Materials Development in

Language Teaching
Brian Tomlinson

Chapter 15: Self-access Materials

Summary of Part D
Synopsis of the book

Introduction

Self-access materials are learnercentered activities intended to help

students practice at their own pace,
to supplement class work and to
focus on skills they might find
problematic.
The drawback with this type of selfassessment is that for learners to
use it, it should allow easy selfmarking

The predominance of this type has

limited the learners focus to a
narrow left brain activity with limited
use of the persons learning capacity.
Self-access materials have also led to
a loss in the learners procedural
knowledge (the use of language in
context), and to little contribution to
implicit
knowledge
acquired
subconsciously.

In general, learners are divided into

two categories: studial learners who
are
analytical,
visual
and
independent, and who like to learn in
textbooks; and experiential, learners
who are global and hands-on and
who prefer an overall approach of
the language. It is clear that selfaccess materials fit more the first
type.

In recent years, there has been an

increasing tendency to overuse selfaccess materials as cost-effective
open learning tools. However, these
materials should be closed enough,
to be easily self-marked.

In this chapter, Brian Tomlinson

suggests to supplement closed
self-access materials by open
activities that require the learners
investment.

Self-access materials should:

1- allow the learner to choose what to work on

2- be open-ended with a range of possible
answers
3- encourage learners to exploit their prior
experience
4- involve learners as human beings
5- require the learners investment, effort, and
energy

6- stimulate left and right brain activities to

maximize the brains potential for learning
7- provide a diversified input to facilitate
informal and selective acquisition
It is a humanistic approach to develop the
learners
in-context
acquisition
of
language

Features of Self-access Materials

a- They should provide exposure

to authentic language through
purposeful activities.
bReading
activities
should
facilitate interaction with the texts.
c- The pre and post reading
activities should elicit a readertext interaction.

d- Learners should be encouraged to

practice high level skills such as: inferring,
connecting, interpreting, and evaluating.
e- Productive activities (writing and
speaking) should involve the use of the
target language
f- Learners should make choices that suit
their learning style, linguistic level, and
level of involvement in the material.

Features of Self-access Materials

g- Self-access materials are

individualistic, but also offer the
possibility of group work.
h- Feedback should be given
through commentaries and not
answers keys, during and after
tests.

i- Self-access activities should

involve the learners thinking about
the cognitive process to make
informed choices.
j- Suggestions for individual followup activities should be given at the
end of every unit.

Suitable Reading Self-access Materials

Among possible genres are narrative

texts that have the potential to engage
the learners cognitively and affectively
and engage the readers in an interaction
with the story elements (characters,
setting, and plot), have the potential to
build
on
the
readers
personal
experiences,
and
provide
positive
evidence for language acquisition.

Narrative-based self-access materials

As Ronnqvist and Sell (1994) put it:

Reading literary texts in the target
language, gives genuine experience in
the
pragmatics
relating
formal
linguistic expression to situational and
socio-cultural contexts.
The advantage of narrative is that it
can be adapted for any level of
learners
without
any
loss
of
authenticity.

Narrative-based self-access materials

Frequently, reading materials are

based on excerpts from novels, books,
or any available piece of contemporary
literature. These texts can be used in
open-end, holistic activities allowing
individual or group work, the purpose
being the development of reading
skills and a better mastership of the
target language.

One way of organizing reading selfaccess materials is to make the

learners try to predict some facts from
the excerpt prior to reading it, which
will will entice the readers and prepare
them for the reading activity.
Then they will be asked to guess the
meaning
in
context
of
some
expressions taken at some important
points in the excerpt.

They will also have to write a

summary outline (or a mind
map) and to extract or infer the
building blocks of the text,
among
which
the
thesis
statement, topic sentences, main
ideas, and major supporting
details.

Conclusion
Self-access materials should be designed to:
1 - give the learners the responsibility of
deciding what, when, and how much to do
2- ask open-end questions (prediction)
3- encourage experiential activities
4- get peers feedback rather than teachers
5- react in writing as a creative critical response
6- ask think questions pertaining to the
elements of the excerpt such as the title,
characters, setting and plot
7- provide opportunities for feedback.

Conclusion
Most students are visual, analytic
learners, probably as a result of the
interaction
between
teachers,
publishers, and text-writers. These
actors in education encourage
learners who can focus on chunks of
information, who memorize and
retrieve consciously, and who are
systematic in their learning.

