© The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press; all rights reserved.
An evaluative checklist for self-access materials
Hayo Reinders (www.hayo.nl) is Director of the English Language Self-Access Centre at the University of Auckland and Visiting Professor at Meiji University in Tokyo. He is co-editor of Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching, published by Multilingual Matters, and is co-founder of the Independent Learning Association. His research interests are in SLA (noticing processes), learner autonomy, and online and mobile language learning
Marilyn Lewis is an Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Applied Language Studies and Linguistics at the University of Auckland. She continues to be involved in language teacher education in her retirement, particularly through working with voluntary tutors of refugee and immigrant new learners of English in their homes in New Zealand. She also works with teachers in South-East Asia from time to time
Self-access centres (SACs) are playing an increasingly pivotal role in supporting the (self-) study of languages. Selecting suitable resources thus becomes more and more important. At the selection stage, identifying problems with available resources is not an easy task, and is made more difficult by a lack of published guidelines. Linked with this difficulty is the wide range of skills, topics, and levels that self-access resources cater for, making it difficult to have a precisely defined list of criteria. Starting with the premise that evaluation criteria for self-access resources are different from those developed for classroom materials this study worked through two stages. First, existing evaluative criteria for self-instructional materials in general education and language learning were reviewed. Based on this review, a new evaluation tool was developed to guide self-access in the selection of materials.