topic 9 elt materials and resources

8/10/2019 Topic 9 ELT Materials and Resources

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INTRODUCTION

Materials and resources are very important to English language teachers. If usedeffectively, they are the best teaching aids which can help our pupils tounderstand what we are teaching them more easily. Furthermore, lessons will bemore meaningful and definitely more interesting for the learners. In this topic,you will be exposed to the various types of English language teaching (ELT)materials and resources. Then we will look at how to select suitable teaching aidsand finally, how to exploit these materials so that teaching and learning will be

more enjoyable and effective.

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ELT Materialsand Resources

By the end of this topic, you should be able to:

1. Identify various types of ELT materials and resources;

2. Select appropriate materials and resources for use in theEnglish language class;

3. Produce simple materials and teaching aids;

4. Plan suitable activities based on the materials selected or produced.

LEARNING OUTCOMES


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TOPIC 9 ELT MATERIALS AND RESOURCES 187

TYPES OF MATERIALS AND RESOURCES

We live in a world of teaching resources. For example, the internet, the

newspaper, the school, the environment, the music industry, our homes are allresources where we can obtain many materials for use in the language classroom.They are all potential teaching aids, a teacher s tools of the trade, whose use can

be maximised if the teacher has the ability to integrate them in their lessons.

Imagine there is an empty tool box. If you have to fill it with teaching aids ofdifferent types, what will you place inside this tool box?

Well, does your imaginary tool box of teaching aids contain similar aids to otherteachers? Let us look at Figure 9.1 to see what is in this tool box.

Figure 9.1:Tool box of teaching aids

9.1


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TOPIC 9 ELT MATERIALS AND RESOURCES188

9.1.1 Print, Non-print and Electronic

Print type teaching aids consist of all pictorial and non-pictorial texts that areprinted, while non-printaids include realia, that is, real objects, people, animals,plants and three-dimensional aids such as puppets, models, etc. Finally, the

electroniccategory consists of all electrical and electronic aids and resources.

Now, try the following activity to get a clearer picture of the different types ofmaterials and resources available to help you in your teaching of English.

ROLE OF MATERIALS AND RESOURCES

Think back to your school or college days. Do you remember how you felt duringthose lessons when your teacher/lecturer did not use any teaching aids and youhad to sit still and listen to her.

Now, think about a time when you enjoyed a lesson and found it very easy tofollow. Did your teacher/lecturer use any teaching aid then?

9.2

ELT materials and resources can generally be grouped into three categories: print

non-print

electronic

Study the teaching aids and resources in the teaching aids toolbox inFigure 9.1 again. Categorise them under the following headings. Some

may belong to more than one category.

PRINT NON-PRINT ELECTRONIC

Newspapers Puppets Audio cassettes

ACTIVITY 9.1


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Can a teacher stand in front of the class and deliver the lesson without anyteaching aid? Yes, he can. But, that does not mean that his pupils haveunderstood what he has taught or if they are listening to him attentively.

Children, and even adults, will feel bored if they are asked to just sit and listenfor long periods of time. This is where teaching aids play a role. How caninstructional materials help the teaching and learning process? All visual aids,audio aids and audio-visual aids contribute to the learning process in thefollowing ways:

(a) Break the monotony of listening solely to the teachers voice

(b) Add variety to classroom activities

(c) Help learners to focus their attention on what is being taught

(d) Complement the teacher s verbal explanation

(e) Help to speed up the process of understanding

(f) Help to provide meaningful practise of language

Can you think of any other reasons why teachers should use teaching aids?

MATERIAL SELECTION AND PRODUCTION

From the types of materials and resources, let us now proceed to look at certainprinciples to guide our selection and how to produce simple but useful teachingaids.

9.3.1 Principles of Material Selection

Consider the following example involving two teachers (Teacher A and TeacherB): To teach the language of simple processes to primary school pupils:

(a) Teacher A shows a picture of a sandwich and discusses how the sandwichwas made.

(b) Teacher B brings the ingredients and demonstrates how sandwiches aremade.

9.3

Name the three categories of teaching aids and give three examples foreach.

SELF-CHECK 8.1


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Now, whose teaching aids would be more effective? Why?

Topic and Objectives of the Lesson

Teaching aids are only effective if they help us to achieve the objectives of thelesson. And of course, they have to be relevant to the topic we are teaching.Therefore, any material that we select should help our learners to understandwhat we are teaching. For example, if the objective of our lesson is to teach thepupils to give simple directions, then a chart with diagrams and phrases such asturn right and turn left would be appropriate.

