Materials vs Methods

Materials and Methods: Need they be in conflict? page 1

© George Vassilakis 1997

Materials and Methods: Need they be in Conflict?

first published in TESOL Greece Newsletter No 52, 1997

IntroductionIf methods is the how of teaching and materials is the what, then toexamine issues pertinent to their relationship would be tantamount toexamining almost the whole of the language teaching complex. Myprincipal concern, however, in this paper, is teaching materials, and,more specifically, published teaching materials and why they are lessthan satisfactory in most cases. Methods will only be referred to in so faras they determine, or, as I hope to prove, are determined by thematerials in question.

The nature of coursebook materialsCoursebook materials are commercially available packages1, whichtypically consist of a studentʼs book, a teacherʼs book, and a number ofthe following components: a workbook or activity book, tests, additionalreading material, cassettes for listening, cassettes for pronunciation,video, CALL materials, additional grammar practice material, and, in theGreek ELT context, a companion. The sheer number of componentsavailable suggests that the coursebook package is offered as a completecourse that should not be in need of supplementation. The intention ofproviding all there is to provide is clear in the descriptions given inpublishersʼ blurbs, which invariably contain adjectives such as integrated,comprehensive, complete, multi-skill and the like; it must also be thereason why most of the courses published in the last ten years includeadditional ʻresourceʼ material in the form of photocopiable worksheets inthe teacherʼs book.Thus, coursebooks are what Prabhu2 would describe as fully-specifiedmaterials: they are pre-constructed, and as such ensure a certainamount of uniformity in what takes place in different classrooms withdifferent teachers and students, which serves the interests ofaccountability, but also makes them non-negotiable, and can prevent theteacher from identifying with classroom events by turning her into atransmitter of content. Very little decision-making is usually assigned to

1 See A Cunningsworth, Choosing your Coursebook , Oxford: Heinemann 1995, pp 25-282 See N S Prabhu, Second Language Pedagogy , Oxford: Oxford University Press 1987,pp. 94-95



the teachers, apart from determining the overall goals of the languagelearning programme3.Coursebook materials are then, to a large extent, realisations of methodsseen as theoretical constructs, but they are also determinants of methodsif seen as pedagogic action. In other words, materials are theimplementation of a method and classroom practice is theimplementation of the materials. So what actually boils down to thelearners is a version of the method which has been filtered through thematerials as implemented by a teacher with decision making capacitieswhich are increasingly undermined by the materials themselves.

The nature of methodsLooking at what the concept of method involves will help clarify theissues. According to a well-known model suggested by Richards andRodgers4, who adapt and elaborate on Anthony ʼs5 original analysis ofmethod, a method consists of three interdependent components:Approach, Design and Procedure. These components reflect theconceptualisations of a method regarding the areas shown in Figure 1.

Materials as determinants of methodsIn this model, materials feature as one of the sub-elements of Design,which, given the hierarchical structure of Richards and Rodgersʼconstruct, is determined by the theoretical Approach and informs thefinal level of Procedure. It will be noticed, however, that, in practice, therole of the materials in question, namely commercially availablecoursebook packages, is in reality much further-reaching than that;more often than not, instructional materials provide the actual syllabus ofthe class they are intended for, specify the bulk of the learning andteaching activities used, delimit learner and teacher roles throughinstrumental texts6 both in the studentʼs and in the teacherʼs book,dictate techniques to be used, mainly in the teacherʼs guide, regulate thepatterns of interaction, and even supply the means for evaluation oflearning. 3 Even so, materials can contribute to, or even distort, the shape of these goals. See RL Allwright, What do we want teaching materials for? in English Language TeachingJournal 36, 1 (now in R Rossner and R Bolitho (eds) Currents of Change in EnglishLanguage Teaching , Oxford: Oxford University Press 1990, pp 131-147)4 See J C Richards and T S Rodgers (1986), Approaches and Methods in LanguageTeaching. A description and analysis , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp 14-305 See E M Anthony 1963, Approach, Method and Technique in English LanguageTeaching 17: pp 63-676 as defined by Dendrinos (1992), who usefully distinguishes between instructional andinstrumental texts in coursebooks; see B. Dendrinos, The EFL Textbook and Ideology ,Athens: N C Grivas Publications, pp 29-30



