Teach English in TiAnjin Binhai Xinqu GAoxinqu [Tianjin Binhai New Area High-tech Industrial Development Zone] - Tianjin

Course MaterialsLearning a language is a social activity that requires a learner to interact with someone or something in order to acquire communicative skills. It is almost impossible to learn how to speak and understand any form of language without taking part in a learning or teaching process. Because of this, teaching and learning english--or any language for that matter, requires some form of exchange that revolves around the teachers, students and base or supplementary materials. Ideally schools should have a wide range of books and related materials that aid both the teacher and students in reaching their language learning goals. However, in reality, this is not always the case. A lot of times, teachers have to improvise or students have to make-do with what is currently available. This article discusses the items students and teachers should have to encourage an effective learning environment. It also hopes to show different ways that teachers can supplement the main work book to cater to the different interests of the class. Teaching materials are essential instruments that help learners and teachers achieve their learning objectives. The most commonly used teaching material is the course book. Course books aid students and teachers to study in a progressive manner. Most course books have a good mix of reading, writing, listening and speaking activities that are supposed to hone the learners' receptive and productive skill equally. Having course books also helps out teachers greatly, especially inexperienced ones because most of them come with a teachers manual. However, the topic and over all design of some course books tend to be too general that they are not able to address the specific linguistic needs of the students. Most course books also have a set way of going about lessons that it becomes hard for teachers to be creative. Moreover, most teachers don't choose their course books. In this case, the teacher needs to acknowledge what is lacking and supplement it with more relatable material to build interest. In the same way, the teacher needs to highlight the focal points of the course book and choose supplements that enhance them. It is highly advisable to go through the entire course book in order to gauge which parts should be omitted, which ones should be supplemented and which ones to replace with more suitable materials that can better motivate the class. These supplementary materials often come in the form of books, texts, pictures, games and audio tracks. When learning something as complex as a new language, having good audio-visual aids greatly help in making learning permanent. These exposures assist the learners different senses to adjust and acquire new language, making learning more effective and less susceptible to forgetting. With this in mind, teachers should arrange different materials in order to make students better remember the language they had just learned. A good example would be having a video or a song instead of just the work book, or doing a game to help students remember vocabulary. This will take the students out of their routine workbook activities and mobilize their creative and competitive spirits. It is very important that the teacher knows how and when to use them during the course of the lesson to maximize their effect on the students learning process. Teachers clearly have to be organized and well prepared. It is imperative that these materials not only be interesting, they should also have substance that meet the students' needs. In other words, they have to be relevant and at a suitable level. All in all, I believe that course materials are powerful tools that facilitate teaching and learning in class. They are important in supporting the students in-class experiences to give them confidence to apply them outside of the classroom. By using varied materials, the teachers increase the students' curiosity and attention to the subject that will hopefully result to students retaining more information from the lesson. In this way, the role of teachers is not only to educate but more importantly, help students become enthusiastic learners.