The need for a multi‐perspective approach to the evaluation of foreign language teaching materials1

Abstract

Abstract The thesis of the paper is that almost all participants in a language teaching situation are evaluating the programme and the materials used to teach it, though they may be asking very different questions and employing different, possibly even conflicting, criteria for judging ‘success’. Drawing on research carried out in a number of countries, the paper examines the evaluations likely to be performed by ten such participants. It is argued that these evaluations are frequently not independent, and the concept of ‘evaluation networks’ is invoked as a useful way of portraying how they are related. The purpose of the paper is to demonstrate that there can be no one approach to materials evaluation which serves all purposes, and that the whole topic can, and should, be studied from more than one perspective. The argument is specifically in terms of language teaching programmes, but the general thesis is applicable to most teaching‐learning situations.