Teach English in Dahu Zhen - Shanwei Shi

Unit 14 talks about the advantages and disadvantages of using course books and lesson materials, which can be authentic materials and created materials. Authentic materials can include everyday items such as movies, video clips, music or articles, and created materials are activities that are created by the teachers in order to allow the students to have extra practice with the topics that they are learning. Created activities are usually brought into the classroom because the activities provided from the course books might not be relevant nor interesting to the students. I understand that the language teacher will always have the conflict of teaching the class based on a course book or created materials. Course books already provide lessons that are structured, and if the teacher does not use a course book, he or she will have to create a whole syllabus and lessons from scratch. However, course books do not always teach to the level of every student, the activities might not always be interesting or relevant, and course books most times can also contain too much information, which could overload the students learning. Once again, created materials can be a bit more relevant and interesting to the students, but the teacher should also consider if these activities can be handled by the students. Authentic materials are excellent tools because the language learner is seeing how native speakers use the language in their everyday speech, but the teacher should be aware of the level of the students. From my own personal experience, I usually omitted materials from the course book that I felt was not necessary to learn.