Unit 1: Lesson Aims

Every lesson must have some sort of purpose or end goal, otherwise what’s the point?! This
doesn’t necessarily mean that every lesson will have the final aim of learners understanding a
particular grammar point though. The goal could be anything from developing listening skills to
practising language for some kind of ‘real-life’ situation like booking a hotel.

Although it may seem quite formal to ‘identify the aim’ of every lesson, it really can help you
concentrate on delivering a successful lesson as well as naturally leading you to materials which
will best fulfill this aim.

However, aims aren’t all necessarily direct learning objectives. They could be aims for yourself,
for example, limiting your Teacher Talk Time as much as possible, or even aims focused on a
particular student to make sure they’re keeping up. As well as overall aims, therefore, you will
also have a number of secondary or personal goals.

Look at the following table taken from The Teacher Knowledge Test Course focusing on different
types of aims:

1. Subsidiary Aims
2. Main Aim
3. Personal Aims
Main Aim Subsidiary Aims Personal Aims
To practise making
polite requests in the Grammar: to revise modal auxiliary verbs. To improve my
context of making Functional example: Could/Would you…? organisation of
holiday arrangements. Vocabulary: to consolidate lexis for travel, accommodation. the whiteboard.
Example: Phonology: to focus on intonation. To give
‘Could you give me Speaking: to give controlled practice clearer examples.
some information about hotels?’

In order to fulfil your lesson objectives, you will have to work out a procedure to do so. For
example, if your aim is to ‘consolidate vocabulary for travel’, the procedure could be ‘give
students a crossword of travel/transport vocabulary’.

Unit 2: Components of a lesson plan

Identifying aims is obviously a key component of any lesson plan but there are also several other
aspects to consider. Some of these will be essential to every lesson plan but others may not always
be necessary to include.

Essential components:

 Information about the learners (level and number)

 Main aim
 Stage aims
 Procedures
 Materials used

Optional components:
  Timings
 Anticipated problems & potential solutions
 Subsidiary & personal aims
 Homework
 Extra teaching aids
 Reserve tasks
 Assumed knowledge
 Interaction

These components correspond to the types of questions we ask ourselves when planning a lesson.
For example, when detailing our assumed knowledge about the students we need to ask ourselves
‘what do they already know how to do in relation to this lesson? Will this be new to them or a
consolidation of previous work?’

Lesson components
Components Questions to ask yourself
Information about the
Who are the students? What level are they? How many are there in the class?
learners
Materials used What course book/materials do I need?
Extra teaching aids Is there anything else I need to bring with me to the lesson i.e overhead projector?
Main aim What is the overall lesson objective?
Assumed knowledge What do the students already know in relation to the topic/lesson?
Subsidiary aims What are some of the other lesson goals?
Personal aims In what ways can I develop or improve upon my own teaching?
Procedures What are the activities for each stage?
Will the students be working in pairs? Groups? Will they feedback to the teacher or will the teacher
Interaction
present to the class?
Stage aims What’s the goal of each stage in the lesson?
Timing How long will each stage take?
Anticipated problems What might go wrong? What might the students find difficult?
Potential solutions How can I deal with any problems?
Reserve tasks What will I do if students complete tasks ahead of schedule?
Homework What extra work will the students need to do at home?

Unit 3: Planning a lesson

When planning a lesson, therefore, we should think about a number of things.

After deciding on the lesson objectives, we must consider how to accomplish them.

Depending on the type of lesson aim (understanding a new grammar point, developing reading
skills etc.) the structure of your plan will change dramatically.

Perhaps you will choose the PPP approach to present the past simple, or, for a listening skills
lesson, you may prefer to follow the TTT method.
 Once the format of the lesson has been chosen, the individual components need putting together.
What are the desired learning outcomes? Are the students already a little bit familiar with the
topic? Is there anything I want to work on personally during this class?

When these more general considerations have been addressed, you can get down to planning each
individual procedure as a step-by-step guide to lead you through the lesson. Analysing the aims of
each stage will ensure that the activities are appropriate to the learners’ level and work
to fulfill the main objective. You also need to see whether the stages follow a logical order and if
they flow well into one another.

Anticipating potential problems at each stage and having back-ups prepared if necessary will help
to reduce any anxiety you may be feeling as a new teacher.

Timing can be important too, your lesson may run over or be too short and if you think about these
possibilities ahead of time and what to do in each eventuality you won’t be caught off-
guard. Formal lesson planning such as this is usually a requirement for teacher training courses to
help you understand how to prepare a lesson and to analyse how well you’ve grasped the key
concepts.

However, in the real world you may not always do such detailed written preparation. You may
even see some teachers write their plan as a numbered list on a scrap of paper, but this isn’t to say
that they haven’t thought about the elements listed above, it may just come as second nature to
them to incorporate the necessary factors.