Conclusion
This influence probably comes from the
way subjects, other than language, are
taught
in
schools,
where
effort,
conformity
and
application
are
generously rewarded by teachers who
value discipline and conformity.

Summary of Part D

For Tomlinson all types of learners and

learning styles should be catered for in
material design.
Mainstream language course books
strongly favor the visual, analytic rather
than the auditory, experiential learners.
This
bias
comes
from
school
environment
where
teachers
encourage, favor, and reward analytic
learners.

However, researchers on language

acquisition define good language
learners as those who are flexible,
able to monitor themselves, pay
attention to both form and meaning,
practice the language, and aware of
the whole learning process.

Self-access
materials
should
help
learners make conscious and informed
rather than intuitive decisions.
Thus, materials designed to allow
learners to work experientially will give
them a greater repertoire of learning
styles and strategies, will help them
make conscious decisions, and will help
them become better aware of the
learning process.

Tomlinson also highlights the fact that

the role of the teachers book in
helping to cater for choices is
underestimated.
At the moment, the teachers books
receive little attention and investment
in developing their content, and are
limited to providing answer keys.

If the students book should be a rich

bank of exercises, the teachers
manual should also include a variety
of activities to be proposed to the
learners, activities that cater for all
types of learning styles.

Synopsis of the whole book

AExisting
materials
might
be
acceptable so far but they are not
sufficient:

Available language learning materials

have certainly taken advantage of
technology
advancements
and
the
increase in knowledge of how languages
are learnt, yet, learners still fail to
achieve
a
satisfactory
level
of
communicative competence.

B- More feedback
existing materials:

is

needed

on

Being expensive, very little research has

been conducted on the outcomes of
language learning materials.
Another factor is the diversity of the
numerous variables that affect the
learning process. The number of copies a
book sells is certainly not the right
indicator of its effectiveness, so we need
to find out more about its learning
outcomes to be able to judge whether or
not it needs improvement. One way could
be long-term research in the field.

C- More knowledge is required on

the learners needs:
So far, we dont know enough about
these needs, but we are sure that very
few learners and teachers are truly
satisfied by existing materials. Thus, to
find out about the real needs in the
field, we have to conduct more research
that engages experts from various fields
with the cooperation of universities and
publishing companies.

DMore
expertise
development is needed:

on

material

We must look for reliable information about

the learning outcomes of existing materials
and then experiment to innovate in the
field.
Institutions,
governments,
and
publishers are satisfied with existing
materials that work and are reluctant to
participate in this long-term, costly
process, and arent willing to invest in
projects that might not succeed! Only
serious cooperation between them will lead
to an effective change.

E- More knowledge on the use of

the target language is needed:
Our knowledge of how languages are
used is being incorporated in materials
development. Yet, we need to know
more about language use in-context
and about the patterns of interaction
among non-native speakers from
different backgrounds. Then, we will
need to find out how exposing the
learners to language reality best
serves their learning process.

F- More flexibility is required to

cater for the diversity in
needs:
As it was stressed in the summary
of Part D, we need actual
information rather than subjective
impressions. We may need to
start by identifying the learners
who will effectively benefit from
diversity of choices in the learning
process.

G- More teacher training is needed:

Most language teachers are not trained

enough and are, as a result, reluctant to
experiment with new approaches. For
materials to contribute to teacher and
curricula development, they shouldnt be
imposed, but should facilitate the in
reflection, evaluation, and adaptation by
teachers who will thus become better
involved in the development and trialing
of new materials.

H- More
needed:

publishers

involvement

is

Although the economic environment might

hinder the involvement of publishers who are
mainly motivated by profitability, we have to
convince and assist them in taking a more
active part in experimenting in the materials
development field, for their own benefit. The
best way would be by bringing together
teachers, publishers and materials writers to
pool resources so that they could take
advantage of expertise to produce materials of
grater value for the learners.

To sum things up, collaboration from

private and public institutions involved
in education will also be of substantial
help in language acquisition, research
methodology,
data
collection
and
analysis, language pedagogy, and
materials
design
production
and
distribution. As a fact, joint research is
a must if we want to make a major
breakthrough in this promising field.

Conclusion to the book

To sum things up, collaboration from private
and public institutions involved in education
will also be of substantial help in language
acquisition, research methodology, data
collection
and
analysis,
language
pedagogy, and materials design production
and distribution. As a fact, joint research is
a must if we want to make a major
breakthrough in this promising field.