On 13th July 2023, I presented a talk as part of the BRAZ-TESOL Materials Writing Special Interest Group (MaWSIG) Pre-Conference Event (PCE) for the 2023 BRAZ-TESOL online conference.
As teachers, we can feel a difference when we’re teaching from materials which seem to ‘flow’ perfectly compared to materials which don’t. However, when we create our own materials, it can be difficult to find that same flow. In this talk, I’ll show you techniques to make your materials flow, including through the use of scaffolding for productive tasks, and the exploitation of a single exercise in a range of different ways.
These are the slides from the presentation:
Below is a summary of what I said.
Why did I choose this topic?
As part of the research I did for my MA dissertation topic, I conducted a survey about the knowledge and skills people need to create effective materials. The second most common response was that creating materials that flow in a logical way is an important skill in materials writing, with 58/124 respondents mentioning it. The only thing that was more common was understanding the target language.
What do we mean by ‘flow’?
I started with definitions of the general meaning of ‘flow’ from two learner dictionaries, and I highlighted some of what I believe are the key concepts relating to flow.
Cambridge starts with (especially of liquids, gases, or electricity) to move in one direction, especially continuously and easily. Oxford says that when flow is related to speech or writing it is the way that words, ideas or themes are linked together in speech, writing or music and when it is related to ideas or conversation to flow is to develop or be produced in an easy and natural way.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi was a psychologist who wrote and spoke a lot about the psychological concept of flow. I used various internet sources to compile my own summary of the factors which he thought contribute to us feeling like we are in the middle of a state of flow:
- Clear goals
- Immediate clear feedback
- Total focus on task
- Balance between skills and challenge
- Sense of control
- No worry of failure
- Altered perception of time
- Action and awareness merged
- The activity is an end in itself
Based on those ideas from beyond ELT and this article by John Hughes, this is how I understand what ‘flow’ could mean when we relate it to materials and materials writing:
- Clear objectives and activity aims
- Easy for learners and teachers to navigate
- Sense of direction: Clear beginning, middle and end to the materials
- Continuity: One activity flows logically into the next
- Engaging and enjoyable for learners and teachers
- Challenges learners
- Gives learners a feeling of control
- Sets learners up for success
In the rest of the presentation I looked at each of these areas in turn and offered thoughts and suggestions on how to improve your materials so that they flow better, according to my breakdown of what flow might mean. I’ve included some examples of what I mean, but if you’d like more, please do leave a comment.
1. Clear objectives and activity aims
The objective is what the materials as a whole should help learners to achieve. This should be communicated concisely to users of the materials. For example: ‘By the end of the lesson, you should be better able to get help when trying on clothes in a shop in English.’ After all, if you don’t know where you’re going, how do you know when you’ve got there?
The activity aims are how each activity contributes to the objective and moves learners towards it. These should provide step-by-step support to learners to achieve the overall aim, and (if time) improve further at it. In our clothes shop example, some of the activity aims might include:
- To identify what problems the customer has (when listening to a conversation between a shop assistant and a customer in a clothes shop)
- To practise polite intonation when making requests
- To understand typical responses a shop assistant might make to your requests
You may have come across the acronym SMART to describe what makes a good aim or objective. This is how I equate each of the words in SMART to how learners should feel about each aim or objective in the materials they are using in lessons:
- Specific: I know what I have to do
- Measurable: I know how to assess my progress
- Achievable: I can achieve this (perhaps with help)
- Realistic: This will help me in the real world
- Timed: I can do this in the time available to me
- + each activity will help me to improve
If you look at materials you’ve produced and don’t feel they meet these criteria, it’s perhaps worth reassessing the objectives and aims to see how you can make them SMARTer.
2. Easy for teachers and learners to navigate
This draws heavily from John Hughes, who has been a huge influence in making my own materials more easy navigable through advice he’s offered in blogposts, workshops and webinars. Thank you John!
To make your materials easier for teachers and learners to navigate, consider the following:
- Use clear, unambigious headings
- Number activities and questions
- Reference relevant grammar notes, vocabulary lists and other exercises
- In instructions / rubrics, use consistent wording, consistent fonts (or bold, but not italics – this is harder to read), and include examples.
- Use an uncluttered layout, with clear constrats between colours and easy to read fonts and text sizes.
- Even if they’re only for you, include teacher’s notes and answer keys. Writing them can often help you to identify problems you might not otherwise notice.