Evidently, then, instructional materials embrace five out of six sub-components on the level of Design as well as the bulk of the Procedurespecification, so that the selection of a particular coursebook packageentails selection of a particular method which may or may not beexplicitly stated7 but is clearly realised in that package8. The underlyingapproach and the overall objectives of the course are apparently left tothe teacher to determine, and ideally, her choice of coursebook shouldreflect and be consistent with the approach and objectives agreed on.However, this presupposes on the one hand that the teacher has,indeed, formulated such an approach and determined such objectives,and that the coursebook package is also structured upon a similartheoretical base, as well as being characterised by an internalconsistency which should validate the whole materials developmentprocess.For the purposes of greater descriptive accuracy, I would propose thatRichards and Rodgersʼ model be adjusted as shown in Figure 2, so thatthe role of the EFL coursebook package in determining the content of themethod becomes clearer.It will be noticed that even the elements which are not directlycoursebook-bound are not completely independent of coursebooks.Thus, it is often the case that the objectives pursued in the coursebookdo not coincide in their totality with those of the learners as identified byteachers - but the decision not to use coursebook material that may notserve the classʼs objectives is reluctantly made by teachers, who, asstated above, normally adopt the coursebook as a “package deal”.Teachersʼ behaviours are also very often not considered outside thescope of the coursebook, which, in the teacherʼs guide, often containssuggestions and recommendations that should not normally be thecoursebook authorsʼ concern9.

Learner needs and the coursebook packageAll this suggests that coursebooks, in their modern form of coursepackages, are actually much more than just sources of material to beused by teachers as they see fit. They are in essence determinants ofmethods, realisations of approaches that are usually not explicitly stated 7 Cunningsworth and Kusel consider this to be a function of the teacherʼs book andsuggest that the explicitness of the underlying approach should be a basic factor inevaluation. See A Cunningsworth and P Kusel (1991), Evaluating teachersʼ guides inEnglish Language Teaching Journal 45/2, pp 128-1398 D Clarke (1990) in fact found that there was “some considerable dichotomy betweenwhat is theoretically recommended as desirable and what in fact gets published andused” in materials purporting to implement Communicative Language Teaching. See DClarke Communicative Theory and its influence on materials production in LanguageLearning 25/1 1990, pp 73-869 See A Cunningsworth and P Kusel, op. cit., pp 136-7



and therefore cannot be agreed upon. Moreover, they are designed forimmediate implementation, and as Widdowson10 would put it, “to theextent that ....[they]... aim for general pedagogical effectiveness, theyare prescriptions. They presuppose that the particularities of differentclassrooms are not determinants of teaching and learning, but areincidental.” Of course, it can be argued that the materials developmentprocess can take account of such factors as the “particularities ofdifferent classrooms” so that these particularities do in fact determine thecontent of teaching and learning as realised in the materials. And indeed,in models of such processes like the one proposed by Stern11 (see Figure3 for an adapted version), both research and documentation and pilottesting and field trials seem to play an important role, but in reality this isnot how coursebook packages are produced; many authors admitʻsimply typing and sending to their publishersʼ12 and even when pilottesting takes place, this is usually small scale and does not entailrepresentative samples of the teacher and student population envisaged,as even a cursory glance at the Acknowledgements section of mostcoursebooks would indicate.

