International Perspectives on Materials in ELT

Sue Garton, Kathleen Graves

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781137023315
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Teaching Languages

This book brings together different perspectives on ELT materials from a range of international contexts and a variety of educational settings. All the chapters are underpinned by sound theoretical principles while addressing practical concerns and debates in materials design and use.

1

Materials in ELT: Current Issues

Sue Garton and Kathleen Graves

Overview

Materials in general, and commercial materials in particular, play a central role in language learning and teaching. As Richards (2001: 251) notes ‘Much of the language teaching that occurs throughout the world today could not take place without the extensive use of commercial materials.’ Yet, until relatively recently, this was a neglected area in English Language Teaching (ELT) research and publication. Tomlinson (2012) identifies the early nineties as the decade in which serious attention began to be shown towards materials development. Fortunately, the last few years have seen an increase in this attention with a number of new publications, including Harwood (2010), Tomlinson (2008), Tomlinson and Masuhara (2010a), Tomlinson (2013), as well as new editions of previous publications (McDonough and Shaw, 1993, 2003; McDonough, Shaw and Masuhara, 2013; Tomlinson, 1998, 2011). An important contribution to the field has also come from Tomlinson’s (2012) state-of-the-art review of materials development.

Two things are noticeable about the majority of these publications, however. First, the field is generally under-researched. Many of the books published are ‘how to’ books, with advice for teachers (see for example McDonough, Shaw and Masuhara, 2013; McGrath, 2002; Tomlinson, 2003, 2011). These books may draw on research and theory, especially in Second Language Acquisition (SLA), but they are not based on research studies into materials. Most certainly such volumes have an important role to play but we think it is fair to say that the field is generally lacking in empirical studies, a point also made by Chapelle (2009) in relation to materials evaluation and Tomlinson and Masuhara (2010b) in relation to materials development. Three notable exceptions are the edited collections by Harwood (2010), Tomlinson and Masuhara (2010a) and Tomlinson (2013). The chapters in these volumes generally take a more theoretical perspective in looking at what underlies the development of ELT materials, although they tend again to be based on relating theories of language and language learning to materials development rather than research into the materials themselves or their use.

The second point to be made is that the majority of previous publications focus primarily on certain aspects of ELT materials. Thus we find books and chapters on materials design and development (Harwood, 2010; Jolly and Bolitho, 2011; McGrath, 2002), materials evaluation and adaptation (Islam and Mares, 2003; Littlejohn, 2011; McDonough, Shaw and Masuhara, 2013; McGrath, 2002; Nation and Macalister, 2010; Richards, 2001), the materials writing process (Bell and Gower, 2011; Mares, 2003; Maley, 2003) and types of materials (Tomlinson, 2008).

Tomlinson’s (2012) review, for example, is concerned with ‘materials development’, which he sees as both practical and a field of academic study. From a practical point of view, ‘it involves the production, evaluation and adaptation of materials’ (p. 144), while as an object of study, the focus is on ‘the principles and procedures of the design, writing, implementation, evaluation and analysis of materials’ (p. 144). There seems to be, however, a curious omission from these definitions – that of use. Any view of materials that neglects their actual use by teachers and/or learners can, in our view, only be partial, and yet none of the recent publications listed above (and indeed earlier ones such as Cunningsworth, 1995; McDonough and Shaw, 1993; Tomlinson, 1998) focus on this aspect, although Tomlinson (2012) does say that investigations into materials should ideally inform and be informed by their use.

This volume therefore focuses not only on materials but on their use, not only by teachers but also by learners. Where it is original is in the number of chapters written either by or about practitioners and based on research into the preparation and use of materials in everyday teaching in a variety of contexts around the world.

The field of materials is vast and cannot possibly be covered in one introductory chapter. What follows will focus on the areas identified by the contributors to this volume as important in their work. As such, it will examine aspects of materials that have been neglected, as well as look at more common aspects from new perspectives.

The coursebook

Current developments in materials, particularly in the use of technology (see for example, Macaro, Handley and Walter, 2012; Maggi, Cherubin and Garcia Pascual, Chapter 12; Pereira, Chapter 11; Rahman and Cotter, Chapter 10), challenge traditional definitions. Harwood (2010: 3) uses the term materials to include texts in all forms (paper, audio, video) and language learning tasks, with the expressed intention of including everything from teacher handouts to global coursebooks¹. Tomlinson (2011: 2) gives an even broader definition when he states that materials are ‘anything which is used by teachers or learners to facilitate the learning of a language’. His list of examples ranges from videos, emails and YouTube to grammar books, food packages and instructions given by the teacher.

Yet in spite of the broad definitions of materials that are now generally accepted, the coursebook is still ubiquitous and plays a fundamental role in ELT around the world (Littlejohn, 2011; Richards, Chapter 2; Tomlinson, 2003), as can be seen in the number of chapters in this volume that focus on some aspect of it. Thus we find discussions of different types of coursebooks (Lopez-Barrios and Villanueva de Debat, Chapter 3; Richards, Chapter 2); of how coursebook materials are developed to meet local conditions (al Majthoob, Chapter 4) and of cultural content (Messekher, Chapter 5). Other chapters focus on how teachers use coursebooks and factors affecting their decisions (Bosompem, Chapter 7; Humphries, Chapter 15; Seferaj, Chapter 6) or how they can be used in teacher education (Augusto-Navarro, de Oliveira and Abreu-e-Lima, Chapter 14).

