Materials Evaluation and Design - Week 12 - Using Learner Generated Materials

Introduction: Hello and welcome to Week 12 of the course Materials Evaluation and Design. In this class we will discuss the idea of using learner generated materials to enhance the learning process.

Today's Goals:

• Discuss the role of student generated texts as didactic resources in your language classroom. 
• Propose practical strategies to use learner generated materials for error correction, feedback, self and peer-assessment/feedback.
• Consider several activity cycles to exploit student created texts for task modeling and peer/self correction and feedback. 

Guiding Questions:

• What role can learners play in the creation of course materials?
• What are the benefits and challenges of using student created texts to promote self and peer assessment and feedback?

Warm Up: Guess the Voice

In this activity you will hear short voice clips of several of your classmates if they were chipmunks. Who do you think they are? What about the way they talk tells you who it might be?

Task 1: Discussing Learner Generated Materials

Discuss the following questions with your partners. When you finish, go to Task 2.

• What comes to your mind when you hear the phrase "learner generated materials"?
• In what ways might learners contribute to the creation of learning materials for the class?
• Think about a typical class with your students. What are some products or artifacts that students create as a result of participating in the lesson activities?
• What purposes do these products/artifacts serve the learners? How might a teacher exploit these learner produced artifacts for additional teaching-learning purposes?

Task 2: Practical Ideas for Teachers

Teachers are naturally very creative and resourceful. Click your group link below to go to a worksheet where you will be asked to propose several concrete ways to work with learner produced materials.

• Group 1: CLICK HERE
• Group 2: CLICK HERE

Resources:

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