3. Sense of direction: Clear beginning, middle and end to the materials
To some extent, this links back to objectives and aims in point 1 and navigation in point 2, but I think it’s worth highlighting this as a separate point. As John Hughes says,
You need to make sure [the exercises] fit together in a logical order. In practical terms, this means that if you have six exercises or stages on a worksheet, then any teacher should be able to pick up that worksheet, take it into class, start at exercise 1 and finish at exercise 6. Yes it’s important that the material is also flexible enough for those types of teachers who like to miss some parts out, change the order or even add their own supplementary materials, but its primary function is to offer a complete lesson.
https://oupeltglobalblog.com/2014/11/05/how-to-write-your-own-efl-materials-part-two-thinking-about-context-and-flow/
Look at your materials from the perspective or a learner or another teacher using them. Can you easily answer these three questions:
- Can I see where I should start and why?
- What are the next steps I need to take?
- How will I know when I’ve finished?
4. Continuity: One activity flows logically into the next
Have you ever used materials where…?
- The topic keeps changing: one minute it’s about holidays, then food, then learning languages, then… (particularly in controlled practice activities!)
- There are sudden jumps of focus: from reading, to grammar practice, to learning some new vocabulary, to writing…
- Learners are asked to suddenly asked to start reading, listening, speaking or writing, with no warning or preparation, and then are given little to no support to complete it.
To avoid that yourself, do this:
- Stick to a consistent topic throughout the set of materials and throughout each activity.
- If you write materials which integrate skills and language, make sure everything you include contributes to the overall aim. No grammar / vocab ‘just because…’!
- Provide support (‘scaffolding’) for skills work.
5. Engaging and enjoyable for learners and teachers
To think about how to make your materials engaging, I would highly recommend one of my current favourite methodology books:
Engaging Language Learners in Contemporary Classrooms by Sarah Mercer and Zoltán Dörnyei [Amazon affiliate link, BEBC, Bookshop.org affiliate link] includes a wealth of ideas for what engagement actually means, any of which you could attempt to build into your materials to help learners approach a sense of flow while they’re using them. This is a slightly different approach to flow and materials, but still an important one! Here are just a few ideas:
- Use stories
- Activate emotions
- Start small and build up
- Make progess visible
- Build in learner choice
- Teacher learners how to learn
- Provide appropriate challenge
- Include surprise, mystery and puzzles
- Build rapport between learners
- Built teacher-student rapport
- Provide support for pair work and group work
I’d highly recommend reading the whole book if you can!
6. Challenges learners
The challenge about challenge in materials is that it looks different in every context, so to some extent you’ll need to decide yourself what challenge actually means for the learners you’re writing materials for. However, these four activites are simple ways to add a little challenge to any set of materials:
- Cover the sentences / words. Can you remember them?
- Test your partner: what can they remember? Can you help them remember more with pictures or acting?
- Race yourself: how fast can you do it? Can you do it again faster? [for pronucniation practice, reading, speaking, writing, or completing a controlled practice exercise – note that it’s important that learners are racing themselves and not each other]
- Can you write down these 3 super-fast sentences? Now can you say them yourself? [accompanied by an audio with some connected speech, or teacher’s notes for a teacher to read the sentences as fast as they can]
7. Gives learners a feeling of control
Again, this is more about helping learners to approach a sense of flow when they’re using your materials. Here are a few ideas for how you can hand over control to learners within your materials:
- Offer choice:
- Do you want to work alone, in pairs or in groups?
- Do you want to write or speak?
- Include how to learn:
- Dictionary skills
- Making use of online translators
- How ChatGPT can help you
- Include tips on approaching tasks:
- Why not try…?
- If it’s difficult, you could…
8. Sets learners up for success
If you’re able to incorporate a wide range of the tips above in your materials, you should be well on the way to setting up learners for success. Here’s a summary of some of the ways you can do that:
- Maintain the focus
- Include how to learn
- Scaffold for skills work
- Support learners to remember new language
All of this leads to learners going from a feeling of ‘I can do this’ to a feeling of ‘I did it!’, and to teachers enjoying teaching from the materials.
But…
…I’ve shared a lot of different ideas in this talk and post. Don’t try to change all of it at once in your materials if you feel they’re not there already!
Choose one area at a time to work on, try it out and reflect on what does and doesn’t work for your materials and your learners. When you’re ready, choose another area.
I’d be really interested to know where you choose to start and how it goes. Please do leave a comment!
Good luck!
Sandy Millin 
2 thoughts on “Creating materials that flow (BRAZ-TESOL MaWSIG PCE 2023)”