(a) Interest ValueBoredom can affect the learners motivation to focus on the lesson. Thus inyour selection of materials, questions such as, Will this interest my

pupils? are important. Boys and girls have different interests, as do youngand older learners. For young learners, materials should containillustrations and preferably be more colourful.

(b) Learners Level of ProficiencyIt is necessary to check the language used in materials, especially authenticones such as newspaper articles, before deciding to use them in your class.Ask yourself questions like Will my pupils understand the vocabularyused?or Are the language structures too complex?

(c) Learners MaturityThe content of the materials should be suited to the maturity level of thelearners. For example, the concept of the greenhouse effect wouldprobably be too difficult for lower primary pupils to understand andmaterials on social problems would be more suitable for secondary schoolstudents than primary ones.

(d) Learners Prior KnowledgeLearners prior knowledge, in other words, what they already know,should serve as a take-off point in your teaching and also their learning. Ifprior knowledge is not considered, the material may be too difficult interms of language or concepts and learning will not take place. In addition,learners will become frustrated and demotivated. A simple example: if youryoung pupils are only familiar with script writing, they will face problemsif you give them materials written in cursive or some fanciful font.

(e) Suitability of Cultural ContentAs teachers, we have to be sensitive to the learners cultural background,and if we decide to use materials that may cause some moral conflict, givespecial thought to how we are going to present it. For example, showing


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pictures of scantily dressed girls or using texts that discuss cohabitationmay go against the cultural values of our learners and this could lead tocomplaints from the school and parents. Although we do not mean to

promote the wrong values, sometimes our intentions are misunderstood.The question then is to ask: is there alternative material available? How dowe handle sensitive issues that could arise?

(f) PracticalityThe criterion of practicality concerns questions such as: are you going tospend hours drawing and painting a beautiful picture of an aeroplane whenyou can easily find a picture of one? Bringing an aeroplane to class would

be ideal but, again, would it be practical or possible? For instance, to teachprocesses, you decide to demonstrate how to cook curry. It will definitely

interest your pupils but will there be enough time to set up a stove andcook during the English lesson? Will safety be an issue?

(g) Availability and CostThe availability and cost of the materials you decide to use with your pupilsalso needs to be considered. If you plan to use the LCD projector, radio,television or even some charts from the school resource room for yourlesson, make arrangements to ensure that they are available for use at therequired time. Some teaching aids such as software programs andelectronic aids can be costly. Does your school have them? If not, can youget permission to purchase them? If you wish to use some class readers, arethey available in the school library or can your pupils afford to buy them?

Selecting CALL software programs

Schools today are equipped with computer laboratories, and computer-assistedlanguage learning (CALL) is often incorporated into English lessons. Thus asteachers, you would have to select suitable software programs for your class use.Besides the considerations above, here is a checklist you can use to guide yourselection:

(a) Is it user-friendly?

(b) Am I using it as a main or supplementary activity?

(c) Does it replace me as the teacher?

(d) Does it interest and motivate learners in terms of its content, layout anddesign?

(e) Can it cater to different levels of ability?

(f) Does it use British English or American English?

(g) Does it give immediate feedback to learners?


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Eating

front of card back of card

Figure 9.2:Sample flashcards

You can store flashcards according to categories such as topics (Home,School, Environment, etc.) or word classes (nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc).Systematic storage of these cards allows you to locate them easily when you

need them.

(b) The Pocket ChartThe pocket chart consists of a piece of stiff cardboard or mounting board onwhich pockets have been fixed. These pockets are for holding letter, wordor phrase cards and picture cards. The pocket chart allows you to displayflashcards for a longer period of time. It can also be used for sequencingactivities such as rearranging words to form sentences or rearranging lettersto form words.

There are several designs for the pocket chart. Here is one of them:

Accordion-type Pocket ChartThis pocket chart is easily stored and carried around as it can be folded likean accordion (Figure 9.3). Alternatively, it can also be left hanging in theclass. It is made up of 68 pieces of oblong stiff cardboard/mounting board

(74 cm 10 cm) each with pockets for slotting in the word cards. To make

the pockets, cut clear thick plastic strips measuring 72cm 4 cm and stickthem onto the cardboard pieces with strong masking tape or staples.Finally, the oblong pieces are joined together using key rings.


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Figure 9.3:An accordion-type pocket chart

The pocket chart can be used for many activities at sound, word and phraselevels, such as rearranging letters to form words, matching synonyms/antonyms, matching words with same initial sounds, word families andsequencing words to form sentences. Some examples are illustrated inFigure 9.4.