The global coursebook

The advantages and disadvantages of global coursebooks are well documented in the literature, as well as being experienced by teachers in their daily professional practice. Below is a list that some of Garton’s students on a graduate TESOL programme drew up when asked why they would or would not want to use a coursebook in their teaching:

Why use a coursebook?

1.It gives structure to lessons and to a course.

2.It saves time – teachers are too busy to prepare their own materials.

3.It gives a sense of security – teachers feel they know what they are doing.

4.It promotes autonomy as learners can use and refer to it outside the classroom.

5.It is reliable as it is written by experts and published by well-known publishers.

6.It gives a sense of professionalism in the way it is presented.

7.It offers different perspectives as it focuses on different cultures and different places.

Why not use a coursebook?

1.It cannot meet the needs of a particular group of learners.

2.The language taught might not be appropriate.

3.It might not be culturally appropriate.

4.It is outdated.

5.It is not authentic.

6.It is not representative of the local context.

7.It takes away the teacher’s creativity.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, this list is very similar to those in the literature (see for example, Masuhara and Tomlinson, 2008; McGrath, 2002; Richards, 2001, Chapter 2).

Different views of coursebooks were also noted by McGrath (2006) in the metaphors that teachers use to describe them. McGrath (2006: 174) categorised these metaphors into four groups, on a continuum from dependence to independence, the first three of which demonstrated a relatively positive attitude: Guidance (map, compass); Support (anchor, petrol); Resource (convenience store, menu); Constraint (millstone, straightjacket). Although this study, and the list above, show that teachers generally have quite favourable views of coursebooks, they also underline a certain ambivalence and highlight a number of issues.

In-depth reviews by Tomlinson, Dat, Masuhara and Rubdy (2001) and Masuhara, Hann, Yi and Tomlinson, (2008) have revealed perhaps less obvious issues with the global coursebook. For example, overall Tomlinson, Dat, Masuhara and Rubdy (2001) found that the coursebooks they reviewed did not encourage adaptation or facilitate the tailoring of the materials to learners’ needs or to local contexts. Moreover, Masuhara, Hann, Yi and Tomlinson (2008) found a lack of suggestions for personalisation, localisation and mixed-level classes. They also found that topics were generally banal and that there was a focus on politeness rather than conflict and competition. Yet most of the above are issues that have long been recognised as key principles that should underlie successful materials (see, for example, Tomlinson, 2008, 2011, 2012).

Critical views

In the wake of critical approaches to TESOL (see, for example Block, Gray and Holborrow, 2012; Edge, 2006) global coursebooks have also come under more critical scrutiny. At its most basic this can be seen in the open acknowledgement that global publishing is a multi-million pound business (Masuhara and Tomlinson, 2008), a realisation that is often something of a surprise to graduate students and teachers. Masuhara and Tomlinson (2008) point out that, in an attempt to maximise profits, global coursebooks for general English are aimed at the dual markets of language courses in English-speaking countries and in English as a Foreign language contexts. The result is that they may not satisfy the needs of learners and teachers in either (Masuhara et al. 2008: 310) and al Majthoob (Chapter 4) makes a strong case for materials that reflect different realities.

Tomlinson (2008) even goes so far as to assert that coursebooks are at least partly to blame for the failure of learners to learn in that they conform to the expectations of stakeholders and the demands of the market rather than to what we know about language acquisition and the learning process. Underlying Tomlinson’s criticism are pedagogical premises, which still view materials as ‘curriculum artefacts’ (Apple and Christian-Smith, 1991: 4 as cited in Gray, 2010: 2). However, Gray (2010, 2012), building on the work of critical applied linguists such as Pennycook (1994) and Phillipson (1992, 2009) makes a compelling case for considering the global coursebook as a cultural artefact which presents a particular view of reality and is value laden. He describes how ELT publishers focus on ‘aspirational content’ with frequent use of topics around personal and professional success, celebrities, cosmopolitanism and travel, all of which are believed to be motivating for language learners (Gray, 2012: 87) and with the underlying message that English equates with success (Gray, 2012: 104). However, such images may not be motivating and may be resisted by learners (Canagarajah, 1993) or may leave them feeling inadequate (Masuhara and Tomlinson, 2008: 19).

The values portrayed by coursebooks are also inscribed in the methodological approaches they adopt (Prodromou and Mishen, 2008). Global coursebooks tend to be based on approaches developed in western academic departments, exhibiting what Prodromou and Mishen (2008: 194) call ‘methodological correctness’. They define methodological correctness as:

a set of beliefs derived from prestigious but incomplete academic research in the Anglophone centre that influence the decisions one makes regarding materials and methods in the classroom, even if those decisions are inconsistent with the local context and particular needs and wants of the students. (ibid.: 194)

The effects of the introduction of western methodological approaches, and the pressure it may put on teachers who are expected to use new approaches and materials, are well documented (see Garton, Copland and...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• 1  Materials in ELT: Current Issues
• Part I  Global and Local Materials
• Part II  Materials in the Classroom
• Part III  Materials and Technology
• Part IV  Materials and Teacher Education
• Suggested Reading
• Index