Sessions

Materials Development Frameworks and the Challenges of Developing Learning Materials

While ESL textbooks are the primary source of learning materials for many teachers, others favour developing materials to suit their own specific teaching context. Both commercial and locally-produced teaching materials can often benefit by following a framework such as Jolly & Bolitho (2011) that helps materials writers to identify and then target the needs of the learners. This session presents the findings of survey-based research carried out that addressed three areas of materials design within a Japanese context. First, it elicited opinions from ESL teachers primarily working at universities in Japan on how well textbooks meet the needs of their students and showed a wide range of different beliefs which emerge from personal context as much as student needs. Second, it examined the major challenges teachers encounter in designing their own materials and demonstrated the importance of the availability of time. Finally, it investigated whether ESL teachers in Japan adhere to a materials development framework and again showed a wide range of beliefs and rationales.