information gap activities and role play and simula-
tion as communication tasks.
In a survey of materials published between the mid-­1970s and the late 1980s, he
finds that:
1. The principle of authenticity in relation to texts has been widely adopted (he
dubs this ‘the “realia” explosion’ (1989b: 79)), but photographs and even
texts appear in some cases to have been included for largely cosmetic reasons.
‘Simulated realia’ or ‘pseudo authenticity’ takes the form of simulated newspa-
per headlines and graphic devices such as notepads and handwriting. Listening
texts are frequently at least semi-­scripted. Original materials are adapted,
sometimes without this being made explicit.
2. Despite widespread acceptance of the principle of authentic response, there is
a continuing reliance on comprehension questions, which in some cases focus
on points of detail. Authentic materials are sometimes used only to make
a linguistic point. ‘Form (whether in the sense of grammatical structure or

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232   Materials Evaluation and Design for Language Teaching

function) thus still maintains ascendancy over meaning, a situation which is

only partly concealed by the creation of an aura of authenticity’ (1989b: 82).
3. A concern for context is evident in materials with a thematic or topic-­based
structure; in other materials text selection seems ‘random’ or the contexts
linked only by the linguistic feature that binds them together.
4. Although there is little evidence of the use of the information gap principle
in coursebooks, there are attempts to create a purpose for communication
by inviting the learner to make a personal response to, for example, a ques-
tionnaire, a topic, a poem. Role play is also used. Whether these materi-
als, and indeed many of the texts included, will seem relevant to learners is
questionable.

In short, ‘modern materials tend not to exemplify the communicative principles

they purport to embody’ (1989b: 84).

5.2 Method in books and classrooms

The potential gap between principles and materials is even wider when it comes to
the classroom use of materials, since teachers may or may not use the materials in
ways that correspond to the intentions of the materials designer.
In an attempt to ensure this consistency, materials designers have sometimes pro-
duced materials in which procedures are laid down in great detail. The intention is
to ensure that the materials are ‘teacher proof’, that is, that the materials are used as
intended. There are certain situations, as when a new approach is being introduced
or when the teachers who will use the materials have little teaching experience, when
explicit and detailed instructions on what to do will be appreciated as support. But
there comes a time when the unfamiliar becomes familiar and the inexperienced
more experienced. If the instructions are written into student materials in such a
way that the teacher has virtually no freedom to deviate from them, it is at this point
that frustration may start to set in.
After all, most teachers like variety as much as learners do. This is why they
prefer materials that can be exploited in different ways (Nunan 1988a) – and why
they will from time to time voluntarily cease to use a textbook that has served
them reasonably well in favour of something novel. Teachers also understand that
one of their roles is that of mediator, between materials and learners (interpreter)
and between learners and materials/syllabus (adapter, supplementer), and when
they recognise that there is a gap between learners and materials (in either direc-
tion), they will want to do something to bridge that gap. Making what appears
to be a rather different point, Jolly and Bolitho (1998: 112) have commented
on the fact that teaching ‘against the grain’ (i.e. using materials with which one
feels uncomfortable) ‘leads to dissatisfaction, loss of confidence and learning
failure’. Because teachers have preferred ways of teaching (styles that reflect their
classroom personalities) they will want to make adjustments to materials – as one
might with clothes – until they feel comfortable with them. One result is that

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 Materials and . . .  233

even when teachers are ostensibly following the same method (i.e. organised set
of procedures), that method will be realised in potentially very different ways (see,
for example, Katz’s 1996 analysis of three teachers using the same set of writing
materials).
There is another side to this. The designer of the materials with which the teacher
is making merry might feel distinctly uneasy at any radical deviations from his or
her well-­laid plans. The basic question when there is a difference between the proce-
dures laid down in materials and a teacher’s view of how learning is best facilitated is
whether the teacher should adapt the materials or adapt to the materials. The obvi-
ous answer – and many materials designers would also concede this – is that teach-
ers should follow their instincts and adapt the materials, but this raises much larger
issues, such as how learners will react, whether the teacher is competent to take
such a decision, and whether the change will have any longer-­term consequences
in terms of learner outcomes. Nunan (1988a) provides extracts from two lessons to
demonstrate that though teachers may be using materials based on communicative
principles, interactions between teacher and learners may be ‘non communicative’.
In the teacher-­fronted sections of both lessons, ‘the teacher nominates the topics
as well as who is to speak, and the questions are almost exclusively of the display
type (questions to which the questioner already knows the answer)’ (1988a: 139).
Though Nunan is careful not to make a judgement of the teachers, the implication
is that the approach adopted by the teachers perhaps unwittingly subverted the
intention of the materials designer and presumably resulted in learning outcomes
different from what was intended.
Nunan (1988a, 1991: 211–12) also reports on a study to determine whether
experienced and inexperienced teachers used materials in different ways. T ­ wenty-­six
teachers, differentiated according to length of experience, were given an authentic
listening text and a set of worksheets, and asked to plan and teach a unit of work
based on the materials. No procedures were prescribed. One of the most striking
findings of the study was that the more experienced teachers (more than eight
years’ experience) spent considerably more time teaching the materials than the
less experienced (less than four years’ experience); however, the less experienced
group used a greater variety of learner configurations than their more experi-
enced counterparts. Possible reasons for the latter finding, Nunan suggests, may
be that because the materials were novel the experienced teachers judged that they
‘needed more teacher mediation, explanation and support’ or that the less expe-
rienced teachers had been influenced by an emphasis in their teacher education
programmes on groupwork and pairwork. No details are given of learner response
or learning outcomes.

