Week 2: Principles for Materials Development

A. Which principles for materials development did Short apply when producing his materials?

Materials should achieve impact.

• Jeremy short’s materials are very attractive and appealing to the students.
• However, it may not impact in terms of learning. 
• Although the material appeals to the student, we are uncertain that it would allow students to learn more.

What is being taught should be perceived by learners as relevant and useful

• Jeremy Short’s materials relate to learners’ interests and ‘real-life’ tasks. For instance, he talks about “Tales of Garcon” and “University Life”, both of which learners could relate to what they are experiencing in real-life.
• Also, through Short’s graphic novels, students obtain the message through stories that relates to real-life situation which differs from the usual textbook model.
• Hence, through Short’s graphic novel, learners could discuss the solution of the problem since it relates to real-life situation.

Materials should provide opportunities for outcome and feedback.

• Short gotten feedback from his students on how boring the textbooks were and that’s how he started producing his materials.
• After he created and shared the materials, students also provided feedback and asked him “what’s going to come next?” It shows that students are interested in the materials he produced and wants to know more.
• However, asking him “what’s next?” may mean that they’re only interested on the graphic novels and may have not grasp what they are supposed to learn. 

B. Design and complete the following diagram.

The diagram below shows the aspects influencing materials development. We decided to put country’s vision as the main aspect that influences materials development because we are looking at the bigger picture of the development of materials. Country’s vision includes improving many areas such as the economy, politics, social, and education. Since we are focusing on education, we feel that the county’s vision is to produce a better generation of learners in the future. Therefore, in order to achieve this vision, we need to have curriculum goal and objectives (Example: Malaysian Education Blueprint). 

After the country’s vision, we are going to see a smaller picture which is the curriculum goal and objective. In order to achieve country’s vision in the education field, educators need to set goals and objectives. Hence, school administration aims and objective plays a significant role in carrying out the process of moving towards the target. These three aspects mentioned can be achieved through materials developments.

Materials development is influenced by two principles namely principles of teaching and learning and the principles of second language acquisition.  Both of these principles influence teachers’ belief and rational as these principles act as a guidance in producing material. However, teacher’s belief and rational are also affected by the learners; with this, teachers need to adapt by taking into consideration which principles are applicable in developing the materials. The teachers’ belief and rational, we feel, is how he/she adapts and then implement these principles and beliefs in developing materials in teaching.

Having the experience of a learner in our high school lives, we realised parents’ goals are one of the main factors that affects us. Most parents have expectations towards their children’s (learners) development which in turn affects the learner in their learning. Due to this situation, teachers are affected as they need to cater to the parents’ expectation of their children.