Text-driven Approach

A framework for materials development set out by Brian Tomlinson in Developing Materials for Language Teaching (Continuum, 2003; second edition Bloomsbury, 2013). Text comes first — the writer selects a rich, engaging text and designs activities outward from it — and the syllabus is mapped onto what the text affords rather than the text being chosen to deliver a pre-set syllabus item.

Core inversion

Conventional materials begin with a syllabus point (a grammar item, a function, a vocabulary set) and look for a text that exemplifies it. Text-driven design reverses the order: pick a text with strong potential for cognitive and affective engagement, then design activities that exploit that potential, then check the resulting unit against syllabus requirements as a final cross-reference. The inversion is consequential — texts chosen to serve a grammar point are typically thin, while texts chosen for engagement bring richer language, content, and discourse with them.

Activity stages

Tomlinson's framework moves through readiness activities, experiential activities, intake response, development, input response, and a second development cycle. Readiness personalises the topic before the learner meets the text. Experiential activities let learners engage the text on first reading by visualising, predicting, or responding affectively, without immediate language work. Intake response shares those personal responses among learners. Development turns the response into output — discussion, writing, role-play. Input response then directs attention to specific language features the text contains. A second development phase revisits the output with the noticed language available.

Theoretical commitments

The approach draws on second-language-acquisition research that prizes engagement, rich input, and noticing over controlled presentation-practice-production sequences. It assumes that texts which engage the learner emotionally and cognitively do more for acquisition than texts that have been simplified or stripped to fit a structural slot. This makes authentic texts — and Mishan's criteria for authenticity — central to the approach.

Practical adoption

Text-driven design fits programmes with strong teacher autonomy and access to varied texts. It is harder to mount inside coursebook publishing, where syllabus coverage drives editorial decisions, though Tomlinson and Masuhara's later work documents trial implementations in published materials. Self-access centres, supplementary courses, and university-led ESP programmes make natural homes for the approach.

References

• Tomlinson, B. (Ed.). (2003). Developing Materials for Language Teaching. Continuum.
• Tomlinson, B. (Ed.). (2013). Developing Materials for Language Teaching (2nd ed.). Bloomsbury.
• Tomlinson, B., & Masuhara, H. (2018). The Complete Guide to the Theory and Practice of Materials Development for Language Learning. Wiley.