Language learning materials development

This article contains suggestions about principles, learning materials, and techniques one could use to improve his or her knowledge of English. Most of the ideas presented may be applicable to the study of any foreign language. First, the mechanism and the main stages of language learning are described. Then, general principles of one’s self-study of English are formulated and explained. Following that, some particular English language textbooks, listening/video courses, dictionaries and other learning materials are recommended. Finally, some ideas for teachers on how to use audio and video materials in class more productively and how to stimulate students’ active participation in the study process are put forward.

... Jaeger, TF 2010. Redundancy and reduction: Speakers manage syntactic information density. Cognitive Psychology , 61(1): 23–62. ... Jaeger, TF 2010. Redundancy and reduction: Speakersmanage syntactic information density. Cognitive Psychology , 61(1): 23–62. ...

ABSTRACT How do children resolve the problem of indeterminacy when learning a new word? By one account, children adopt a taxonomic assumption and expect the word to denote only members of a particular taxonomic category. According to one version of this constraint, young children should represent polysemous words that label multiple kinds—for example, chicken, which labels an animal and its meat—as separate and unrelated words that each encode a single kind. Our studies provide evidence against this account: we show that four- and five-year-old children spontaneously expect that a word that has labeled one meaning of a familiar polysemous word will also label its other, taxonomically different meaning. Further, we show that children's taxonomic flexibility is importantly constrained—children do not expect a word to label thematically-related meanings (e.g., chicken and egg), or the unrelated meanings of homophones (e.g., bat[animal] and bat[baseball]). We argue that although children are initially guided by the taxonomic constraint when pairing word forms with meanings, they nonetheless relate the taxonomically-different meanings of polysemous words within lexical structure. Thus, for even young children, a single word can label multiple kinds.

ABSTRACT How do children resolve the problem of indeterminacy when learning a new word? By one account, children adopt a taxonomic assumption and expect the word to denote only members of a particular taxonomic category. According to one version of this constraint, young children should represent polysemous words that label multiple kinds—for example, chicken, which labels an animal and its meat—as separate and unrelated words that each encode a single kind. Our studies provide evidence against this account: we show that four- and five-year-old children spontaneously expect that a word that has labeled one meaning of a familiar polysemous word will also label its other, taxonomically different meaning. Further, we show that children's taxonomic flexibility is importantly constrained—children do not expect a word to label thematically-related meanings (e.g., chicken and egg), or the unrelated meanings of homophones (e.g., bat[animal] and bat[baseball]). We argue that although children are initially guided by the taxonomic constraint when pairing word forms with meanings, they nonetheless relate the taxonomically-different meanings of polysemous words within lexical structure. Thus, for even young children, a single word can label multiple kinds.

The aims of this research were (1) to identify the target needs and learning needs of the intermediate level students of International Accounting Education study program of Yogyakarta State University and (2) to develop English speaking materials for English Tutorial Program of intermediate level students of International Accounting Education study program at the Centre for Language Development of Yogyakarta State University.
This research was a Research and Development (R&D) study. The steps of the research were conducting the needs analysis, writing the course grid, developing the first draft of materials, consulting the first draft of materials to the experts, and revising and developing the final draft of materials. There were two types of questionnaires used in this research. The first questionnaire was the needs analysis questionnaire, distributed to the students to identify their target needs and learning needs. The second one was the materials expert evaluation questionnaire to assess the appropriateness of the developed materials. The data was then analyzed in the form of percentage and mean. The result of the materials evaluation was analyzed using descriptive statistics.
The result of this research is four units of materials. Each unit of the materials consists of introduction, main lesson, and reinforcement part. The introduction part consists of the unit title and learning objectives. The main lesson part consists of Pre-Task, Task Cycle, and Language Focus. It has 13 tasks focusing on improving students’ listening and speaking skills where most of the tasks are done in pairs. The types of tasks are mostly listening to recordings, determining true-false statements, answering W/H questions, acting out dialogues, and making dialogues. The reinforcement part consists of reflection and vocabulary list. Based on the results of the experts’ judgment questionnaire, the content, language, presentation, and lay-out of the developed materials are appropriate. The mean score of all aspects was 4.34, categorized as very good. This suggests that the developed materials are appropriate to be used in English Tutorial Program.