6 MATERIALS AND RESEARCH

In relation to language learning–teaching materials, we can pose three rather dif-
ferent questions about research. Questions 1 and 2 both refer to a specific set of
materials, but might lead on to more general considerations.

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234   Materials Evaluation and Design for Language Teaching

6.1 What is the research or theoretical basis for these materials?

If teachers are the mediators between materials and learners, then materials writers,
according to one perception, are the mediators between ‘the output of scholars/
researchers (“theorists”) and teachers/learners’ (Dubin 1995: 14). They are, in other
words, applied linguists bringing their knowledge and experience to bear on a par-
ticular set of problems. Although Dubin’s characterisation of the classroom teacher
(‘Just give us engaging classroom scripts that will hold the interest of our l­earners’),
verges on caricature, and ignores the growing number of teacher-­researchers, she
does draw attention to a potential difference between those who take on the respon-
sibility for providing others with teaching materials and those who make use of
those materials: ‘The writer must have a thorough grasp of developments in the
field, but also must have the ability to embody abstract theory in concrete practice’
(1995: 14). She adds: ‘One important element of craft knowledge is the utilization
of relevant research that bears on materials writing’ (1995: 14). Similarly, Byrd,
who sees materials as a testing-­ground for theory, states: ‘At our most professional,
materials writers are attempting to give classroom realization to ideas about language
learning and language teaching that derive from varying theoretical sources’ (1995b:
6); note the careful prefatory phrase. For Tomlinson (e.g. 2010), a key source would
be the findings of second language acquisition research.
This is not to imply that the materials writer is simply an uncritical interpreter of
the ideas of others. As Dubin and Olshtain (1986: 123) recognise, the writer whose
materials deal with sociocultural awareness, for instance, must be familiar with the
output of sociolinguistic research but must also be able to make judgements about
the relevance of this research for a particular group of learners, its appropriateness to
the topics being treated, and so on. They make the further point that in cases where
writers have used research findings as the primary input, the resulting materials were
‘too narrow for the needs of most programs’ (1986: 123).
If we accept the view that materials should rest on a research base of some kind
this raises questions in relation to a particular set of materials such as ‘What kinds
of research/theories appear to underpin the materials?’ and ‘To what extent did the
writer make conscious research-­based decisions, and in relation to what features
of the work?’ In order to determine the research/theoretical basis for materials we
would obviously need to interrogate the materials themselves (e.g. the tasks – as
Littlejohn (2011) and Ellis (1997, 1998) suggest, the introduction, the teacher’s
book) and, if we can get personal access to them, the writer(s), publisher’s editor
and the designer. In order to make judgements such as whether the underpin-
ning research base is sound or the theories current, we would also need to be well
informed ourselves. McDonough et al. (2013) provide useful summaries of research
in each of the main skill areas, and integrated skills, and look at how this research is
reflected in teaching materials.
A particular theory or body of research could, of course, inform very different
sets of materials. The comparison of materials within the same category – for
example, supplementary skills materials focusing on listening – might not only

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 Materials and . . .  235

prompt ­questions to do with what theoretical assumptions the materials have in

common but also the nature of their surface variation – and the effects that this
has on users. This line of questioning raises the issue in relation to successful/less
successful materials of the relative importance of specific theoretical underpin-
nings on the one hand and the skill and experience of the materials writer on the
other.

6.2 What research processes were involved in the writing of the materials?
Question 1, above, is concerned with one kind of input to materials design: previ-
ous research into language, learning and teaching and the way in which this is used.
Question 2 asks about the research specifically conducted in relation to the particu-
lar set of materials under consideration. It would be most relevant in the context of
materials evaluation. What kinds of research by author and/or publisher preceded
the writing? What was the nature and extent of any piloting and/or other forms
of feedback on the materials? Guidance on piloting procedures can be found in,
for example, Barnard and Randall (1995), Richards (1995), Donovan (1998) and
McGrath (2013). See also individual papers in Tomlinson and Masuhara (2010),
Tomlinson (2011, 2013b) and Harwood (2014a).