Lesson procedures
Compare the ‘procedure’ sections of two different lesson plans:

Time Procedure Stage Aim

1. Give students pictures of two towns and To introduce the target
10 mins
ask them to describe the contrasts. language
2. Read article describing differences to give students a context for
10 mins
between the two the TL in use
3. Elicit forms from text used for To ensure students understand
5 mins
comparison the meaning of the TL
4. Students work out rules for using To check students'
7 mins
comparatives understanding of the TL
5. Gap-fill exercise using correct form of To give students controlled
10 mins
comparative adjectives practice of the TL
6. Speaking activity contrasting new To encourage freer use of
15 mins
pictures (in pairs) the TL
 Procedure Stage Aim
Time
10
1. Ask students some lead-in questions about topic To introduce and generate interest in the topic
mins
To focus on useful language in preparation for the
7 mins 2. Pre-teach essential vocabulary
task
3. Students read quickly for gist and feedback answers to some general To develop students’ ability to skim/scan for
5 mins
questions (what is the text about?...) essential information
To develop understanding of how the text fits
7 mins 4. Students match headings to the paragraphs
together as a whole
10
5. T/F detailed comprehension activity. Check with a partner To encourage students to read for detail
mins
15 6.Split students into As and Bs, give each a different follow-up text to read To give freer practice of consolidating information
mins and then summarise orally to their partner they’ve read in spoken form

Lesson Planning Plus

In Modules 3 and 4, you have studied lesson planning. This study will have given you a solid
foundation for lesson planning and the various approaches to it.

However, we have had many requests from students who want to learn more about lesson
planning.

Here is a summary of their key points:

 They feel that lesson planning is the most important teacher skill of all. (They’re right, of
course.)
 They feel that they need a lesson planning route which they can follow from start to
finish, for every single lesson.
 They would like to have a lesson-planning template that they can use for every single
lesson plan during their TEFL career.

This is a big ask, as they say. But we couldn’t ignore this. It’s our role to help our students
whenever we can.

Remember this: You have learned enough so far to ensure you can plan a good lesson.

Unit 4: Choosing assessment tasks

Assessment is a necessary part of any course which helps you understand your students’ strengths
and weaknesses, their progress and even their receptiveness to learning.

Formal assessment

Some types of formal assessment are:

 Proficiency test (assesses overall language ability)

 Progress test (assesses how well the students have understood a unit or section of a
course)
 End-of-course test (assesses learning at the end of the programme)
 External examinations, such as IELTS Cambridge ESOL exams etc. (a form of
proficiency test which gives students a certificate of language ability)
 Formal assessments need to include a variety of tasks so that all of the four language skills are
covered and because each kind of activity has its own pros and cons.

There is also the need to assess both passive and active language knowledge (understanding and
being able to produce).

A good test should be fair, appropriate and not too difficult to mark. Single-focus tasks such as
True/False/Don’t know and matching exercises are easy to mark because the answers are either
correct or incorrect.

Extended activities such as interview or writing tasks are best for assessing productive skills but
are slightly trickier to mark because they are subjective.

Match the following activity types below with their purpose shown in the table:

a. summary writing
b. sentence transformation
c. cloze test
d. re-ordering jumbled sentences

Activity Example Purpose

Complete the sentence so
that it means exactly the
To test knowledge of grammatical
same:
1 structures and relationships
'My brother lent me a pen'
between language
'I borrowed a pen
from my brother'
to want go Do the you park to? To test grammatical knowledge,
2
Do you want to go to the park? cohesion and collocation.
Read the novel extract and Test reading comprehension,
3 write a synopsis for a writing ability and a range of
young audience language knowledge
Using a text with blanked out words, complete using To test knowledge of grammar
4 only one word in each and lexis as well as reading
space. The missing words may or may not be provided in a word bank. comprehension

Assessment
However, assessment needn’t always be in the form of a test or formal examination.

Informal assessment is equally as important and can come in the form of homework tasks or class
activities. Formal assessment doesn’t always reflect your students’ true language abilities –
perhaps they are nervous or misread instructions – but informal assessments can often provide a
better overview of students’ all-round skills. They also help you to understand how successful
your teaching has been and plan future lessons with the students’ constant development in mind.

Informal assessment really can be any activity done in class or at home for which you keep a note
of marks/progress but without giving students an actual grade. You could also ask your students to
build up a portfolio which provides continuous assessment and allows them to evaluate their own
work. This lets you track the ongoing progress of your students regularly so that you are able to
adapt your teaching according to their needs.
Both performance-based assessment and portfolio assessment can be used to measure
progress and ensure objectives are met and can be monitored by teacher observation and
student self-assessment.

Whilst you may have your own preferences, all forms of assessment, whether formal/informal or
subjective/objective have their own advantages and disadvantages. That’s why when choosing
assessment tasks for your students it’s probably best to incorporate a mixture.

Unit 5: Course books and reference

materials
When choosing a course book for your class (if the school hasn’t already assigned one) there are a
number of factors to consider.

You need to think about who your students are and what they need. So, what should you consider?

The basics such as age group and level are obvious, but it’s also important to think about why that
particular class are studying English. Is it for work? As a hobby? Are they children being sent for
extra lessons by their parents? And if so is this because they struggle with English or because they
want to get ahead? Are they planning to travel or move to an English-speaking country? All of the
above will influence what type of course book you choose – it’s not just a ‘one-size-fits-all’ thing.

Another element to consider is whether your students will be taking a test at the end of the course
or not. Course books which prepare students for the IELTS exam are very different to those aimed
at students taking the FCE, for example. Or is there simply an internal test to see if they can move
up to the next level. Are all of the students taking the exam or just a handful?

If the course does aim to get students ready for a particular exam then the likelihood is that
a general English course book will not be sufficient, you need material which helps students
not only get up to the right level for the exam but one which also trains them in the
techniques required for that particular test.