Figure 9.4:Activities using the pocket chart


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(c) Word or Sentence StripsThese are variations of the traditional substitution table and can be used topractise word and sentence building skills (Figure 9.5). They are very

suitable for lower primary pupils. Words or sentences are formed bysliding a strip along a list of words or letters. The pupils can then copydown the words or sentences they make in their exercise books.

Figure 9.5:Sliding sentence strips and word-building strips

(d) Vocabulary WheelsVocabulary wheels can be used to practise and expand vocabulary in aninteresting manner. Some vocabulary wheels are known as sentence wheelsas they are circular substitution tables and can be used by students workingon their own, in pairs or in groups. Here are some vocabulary wheels(Figure 9.6) from Noor Azlina Yunus & Gaudart (1996: 105).

Figure 9.6:A variety of vocabulary wheels


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To make a vocabulary wheel, you need 23 sheets of cardboard, a geometriccompass for drawing circles, a black marker pen for writing, and someT-pins. Here is how you make Vocabulary Wheel a which allows practice

in making sentences, e.g., Joni ran under the bridge (Figure 9.7).

(i) To make Vocabulary Wheel a:

Cut three different sized circles from the cardboard.

On each circle is a part of a sentence.

Circle 1(smallest): pronouns/proper nouns Ali, Lina, We,They, You, etc.

Circle 2(medium): inflected/uninflected verbs climbs, swims,ran, slept, ate, etc

Circle 3(biggest): prepositional phrases up the tree, under thebridge, in the river,etc.

Fix the three circles together with a T-pin. The smallest circle is ontop.

Ensure that the circle can spin easily in both directions.

Figure 9.7:Making vocabulary wheel a

(e) PuppetsThere are various types of puppets, some which are very easy to make andsome which require more time and effort. The puppets you can makeinclude:

glove puppets stick puppets paper bag puppets

shadow puppets finger puppets sock puppets


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Here are some of the puppets and how to make them from Noor AzlinaYunus and Gaudart (1996) (Figure 9.8).

Figure 9.8:Various types of puppet

(i) Sock PuppetsThese are popular with children because of their huge mouths whichyou can open and close with your fingers. They are made from oldsocks fitted over the hand (Figure 9.9).

Instructions:

Slip a sock over your hand.

Pull in the toes of the sock and sew it to form the mouth.

Sew/glue on buttons or pieces of felt to form the eyes.

If you want ears, poke two fingers up just after the heel of the sockand tie them up with rubber bands.

Remove your fingers and stuff the ears with paper.

Glue on wool or fur fabric for your puppets hair.

Figure 9.9:A sock puppet


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(ii) Stick PuppetsTo make these puppets, you will need a round piece of card or apaper plate, paint, a stick, a square piece of cloth, some ribbon and

wool.

Instructions:

Draw a face on a round piece of card or paper plate.You can also cut a face from a magazine and glue it on a card.

Attach the face to a flat stick/bamboo.

Glue on hair using wool.

Make a dress for the puppet using a square piece of cloth.

Slip the dress up the stick and tie a ribbon around the neck.

(iii) Finger PuppetsFinger puppets are probably the easiest to make and require only theminimum of materials such as a small piece of cloth (handkerchief orscarf) and fine marker pens to draw the face.

Figure 9.11:Finger puppets from Coppock (2003:17) and Noor AzlinaYunus & Gaudart(1996:120)

Look at the finger puppets in Figure 9.11. Arent they easy to make?Do you think children would enjoy using them to practise language?Can you think of one activity you could use these puppets for?

ACTIVITY 9.2


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For more ideas on material production, refer to:

Leela, Mohd. Ali & Thurgood, Graham (1991). Materials production andadaptation: An integrated approach. Kuala Lumpur: Federal Publications.

Gaudart, Hyacinth (1997). Reaching out to learners: Creative ideas for teachingEnglish.Shah Alam: Fajar Bakti.

EXPLOITING MATERIALS AND RESOURCES

By now you would be aware of the various types of ELT materials and resourcesand how to select suitable ones for your class, as well as how to make somesimple teaching aids. In this final section, we will look at how you can effectivelyuse the materials and resources selected by planning appropriate activities.

Remember that teaching aids can be incorporated into any stage of the lesson, notjust the presentation stage. They can be used to introduce a new teaching point,consolidate learning as well as for remedial and enrichment work. In this section,we will discuss and illustrate the use of pictures, newspapers and internetresources in English language teaching.

