Participants

Maria Fernanda Gutmann
Kermit Juliet Chavez
Cristina Vargas
Angie Lorena Cañon

IMPORTANCE OF SELECTING TEACHING AND LEARNING MATERIALS.

The teaching materials of a second language are quite meaningful for teachers and students, it serves for supporting and facilitating the teaching and learning process, for this reason the design and development of the teaching material must be truthful and effective for achieving successful classes.

Teaching and learning materials are fundamental for the curriculum of a school in order to correspond to the learning needs of the students. The material should include all kind of resources for facilitate the learning process taking into account textbooks, videos, audio tapes, and others,

The resources of teaching and learning material must include grammar, the use of the real language, autonomy activities, the use of technology and others, which allow motivate the learning process of the students.

Aspects should take into account:

·         The learning needs of the students.

·         Select the resources of teaching and learning (Provide learning opportunities than will facilitate the process supported of computer tools, books, media, etc.)

·         Select the teaching material

·         Evaluate the teaching material

The learning needs are determined by the context and the educational field and it determines the methods and/or approaches to use for designing and development teaching materials.  The method and/or approach must be pertinent to the learning needs of the students, if it isn’t determined or isn’t established of pertinent way, designing and developing teaching material will not be truthful or effective and the learning needs will not respond.

Summarizing, the designing and development of teaching materials and allowing to achieve successful classes and to bring a response to the learning needs of the students.

TO BEAR IN MIND....

Here are the most important ideas about choosing material for teaching: 

• Include activities according to the needs, abilities, interests and preferences of the students, relevant, useful, meaningful and appropriate for the age of them.

• Select from the available resources, those materials considered to be the best, most appropriate and/or most suitable for the particular learning activity providing opportunities for all students, regardless of race, sexuality, gender and cultural diversity, to seek out and use information and learning materials.

• Respond to changes in school, country standards, parent concerns, obsolescence of some materials and the development of new materials and new media.

• Build on their previous learning to improve the learning process by connecting the new material to the learner’s previous knowledge. Then present the new material in some form to practice the new material, then assess the students to see if they have properly learned the new material. Finally use the new material.

• Take in count learning styles and modalities of the students and also help prepare them for communication in the real world.

• Check to see whether all of the elements of the learning process are working well for students and adapt them if they are not for being a useful and helpful tool for the process of instruction and learning.

• The copyright issue is important, many teachers violate the copyright laws every day. If the material will be distributed to the students in the class it is necessary to ask permission from the publisher to do so.

Teaching Materials

Choosing and using Materials 

Materials Designed for English Teaching