However, even once you have chosen an appropriate course book, it’s still good to consult other
reference materials. You may be unsure of a particular language point or the best way to go about
teaching it and there are many ways you can get help. Some examples of reference materials are:

 Grammar books
 Teacher’s books
 Articles in EFL teaching magazines
 Dictionaries (bilingual, monolingual, learners’ dictionaries, thesauruses…)
 Phonemic charts
 Colleagues…

Books and Articles

Grammar books

Many teachers who are new to EFL teaching are quite unsure about grammar. You will know
whether your students’ language is correct or not instinctively but may not know why. You may
also be hesitant about teaching all the nitty gritty rules and exceptions. Although we’ve done an
overview of some key grammar points and how to teach them in Module 2, it’s still important to
increase your grammar knowledge if you still don’t know exactly what it’s all about.

You may actually want to start with a grammar book intended for non-native speakers of English
because the grammar contained in these kinds of books is much more simplified such as Murphy’s
“Grammar in Use”. It also gives you a good idea of what exactly your students need to know at
each level.

When teaching the present continuous to a pre-intermediate group, for example, there’s no point
going into detail about the fact that we can also use the present continuous for future arrangements
– it will probably just confuse them. These kinds of books can equally help ease you in to a more
thorough grammar knowledge without being overwhelming.

Once you’re a bit more experienced, however, and are teaching higher levels, you may need to
consult grammar books intended for EFL teachers though.

These contain detailed explanations and will enable you to really understand the nuances in
English grammar that students at advanced level really need to know.

If you’re a visual learner you might want to try newer grammar books which have corresponding
interactive activities online, or ones which contain exercises to put yourself in your students’
shoes!

Teacher’s books

Teacher’s books are available with any course book but some are better than others. The idea is
that they provide suggestions as to the best way to use the material in the course book. Some give
a detailed, step-by-step guide for the teacher while others just give correct answers and ideas for
extension activities.

Depending on how confident you are in your own ability to plan a lesson independently will
therefore also affect which course book and matching teacher’s book you will choose.

Lots of newer teacher’s books contain supplementary worksheets, end of unit tests, progress tests
or extra photocopiable activities too. They can even give detailed explanations about the answers
given and procedures to follow if students have difficulty with a particular exercise. For most they
are a valuable resource!

EFL articles for teachers

Many articles in EFL magazines can shed light on learners’ difficulties with language. Often this
is due to interference from the students’ mother tongue because many don’t understand why it’s
not possible just to ‘translate’ everything they would say in their own language into English.

Unfortunately, that is not how it works because different languages have developed over
thousands of years and certain tenses or vocabulary don’t necessarily match up from one language
to another. When teaching overseas to students who all have the same mother tongue, it will
become easier to spot the difficulties those leaners face, but if teaching to a mixed class of
Mexicans and Chinese, for example, those groups of learners may have different problems and
you may want to read up on how to get the best from them. (see learner English)

Keeping up with research into new approaches to EFL teaching can also help liven up your
lessons and keep students engaged.
You may want to try out a new planning method or a more informal way of presenting a grammar
point, or just gain some new ideas. A couple of popular ones are English Teaching
Professional, Modern English Teacher and Asian EFL Journal.

Dictionaries

Bilingual dictionaries provide individual words translated to and from English into another
language. They can be very useful for quickly checking a word the student doesn’t know but in
certain contexts can lead to mistranslation.

This is because many words have several meanings and these aren’t always listed, especially in a
pocket dictionary.

A student may not understand the word ‘bow’ (as in bow and arrow), look it up in a bilingual
dictionary and find a translation in their own language which corresponds to ‘taking a bow’.

We also don’t really get much information about the word itself, for example if it’s a verb with an
irregular past form or how to use it correctly in a sentence.

That’s why it’s usually best to refer students to a monolingual English dictionary (what most of us
would think of as a ‘normal’ dictionary).

These contain the words, their meaning and examples all in English so students can really get to
grips with how to use the word properly.

They can also be great as a reference material for you to ensure you give clear definitions of words
and useful examples.

Learner dictionaries are similar to monolingual dictionaries but are probably even more valuable
as they provide definitions appropriate to different levels.

They can also give detailed information about collocations, whether the word should be used in
formal or informal situations and even notes which warn students about common mistakes
associated with its usage.

Some also provide synonyms (words which mean the same) and antonyms (words which mean the
opposite) just like a thesaurus.

Thesauruses are particularly useful for when you teach more advanced students because they can
help to expand the learners’ vocabulary. Sometimes giving synonyms to help your class
understand a new vocabulary item is more effective than a definition. For example, it’s very
difficult to explain the word ‘furthermore’.

You could say “furthermore is an adverb used to introduce a fresh consideration in an argument”
(Oxford English Dictionary), or you could simply list a number of synonyms such as
‘additionally’, ‘moreover’ etc. to get across the meaning.

One of best approaches however, is to give students example sentences or within the context
of a text. For example “English is an international language. Furthermore, it is now
considered essential for a successful career”.

Phonemic Chart
A phonemic chart shows the different sounds which make up the English language using the
phonetic alphabet. These are very useful for helping your students with correct pronunciation of
English words.