Deaf students have different abilities from students who have the ability to hear a lesson at school. Barriers to hear experienced by students with hearing impairment can affect the language, academic, and social skills of deaf students. Deaf students can still obtain information from other senses that are still functioning, such as the senses of sight, touch, taste and smell or of residual hearing that still exist. In the world of education, one way to overcome this obstacle is by making multimedia based learning materials which consider the principles of learning for learners with hearing impairment; a series of development of the elements of audio, visual, and digital technology to facilitate the learning activities of deaf students so that the passion, quality, and achievement of deaf students can be improved.

This action research study reports on an intervention at a telesecundaria school in the East of Mexico to motivate thirty teenage learners of English. In order to do this, a low-cost interactive white board was constructed by the teacher/researcher. In addition, interactive activities were created to be used with this device. The intervention was carried out for a period of four weeks. To evaluate this action, data were collected using semi-structured interviews, focus group interviews and observation notes recorded by the teacher/researcher. Findings suggest that using this device along with the activities had a positive effect on some learners who barely participated in class. However, there were some learners who remained passive. For those on whom this action had a positive effect, the activities that seem to have had a greater impact where those of the game type. Other findings suggest that these activities not only entertained learners, but also promoted cooperation and more interaction among them. Possible conclusions are that the low-cost interactive white board does not guarantee per se that learners become motivated and engaged in the class. This depends also on the type of activities that involve learners to achieve goals such as winning in the games. Finally, other possible areas of research are suggested for future action research cycles.

Due to the rapid development of electronic learning applications over the last year, many universities
and research centers, as well as many public or private training institutions have produced digital
learning materials either as a result of their own decision or out of necessity. The multitude of such
materials, whose creation has been supported by means of special projects conducted by large
European institutions and organizations, interested in how they could be applied in education, has
raised the question of their assessment. As a result, many researchers have been trying to find digital
learning material assessment models that, along with their assessment criteria, have already been
discussed in the relevant bibliography. The main trend is the development of assessment models for
learning materials, referring commonly to a digital learning objects repository, the learning materials’
creation, the assessment tools and – sometimes – the Internet communities using those materials.
However, as those models occur through the use of particular criteria, they often turn out to be
incomplete or non-applicable to new projects.
It is obvious that it is very difficult to develop assessment and quality control models and criteria
without any problems and researchers are aware of this. That is the reason why many of them
propose their models while suggesting their combined use with other models. Among the many
models for the assessment of digital learning materials, the QuADEM method and model (Quality
Assessment of Digital Educational Material) seems to be quite effective, as it proposes many
parameters, its methodology is sufficiently clear and it offers a wide range of criteria.
This article deals with an application of the QuADEM method to the assessment of digitized school
books used in Greek primary and secondary education for the teaching of Ancient and Modern Greek
language and literature (a total of 58 digital books, enriched electronic versions of the original
hardcopy versions). The assessment did not concern the corresponding digital learning resources
repository (Photodendro), although there has been reference to its functionality, but dealt with the
series of digital tools specifically developed for language and literature teaching and learning (Psifides-
Tiles). QuADEM proved to be very useful in generating a questionnaire, which was used in a primary
and secondary school teachers’ survey conducted throughout the country. This article highlights the
criteria that led to the adoption of the QuADEM methodology, as well as the units used in the
assessment of the pivotal parameters of the digital learning materials, and the findings concerning its
effectiveness.

The present paper provides a brief overview of the principles behind Rikkyo University's English Discussion Class (EDC) with specific regard given to those applied to textbook development and in particular the revision of homework readings. The process and rationale for revision and standardization of lexile thresholds and readability targets of these readings are provided. A pilot study into textbook topic interest is then outlined. The pilot study's findings were consistent with similar research into topic interest among EFL students at universities in Japan, suggesting that these results may be useful in future textbook development. The paper concludes with suggestions for future research into materials development in the EDC context.