9.4.1 Pictures

Pictures include photos, drawings and paintings, and are said to paint a

thousand words and much more to a teacher. Well-chosen pictures or pictureseries provide many opportunities for language practice and make learning funfor your pupils. It is an effective way to introduce new vocabulary in primaryschool. For example, many activities can be devised from a picture such as theone in Figure 9.12.

Figure 9.12:Sample postcard picture

9.4


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Sample activities:

(a) Prediction Narrative Writing

In your groups, discuss what you think happened to the cat before andafter this picture was taken. Write a short story.

Alternative activity(advanced level): Imagine that you are the cat. Write ashort story to describe what happened to you.

(b) Describing Photos (show and tell activities)Most children enjoy talking about their families. Ask your pupils to bring aphotograph of a family event. In class, they exchange photographs and askone another WH-questions e.g. Who is this?, How old is he?, Where is

this place?, Whose birthday is it? You can vary the level of questioningdepending on the ability of your pupils.

Alternative activity (elementary level): Pupils bring a photo of a familymember and describe this person in a few sentences.

(c) Completing Speech BubblesComic strips provide many opportunities for practising conversationallanguage. The dialogue can be erased or speech bubbles added in andpupils are then asked to fill in the speech bubbles with the appropriatespeech. For example: What are these two people saying to one another(Figure 9.13)? Fill in the speech bubbles.

Figure 9.13:Comic strip from Kees World by C.W. Kee. The Star, 20 June 2006


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9.4.2 Newspapers

Questions that come to mind when considering the newspaper as a potentialresource for the teaching of English are: Why newspapers? Wouldnt it be toodifficult for primary school children?

Think about what you can find in the newspaper. Are there materials you canuse to teach primary school?

The newspaper is in fact a wonderful resource for teaching. It contains a varietyof both pictorial and non-pictorial texts that you can use in your lessons, such aspictures, articles, advertisements, comic strips, TV programmes, and so on. Thenewspaper is also cheap and easily available and contain material that wouldexpose learners to real-life language. The materials can be used to generate manyclassroom activities for all levels of proficiency. The comic strip in the previoussection on Pictures is an example of the newspaper as a resource for practisingthe language skills. Here are more sample activities.

1. Teacher A chooses the following picture to teach the topic Partsof the body to his primary school pupils. Do you think it isappropriate? Why?

2. Fill in the blanks in the following sentences with one word each.

In selecting suitable pictures for your lesson, consider theirrelevance to the lesson and . Be sensitive to thelearners so as to avoid any moral conflict that may arisedue to the picture.

ACTIVITY 9.3


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Sample activities:

(a) Scavenger Hunt

This activity can be adapted to suit all levels of students. The newspaperscan be supplied by the teacher, school or students themselves. Studentswork in groups and are given a list of items to look for in the newspapers.They can either cut out whole pictures, words or phrases and paste them ona piece of paper or cut out individual letters and paste them together toform a word. It is a lot of fun as students compete in their groups to locatethe items stated in the scavenger hunt list. The following are two samplelists (Figure 9.14):

Scavenger Hunt 1: Lower primary

(Skimming, scanning & spellingpractice)

Part A1. A picture of a man.2. A picture of a woman.3. A pair of eyes.4. A picture of a vehicle.

Part B

5. My favourite fruit is du _ _ __.

1. My father is a _ _ _cher.2. I sl _ _ p at 10pm every night.3. I w _ _ e up at 6am every

morning.

Scavenger Hunt 2: Upper primary

(Skimming, scanning & grammarpractice)

Part A1. A picture with more than 2 people.2. An advertisement on food.3. The name of a local town/city.4. The name of a foreign town/city.

Part B

1. My father (go) to Ipohyesterday.

2. My parents (be) bothteachers.

3. Mina (eat) the curry andfell ill.

4. She scored the (good)results in her class.

Figure 9.14:Sample scavenger hunt tasks


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(b) Guided WritingLower primary (Year 3)

Fill in the blanks with information from the advertisement in Figure 9.15.

During the coming holidays, I would like to go to . I hope I go fordays. It will cost my father for each of us. I am looking

forward to see the famous tourist spots such as and in.

Upper primary

Complete the dialogue.

A : Where would you like to go this holiday?

B :

A : Why?

B :

A : How many days is the tour?

B :

A : How much will it cost?

B :

** Advanced learners can be given less guidance and instructed to writeletters to talk about their holiday plans or to persuade their parents to takethem on a particular holiday. If dialogues are written, they can be role-played.


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Figure 9.15:Advertisement from The Star, 20 Jun 2006

(c) Shopping ListInstructions to pupils:

You are going shopping for birthday presents for yourself and your family.Look through the newspaper and cut out the presents you would buy ifyou had a lot of money. State who the presents are for. A sample isprovided in Figure 9.16.

