Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Huangshi Jiedao? Are you interested in teaching English in Guangzhou Shi? Check out ITTT’s online and in-class courses, Become certified to Teach English as a Foreign Language and start teaching English ONLINE or abroad! ITTT offers a wide variety of Online TEFL Courses and a great number of opportunities for English Teachers and for Teachers of English as a Second Language.
This unit dealt with issues and considerations concerning the use of materials and course books for teaching. It discussed the difference between authentic materials, such as materials that are not created specifically for teaching which was things like newspapers or television shows, and created materials which are materials found in course books usually designed for a specific level of learning and have been tried and tested, which is an advantage of these materials. Additionally the unit gave a series of examples of exercises that can be used as created materials, such as word searches and flash cards. The unit showed that while created materials and course books can be very useful to a teacher because they can offer materials that match a certain level of learning and are able to show progression as the learners move through the content, they can become predictable and overuse can cause students to become bored. Additionally sometimes the content may be uninteresting and ou of date. Thus is is strongly recommended that teachers not stick too strictly to the content of various course books but that they remain creative and add in their own materials and change up lessons from merely what is in the course book, to keep students interested and challenged to enable better learning. Teachers can change up lessons by omitting material from the course book that is irrelevant, they can alter what is in the course book to make it more relevant and interesting to the particular students or nationality of the students, and they can supplement the material by adding in more resources to the lessons to further the education of the learners. Additionally the unit gave important advice on attempting to choose a suitable course book for the students. As a teacher, should I be given the opportunity to choose a course book for my students it is important that I take into consideration the price, depending on the students backgrounds that I am teaching, the methodology and whether it can be suitably used in an Engage, Study, Activate form, the design and whether it is attractive and user friendly which will help students engage with the content better, among other things that must be considered. A game suggested by the unit which I found to be a great idea is the telephone conversation role plays, where students must conduct telephone conversations in trying to book appointments and etc, I thought this was a great way to encourage production of language and encouraging student talk time in a manner that is interesting, creative, and can be easily adapted to specific learner situations.