There are many words in English which are spelt differently but sound the same, e.g. ‘meet’ and
‘meat’. Here both the ‘ee’ and ‘ea’ spellings correspond to the phonetic alphabet letter ‘i:’. But in
other words ‘ea’ can be pronounced ‘ɜ:’ as in ‘earn’. There are also plenty of words with similar
spellings which are pronounced entirely differently e.g. ‘though’ and ‘enough’. This phonemic
chart from the British Council is interactive and allows you to hear the sound by clicking on it,
whilst this one from the course book series New English File makes each letter of the phonetic
alphabet into a picture which can be especially useful for young learners:
Colleagues

Don’t forget that more experienced EFL teachers can often be the best source of reference
material. Chances are that they’ve taught the same level or same language before and can give you
some good advice. They may have even encountered certain difficulties that they can warn you
about or give suggestions on how to overcome them. Every teacher has their own methods though,
so don’t worry if what they advise doesn’t suit you, but any guidance can at least make you
consider your own planning more carefully.

Unit 6: Supplementary tasks &

materials

Supplementary materials can be anything from extra worksheets to DVDs, basically anything we
can use in addition to the course book.

As mentioned in the previous unit, some course books come with supplementary materials in the
teacher’s book which complement each lesson, but you may also wish to use other sources to add
a bit of variety. It’s all too easy just to follow the course book exactly, but this can be quite
unimaginative and may not always suit your students’ needs.

You may also have a mixed ability class, so providing learners with slightly different activities
linked to the same language/theme/skill can make sure you provide the right material for different
students.

They can also be useful as back-ups for students who complete the assigned tasks more quickly
than others.

Can you think of any other reasons for using supplementary materials?

All of the following are examples of supplementary materials:

 DVDs
 Games
 Graded ‘readers’ (literature with limited vocabulary according to the learner’s level)
 Language practice books
 Skills practice books
 Songs
 Teacher’s books
 Video clips
 Web resources

Most schools have lots of supplementary materials already available for you, usually in the form
of language or skills practice books.

Have a look at these before you start the course and familiarise yourself with what you could
potentially use.

It’s often the case that you trawl the web for hours looking for some particular material that you
could have found on the shelf next to you.
Yet it’s undeniable that the Internet has transformed the availability of resources for EFL teachers
so it’s good to make use of them! For some websites you may have to subscribe in order to
download a particular item but many are free.

Plus, you don’t always have to use specific EFL teaching material; many authentic resources such
as video clips or newspaper articles are great to add a realistic element to your teaching.

Choosing materials

Sometimes there are activities which look great but may be inappropriate for your class (this could
be because of the content or the level). It’s tempting to try to adapt the material to your lesson,
which is possible, but don’t try and force it too much – if it’s not going to fulfil your lesson
objectives and complement your plan then it’s probably not worth it.

Some activities, as well as authentic resources, don’t contain information on how best to use them
so make sure you’re comfortable incorporating the extra material into your lesson in a suitable
way.

Others may need your learners to have studied certain language/a particular topic beforehand
which yours may not have done. Be aware of anything you need to pre-teach.

Try to incorporate a variety of extra material into your course to make your lessons more
fun and interesting, just make sure they are suitable, tailored to your students’ needs and
don’t get carried away trying to find a youtube video to introduce every lesson!

Unit 7: Teaching Aids

Teaching aids are the equipment and tools we use in the classroom. They can be used to illustrate
a point, reinforce a skill, relieve anxiety or boredom or help learners memorise information. There
are many different teaching aids available to us as EFL teachers and these include, but are not
limited to,

 CD players
 DVD players
 Puppets
 Interactive white boards
 Boards
 Computers
 Visual aids such as flash cards
 Games
 ‘Real-life’ materials such as menus
 Language laboratories where students can listen and record themselves speaking

There are many different ways to use all of the teaching aids available to you but you must think
about the best ones to fulfil your specific objectives and suit your students. For example, using
puppets is a fantastic resource for teaching children but may seem patronising to an adult class of
business English learners – unless used ironically perhaps!

Try to prepare any aids in advance and always check to make sure equipment works before the
lesson; there’s nothing worse than planning a listening skills lesson only to find that the CD player
is faulty.

Board
The board is an essential part of any classroom which allows you to write grammatical structures
and explanations as well as elicited vocabulary in a place that all students can see easily. You can
also build up ideas into diagrams as they crop up and for team competitions (most students
secretly love being given the opportunity to write on the board, even adults!). Try to use different
colours to highlight rules or parts of speech and it can be an idea to divide the board into different
sections e.g. a space for grammar rules and model sentences and one for vocabulary.

Overhead projector

An overhead projector can be really useful for showing a worksheet to the class rather than
holding up a book or piece of paper and pointing to the sections you want them to work on. If you
prepare a completed handout with the correct answers written this can also be a quick way of
going through an exercise or piece of homework. If you want students to only focus on one
specific exercise, you can even cover up sections and gradually uncover them as the lesson
progresses. Aside from this, the overhead projector also provides a great resource for groups to
present their work to the class.

CD and DVD player

Obviously CD players are essential for any listening exercise where students listen to a dialogue
and complete comprehension tasks. They can also be used to model pronunciation though and
even to listen for pleasure as a ‘Friday afternoon’ activity. DVD players add a visual element and
can therefore really help those learners with visual memories. You can also do a variety of
activities such as pausing the DVD and predicting what happens next, watching without sound and
getting the students to guess what’s being said and even for playing a recording of the students
themselves in action.

