CHARACTERISTICS OF MATERIALS

 

 

     Developing  materials  in class is an important aspect at the time to teach because it helps your students not only to acquire knowledge but also to put it into practice. It is an useful way to make your students work in the classroom solving tasks or developing language skills. The following information will show the different characteristics that the materials should have in order to make L2 students be more proficient in the production of the target language.

 

 

1. Materials should achieve impact:

It means that materials should awake interest and attention from the learners









For example:

a. Novelty in optical illusions to describe the picture

What do you see on the picture?








b. Variety using listening activities from different stories. The creative part of teaching includes variates the material to increase interest and attention in the students.




 

c. Attractive presentation to explain the future tense using colors in mind maps. Colorful mind maps during the explanation of the topic will be necesary to summarize and clarify important points.





2. Materials should help the learners to feel at ease. It means that those materials should be easy to understand and practical.
 




For example:

a. Feel easy with illustrations about their own culture of Panama. It means that the learner will feel identified and unique with their own behabiors.

b. Students are more relax when  materials help them rather than testing them. Materials can help the students to feel confident when it provides them the necesary information to solve tasks.

3. Materials help learners to develop confidence.
It means that that the learner can domain the content and they can feel succesful to solve tasks.









For example:

Students are creative writing a story. It awake their imagination and make them be interested in what they write.







5. Materials should require and
facilitate self- investment.

 It means that the students should realize activities by themselves and teachers will suggest any book that could help them.

 For example:

Teachers involving students in a mini Project about  their favorite music, so the students should realize which music they like and research about those singers and genders.

8. Materials should provide the learners with opportunities to use the target language to achieve communicative purposes.

It means that the learner use the language to communicate and negociate the meaning.






For example:

A information gap activity to spot the differences between the family members, so the students have to communicate to interchange the answers that each one needs.

 

     In brief, the characteristics of materials is an important topic in the development of the activities in the clasroom because it attracts the learner interest and attention. It is recomendable for teachers in order that they motivate the students to work and negociate the meaning. Furthermore, designing classes for teaching English as a second language takes a lot of time and dedication in order to organize the clases effective and productive for EFL learners. That is why this blogg helps teachers of second laguage be able at the time to prepair  materials in classes.


 

REFERENCES:

 

Gower, R; Phylips, D & Waters, S (2005). Teaching practice: A handbook for teachers in training. USA: Macmillan.


http://www.merriam-webster.com/


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJKPr7CpeHs