The most important principles of material design for me are as follows:
Materials should:
1. Be simple and effective –they should be streamlined and avoid extraneous detail or long lists of vocabulary.
2. Be engaging – they should capture the attention and pique the curiosity of the learners and avoid the blandness often encountered in language textbooks
3. Be visually pleasing – clear and clean design, nice fonts, incl. pictures.
4. Serve as a springboard into meaningful communication/interaction between learners.
5 Strike a balance between authenticity and the appropriate language level for the learners.
Hi Gareth, thanks for adding your thoughts. I love number 2. I'm guilty of creating bland materials myself though (sometimes for my own students and sometimes following a publisher's brief!) Number 5 leads nicely into tomorrow's topic (authenticity).
ReplyDeleteI love #2 and #4... students need to see the connection between what has been presented and how they can continue using it to achieve meaningful communication.
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