THE TEACHER AS MATERIALS DEVELOPER

Ms. Sujatha A Lecturer, Sri Venkateswara College of Engineering Sriperumbudur 602 105.
The purpose of this paper is to highlight the need for English teachers in engineering colleges to evolve into effective materials developers. The term materials developers need not necessarily refer to writers of text books. As Brian Tomlinson rightly puts it,

Materials development refers to anything which is done by writers, teachers or learners to provide sources of language input and to exploit those sources in ways which maximise the likelihood of intake: in other words the supplying of information about and/or experience of the language in ways designed to promote language learning. Materials developers might write textbooks, tell stories, bring advertisements into the classroom, express an opinion, provide samples of language use or read a poem aloud. Whatever they do to provide input they do so in principled ways related to what they know about how languages can be effectively learned (2).

The reason for emphasising on English teachers in engineering colleges is that the syllabus in Arts and Science colleges is that the syllabus in such colleges is structured like the syllabus that students encounter at the high school and the higher secondary level. The learning units are broadly divided into the four genres prose, poetry, drama and fiction (short fiction), while grammar and composition fall under an isolated category.

Since there is a syllabus that clearly specifies the texts, teachers in Arts and Science colleges

a. b.

adhere rigidly to the texts prescribed. instruct students to have a thorough knowledge of detailed texts, as they are expected to annotate passages from those (e.g. detailed prose, detailed drama)

c.

emphasise more on covering the syllabus than uncovering learners boredom. This is mainly due to the need to grapple with a specified time frame. For example, the University of Madras demands that teachers complete 23 texts each for the first and the second semester (6 prose essays, 6 poems, 6 essays on personality development, and 5 short stories).

As far as engineering colleges are concerned, the common note of dissent among teachers and students is that

a. b. c. d.

the English syllabus focuses only on technical English. the emphasis is more on form (tenses, voice, modals, phrasal verbs). the tasks provided in the prescribed book/s offer no challenge for learning. it is tedious to teach/learn grammatical items like tenses and modals that have already been taught at the school level.

With such issues to face, it is not surprising that the English classroom in an engineering college is more lecture-based, where role plays or group discussions or language games form part of isolated language games and are hardly ever integrated into the syllabus.

However, as far as the engineering syllabus for English is concerned, there are a few advantages that may be tailored to suit the needs of both teachers and learners. a. Since there is no prescribed text, the teacher has the freedom to choose any text that offers scope for

i)

teaching form, function, and other language items

For example, a story like The Selfish Giant could be used for teaching grammar items like conjunctions, and for teaching functions like wishing/hoping. Vocabulary items like word rows or word squares would definitely cater to the interests of the learners. In fact, the teacher may go a step further and discuss the use of personification in the story, if the learners happen to have an aesthetic bent of mind.

ii)

framing both pedagogical and real world tasks

David Nunan in his book Task-based Language Learning distinguishes between pedagogical tasks and real world tasks. According to him, pedagogical tasks are those that occur in the classroom, while real world tasks are those that deal with uses of language in the world beyond the classroom (1). The teacher must be discrete in framing tasks that can be employed in the classroom or language lab. What Tomlinson outlines as the features of effective materials may apparently be applied to features of tasks as well.

Novelty Variety Attractive presentation Appealing content (7)

b.

The number of hours per week allotted for classroom teaching in engineering colleges generally ranges from 3 to 4. this offers the teacher wider space to experiment with authentic and interesting texts and not to be bogged down by the time factor.

c.

As mentioned earlier, if the language lab is made available to the first years, then the teacher can make use of effective audio-visual materials to reinforce what was already taught in the classroom or to introduce a unit of learning (e.g. presentation skills), that would prove useful to learners in their day-to-day life or in their workplaces in future. Interactive software like Author Plus provide the teacher a framework for producing materials, thereby facilitating the process further.

In short, a teacher can evolve into an effective materials producer if he/she follows the following steps:

Needs Analysis Any step in materials development would be faltering unless the teacher conducts a survey of the problems that learners face and of their learning needs.

Identifying/Generating Texts Selection of texts is indeed a challenging task, for they must cater to learners tastes. If the teacher is a creative writer, then he/she can generate texts to be used in the classroom or language laboratory. But, mere selection or generation of texts would not suffice. The teacher must check if the text offers scope for the teaching of language items. Only then can tasks be framed accordingly.

Widen the Scope of the Very Word Text If one were to go by Saussures view that everything is a text, then even a piece of music is a text that offers scope for i) listening comprehension ii) group discussion iii) miming. For instance, a popular hit like Michael Jacksons Beat It can be used to initiate a group discussion on racial discrimination, while Aquas My Oh My would be ideal for miming.

Be Open-minded/Flexible Flexibility is undoubtedly the hallmark of a good teacher. The teacher must always think of two or more ways of using a text so that if the learners are not keen on performing a particular task, then there is always an alternative.

Evaluating the Methods/Tasks Used in the Classroom with Regard to Learner Aptitude and Attitude The teacher necessarily needs to test the learners competence by using appropriate methods of evaluation. But, unlike a namesake or traditional method of evaluation, a more practical, yet dynamic and challenging method of evaluation needs to be carried out. The teacher must moot over the following points before the actual process of evaluation:

What am I going to evaluate? How am I going to evaluate? What am I going to do in the post-evaluation phrase?

In other words, the process of evaluation should be based on the specific objectives of reliability, validity and practicality. Secondly, the teacher must be prepared to reformulate or revise his/ her views and materials based on the outcome of evaluation.

To conclude, It is not until a teacher has attempted to produce her own materials that she finally begins to develop a set of criteria to evaluate materials produced by others. Only then does the full range of options from blind acceptance of other materials, through adaptation and supplementation, to the production of purpose-built materials, become clear (Jolly and Bolitho 111).

References Jolly, David and Rod Bolitho. A Framework for Materials Production. Materials Development in Language Learning. Ed. Brian Tomlinson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 90-115. Nunan, David. 2004. Task-based Language Learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

Tomlinson, Brian. Introduction. Materials Development in Language Learning. Ed. Brian Tomlinson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. 1-24.

Ms. Sujatha A Lecturer, Sri Venkateswara College of Engineering Sriperumbudur 602 105.
Sujatha has been teaching tertiary learners for about 12 years and is also a corporate trainer. At present, she is a lecturer in Sri Venkateswara College of Engineering. Her areas of interest include Storytelling, Curriculum and Materials Production, Learning Styles and Teacher Development. At present, she is pursuing her research on storytelling. The present paper falls under the purview of Curriculum and Materials Production.