Computer

Computers can be really useful for accessing the web and the various resources available online.
There are millions of interactive EFL exercises out there and so you can easily find extra practice
to add to any lesson, getting the students involved by asking them to click on the correct answers
themselves. The students can also join English language forums and find an English-speaking
penfriend to e-mail or chat with. You can set projects for your students too, either at home or if
you have a few computers available in class. And you don’t necessarily need an Internet
connection; it can be as simple as typing a group story or making a poster.

Language Laboratory

Many schools have a language laboratory or self-access area where there are books, computers,
CDs etc. for students to use and where they can study by themselves. This encourages autonomous
learning and allows learners to choose the activities they want to do. Language labs have listening
and recording equipment that students can use to practise speaking and pronunciation and assess
their own performance by listening back, promoting self-evaluation. You can also get them to
record speaking tasks done in class or for homework so that you can monitor their performance
and give individual feedback.

Flash cards

Flashcards can be used to present vocabulary along with a matching image so that students are
better able to remember it. They can also be useful for drilling pronunciation or even grammatical
structures. The idea is that they are ‘flashed’ up quickly to elicit a quick response. For learning
new vocabulary, the word is usually displayed with the picture but you can then erase the word
and only show the picture (or have the word written on the back) to test what the students know.
Real-life materials

When teaching abroad it’s always a good idea to take some authentic material with you from
home. This could be newspaper articles, menus, maps, tourist information about your home town
or even bus/train timetables. These are known as ‘realia’ and can make the learning experience
much more authentic and memorable for our students. It doesn’t necessarily need to be things
from your home though, when teaching food vocabulary you could take in different fruits and
vegetables to stimulate all the students’ senses and add an element of fun to the lesson. Realia can
even be used to tell a story, as part of a game or to form a dialogue.

Puppets

Using puppets also provides a concrete visual aid which can help students understand and
remember what you are teaching. They’re great for presenting dialogues to young learners,
arousing interest and encouraging student involvement because they engage the learner on a
number of different levels. Denise Özdeniz suggests that puppets allow children to see ‘another’
native English speaker in the classroom and naturally begin to copy dialogues and imitate
conversations that you and the puppet ‘model’.

You can buy or make puppets quite easily and also get students to make their own as part of a
speaking task. This is great for shy students or ones who are embarrassed speaking English
because it provides them with a safe space in which to talk. The puppet is also a ‘mid-way’ point
between students and the teacher so they feel less anxiety when practising dialogues with the
puppet. Search online for ways to make simple puppets for the EFL classroom and you may see
fantastic results!

These are just some examples of teaching aids you can make use of, some more modern whilst
others are old favourites. Of course all have their own pros and cons and you can experiment to
see which work best for different lessons and students. Remember, though, that you are an aid too
– facial expressions, gestures, body language, acting and mime can all bring different elements to
your lessons to elicit, clarify and create context!

Unit 8: Self-made supplementary

materials and teaching aids
Our key focus in this section will be to consider two particular situations:

 where you are teaching with minimal resources and cannot depend on pre-made
supplementary materials being readily available
 where you find that the coursebook, if you have one, lacks the types of materials you wish
to have

In these situations, you must resolve this yourself and make them.

Your supplementary materials are worksheets and other materials you can make and use in
addition to the classroom text, if there is one. They include skills development materials,
grammar, vocabulary and phonology practice materials, collections of communicative activities
and the like.

Of course, supplementary materials may also come from authentic sources. Examples of these
authentic materials are newspaper and magasine articles, pictures, and videos.

You can use your supplementary materials to:

 overcome the lack of materials when you are teaching with minimal resources
 replace unsuitable material in the classroom text, if there is one
 fill gaps in the classroom text, if there is one
 provide appropriate material for learners' particular needs and interests
  give learners extra language or skills practice
 add variety to your teaching

Making your own supplementary materials may seem daunting at first but it’s not if you know
what to do. Teacher-made materials can be very effective, assuming that they are relevant and
personalised and answer the needs of the learners in a way no other materials can.

They offer some very important benefits.

Designing your own materials

1. Benefits of designing your own materials

1. Making them fit the context

Several criticisms of commercially made materials continue to be voiced, particularly in relation

to context. Here are the main criticisms:

 The coursebook and accompanying materials produced for the global EFL market,
including the EYL (English for Young Learners) market, are too generic.
 They are not geared to specific groups of learners.
 They are not geared to any specific educational or cultural context.
 They contain functions and speech outputs based on situations that the majority of foreign
language learners will never be in.
 They are Anglo-centric in their construction and production and therefore do not reflect
any local varieties of English.

Thus, many teachers find it much, much better to make their own materials to make them fit their
own specific educational and cultural context.

2. Making them fit the individual learners

Commercially produced generic materials cannot address the needs of all the unique individual
learners in classrooms. But you can by:

 creating or adapting materials to the individual needs and learning styles of students
 creating or adapting materials that take into account the learners’ first language and the
learners’ culture and personal experiences
 creating or adapting materials at the right level for particular learners, to ensure the
materials present an appropriate challenge and degree of success
 changing the often-repetitive model and organisation in the coursebook to add more
variety within the classroom to meet developing needs (e.g. using whatever is appropriate
to meet the goal – topics, situations, functions etc.)

3. Making them fit today’s events

Commercially produced materials cannot keep up to date with local and international events.
World and country changes can happen rapidly and learning materials need to keep up with
changes and events that are of special interest to learners in their situation.

Only teachers on the ground can make the materials relevant to today’s world.

