Diseño de Materiales - Week 4 - Choosing Materials - Close Evaluation

Introduction: Hello and welcome to Week 4 of the course Diseño de Materiales. In this class we will review key concepts from your assigned reading regarding the use of specialized checklists to evaluate ELT textbooks. We will also analyze several published checklists and evaluate them using our own criteria for effective checklists.

Today's Goals:

• Discuss important considerations for the creation of a checklist or rubric for materials evaluation.
• Analyze a published checklist and evaluate its applicability to your current teaching context.
• Collaborate with your group members to plan content for the diagnostic survey for your needs and context analysis.

Guiding Questions:

• What are the features of a good checklist?
• What criteria can I propose to evaluate ELT materials?

Task 1: My Criteria 

For our warm up activity you will propose your own criteria for a lazy rainy day, a great vacation, a perfect pizza, or any other non-academic product or experience. Be ready to share your essential criteria with the class.

Click the link and find your section of the document.

• Group Checklist: CLICK HERE

Task 2: Evaluating Evaluation Checklists

There are many ways to make an evaluation checklist or rubric. Let's start by analyzing some published checklists (Jusuf, 2018) to see what they offer, how they are organized, and determine their relative strengths and weaknesses. Click the link below and go to your group's section of the document.  

• ELT Textbook Evaluation Checklist Evaluation Checklist: CLICK HERE

Task 3: Begin Preparing your Diagnostic Survey

Part of the data for your Holistic Student Profile assignment will come from a diagnostic survey that you will design using Google Forms. The purpose of the survey is NOT to test students' language level. Instead, it is meant to help you gather data about their demographics, their motivations for studying English, their likes and preferences regarding activities and materials in English class, and the factors that will contribute to your understanding of the overall needs and context. 

Here are some considerations for your survey:

• Your survey should be designed so that students can complete it in around 5-7 minutes.
• Your survey should include a brief introduction explaining the purpose of the survey and an assurance that all responses will be recorded anonymously.
• All instructions and prompts must be written in Spanish.
• Make sure the instructions and prompts are written in student friendly language avoiding the use of technical terminology that students are not likely to be familiar with.
• Maximize your use of multiple choice and "click all that apply" item types and minimize your use of open-ended questions. If the survey is easy for students to respond to, they are more likely to complete it.
• Make sure your survey is well organized and visually appealing. Include banners or graphics and adjust the colors and fonts of the text.

Check out this example survey that students created in a previous course. 

• Sample Survey: CLICK HERE
• What do you like about it?
• What would you like to do differently?
• What other kinds of data might be relevant to collect?

References:

Jusuf, H. (2018). The Models of Checklist Method in Evaluating ELT Textbooks. Journal al-Lisan, 3(2), 17-35, http://journal.iaingorontalo.ac.id/index.php/al

McGrath, I. (2016). Materials Evaluation and Design for Language Teaching (2nd ed.). Edinburgh University Press.