Lesson 12: teaching speaking in primary level pupils: monologue and dialogue questions to be discussed

2.Evaluating Materials for Young Learners

Tomlinson defines materials evaluation as a procedure of measuring the value (or potential value) of a set of learning materials. An evaluation focuses mainly on the needs of the users of the materials and makes subjective judgments about their effects. Evaluation can be carried out pre-use, in-use or post use. The main goal of evaluating materials pre-use is to measure the potential of what teachers and learners can do with them in the classroom.

In-use and post use evaluations are important in establishing how successful learning materials are. With the widespread acceptance of commercially produced textbooks as core teaching materials a greater focus began to be positioned on materials evaluation in the early 1980s. Initially, the role of textbooks within English language teaching was explored.

The need for a more systematic approach to materials evaluation appeared during this time as it became obvious that any sets of commercially produced teaching materials would be unlikely to be completely suitable for a particular group of learners.

A number of theoretical evaluative frameworks have since been published. These have mostly been checklist-based, usually in the form of questions to be answered to determine the extent to which the materials fulfil a set of criteria. While there is a insufficiency of evaluation formats specifically designed for young learner materials, Halliwell provides a checklist for evaluating and comparing young learner course books.

The advantages and disadvantages of checklists have been pointed out by several writers. Not only can checklists be systematic and comprehensive, they are also cost and time effective and the results are easy to understand, replicate and compare. On the other hand, pre-existing checklists can become dated and the criteria used may not be transparent or based on assumptions shared by everyone. Sheldon has also written how considerable modification of any set of culturally restricted criteria is necessary to make them applicable to most local contexts.