Brian Tomlinson
Brian Tomlinson is a British applied linguist and the founder of MATSDA, the international Materials Development Association. He has taught in Indonesia, Japan, Nigeria, Oman, Singapore, Vanuatu, Vietnam, and Zambia, and has held university posts at Leeds Metropolitan, Leeds Beckett, and Anaheim University. His work has done more than almost anyone's to turn materials development from a technical side-activity into a recognized area of applied linguistics.
Tomlinson's central argument is that most global coursebooks underexploit what we know about SLA: they over-present and under-process, drill discrete items, and give learners very little rich, engaging, affectively charged input. His edited collections, especially Materials Development in Language Teaching, assemble the evidence base and principles that allow teachers and publishers to do better.
Career
- Taught English around the world across several decades
- University posts in the UK and internationally, including Leeds Beckett and Anaheim
- Founder and president of MATSDA
- Visiting scholar at several universities across Asia and Europe
Published Work
- Materials Development in Language Teaching (ed., 1998, 2011)
- Developing Materials for Language Teaching (ed., 2003, 2013)
- Research for Materials Development in Language Learning (ed. with Hitomi Masuhara, 2010)
- Applied Linguistics and Materials Development (ed., 2013)
Influence
- Made materials development a legitimate research field inside applied linguistics
- His SLA-informed principles for materials have shaped both academic and commercial coursebook design
- Through MATSDA, built a community that keeps the conversation between researchers and publishers alive