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Smith, 1981 and automaticity is achieved through practice Bialystok, 1988 have no evidence. However, many researchers agree with Ellis
saying that controlled practice appears to have little long term effect on the accuracy with which new structures are performed Ellis, 1990:192
and has little effect on fluency Ellis and Rathbone, 1987. Yet, controlled grammar practice activities still feature significantly in
popular coursebooks and are considered useful by many teachers and by many learners.
Materials should provide opportunities for outcome feedback. Feedback which is focused on the effectiveness of the outcome rather
than just on the accuracy of the output can lead to output becoming a profitable source of input. In relation to this, materials developer has to
be sure that language production activities have intended outcomes other than just practicing language.
Those principles of materials development above are those that the teachers or materials developers should be aware of when they are
developing materials.
c. Materials Design Model
The way materials organized and presented as well as the types of content and the activities wil
l help to shape the students’ view of the target language Nunan, 1991: 210. Nunan also offers the steps of
materials design as follows.
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1 Select the topic
2 Collect data
3 Determine that students will need to do in relation to the texts
4 Create activities focusing on language elements
5 Create activities focusing on learning skillsstrategies
6 Create application task
There are three approaches to course design i.e. language-centred approach, skill-centred approach, and learning-centred approach
Hutchinson and Waters, 1987: 73. In relation to this, Masuhara in Tomlinson, 1998: 247 says that the sequence of course design
recommended by experts can be summarized as the linear Model X as follows.
Figure 2.1. Model X of a Course Design Proposed by Masuhara in Tomlinson, 1988: 247
Need analysis
Methodologymaterials Testing and evaluation
Syllabus design Goals and objectives
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The model above can be used by teachers or materials developers to develop materials.
d. Materials Evaluation
Materials evaluation is one of steps in developing materials. The evaluation of teaching materials is closely related to
students’ motivation and their needs, thus affecting the effectiveness of the course. According
to Dudley-Evans and St. John 1998, evaluation in ESP situations is concerned with the effectiveness and efficiency of learning; with
achieving the objectives. It encompasses both assessment and evaluation of students’ achievements, as well as reaching the goals and objectives of
the course. Materials should assist achieving the goals and objectives and
correspond to the criteria for their selection.
Lynch 1996: 2 defines evaluation as the systematic attempt to gather information in order to make judgements or decisions. Harmer
2001 sees a distinction between evaluation and assessment. He states that the assessment of a coursebook is an out-of-class judgement as to
how well a new book will perform in class. Coursebook evaluation, on the other hand, is a judgement on how well a book has performed in fact
p. 301. Materials evaluation has been defined by Tomlinson 2003: 15 as
a procedure that involves measuring the value or potential value of a set of learning materials. An evaluation focuses largely on the needs of the
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users of the materials and makes subjective judgements about their effects. An evaluation might
include questions such as ‘Do the reading texts sufficiently engage learners?’, which elicit responses containing a
necessarily subjective value judgement. Evaluations can be carried out pre-use, in-use or post-use.
Cunningsworth 1995 in Richards 2001: 258 suggests four criteria for evaluating materials especially textbooks. Firstly, they should
correspond to le arners’ needs and they should match the aims and
objectives of the language learning program. Secondly, they should reflect the uses present or future that learners will make of the
language. Thirdly, t hey should take account of students’ needs as learners
and should facilitate their learning processes, without dogmatically imposing a rigid
‘method’. The last, they should have a clear role as a support for learning. Like teachers, they mediate between the target
language and the learner. To sum up, materials evaluation helps an ESP teacher to adjust
the teaching materials to the learners’ needs and their level of proficiency, as well as to keep them motivated. An ESP teacher has three
options in adjusting the coursebooks to the needs of the learners: first, to omit the texts and tasks or to supplement them; second, to offer changes
to the coursebooks she uses, or, third, even to develop new materials if
students’ needs are very special.
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5. Task-Based Language Teaching
