day 3 readings part 1

Day 3 readings for Ling611 7/14/08
Richards, J. Ed. (2001). The role and design of instructional materials. In Curriculum
development in language teaching (pp. 251-285). NY: Cambridge University Press.

Instructional materials are just as important as the other elements in language curriculum development. The process and considerations for this subject are the types of materials needed for the curriculum. Two types of material are to be considered- print and nonprint, From those, are they authentic or created by publishers. Textbook evaluations have a process and criteria to carefully consider like adaptations of them and the development process/ nature. Then there’s decisions to be made about materials design and exercise types. Even the management of a materials writing project has a lot of factors to consider as the author has shown, like the monitoring of the use of materials.

It was humbling to see why we are adopting textbooks- because of all the work involved in the planning and creating. Before, I was complaining about the adoptions because they’re generic, and not culturally relevant. Still, I will continue to supplement our adopted text especially because they’re so generic.

Richards, J. Ed. (2001). Curriculum development in language teaching. Approaches to
evaluation. In Curriculum development in language teaching (pp. 286-310). NY: Cambridge University Press.

Curriculum evaluation of several/all aspects of a language program should come from the stakeholders, about the material, and even the environment to name a few. There is a purpose for evaluation that can be either a formative, illuminative, or summative evaluation. The issues in program evaluation deal the audience, participants, quantitative and qualitative measures, documentation, implementation, and the procedures used in conducting evaluations.

This is a great, big task that involves a lot of detail for every topic and idea, it’s no wonder the textbook makers charge so much for their material. Still, our curriculum directors have a lot on their plate and I wish they’d share some of their information with us as teachers and ask for our input. Maybe that’s why we end up doing our own thing


Erben, T. (2008). Introduction: CALLing All Foreign Language Teachers. In Erben, T & Sarieva, I.( Eds.), CALLing all foreign language teachers: Computer-Assisted language learning in the classroom (pp. 1-4). Larchmont, NY: Eye on Education.

In a letter format to foreign language teachers, Erben talks about the history, purpose, and authors of the book. An overview of the book layout along with some definitions of technical terms or names were explained.

This information helped to get me interested and excited about reading on. Even in this short reading, I felt I learned more than I did before reading this. I felt like this author sounded so supportive of the graduate authors, which helped me to be more motivated about integrating technology in my classroom.