4. Lack of finance
Many schools may not have the budget to supply modern resources for the TEFL classroom.
Instead of moaning and groaning, most teachers step up to the plate and design their own materials
as a matter of course. The school and your learners will be very appreciative of this.

Guidelines for designing your own

materials
2. Guidelines for designing your own materials

Remember the words of the Cheshire Cat in ‘Alice in Wonderland’.

Alice: 'Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?'

'That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,' said the Cat.

'I don't much care where —' said Alice.

'Then it doesn't matter which way you go,' said the Cat.

If you haven’t had much experience in designing materials, or none at all, it’s important that you
have a route to follow; otherwise, things may not turn out as planned and you and your learners
may miss out on learning opportunities.

Here are the practical points you need to consider when planning your materials, whilst
constructing your materials and when reviewing your materials after completion.

Here’s what to do:

1. Meet your learners’ needs

Ensure your materials meet the learners’ needs in terms of their language skills, their cultural and
educational context and experiences, their learning preferences and their interests. In addition,
ensure you are aware of the culture-specific learning processes of the learners in their situation.

For example, in some countries parents/carers and educational institutions want to see less fun and
more work, so you will need to take this into account.

Also, in some countries, there is often more emphasis given to rote learning, e.g. parents/carers
and institutions wanting to see you giving the young learners lists of vocabulary to rote learn even
though these may be learned out of context with the classroom learning at that time.

Always ensure the materials link with what the learners already know; otherwise the materials will
not meet the intended objective without a whole lot of additional input.

Where you do feel that something must be included but is not linked to their knowledge or
experience, ensure you clarify the inclusion before they start working with the materials.

2. Fit your materials with the syllabus and curriculum

Ensure the materials fit with the goals and objectives of the syllabus and curriculum, if these are in
place. Make sure you are au fait with the complete syllabus and curriculum.
3. Consider your skill base

Consider whether or not you have the skills to do a reasonably professional job. Designing
materials from scratch needs a bit experience to draw on, creativity, competent artistic skills and a
sound understanding of materials design and construction.

Absorb all of this section and, when in situ, ask others for help where you need to. Do not hold
back on this.

That being said, it’s not that difficult. There are plenty internet sites that can guide you in drawing.

4. Ensure you search for resources

Ensure you have the required resources. Don’t spend time on planning the creation or adaptation
of materials if you do not have the ready resources to enable you to do a good job.

Some teachers will propound that it’s necessary to be able to access computers and the internet, a
good colour photocopier, a laminator, CD player etc. Well, we know teachers who survived nicely
for years in the heart of Africa without any of these in the school.

But they made friends inside and outside of the school and soon had access to some of these tools.
You’ll never get if you don’t ask. If you don’t have these, it’s not the end of the world.

We mentioned access. Schools are busy places and often other teachers have planned to use a
particular resource. Ensure you plan well with the school administration so that you can use the
resource at a planned time. Book these well in advance.

5. Consider copyright

Ensure you consider copyright. Yes, you must-not just for your sake but also for the sake of the
Academy. Unless an artist, writer or producer clearly states that the material can be freely used
within your classroom, then you need to take care.

If you use copyrighted material without permission in your class, which then goes down so well it
is included in the school brochure or on the school website, this could cause a problem for the
school.

If, say, a writer or producer says you can use their material in class, that’s fine. If, say, they say
you need to ask permission to do so, then you should follow this up and seek permission. If, say, a
writer or producer says you cannot use the material, then steer clear of it.

In general, an idea cannot be copyrighted, so you may see something that sparks your interest and
make up your own material based on that idea. However, the simple lifting of photos and text as
they were originally produced is not generally allowed.

Re pictures and images, there are numerous sites that offer these without any copyright, but
at a price, e.g. www.shutterstock.com

6. Work out your time

Ensure you have adequate time to see this through. Experienced teachers will share one
indisputable fact with you, based on their experiences: it always takes longer than you think it
will.
7. Stimulate interaction within cultural ‘rules’

Ensure you materials stimulate interaction and provide a communicative purpose. There’s little
point spending lots of time on the production of materials if those materials are not going to
stimulate interaction in the classroom. Such interaction should be in line with the types of
interaction they will come across in the outside world.

The materials don’t need to be complex. A simple information gap activity worksheet will fit the
bill nicely.

However, good spoken communication does not just rely on the words spoken.

There are other factors such as turn-taking (me then you then me then you), and recognition of
personal space (proxemics) that you need to take into account when designing interactive
activities for a communicative purpose.

8. Stretch your learners

Ensure your materials provide a necessary ‘stretch’. It’s critical that you produce materials that
stretch your learners’ knowledge, understanding and application skills.

This is necessary for ongoing development of the learners’ language competence.

To do this your materials should build on what they already know but should include new items
(e.g. new vocabulary or a new structure) which will stretch them to generate new language, e.g. by
guessing, predicting, hypothesising, noticing links etc.

9. Develop their ‘how to learn’ skills

Ensure your materials ‘push’ learners to develop language learning skills and strategies.

You need to teach your learners how to learn, e.g. understanding learning strategies that can help
them whenever they have difficulties in communicating.

Some examples of learning strategies are re-wording (trying their communicative piece in a
different way, saying it differently) and the use of good body language (facial expressions,
nodding etc.) which can help their communication move forward.

Also, through time, young learners can be taught how to self-evaluate their work.