CLT and the Coursebook Package: the ConflictThe conflict referred to in the title of this paper is thus becoming clearlydelimited: if materials are, to a large extent, determinants of methodsactually implemented, if they are prescriptions for classroom practice,then surely the classroom practice which they are supposed to enhanceshould be seriously taken into account in the materials developmentprocess. In fact, Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), which seemsto be well established as the dominant theoretical model in the area ofELT methodology13, stresses the importance of learner needs as astarting point in the syllabus design process14 : these learner needs,however, cannot be taken into account if the target population is asdiverse as the potential users of the coursebook packages produced forinternational use. Admittedly, certain other tenets of CLT are apparentlyobserved, with the one most conspicuously making its appearance in 10 See H G Widdowson (1990), Aspects of Language Teaching , Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, p 6311 See H H Stern (1992), Issues and Options in Language Teaching , Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, p 35412 As reported by C Brumfit (1980) in Seven last slogans in Modern English Teacher, 7/1pp 30-3113 See G Thompson (1996), Some misconceptions about communicative languageteaching in English Language Teaching Journal , 50/1, p 914 See, for example, M P Breen, C Candlin and A Waters (1979), CommunicativeMaterials Design: Some Basic Principles in RELC Journal , 10/2, pp 36-37, J Munby(1978), Communicative Syllabus Design , Cambride: Cambridge University Press, JYalden (1984), The Com municative Syllabus: Evolution, Design and Implementation ,Oxford: Pergamon



coursebook pages being that which recommends the use of authenticmaterials. However, once more, the very nature of the coursebookpackage entails a de-authentication of such materials as their authenticityis constrained to their being genuine instances of language use, withoutbeing authentic to the learners for whom they are intended and thereforeappropriate material for learning15, as the identity of these learners canhardly be established.

The question of method awarenessThere seems, therefore, to be a fundamental contradiction in the make-up of contemporary coursebook packages: on the one hand they claim tosubscribe to the communicative approach, while on the other theydisregard, almost by definition, such basic principles of CommunicativeLanguage Teaching as the primacy of learnersʼ needs and the issue ofauthentication of materials for and by the learner16. In reality, CLTmethodology is merely paid lip service to in many of these materials17,and as a result, in many language teaching classrooms.The fact that the approach the materials are based upon is rarely, ifever, made explicit by the materials writers, in conjunction with the factthat teachers, too, are often unaware of the principles underlying theirclassroom practices, suggests that materials will be selected and usedand, consequently, methods will be implemented, which may not bepedagogically or educationally desirable, appropriate, or effective. Forthis reason, it is imperative that teachers develop a set of selectioncriteria which address the methodological relevance of coursebookpackages.

The need for global appraisalAs far as criteria for detailed evaluation of coursebook content areconcerned, there is no lack of guidance. Evaluation checklists abound,some of them very specific indeed18, and application of the criteriaincluded in them to the evaluation of coursebook materials can yield verygood results in so far as the relative effectiveness of the various 15 See Brren M (1985), Authenticity in the Language Classroom in Applied Linguistics 6/1, H G Widdowson (1979), The authenticity of language data in Explorations inApplied Lingui stics, pp 163 - 172, H G Widdowson (1996), Comment: authenticity andautonomy in ELT in English Language Teaching Journal 50/1, pp 67-68, and, mostimportantly, C Kramsch and P Sullivan (1996), Appropriate pedagogy in EnglishLanguage Teaching Journal , 50/316 See the relevant discussion in D F Clarke, op, cit., pp 78, 83-417 See A Cunningsworth (1979), Evaluating course materials in Susan Holden (ed),Teacher Training , London: Modern English Publications, for discussion of this issue18 Such as the ones found in A Cunningsworth (1995), op. cit., which seem to me by farthe most useful.