Note: This activity can be made more difficult by asking the pupils toexplain their choices either in written or verbal form.

Variations of this activity: You can also ask the class to do a collage of their

favourite past-times, holiday plans or likes and dislikes.

** For more ideas and hands-on experience on using newspapers ineducation (NIE), look out for the annual NIE workshops organised by TheStar and New Straits Times in major cities in Malaysia.


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Figure 9.16:A sample of pupils work

The activities suggested in this section can be adapted to suit your pupils abilityand your lesson objectives. There are many more NIE (Newspaper in Education)activities. Can you think of any other activities for using the newspaper in yourclass?

Give three reasons why the newspaper is a good resource for teachingEnglish.

SELF-CHECK 9.3


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9.4.3 Internet Resources

The internet is another good resource for teaching. There are many educational

websites, pictures, exercises, stories, poems, ideas and all other kinds of materialsthat you can use in your language classroom. Multimedia presentations can also

be downloaded and shown during lessons to make learning and understandingeasier. Besides, the colourful and hi-tech presentations often motivate andcapture students attention.

In using internet resources for teaching, you have the option of eitherdownloading the materials and printing them for your pupils or allowing themto access the internet to do exercises. The option you choose will depend on theavailability of computer and internet facilities in your school and of course, the

constraints of time and the computer skills of your learners.

Next is a sample activity (Figure 9.17) utilising the resources on a website forcreating puzzles and quizzes at http://puzzlemaker.school.discovery.com.

(a) Creating PuzzlesLevel: Intermediate advanced

For this activity, the pupils work in pairs or small groups to generatepuzzles online. Therefore, before the class, ensure that internet access isavailable in the computer laboratory. Once the puzzle is generated, it can be

printed out and exchanged with another group who will then solve thepuzzle. The topic of the puzzle is usually determined by the teacher, forexample, Occupations, Vehicles, Antonyms, Synonyms orTenses. This activity can be used as an extension or consolidation work.

Alternative activity:The teacher creates the puzzles and prints them out forthe pupils to solve.

In addition to the criteria for the selection of materials we discussedearlier, what other criteria would you apply in your selection ofmaterials from the internet? Why?

SELF-CHECK 9.4


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Figure 9.17:Sample criss-cross puzzle created at http://puzzlemaker.school.discovery.com

(b) Unscrambling Phrases or SentencesThis is another ELT material that is available at http://puzzlemaker.school.discovery.com (Figure 9.18).

The message to be unscrambled is keyed in by the pupils and after thepuzzle is generated, it can be printed out for them to exchange with othergroups. The teacher decides whether the message is to be a phrase or asentence. Idioms or proverbs can also be used as messages for moreadvanced learners.

Alternative activity: Teacher keys in the message for the pupils tounscramble. For pupils of lower proficiency, they may cut out the tiles andrearrange them to form a phrase or sentence.


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Figure 9.18:Sample scrambled sentence created at http://puzzlemaker.school.discovery.com

What levels of primary school are such puzzle-making activities suitable for?How can you incorporate it into your lesson?

Here are some useful websites. Check them out to discover interesting materialsfor your lessons.

Website Description

http://www.eslcafe.com Ideas for teaching & learning ESL, games,exercises

http://www.englishclub.com Games, quizzes, exercises, worksheet generator

http://www.englishlearner.com Resources for teaching, interactive tests &exercises

http://www.encarta.com Resources for teachers, lots of pictures

http://a4esl.org Vocabulary, grammar quizzes, puzzles

http://www.longman.com/teens/teachers

Resources for teaching English

http:/www.onestopenglish.com Ideas, lesson plans for teaching English

http://www.english-to-go.com Lesson plans, interactive activities, resources

http://www.manythings.org Games, quizzes, exercises for learning & eaching

http://www.english-zone.com Ideas, exercises, games for teaching

http://www.1-language.com Online resources, games, exercises

http://www.puzzlemaker.com Puzzles for teachers to design for their students


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Audio aids

Audio-visual aids

CALL

ELT resource

Language skills

Sentence wheel

Visual aids

Chitravelu, N., Sithamparam, S., & Teh, S. C. (2002). ELT methodology:Principles and practice. Shah Alam: Fajar Bakti.

Coppock, L. (1997). Puppet talk. Dunstable, UK: Belair Publications.

Noor Azlina Yunus, & Gaudart, H. (1996). Preparing & using visual aids forEnglish language teaching.Shah Alam: Fajar Bakti.

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