Materials Evaluation and Design for Language Teaching: (Edinburgh Textbooks in Applied Linguistics)

Teaching materials play a crucial role in teaching-learning. When these take the form of a textbook it is essential that it is carefully selected to meet both external requirements and the needs of the teachers, as well as allowing teacher to mediate between the textbook and the learners, adapting and supplementing the book as necessary. Providing a systematic approach to the selection and subsequent evaluation of coursebooks, this textbook gives practical advice on adaptation and supplementation, and beyond. Suggestions on systematising the process of materials development and on the use of learner-generated materials are included for teachers who prefer to prepare their own materials.With integrated and wide-ranging coverage of the topic, this is the ideal book for those studying or practising language teaching or applied linguistics. Key Features* Numerous examples * Interleaved tasks which can be utilised by an instructor* Extensive bibliography

Table of Contents:
Introduction 1 Materials, courses, teachers 2 Choosing materials: first steps3 Choosing materials: close evaluation4 Coursebook-based teaching: selection and adaptation 5 Supplementation: exercises and worksheets 6 Using the real7 Systematising materials design8 Learner-produced materials9 Evaluating effects 10 Materials and ...Appendices; Tasks: Keys and Commentaries; References; Index

About the Author :
Ian McGrath has over 30 years’ experience as a materials writer and as a teacher and educator in the UK and overseas, most recently as a Visiting Associate Professor at the National Institute of Education in Singapore. He is now an educational consultant based in the UK.

Review :
The most distinctive contribution of this book is Chapter 8, which introduces ways to include learner-produced materials. This is new terrain for many applied linguists and teachers and has not received much attention in most of the literature. McGrath, however, offers interesting, diverse and practical ways in which learners can produce materials for themselves and each other … This book is a good resource that certainly offers a variety of helpful input, tips, and discussions for applied linguists and teachers. While the text is approached from an applied linguistics perspective, it is the appendix that may prove most valuable for teachers, providing as it does a rich variety of tables, examples and graphs, which serve as useful guidelines, especially for teachers under time pressure. The author is also to be commended for his emphasis on including the learner in materials design and evaluation processes, which for me represents the book’s greatest accomplishment. For a book of this size, the second edition is commendably comprehensive … The book takes the readers back to the early flowering of literature on materials development in the 1990s and then forward as far as 2014. It contains reference to all of what would be considered the mainstream literature on materials development as well as to publications and theses not normally referred to [and] is rich in principled and practical suggestions for students and teachers for the design, development, evaluation, selection, use and adaptation of materials…. The book is full of potentially stimulating content… This is a very reader-friendly book, easy to understand, easy to access, easy to navigate, and helpful in its in-chapter suggestions and the back of the book keys and commentaries for its tasks. This volume provides a rich and comprehensive resource for academics and teacher-educators designing or teaching on this type of module... As a resource for lecturers it provides really good, challenging and thought-provoking study tasks, and a helpful checklist of topics to be covered and key issues to discuss. It would also provide a really useful resource for students as key reading. It fills the space between very practical handbooks for teachers on aspects of materials writing and more theoretical volumes on principles and processes of materials writing. A near-comprehensive coverage of the issues in materials design and evaluation from a unitary point of view … a goldmine of discussion topics for MA and teacher training courses. Praise for the first editionOffers teachers and teacher trainers a practical guide for materials evaluation, adaptation, supplementation or writing, with the author adopting a pro-textbook position. As a single-author volume, it does a better job of providing a coherent thesis than the other books reviewed here, moving systematically through the various stages necessary in order to maximise the effectiveness of materials and tasks used as classroom input. Offers teachers and teacher trainers a practical guide for materials evaluation, adaptation, supplementation or writing, with the author adopting a pro-textbook position. As a single-author volume, it does a better job of providing a coherent thesis than the other books reviewed here, moving systematically through the various stages necessary in order to maximise the effectiveness of materials and tasks used as classroom input. Materials Evaluation and Design　lays out clear frameworks and offers very practical ideas for getting to grips with the myriad facts impinging on selection and adaptation. It assists practitioners in being systematic with their approach and in making more principled choices. … Ian McGrath states in his introduction that his particular hope for this publication is that it will 'embolden readers to take at least one step beyond where they stand at present'.　Materials Evaluation and Design　is an inspiring and engaging book which does much more than this. We have long become used to the idea of encouraging learner autonomy in our classrooms. This book goes a long way towards encouraging teacher autonomy and as such is an excellent acquisition. The book is of particular value to teacher trainers on postgraduate courses or as a set text on modular Masters courses. It is also of particular interest to experienced, practising teachers with an independent interest in professional development. This book deals with topics of very great obvious practical importance. The treatment is thoughtful, thorough, judicious, comprehensive, and reader-friendly. This book is certain to be a standard work for some years to come…. There are copious illustrative appendices; numerous apt reader/discussion tasks with keys and commentaries; as well as abundant references. A fine achievement. Reviews of the second editionThis second edition is a timely and welcome updating of McGrath’s seminal first edition. It provides clear frameworks and practical ideas for tackling the selection of course books, adapting materials to meet learners’ needs, and designing one’s own materials. It will help both teachers and materials developers make principled choices when using and developing materials.