Design, Development, and Dissemination of Instructional Materials

The design, development, and dissemination are the three phases of instructional making. We will now look at the guiding principles for each phase.

  1. Accumulated experience – the writer reviews or surveys existing materials which can give useful information about the demands and the needs in the field.
  2. Rationale for the design – identifies the shortcomings of existing materials to ensure that such short comings are not repeated in the present material.
  3. Conceptual Framework – combines major and minor concepts regarding language learning, language teaching theories, and materials design principles upon which the material is anchored.

    Major concepts refer to the overall principles of second/foreign language learning and teaching will affect every aspect of the design of the instructional materials.

    Minor concepts refer to the following:
    • Organization of languages skills to be taught;
    • Selection, gradation and arrangement of content;
    • Methodology associated with the acquisition of these skills; and
    • Organization for the development and dissemination of the materials.
Detailed writing of the specification for the new materials – the specification includes:
  • Goals of the materials
  • Subject matter, language content to be covered, and the skills to be acquired through the content:
  • Techniques and modes of presentation, practice, use and management associated with the learning of the content
  • Format of the materials including how learning units are divided
  • Technical details for the writing of the materials
  1. Writing the experimental materials
  2. Internal evaluation of materials
  3. Controlled tryout
  1. Extensive use of the new IM
  2. Field evaluation of the IM