Most teachers recognise the need for the students’
awareness about the potential relevance and utility of the
language and skills they are teaching. And researchers have
confirmed the importance of this need.
In ESP (English for specific purposes) materials, for
example, it is relatively easy to convince the learners that
the teaching points are relevant and useful by relating them
to known learner interests and to ‘real-life’ tasks, which the
learners need or might need to perform in the target language.
In general English materials this is obviously more difficult; but
it can be achieved by researching what the target learners
are interested in and what they really want to learn the
language for. An interesting example of such research was a
questionnaire in Namibia which revealed that two of the most
important reasons for secondary school students to wish to
learn English were so they would be able to write love letters
in English and so that they would be able to write letters of
complaint for villagers to the village headman and from the
village headman to local authorities.
Perception of relevance and utility can also be achieved
by relating teaching points to challenging classroom tasks
and by presenting them in ways which could facilitate the
achievement of the task outcomes desired by the learners.
The ‘new’ learning points are not relevant and useful because
they will help the learners to achieve longterm academic or
career objectives, but because they could help the learners to
achieve short-term task objectives now. Of course, this only
works if the tasks are begun first and the teaching is then
provided in response to discovered needs. This is much more
difficult for the materials writer than the conventional approach
of teaching a predetermined point first and then getting the
learners to practise and then produce it.
(B. Tomlinson, (ed). Material Development in Language Teaching.
Cambridge: CUP. 1998/2011. pp 11-2. Adaptado)