components of skills and systems practice is to be determined. Theinternal consistency of coursebooks, however, and their accountability totheoretical constructs of the nature of language and learning does notseem to be touched upon by such itemised checklists.Perhaps what is needed is a tool for appraisal of the coursebookpackage as method in the sense described by Richards and Rodgers. Butthis presupposes that the same tool can be used for the discovery andappraisal of teachersʼ own perceptions of language and languagelearning, since it is against these that the instructional materials can beevaluated. At the same time, such a tool should make explicit referenceto the specific learners the teacher has in mind, in order that thecontradiction described above can be resolved.This would entail what Cunningsworth and Kusel (1991), in their articleon evaluating teachersʼ guides, described as global appraisal, but wouldhave to contain a methodology-awareness component. A simplequestionnaire that would bring out basic methodological assumptions ofteachers and coursebooks appears as Figure 419. Similar instruments ofa more analytical type could be developed, however, based onquestionnaires developed to identify teachersʼ conceptions of20 orattitudes towards21 the Communicative Approach.In addition to the identification of the teacherʼs preferred methodologyand its comparison to the method implemented in the coursebook,measures need to be taken to constrain the function of the coursebookpackage by adapting, supplementing and omitting coursebook materialin accordance with emerging learner needs and developing teacherattitudes. This then would entail a more profound awareness of thetheoretical and pedagogical issues involved and result in an ad hocmaterials development process which would replicate the first five stagesin the process outlined in Figure 3. But such ad hoc processes, whilebeing the ultimate aim of the exposition of the ideas in this paper, fallbeyond its scope.

19 This questionnaire is meant merely as an illustration. It purports to be consistentwith CLT.20 See B Dendrinos, op. cit., pp 213-521 See E Karavas-Doukas (1996), Using attitude scales to investigate teachersʼattitudes to the communicative approach in English Language Teaching Journal , 50/3,pp 197-8



Figure 1

Approach Design Procedure

Theory of

Language

Objectives Techniques

Theory of Learning Syllabus Model Practices

Types of Activities Behaviours

Learner roles Interactional patterns

Teacher roles

The role of instructional materials

Figure 1: Approach, Design, Procedure adapted from Richards and

Rodgers 1986, p. 28.

Figure 2

ApproachTheory of Language

Theory of language learning

(evident in coursebook - used as a selection criterion)

Design Procedure

Coursebook

independent

elements

Coursebook

bound

elements

Coursebook

independent

elements

Coursebook

bound

elements

Objectives Syllabus Model Behaviours Techniques

Types of Activities Practices

Learner roles Interactional patterns

Teacher roles

Figure 2: Approach, Design, Procedure and their relationship to the

coursebook.



Figure 3

Selection Stage

Determination of approach to be followed. Target group specification.

òResearch and Documentation Stage

Appropriate source materials are found (texts and language

descriptions). Their validity is researched and asserted, perhaps using

the authorsʼ own classes (which assumes the author is a practising

teacher).

òDesign Stage

Specification of objectives. Drafting of actual material

òPilot Testing Stage

Small scale trialling in classes roughly resembling the target group

òRevision Stage

Redrafting of materials based on feedback from pilot testing

òField Trials

Distribution of Materials to large sample representing intended potential

users in all contexts of potential use of the material

òFinal Version

Final draft made ready for publication

Figure 3: The Materials Development Process according to Stern 1990



Figure 4

Checklist for Global Appraisal of a Coursebook

1. Which of the following aspects of the language should be covered inthe coursebook? Grammar

VocabularyPronunciationSkills (Reading, Listening, Writing, Speaking)PragmaticsStrategies of Communication

2. Do your learners need to pay equal attention to all of the above?Does the balance of coursebook content reflect these needs?

3. What should be the balance of controlled/focussed accuracy-oriented work and uncontrolled fluency-oriented work in thecoursebook? What is it?

4. What should be the balance between real-life tasks and pedagogictasks in the coursebook? What is it?

5. What should be the balance between genuine and constructed texts(written and spoken) in the coursebook? What is it?

6. What percentage of the texts (spoken and written) are likely to beinteresting and relevant to your learners?

7. Should the following techniques be used in the coursebook? To whatextent are they used? information-gap

opinion-gapreasoning-gap

8. What should be the percentage of learner-led activities as opposedto teacher-led activities in the coursebook? What is it?

9. What should be the prevalent interaction pattern - plenary, group,pair or individual? What is it?

10. Should the learners be given guidance how to learn? What kind ofguidance, if any, are they given?

Figure 4: Global Appraisal Questionnaire

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Materials vs Methods