10. Focus on form too

Ensure your materials focus on form as well as communicative function. In the modern
communicative classroom, the emphasis is often on independent and creative expression with less
emphasis on the form of the language.

Some teachers may take their learners through a lengthy period of learning without focussing on
any aspects of language form.

For inexperienced teachers, in particular, this may be because their TEFL course of learning
focussed entirely on communicating (at all costs) and little time, if any, on ensuring that issues of
form and structure etc. are addressed.
Or it could be the inexperienced teacher is unsure of some elements of form which often come
under the heading of grammar.

Nevertheless, you owe it to your learners to help them notice and understand the forms of
language so that they don’t just use speaking and writing to communicate but also understand that
knowing the form of the language will help them speak and write correctly at the same time.

What this means is that you should also include exercises and activities that will encourage
learners to analyse the language and form and test their own hypotheses as to how the English
language works, depending on their level, of course.

11. Integrate all the language skills

A lot of language materials focus mainly on speaking and writing. And, in the TEFL classroom
you often see the same focus-speaking and writing. But listening and reading are also important.

This phenomenon is peculiar, particularly with listening skills. When communicating, your
listeners will not only speak. In turn, they will listen. Listening is an important skill and plays a
critical part in the overall communication. But it is not focussed on to the same extent as speaking
is.

So, don’t fall into the speaking and writing trap. Create materials that give the learners
opportunities to integrate all the language skills.

12. Ensure authenticity

It is paramount that your learners are exposed to authentic materials. In essence, authentic
materials are materials which are unscripted and not developed specifically for language learning
purposes. They haven’t been fabricated for a language learning purpose.

This applies not only to written texts (e.g. newspapers, magasines, original letters etc.) but also to
spoken and visual texts. Ensure the recording of the spoken voices is real and not fabricated for a
learning purpose. Ensure too that any video you use hasn’t been performed for a language
purpose.

If you record your own materials, ensure that they consist of people saying and doing things in
normal situations, unaffected by the microphone or camera and making no effort to change their
communication to suit a language purpose, so that your learners have access to truly authentic
language.

13. Link materials

Ensure your learning materials connect. If you lose sight of your objectives and the need for
steady progression in language learning to achieve goals, you may end up with a pile of
unconnected materials which may confuse your learners.

So, keep a close eye on coherence throughout your development process. Ensure one piece links
with another in steady progression towards the language learning goal.

14. Impress

Ensure you make a good impression. Ensure your materials look as good as they can, with
consistency in the layout.
In addition, ensure you don’t cause anxiety or confusion for the learner. For example, when
designing an information gap or cloze activity ensure there is adequate room for the learners to
write their answer.

Ensure they know whether the hatched lines in the gap represent the number of letters or not.
Ensure they know whether to write or print their answer.

Also, it’s always wise to consider whether or not you will be using these materials again. If they
are materials which will be used frequently, get them laminated (where possible) so that they still
look fresh when used again and again.

15. Ensure clear instructions

Following on from the example above, clear and precise instructions are critical. If you need to
start the exercise again because the instructions are weak or unclear, this doesn’t look good and is
unfair to your learners. It will be frustrating for you and them.

In addition, the language in instructions needs to be appropriate to their level and in simple words.
There are no prizes for you for using complex words.

Follow these guidelines and you won’t go wrong.

One of the most rewarding experiences in teaching is designing and developing your own
materials and reflecting later on how well they helped you and your learners to achieve the
language goal. Go for it!

Effective teacher-made materials

3. Effective teacher-made materials

Four effective forms of teacher-made materials/aids are worksheets, workcards, flashcards and
your own realia.

They can be used for oral practice in pairs or groups, or for listening, reading and writing practice,
with students working with other students or on their own.

Remember this: Many of the examples of worksheets on the internet are pretty boring to look at.
Usually, there is just a list of questions with spaces for the answer. Try and make your materials a
bit different and add in a picture or some colouring.

1. Your worksheets

 A worksheet is typically a Letter/A4 sized page (or two) of tasks.

 It is given out to individuals, pairs or groups, depending on the approach required.
 Learners give their answers/responses on the worksheet.
 You circulate during the completion.
 You typically check the answers/responses with the whole class.
 Sometimes they are disposed of, sometimes the learners can keep them, sometimes you’ll
take them in to study progress, e.g. handwriting, or to include them in the learners’
portfolios.
 Information gaps are See http://bogglesworldesl.com/information_gap.htm for examples
of a typical worksheet activity where learners work out missing and different information
that each have on their worksheet.
Here are three simple worksheets we have created for you, to demonstrate that it doesn’t
take long to construct them. We’ve used ready-made pictures but you could just as easily
draw or trace these, or ask some artistic teacher or student to help you, if need be.

Example 1: Where is our butterfly?

Choose one word to fill the space: behind / above / below / beside

Example 2: Word game

 (Note that we have scaffolded this activity, from easy to not so easy.)

I’ve made some small words from the letters in this big word:

What are they? Fill in the spaces.

1. Clue: it eats mice C__

2. Clue: water comes from this T__
3. Clue: you can get this from the doctor P__L
4. Clue: make a noise with your hands C___
5. Clue: not early ___E
6. Clue: a fruit _E__
7. Clue: the cost of something P___E
8. Clue: part of a flower P____

Example 3: The Gruffalo

(Note that this worksheet is based on an excellent storybook for young learners.)

