writinng

APPROACHES TO MATERIALS WRITING
Principles and Prosedures of Materials Writing
1. To articulate our main theories of language learning.
2. To profile the target learner.
3. To list objective and aims.
4. To list procedures this could help to match the theories, the profile, the objective and the aims in principles ways.
5. To develop a flexible unit framework using procedure from our list
A recommendation framework for materials development
A. Preparation for materials development
1. Text collection
About the text, we can collect and/or create it which can improve our senses, feeling, views, and intuitions by our self. For examples, we can take the references from literature, song, newspaper, magazine, or fro non-fiction book, such as radio, television, movie, etc
2. Text selection
There are some important criteria for selecting a text:
 Does the text still engage you cognitively and affectively?
 Is the text likely to engage most of the target learners cognitively and affectively?
 Are the target learners likely to be able to connect the text to their lives?

B. Developing the materials
1. Experiencing the text again.
We have to experience the text again by reading or listening n order to re-engage with the text.
2. Devising readiness activities.
Devise the activities that could get the learner ready to experience the text and the activities could ask the learner to visualize, to drawing, to think the connection, to mime, to share their knowledge, to make predictions, and so on.
3. Devising experiential activities.
There are some activities which can help the learner to represent the text in their mind. Those activities should be given to the learner just before they began to read or listen to the text and it must be easy to remember and apply.
4. Devising intake response activities.
The teacher should give the activities which can help the learner to develop and articulate what they have taken from the text. For example by inviting them to share with their friends what they have taken. This response activities aim the learner to think all out and articulate their feeling.
5. Devising development activities.
They involve the learner in pairs work or small group to going back to the text in order to discuss about the text and connect it with their own life before going forward to produce something new.
6. Devising input response activities
This activity aimed to help the student to understand deeply about the text by:
a. Interpretation tasks
This task asks the learner to think deeply and discovery the main purpose of the author.
b. Awareness tasks
This task asks the learner to gain awareness from focused study to the text.
Using the Framework
It is useful to include all of the stage in actual course so that the teacher or maybe the student can make decisions about which stage they use.

ASPECT OF MATERIALS WRITING
Selecting Text
There are some criteria and suggestion for selecting the text:
1. As a basic for a unit in a set of materials
The important point is that the text should have the potential to engage the learners affectively and cognitively and should offer the learner a rich experience of both language and life.
The criteria which we have found help to achieve effective selection are:
 Does the text engage us cognitively and affectively?
 Is the text likely to engage most of the target learners cognitively and effectively?
 Is the text likely to be comprehensible to the target learner?
 Are the target learners likely to be able to connect the text to their lives?
 Are the most of target learners likely to be able to connect the text to their knowledge of the world?
 Is the linguistic level of the text likely to be able to achieve multi-dimensional mental representation of the text?
 Is the cognitive level of the text likely to present an achievable challenge to target learners?
 Is the most emotional level of the text likely suitable for the age and maturity of the target learners?
 Is the text likely to contribute to the personal development of the learners?
 Does the text contribute to the ultimate exposure of the learners to a range of genres?
 Does the text contribute to the ultimate exposure of the learners to a range of text types?
2. As a basic for a reading/listening skill lesson
The text should not be selected just because it focuses on a particular skill which you want to teach. Here are some criteria for it:
a. Could the text be used to provide the learners with experience of using a particular skill?
b. Does the text require the learners to use a number of reading/listening skills?
c. Does the text provide experience of using reading /listening skills in ways which are similar to those they will experience outside and after their course?
3. Text for use in language teaching
The text for use in language teaching should be selected according to the criteria below:
a. Does the text include sufficient samples of the typical use of a particular language item or feature?
b. Does the text provide sufficient contextual information to help the learner to understand and generalize about the use of the language item or feature selected for particular attention?
Writing Instructions
We have used the following criteria to help ourselves and others to write clear instructions:
1. Salience
It should be clear to the learners which words are instructions and which words are not.
2. Simplicity
Each instruction should refer to one action only.
3. Obvious reference
An instruction should use nouns rather than pronouns.
4. Examples
It is often very useful to give an example of what you want the learners to do.