6.3 What research has there been into materials selection and use and what
remains to be done?
This is clearly a more general question. Byrd (1995b: 6) acknowledges that the body
of knowledge on which practitioners within a profession typically base their work
remains ill-­defined. Her list of ‘fundamental questions’ requiring study is as follows:
• How can study of written text in textbook format result in language learning?
• How do students use text and/or textbooks in their study?
• 
Do students from different cultures use text and/or textbooks in different
ways?
• How do language teachers use text and/or textbooks?
• Are there better and worse ways of using text and/or textbooks?
• 
How is learning content from text and/or textbooks different from learning
communication in language through study of text and/or textbooks?
(Byrd 1995b: 6)
Research has been taking place in the years since Byrd posed these questions.
Collections edited by Tomlinson and Masuhara (2010), for example, and Harwood
(2014a) contain papers with a research dimension and Tomlinson (2012) includes
an overview of research which includes a number of published reports on funded
projects. At the time of writing, the most detailed survey can be found in Harwood
(2014b), which includes reference to research in mainstream education. Harwood’s
review is particularly helpful in categorising textbook-­related research as oriented
towards content (focusing on language, culture and pragmatics, but also teachers’

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236   Materials Evaluation and Design for Language Teaching

guides), consumption (the use by teachers of textbooks and teachers’ guides, and of
textbooks by learners) or production (accounts by writers and publishers which help
to explain ‘why textbooks are the way they are’ (2014b: 18). Tomlinson (2003a,
2011, 2012) and McGrath (2013: 199–202) have also suggested updated research
agendas. There is agreement that a wider range of answers is needed to some ques-
tions, and that, while acknowledging the logistical difficulties involved, questions
concerned with effects can only be satisfactorily answered by longitudinal research.

Task 10.5
1. Look back at question 1, above (section 6.1). Choose a language skill that
is important for the kinds of student you teach. Summarise the conclusions
of the research that you are familiar with in relation to this skill. Decide what
the pedagogic implications of these are and the relevance for the learners
you have in mind. Design an instrument which will allow you to analyse the
treatment of this skill in a set of published materials. Choose either a sup-
plementary skills book or a coursebook that appears to give reasonable
prominence to the skill. Analyse the materials to determine how far they
appear to be based on linguistic research.
2. Choose a possible area of research that you would be interested in explor-
ing and would be feasible in your situation. This might be one of the topics
suggested under question 3, above (section 6.3) or in one of the research
agendas listed at the end of the section. Carry out a literature review to
find out what has already been done in this area. Then design a research
plan which includes hypotheses or research questions and an indication of
method. Talk through your plan with classmates or colleagues.

7 MATERIALS AND TEACHER EDUCATION

The need for courses in materials evaluation and design for both pre-­service and
in-­service teachers was argued in the introduction to this book as a whole and in
the introduction to this chapter. This section is, in effect, simply a short postscript.
When I teach courses on materials I always spend part of the first session elicit-
ing from the participants what their previous experiences have been, what they feel
their needs are, and what they hope to get from the course. We then look at the
course outline to consider how their needs can be accommodated. Halfway through
the course, I ask whether they want more of X or Y, where X or Y may be input or
practice relating to a particular topic or a particular type of activity, and whether
they would like to make any changes to the content proposed for the remainder of
the course. The second edition of this book is in effect a response to the expressed
needs of the teachers that I have taught with different levels of experience and in
different contexts as well as a personal judgement based on observation and assess-
ment of teachers over many years. Selected from and supplemented as appropriate,
I am confident that it can provide a coherent core syllabus and much of the content
of a systematically structured course in materials evaluation and design for English

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 Materials and . . .  237

language teachers, with some degree of further specialisation offered through the
suggested further reading or through a specific focus on teaching learners of a par-
ticular age or with specific needs. The tasks interspersed throughout the chapters
and particularly those in the ‘Reflection, Discussion, Action’ sections at the end of
each chapter encourage processing of the content on both a group and an individual
level.
For experienced teacher educators, this will be sufficient to fashion a course which
meets the needs of their teacher-­learners. Those with less experience of teacher
education – or of designing and running courses on this particular topic – will
find concrete suggestions in my book Teaching Materials and the Roles of EFL/ESL
Teachers: Practice and Theory (2013). This compares ‘Theory’ (as seen in the perspec-
tives of publishers, coursebook writers and teacher educators, and the professional
literature) with ‘Practice’ (reflected in what teachers do, and what learners think)
and draws implications for all those involved, including teacher educators. The final
chapter, which is intended specifically for teacher educators, sets out a framework
for course design based on content ‘blocks’ (such as coursebook selection or materi-
als adaptation), and recurrent ‘threads’ (elicitation, sharing, structured experimen-
tation and research, and reflection); a wide variety of activities is suggested within
the blocks and threads. References to the language teacher education literature, and
particularly those works concerned with method, are intended to cater for experi-
enced as well as less experienced teacher educators.
A few years ago, at a conference in Cambodia, I met an American teacher educa-
tor who told me that reading the first edition of this book had changed the way he
thought about teaching materials and his role as a teacher. I hope that this second
edition has had the same effect on you.

REFLECTION, DISCUSSION, ACTION

• Which of the sections in this chapter have you found most interesting? Why?
• Which of the chapters in the book have you found most useful? Why?
• If you are currently teaching, which topics in the book do you think would be
of most interest to your colleagues? Choose one, and plan one or more linked
workshops to be delivered to your colleagues. Include a short preparatory or
follow-­up reading (this can be an extract of just one or two pages or a number
of quotations that summarise what for you are key points).

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