by Claire Brett
‘The color, the grace and levitation, the structural pattern in motion, the quick interplay of live beings, suspended like fitful lightning in a cloud, these things are the play, not words on paper, nor thoughts and ideas of an author…’
Tennesse Williams
As the CELFS PS 10 2019 takes off, I find myself reflecting on the process of creating this year’s blended materials and wondering how they will be received by teachers and students this summer.
I’m aware of potential tension as teachers (and students) may start to feel constrained by the density and structure of a complex course like this, especially as the course-book has expanded this year and we’ve added a substantial online element.
As a writer, I view materials as the medium through which teaching and learning can travel. The words and images on a page or screen have no meaning until there’s some ‘disturbance’ created by teachers and learners. These energetic disturbances result in ‘waves’ of intention and purpose that require a medium to travel through. We can think of the teaching materials as consisting of ‘particles’ (tasks and texts), that lift off the page as the waves pass through them, always returning to their original position once the wave has passed. Just as sound vibrations create energy by disturbing air particles which interact as the sound waves pass through them, it is the choices, intentions and interactions of teachers and learners, not the materials, that create the energy and waves within a classroom.
If we are to maintain a healthy state of flux, whereby these energetic teaching and learning waves flow at an appropriate pace, we need materials that contain the right density of tasks and texts. Too dense, and the flow might feel rushed, or conversely, learning opportunities might get stuck and momentum is lost; not dense enough, and there aren’t enough particles to maintain the flow of energy. And we also need materials that are porous enough to allow for unexpected, serendipitous moments and tangents to occur; we need space to let the light in.
With this in mind, I look forward to watching the play in action, to learning how teachers choose to conduct and direct their classes and having conversations about the purpose and efficacy of the materials we’ve created. I also especially look forward to learning how students engage with the online elements of the course – what kind of waves will they create?
Wishing you all a fulfilling and fun Pre-sessional!
Further Reading/Watching
For Principles of Traditional Classroom-based Materials Design:
Nunan, D. (1988). The Learner-Centred Curriculum. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Tomlinson, B. (2010). ‘Principles of effective materials development’ in Harwood, N. (ed.) English language teaching materials: Theory and practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 81-108
For Principles of Digital Materials Design
Thornbury, S. (2019, Feb 12). Educational technology: Assessing its fitness for purpose [Webinar]. In Online Language Learning Research Network (OLLReN) Webinar Series. Retrieved from https://ollren.org/c.php?g=859015&p=6171828#s-lg-box-wrapper-24666759
very nice piece Claire; the materials are very useful and well-presented. I think we as teachers need to be aware what our students will be doing in the online sessions so we don’t duplicate what has been covered. so far, so good..
Loving the metaphors Claire – you definitely have an extradordinary talent for finding poetry within the field of EAP and EAP materials! In fact, I’m not being ironic (for once!) to suggest that while observing how our group of PS10 teachers have been creatively “energising” some of the materials, your blog makes complete sense.
it will be interesting to have a follow-up on the student experience from the summer; all in all, I think it worked well; there was lots of very useful exercises/learning