5. Specification
It is important to specify what the learners actually have to do.
6. Standardization
Throughout the materials similar instructions should be expressed in similar ways.
7. Sequencing
The instructions given should be in the same sequence as the actions you want the learners to do.
8. Separation
Ideally each instruction should be physically separated from other instructions for the same activity. For example:
1. Sit with a partner.
2. Go back to the passage called, “No Way”.
3. Underline each point made by the writer.
4. For each point, decide if you agree with the writer.
9. Staging
Instruction should be staged so that the learner does not have to remember a lot of instructions at once.
Using Illustrations
1. What does it mean?
The term illustration is used in this booklet to refer to all kinds of visual elements in material. Illustration may include:
 Photos
 Drawings and painting
 Cartoons
 Mock document that simulate real live document.
 Graphs, charts, maps, diagrams.
 Functional illustrations.
2. Why do teacher need to consider illustration in materials?
 Communication is non-verbal as well as verbal
 Hill (2003) found in his analysis of four major global course books that each page of materials had, on average, two illustrations per page.
3. Objective of using illustration
Illustrations can be use to:
 Provide visual explanations
 Give aesthetic experience
 Include affective responses
 Provoke thoughts and reactions.
 Give contexts
 Show procedures
 Provide a visual summary.
4. Effects of illustrations
According to Hill (2003) point that the photos can lack focus, inhibit learners’ imagination and date very quickly. Drawings, in the other hand, can be seemed to lack authority and reality, and different artistic style could induce either positive or negative reactions.
By knowing the strengths and weakness of different kinds of illustrations enables the teacher can choose appropriate illustrations for their learners.
Design and layout
A. Layout means structural arrangement of part. The good role for layout is:
1. Attracting attentions
2. Providing focus
3. Sequencing smoothly
4. Separating different sections
5. Attracting aesthetic responses
6. Providing consistency
7. Providing impact by dramatically departing from the normal layout.
And in the good layout may include:
1. Positioning
2. Size
3. Sequence
4. Use of space
5. Balance of visual and text
6. Separation
7. Repetition
B. Design is an overall plan which governs the appearance and functions of materials. Materials with good design are likely to be:
1. Appealing
2. Aesthetic
3. Impactful
4. Functionally clear
5. Easy to use
6. Cost affective
Thus, good design can help teachers and materials writers to achieve:
1. Objectives
2. Credibility
3. Consistency
4. Impact


NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN MATERIALS WRITING
Local projects
Countries, regions and institutions have developed their own coursebooks and/or supplementary materials. For example, we know personally of major national coursebooks produced recently in Bulgaria, Marocco, Namibia and so on.

1. Characteristics of Local materials:
The local materials project we know aboout have tended to:
 Be writen by group
 Have advisors
 Share the writing among the large group
 Be content and meaning focused
 Be text-driven rather than language syllabus driven
 Use text which are provocative rather then bland in content
 Focus on the known needs and wants of the target users of the materials
 Focus on long term educational aims as well as on short term language learning objectives
 Be both local and international in the topics
 Localise the activities in the sense of helping the learner to maka connections with their live.
 Trial the materials with the target learners.
2. Advantages of Local materials, are:
 The ability to consult the target user about their learners.
 The direct relevance of the materials to target learners
 The potential for personalization.
 The awareness of the writers.
 The easy availability of local illustrations, literature, songs, etc.
 Freedom from constrain experienced by commercial publishers of global materials.
 The ability to get feedback from the actual target users.
 The benefits in term of personal and professional development.
 The local ownership the materials.
 The owner credibility of the materials.
3. Problems of Local materials
 Principle, inspectors, parents etc under valuating the materials because they were not produced by overseas experts.
 The need for careful linguistic monitoring of the materials.
 The difficulty of getting access to illustrations, text, etc from other cultures.
 The production values of the local publisher being compared unfavorably with those of major international publishers.
4. The futures of Local materials
N the future we see more and more countries, regions, and institutions deciding to produce their local materials.
Call and Multi-Media Materials
1. What is CALL?
CALL is an acronym of Computer Assisted Language Learning. It is developing rapidly in line with advancement of technology and use of computer in home and school.
2. Classic CALL
CALL of this kind makes use of the ability of computers to provide, at the learners’ own pace, as many exact repetitions as required.
3. Communication CALL
Communication CALL usually included course ware for practicing the four skills and for language games. Communication CALL satisfied our understanding of language and language learning by:
 Focusing on language as well as language form.
 Encouraging learning to generate original utterances.
 Providing more contexts in which language skills are used.
 Allowing learners a certain amount of control.
4. Multi-Media and hypermedia
One of the technological developments in CALL is Multi-media technologies that allow a variety of media (text, graphics, sound, animations, and video) to be accessed in a single device. The other development is hypermedia, it refer to the capacity to make links with multimedia resource.
5. The computer as a tool
a. Word processing is a common use of the computer as a tool. And it very useful in helping language learner to develop writing and editing.
b. We use a computer as a Referencing.
c. Concordancers software is a computer-access tool used to search through huge file of spoken and written text.
d. CMC (Computer-Mediated Communication), such as Emails.


6. Opportunities provided by the web to learners
Now, the learners can:
a. Gain massive exposure to the target language.
b. Follow us a particular context is the target language through daily access.
c. Take a part in projects which involve on-line research.
d. Take advantage of many free web-sites which provide learning materials.
e. Enroll for a web-based distance course.
7. Criteria for evaluating web-based materials
The materials should not make a mistake of just imitating print materials. And for its advantages are:
a. The interactive opportunities offered by the web.
b. The multi-media opportunities not offered by a course book.
c. The multiple access opportunities to offer the learners choices of texts and activities,
d. The multiple access opportunities to personalize and localize the materials and to keep their content up to date.
e. The possibilities offered by activities which could be done collaboratively by two or more learners sitting at one computer.