THE SELECTION OF ESL/EFL CLASSROOM MATERIALS INSTRUCTIONA

Solomon (1979) remarked that, since Plato had criticized "stories which he feared might cultivate undesirable ideas in youngsters", media contents have been the focus of attention of teachers and publishers (p. 53). Comprehension of structure (such as plots), attribution of credibility (such as history as taught at school), acceptance of stereotypes (such as the superiority of the white race... or of the black race), learning sex roles (such as women as homebodies)--have all been studied, particularly by textbook publishers. The instruments and modes of message presentation, however, have received but scant attention--in spite of McLuhan's "the medium is the message".

If the medium is indeed the message (or at least a significant part of it), then its nature and potential effects on ESL/EFL classroom learning must be studied as much as its contents. The teacher and the didactic material designer cannot indiscriminately force content onto medium, as, regretfully, is quite commonly done through ignorance of media's idiosyncratic attributes or through commercial greed and political "correctness".

Youngsters today are likely to have a better command of image syntax than of script syntax, because they are subject to much greater e

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saw in these three levels a wide gap between classroom discourse and the target discourse of the learning objectives. They noted that "ESP materials are designed as teaching materials and their centrality in the teaching situation consequently tends to reinforce the peculiarities of classroom discourse" (p. 105). Unfortunately, much of ESL/EFL textual material, not only in the ESP sector, is so teacher-centered rather than learner-centered. "Textbook English" is rarely communicative English--the vernacular at whatever level of communication. As a consequence, it requires "translation" into the vernacular. It is the teacher who leads and encourages students to transfer textbook and classroom English into communicative English. But why take the circuitous route when using the vernacular from the start would ensure functional competency? The choice of books must stress the learner/communicative form and content, thus rendering "translation" unnecessary. Textbook and classroom English is not "good" English, however grammatically correct, because it does not fulfill the role of language, which is to communicate in mutually understandable terms. Thus, the prime consideration in the selection of textual material is authenticity. Authent
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 3696
Approximate Pages = 15 (250 words per page)