Language choices in the writing of distance learning materials: How do we write our readers and ourselves?

Abstract

One outcome of my experiences as a reviewer of distance learning courses for the 1995 national audit of teacher education in South Africa and as a writer of in-service professional development courses for teachers, is an increased awareness of the complexity of the materials development task and of the central role of language in this task. In this article I discuss some of the syntactic, lexical and pedagogic choices that are involved in the development of materials for learners studying at a distance and illustrate this discussion with examples from a range of course materials, including some that I have written.


(S/ern Af Linguistics & Applied Language Stud: 2001 19(1&2): 57-65)