Joint Conference, 15th-17th April 2005, Heriot Watt University, Edinburgh:

New Approaches to Materials Development for Language Learning

Eija Ventola: New Challenges for English Language Teaching Materials and the Classroom

Non scholae sed vitae discimus … ‘We are learning for life, not for school’. This applies also to learning foreign languages. But sometimes, when we look at foreign language learning and teaching materials, it is hard to believe that this indeed should be our aim. This is of course not to say that foreign language teaching, its materials and methods have not improved over the years. But too often we find that the main driving force behind the teaching philosophy in the materials is still behaviouristic and organisation principle follows formal, grammatical motivation, however discourse-oriented and multimodal the materials on the surface appear to be. Grammar is not to be neglected in foreign language teaching, but understanding grammar (and other linguistic systems and structures) as a means for integrated contextual meaning-making construal in on-going discourse or in cohesive texts is what students need to practise in a new millennium in new ways.

This paper looks at the past, the present and the future of teaching English (and other languages) in a global society. Examples of teaching English as a foreign language will be drawn from various EFL learning contexts. The theories of linguistics and language teaching are closely intertwined with the developments of linguistics and the technological developments in the changing world – but have English teaching curricula and practice kept up with the pace? What will be demanded of the foreign language speakers in the future in the global, multimodal society? How are we to meet the challenges of the media & Internet world, the globalization - how should we respond as linguists and as language teachers?

Peter Grundy: 'Optimality, context and materials in EAP'

The application of optimality theory to pragmatics (e.g., Blutner & Zeevat, 2004) reminds us that speakers and writers seek an optimal form for a meaning, and listeners and readers an optimal meaning for a form. In EAP, we tend to focus on the approximations to optimal forms that our students produce rather than on the approximations to optimal meanings they recover, for the obvious reason that forms are visible and meanings are not. But since our students begin their study careers in English principally as listeners and readers, there is a need for EAP materials that provoke the recovery of meaning. However, as we know, form radically under-determines meaning, so that listeners and readers are required to supply the contexts that enable them to recover (pragmatic) meaning from (semantic) form. Materials and contexts are thus in complementary distribution. In a sense, student listeners and readers are the contexts by means of which the spoken and written forms they encounter are interpreted. (By the same token, as proxies for the academic discourse community, EAP teachers are the contexts by means of which students' spoken and written forms are interpreted.)

Until recently, teachers of EGP, and especially EAP, have expected students to recover optimal meanings prompted by the distal contexts with which native speakers / members (NS/Ms) are familiar. Increasingly, however, we have come to realise that the default contexts with which NS/Ms are familiar don't serve the purposes of learners of English as a lingua franca. EAP has been to some degree protected from this recognition by the belief that, whatever may happen to spoken varieties, there will always be a standard written (academic) form interpretable in the light of widely shared contexts.

In this paper, I will ask whether materials and models can or should resist the flood of context that is now upon us and just what kind of 'materials' are appropriate in the postmodern reality.

Brian Tomlinson: Localising the Global: Matching Materials to the Local Context of Learning

This presentation will consider the problems faced by learners and teachers using global materials on General English and on EAP courses, and it will consider ways of overcoming these problems. It will demonstrate and discuss activities for adding affect, for adding impact and for achieving local relevance through supplementary or replacement activities offering the learners options and opportunities for effective learning. It will also offer suggestions to materials developers of ways of designing global materials so as to facilitate localisation by both learners and teachers.

The presentation will apply theories of learning to classroom practice in ways which are achievable by any teacher and will focus in particular on:

Localising global themes.
Localising global characteristics.
Localising global issues.
Localising global facilitators of language acquisition.
Localising global methodology.
Localising global coursebooks.