Put these sentences in order from 1-8. I’ve done number 1 for you.

Mouse: Here, by those rocks, and his favourite food is roasted Fox. ___
Fox: A gruffalo? What’s a gruffalo? ___
Mouse: It’s terribly kind of you, Fox, but No. I’m going to have lunch with a gruffalo. ___
Fox: Where are you meeting him? ___
Fox: Where are you going to, little brown mouse? Come and have lunch in my underground house? ___
Mouse: He has terrible tusks, and terrible claws, and terrible teeth in his terrible jaws. ___
Story teller: A mouse took a walk through the deep dark wood. A fox saw the mouse and the mouse looked good. 1
Mouse: A gruffalo! Why didn’t you know? ___

Workcards
2. Your workcards

 You would typically create these yourself for all kinds of tasks and situations.
 These are typically small laminated cards, about the size of an index card. You would
laminate them so they can be used repeatedly with different learners. But if there’s no
laminator, just keep them in plastic files.
 The learners complete their activity on a separate blank sheet or in their notebooks, not on
the workcard.
 They are typically for short tasks – individual, pair or group.
 Different learners may be working with different workcards at the same time.
 Depending on your choice you can colour them, and put little pictures on them.

They are excellent for:

 Recycling activities where, for example, some individuals need more practice with some
specific element
 Giving out to more able learners who have finished ahead of the others who are still
completing the whole class activity you set
 Giving the class a break from learning after they have all been working hard. Quizzes,
small puzzles and riddles can all be entered on these cards for these relaxing moments.

The workcards are then handed back to you.

Here are some examples which should be self-explanatory:

1. These could be used for a discussion between pairs or groups, for a short written piece, or for a
student presentation to the whole class:
2. This type could be used for relaxation and perhaps a little prize could be given to the winning
group. You could encourage them to do some dictionary work for any difficult words, where
dictionaries are available. Remember this: Don’t use examples of animals or things which don’t
exist in their culture.

It is, of course, the Iberian Wolf. Depending on student levels, you could increase or decrease the
level of difficulty.

Some practical ideas for workcards

1. Stamps

Put different postage stamps on a card. Ask the pairs to identify what countries the stamps are
from. A word bank can be supplied. Higher performing students can be asked to add the capital of
the country, name of language spoken, etc.

2. Read and draw

Read and draw. You could write a description of a place, a person or an unusual animal (e.g. an
armadillo) on the workcard. The students have to draw a picture from the description and compare
their efforts.

Then you can let them see a real photo/picture of the place, person or animal. This can be good
fun. Some may go right off track as they have misunderstood an important part of the instructions.
Remember, though, that this is not a drawing task per se. It’s a reading and comprehension
activity.

3. Things in common

Give a list of 3-4 words. The students write what the words have in common. For example,
beginners could get dog, cat, bear: animals. Older learners could be challenged with pint, silver,
width. They may take some time to work out that no other English words rhyme with these words.

4. Matching

You make up two lists, one of countries and the other of capitals. The students match the country
with its capital city.

5. Words that sound the same

You make up two lists of words that sound the same but have different meanings, e.g. right,
write. The students have to match the words that sound alike. This can also be done with opposite
words and words that rhyme.

Flashcards and Realia

3. Your flashcards

A flashcard is a laminated picture of, say, a house with the word house below it or on the back of
the picture that you can hold up for all to see.

You could make these Letter/A4 size. You could also make smaller versions so that, say, each pair
can have their own to look at. Gradually, through time, you’ll be able to miss out the picture and
just show the word.

It’s good to intersperse showing the word with also writing it on the board, to get their minds
thinking further that spoken words can be written down.

It’s a good idea to colour your flashcards from the start, if you can, e.g. nouns in pink, adjectives
in blue, verbs in green etc. You would typically start with nouns. Of course, you won’t use the
metalanguage with them. You would just call it a thing or animal etc.
When you move on to say, adjectives, you’d point out that this card is not in pink like the other
card (nouns) and this will help them a bit to understand categories and differences through time.

With ‘showing’ activities like holding up flashcards, always plan to do some other activity after
this to consolidate the learning. For example, once they have learned some simple words, they can
practise in pairs, reading words to their partners.

Remember! Become familiar with what supplementary materials are available in your school.

When you arrive, draw up a needs analysis checklist at the beginning of the course to find out
what you will want to add to the classroom text, if there is one, when you are planning your
lessons. Plan ahead!

4. Your realia

We’ve already mentioned realia in a previous section.

We mention it again to demonstrate that you should consider using your realia and not just stuff
that’s already in the classroom or in a teachers’ cupboard.

With a bit of good reflection, you can come up with your new and fresh idea.

For example, all you have to do is bring in 3 glasses and a jug from your apartment. Then fill the
jug with water.

This simple realia aid can be used for several activities:

 Vocabulary: degrees such as full, half-full, empty, half-empty

 Comparatives and superlatives: big, bigger, biggest amounts of water
 Colours: showing colours or different degrees of colour, e.g. pink, by adding some cake
colouring. To really capture their interest with this, take a few bottles of baking/icing
colouring with you in your suitcase. Put a hidden drop or two of a different colour in the
bottom of each glass, before the class begins.

Let it dry. They won’t notice this. Then, as if by magic, your blue, red and green colours will
appear as you pour in the water. They’ll think you are a magician!

 The concept of weight and the vocabulary arising from this