Comments on Part B

Summary

The three chapters in this section offer very different perspectives on the process of creating language teaching materials, but they do share some themes and they do raise similar issues.

All three chapters stress the dynamic nature of materials development and reveal how materials, whether they be for publication or tomorrow’s lesson, need to be constantly evaluated and revised. Materials should keep changing, and, in fact, I even change my own published materials every time I use them in class. Ideally materials need to be monitored by the author(s), by other ‘experts’ not involved in the writing team and by typical users of the material. This is the process commonly adopted on textbook projects these days and which, in my personal experience, has been very successful in increasing the learning potential of books written in the 1990s for schools in Bulgaria, Morocco and Namibia (Tomlinson 1995 ) and more recently for materials for teachers in Ethiopia, for young professionals in Sub-Saharan Africa, for university students in Turkey and Vietnam, and for primary students in China. The Namibian Textbook Project is a particularly interesting example of dynamic development of materials. A team of 30 writers (teachers, curriculum developers and advisers) worked together for eight days to develop a book (On Target 1995). During that time the team used responses to teacher and student questionnaires plus their pooled experience and expertise to determine the content and approach of the book and then to draft, revise and write it. Later it was trialled by teachers throughout the country, monitored by ‘experts’ and then finalised. This collaborative, interactive approach is one I would recommend whether for global coursebooks, local textbooks or even institution- specific material .

Another theme common to the three chapters is that of meeting the needs of all the interested parties (a theme also discussed by Frances Amrani when she focuses on the monitoring of materials in Chapter 11 and by Hitomi Masuhara when she considers the needs of teachers in Chapter 10 ). Whilst most people would agree that meeting the needs of the learners should be the primary target, it is obviously important to meet the needs of the teachers, the writers and the ‘sponsors’ too.