The Routledge
Handbook in Applied Linguistics Series provides “a comprehensive, must-have
survey of a core-sub-discipline” for post-graduate and upper level
undergraduate students. The aim of the series is to survey a topic, explain the
significance of the area and critically discuss leading views. Although
materials development is a burgeoning field in Applied Linguistics, which
attracts doctoral students and is particularly popular on MA courses, both for
the theoretical insights it brings and its practical utility for language
teaching professionals, it still remains a relatively under-researched area. To
our knowledge, no recent, extensive coverage of this field exists in a handbook
format and many other texts (see Market Analysis section) either cover a
narrower range of topics or focus on one particular aspect of the
sub-discipline, such as materials evaluation. The proposed Handbook will
address this issue by including a broader range of key topics, some of which
have not received extensive coverage previously in the academic literature.