Priorities for Evaluating Instructional Materials

By Licda. Guiselle Weelkly

graceb2you@hotmail.com 

The Florida Department of Education stated on an article written in the year 2008 the following  " learning  review includes examination of strategies in instructional materials that support motivation, including " big ideas," explicit instruction, guidance and support, active participation, and the  instructional and assessment strategies that make sense for the targeted learning objectives".

There are three basic steps to take in considerarion when evaluating instructional materials, and they are: 

1. Priorities in the Learning.
2. Priorities in the Presentation.
3. Priorities in the Content.

 Therefore, priorities for evaluation should carry meaningful explanations, connect ideas whether big or small and be sure to underly structures and content for critical thinking.

Learning strategies deserve special attention specifically on two bases which are:

• The Expertise Reversal Effect which simple means to attend the personal need of a student who possess high levels of expertise in a particular subject given direct information to them and permitting them to expand beyond their capabilities with originality by themselves.

• The Powerful Resistance to Learning indicates that these students require the opposite of what works for the students who have high expertise.  Instead of direct instruction, these students require intense constructivism so that their misconceptions can be clarify. Remember: "once learned, it is hard to unlearn".  Here,  students require intense practice with new concepts, proving for themselves that the  "new concepts" work to better the "old wrong concepts".

On the other hand, it is important that instructional materials include features to maintain the learners motivated(with positive expectations, feedback and appearance). set the right climate for learning, and be focus for students.

Children as well,  feel comfortable with explicit instructions where directions and explanations are clear enough abiding ambiguity or exclusion.  This of course, depends on the level and adaptability of the child.

Writers such as Bass & Glaser identified three major principles that "make assessments informative to students" of which I would like to adress here:

1. Models of competence  given clear standards for what the students are expected to be able to do and what they cannot achieve.
2. Graphical tools to track progress permitting students and parents to visualize learners' improvement over a period of time.
3. Structured opportunities for reflection and revision given them a model to examine and make corrections in their performances.

As Educators of the new globalization era, we must join all links together so that we can achieve the major goal we hope for in our students, which is to help and prepare them to meet these demands and become excellent professionals in the near future.

Principles to Effective Materials Development

By  Licda. Guiselle Weelkly Williamson

graceb2you@hotmail.com

The word "principle"  according to the Webster Collection English Dictionary on page 627 means: " an accepted or professed rule of action or conduct, the method of formation, operation, or procedure exhibited in a given instance". Taking into considerations description united with the position of many writers and their assumption towards this topic;  I can definitely come to the agreement that there should be certain guidelines to follow in order for things to take place in the right and proper way when referring to creation of materials for students learning development.

Brain Tomlinson presented six basic principles of  language acquisition and four principles of language teaching. He stated that they should not be random recreation of other people's idea or repertoire, or clones;  but rather, whatever, invention is portrait should be coherent following these principled applications amids many others. Some assumptions he gave are: 

• Theories of language acquisition and development.
• Principles of teaching.
• Our current knowledge of how the target language is actually used.
• The result of systematic observations and evaluations of materials in use.

The basic principles to effective materials development mentioned by the authors are:

1.  Learners are exposed to a rich, meaningful, and comprehensible input of language in use.
2. Learners need to be engaged both affectively and congnitive in the language experience.
3. Language learners who achieve postive affect are much more likely to achieve communicaticative competence than  those who do not.
4. L2 learners can be benefit from using those mental resources that they typically utilize when acquiring and using their L1.
5. Language learners can benefit from noticing salient features of the input.
6. Learners need opportunities to use the language to try to achieve communicative purposes.

For materials to be effective they should also satisfy the needs to communicate, to be student centered,  be authentic and also be created for long term goal.

ELT must at all times stimulate interaction as well as to be able to meet the practical needs of teachers and learners matching the realities of publishing materials.

Finally, I would say that the current global course books and many local course books created by publishing houses and writers must always keep in mind that the books published or to be published should not only look good,  have reasonable prices and access to parents, teachers, students or any other person interested in learning foreign language,  but, that the books should be driven by principles of effective learning achievement. The literatures should be contextualized and customize according to the childs':

• Age
• Needs
• Cognitive Development
• Affective Development
• Motivation
• Interest
• Environment ( region, habitat). 

Teachers have the great responsability of motivating the learners'  needs by helping them to develop a positive mentally as they engage in the target language, in their learning environment, as they interact with their teachers and  classmates.