Abstract
Textbooks, audio and video recordings, websites, and teacher-designed worksheets, tasks, and activities represent just some of the many “tools of the trade” for language and literacy teachers and learners. Teaching/learning materials such as these play a pivotal role in the classroom and thus deserve careful analysis and evaluation to ensure that they are engaging, supporting and inspiring learners to the fullest extent possible. One way to do this is to examine the materials for the knowledge processes — experiencing, analyzing, conceptualizing, applying — they anticipate. This chapter outlines a procedure for converting the Knowledge Process framework into materials analysis and evaluation instruments for use within any educational context where there is an interest in a Multiliteracies approach to language and literacy teaching and learning. It also presents a case for the use of knowledge process materials analyses/evaluations at institutions in which there is no intention of implementing Multiliteracies pedagogy.
Knowing is the process of connecting the stuff of the mind to the stuff of the world. Knowing is a form of action and to know in this active sense is to learn.
—Kalantzis, Cope & The Learning by Design Group, 2005, p. 70.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Cope, B. & Kalantzis, M. (Eds.) (2000). Multiliteracies: Literacy learning and the design of social futures. Oxford: Routledge.
Ellis, R. (2011). Macro-and micro-evaluations of task-based teaching. In B. Tomlinson (Ed.) Materials development in language teaching (2nd ed.) (pp. 212–235). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Gee, J.P. (2000). New people in new worlds: Networks, the new capitalism and schools. In B. Cope & M. Kalantzis (Eds.), Multiliteracies: Literacy Learning and the Design of Social Futures (pp. 43–68). Oxford: Routledge.
Harwood, N. (2010). English Language Teaching Materials: Theory and Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kalantzis, M., & Cope, B. (2012). Literacies. Melbourne, Victoria: Cambridge University Press.
Kalantzis, M., Cope, B. & The Learning by Design Group (2005). Learning by Design. Melbourne, Victoria: Victorian Schools Innovation Commission.
Kern, R. (2008). Making connections through texts in language teaching. Language Teaching, 41(3), 367–387.
Littlejohn, A. (2011). The analysis of language teaching materials: Inside the Trojan horse. In B. Tomlinson (Ed.), Materials Development in Language Teaching (2nd ed.) (pp. 179–211). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Masuhara, H., Hann, N., Yi. Y. & Tomlinson, B. (2008). Adult EFL courses. ELT Journal, 62(3), 294–312.
Masuhara, H. & Tomlinson, B. (2010). Applications of the research results for materials development. In B. Tomlinson & H. Masuhara (Eds.), Research for Materials Development in Language Learning: Evidence for Best Practice (pp. 410–424). London: Continuum.
McDonough, J., Shaw, C. & Masuhara, H. (2013). Materials and Methods in ELT. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.
McGrath, I. (2002). Materials Evaluation and Design for Language Teaching. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
McGrath, I. (2013). Teaching Materials and the Roles of EFL/ESL Teachers: Practice and Theory. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
New London Group (1996). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. Harvard Educational Review, 66(1), 60–92.
Rowland, L., Canning, N., Faulhaber, D., Lingle, W. & Redgrave, A. (2014). A multiliteracies approach to materials analysis. Language, Culture and Curriculum, 27(2), 136–150.
Silverman, D. (2011). Interpreting Qualitative Data (4th ed.). London: SAGE Publications.
Tomlinson, B. (2011). Glossary of basic terms for materials development in language teaching. In B. Tomlinson (Ed.), Materials Development in Language Teaching (2nd ed.) (pp. ix–xviii). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Tomlinson, B. (2012). Materials development for language learning and teaching. Language Teaching, 45(2), 143–179.
Tomlinson, B. (2014). Materials evaluation. In B. Tomlinson (Ed.), Developing Materials for Language Teaching (2nd ed.) (pp. 15–36). London: Bloomsbury Academic.
Tomlinson, B. & Masuhara, H. (2004). Developing Language Course Materials. Singapore: RELC.
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2015 Luke Rowland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Rowland, L. (2015). Examining the “Tools of the Trade”: A Knowledge Process Approach to Materials Analysis and Materials Evaluation. In: Cope, B., Kalantzis, M. (eds) A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137539724_14
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137539724_14
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-55253-5
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-53972-4
eBook Packages: Palgrave Social Sciences CollectionSocial Sciences (R0)