There are many times in which teachers decide not to
follow the traditional English coursebooks to teach, and instead they change
directions and design their own materials. But why do they decide to take that
course of action? According to Jocelyn Howard and Jae Major in their article
“Guidelines for Designing Effective English Language Teaching Materials” there
are many advantages to do this. We would like to talk about the different
advantages and add some guidelines they also think are important at the moment
of designing your own materials.
An important advantage of teacher-produced materials
is CONTEXTUALIZATION. A key
criticism of commercial materials is that they are generic and not aimed at any
specific group of learners or any particular cultural or educational context.
For many teachers, designing or adapting their own teaching material, enables
them to take into account their particular learning environment and to overcome
the lack of “fit” of the coursebook.
A second area in which teacher-designed materials are
an advantage is that of INDIVIDUAL NEEDS
which refers to being responsive to the heterogeneity inherent in the
classroom. In this way, the teacher can take into account learners’ first
language and culture, their learning needs and experiences at the moment of
planning.
PERSONALISATION is another advantage. Teachers can add a personal touch
to the material they want to use in their lessons, increasing students’
motivation and engagement in learning. There’s also greater freedom and scope
for spontaneity when teachers develop their own materials.
Last but not least, TIMELINESS is a further advantage. Teachers designing their own
material can respond to local and international events with up –to-date,
relevant and high interesting topics and tasks.
To sum up, we can say that designing your own teaching
materials would add a unique dimension to your lessons. Not only would students
feel more interested and engaged in what they are doing, you would also be
able to help them in the process of learning in a way commercial coursebooks
and materials cannot, since you are the one who knows the students in
front of you better than anybody else.
Here we’d like to share some interesting websites you
can use, if you are running out of ideas at the moment of creating your own
material:
Howard, J. & Major, J. Guidelines for Designing Effective English Language Teaching Materials. Christchurch College of Education.
Thanks for reading !!!
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