Joint Conference, 15th-17th April 2005, Heriot Watt University, Edinburgh:	New Approaches to Materials Development for Language Learning
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Eija Ventola: New Challenges for English Language Teaching Materials and the Classroom Non scholae sed vitae discimus … ‘We are learning for life, not for school’. This applies also to learning foreign languages. But sometimes, when we look at foreign language learning and teaching materials, it is hard to believe that this indeed should be our aim. This is of course not to say that foreign language teaching, its materials and methods have not improved over the years. But too often we find that the main driving force behind the teaching philosophy in the materials is still behaviouristic and organisation principle follows formal, grammatical motivation, however discourse-oriented and multimodal the materials on the surface appear to be. Grammar is not to be neglected in foreign language teaching, but understanding grammar (and other linguistic systems and structures) as a means for integrated contextual meaning-making construal in on-going discourse or in cohesive texts is what students need to practise in a new millennium in new ways. This paper looks at the past, the present and the future of teaching English (and other languages) in a global society. Examples of teaching English as a foreign language will be drawn from various EFL learning contexts. The theories of linguistics and language teaching are closely intertwined with the developments of linguistics and the technological developments in the changing world – but have English teaching curricula and practice kept up with the pace? What will be demanded of the foreign language speakers in the future in the global, multimodal society? How are we to meet the challenges of the media & Internet world, the globalization - how should we respond as linguists and as language teachers? Peter Grundy: 'Optimality, context and materials in EAP' The application of optimality theory to pragmatics (e.g., Blutner & Zeevat, 2004) reminds us that speakers and writers seek an optimal form for a meaning, and listeners and readers an optimal meaning for a form. In EAP, we tend to focus on the approximations to optimal forms that our students produce rather than on the approximations to optimal meanings they recover, for the obvious reason that forms are visible and meanings are not. But since our students begin their study careers in English principally as listeners and readers, there is a need for EAP materials that provoke the recovery of meaning. However, as we know, form radically under-determines meaning, so that listeners and readers are required to supply the contexts that enable them to recover (pragmatic) meaning from (semantic) form. Materials and contexts are thus in complementary distribution. In a sense, student listeners and readers are the contexts by means of which the spoken and written forms they encounter are interpreted. (By the same token, as proxies for the academic discourse community, EAP teachers are the contexts by means of which students' spoken and written forms are interpreted.) Until recently, teachers of EGP, and especially EAP, have expected students to recover optimal meanings prompted by the distal contexts with which native speakers / members (NS/Ms) are familiar. Increasingly, however, we have come to realise that the default contexts with which NS/Ms are familiar don't serve the purposes of learners of English as a lingua franca. EAP has been to some degree protected from this recognition by the belief that, whatever may happen to spoken varieties, there will always be a standard written (academic) form interpretable in the light of widely shared contexts. In this paper, I will ask whether materials and models can or should resist the flood of context that is now upon us and just what kind of 'materials' are appropriate in the postmodern reality.	Brian Tomlinson: Localising the Global: Matching Materials to the Local Context of Learning This presentation will consider the problems faced by learners and teachers using global materials on General English and on EAP courses, and it will consider ways of overcoming these problems. It will demonstrate and discuss activities for adding affect, for adding impact and for achieving local relevance through supplementary or replacement activities offering the learners options and opportunities for effective learning. It will also offer suggestions to materials developers of ways of designing global materials so as to facilitate localisation by both learners and teachers. The presentation will apply theories of learning to classroom practice in ways which are achievable by any teacher and will focus in particular on: Localising global themes. Localising global characteristics. Localising global issues. Localising global facilitators of language acquisition. Localising global methodology. Localising global coursebooks. Dr Ian McGrath: 'Textbooks, technology and teachers'

Joint Conference, 15th-17th April 2005, Heriot Watt University, Edinburgh:

New Approaches to Materials Development for Language Learning

Eija Ventola: New Challenges for English Language Teaching Materials and the Classroom

Peter Grundy: 'Optimality, context and materials in EAP'

Brian Tomlinson: Localising the Global: Matching Materials to the Local Context of Learning

Dr Ian McGrath: 'Textbooks, technology and teachers'