Be Innovative Without Going Crazy

        Sometimes teachers believe that being innovative in the classroom involves a lot of materials’ preparation and it is extremely time consuming. This might be true on some occasions, but there are ways to include elements to make it more appealing for the students without having to spend a lot of time on it. 

      Recently, we found ourselves in the task of making a short didactic sequence in which technology should be present. We planned it for a 4^th year of secondary school in which we were supposed to teach Past Simple.  Taking into consideration that in the majority of Argentina’s schools it’s quite difficult to have an Internet connection, we decided to make an activity that doesn’t require it. In our country, the majority of students have netbooks provided by the government, which is an excellent resource not to be left aside. So we thought of an activity that could include the netbooks without necessarily requiring internet connection in the classroom.  Our proposal then, was to introduce the Past Simple tense to the students and giving them the task of thinking (and later writing) about a fictitious holiday of a celebrity. We introduced this project showing the students a short video describing the last holiday of Lady Gaga. The video shows some images and a short text in Past Simple under each picture. At this point, the most important thing is to keep the celebrity’s identity in secret, so students will guess who the celebrity is by reading the subtitles and watching the images. You can take a look at our video below!

       This video shows exactly what we want students to make later and also, we used it for showing them some specific points as regards grammar and vocabulary. The making of this video only took us 15 minutes, not more than that, and it helped us both: to introduce the topic and the final task and to guide students how to produce their own videos.
      Taking into account the T- PACK reflections, we decided to make the video using Windows Movie Maker. We selected this video editor because it has all the tools we needed, it fits perfectly with the final task and it is very simple to use. Besides, most of students have it and it doesn’t require an Internet connection.

During this lesson, students worked in groups and then shared their videos to the rest of their classmates who had to guess who the celebrities in each video were.

In terms of SAMR, by replacing the traditional use of pen and paper with the new technology, we are gaining the opportunity to introduce innovative strategies in the classroom, and at the same time we are encouraging students to learn and to participate in their own learning in a different way. As you can see, just with a short video we are providing the students with the opportunity of being creative, learn in a more motivating and entertaining way and also playing a guessing game. It’s not necessary to spend a lot of time to be innovative and allow students to be engaged as well.

Here you’ll find information about Windows Movie Maker and also you’ll be able to download it: http://windows.microsoft.com/es-ar/windows-live/movie-maker

Designing Teaching Materials: Pros and Cons.

  If you are not sure about designing your own teaching materials, kwowing the advantages and disadvantages of it might help you to make up your mind.

    Why is it that teachers all over the world choose to construct their own teaching materials despite the wide variety of commercially produced ones? Jocelyn Howard and Jae Major talk about it in their work “Guidelines for Designing Effective English Language Teaching Materials”. They emphasize the fact that there are some advantages and disadvantages when it comes to material designing that should be taken into account by teachers.

Advantages

      According to Howard and Major, one of the main reasons why teachers may consider to produce teaching materials is “contextualisation”. When reading a coursebook it is quite clear for teachers that there are certain activities or topics that just don't “fit” with the real context of a particular group of students. This happens because most of the commercial teaching products are designed for the world-wide EFL market. For instance, if you are teaching in an impoverished context your students may find it useless or even discouraging to learn vocabulary about “holidays”. So, by producing their own materials, teachers can take into account all the particularities of a specific group of students (their contexts, cultural backgrounds, previous knowledge, available resources, etc.) Another advantage of designing teaching materials is that allows teachers to consider “individual needs”. As a teacher, you should acknowledge the differences among students within the same group and adapting or creating teaching materials considering the learners' first languages and cultures, their learning needs and their previous experience. “Personalisation” is another advantage of teacher-designed materials. When teachers make their own material, they are adding a personal touch that students usually appreciate. Finally, “timeline” is another characteristic that encourages teachers to start producing their own materials, as allow them to respond to local and international events with up-to-date, relevant and high interest topics and tasks.

Disadvantages

    Now we will focus on the disadvantages of materials designed by teachers that Howard and Major mention as the most relevant ones. The first one is “organization”. Teachers that design their own teaching materials sometimes find it difficult to make a clear progression on their lessons. This could cause frustration in the learners who will not be able to see the development of their English. That's why coursebooks, which are usually well-organised and follow certain principles and patterns, offer both: teachers and learnes security and a sense of “knowing what they are doing and what follows”. The second, and according to the writers the most common criticism against teacher-made materials, is “quality”. Teachers who lack of experience and understanding may produce materials which contain errors, poorly constructed and that lack of durability. The third disadvantage emphasized is “time”. For many teachers it is not possible to find the time to actually make their own materials, even if they believe that is the best option. This reason may inhibit teachers from producing their own teaching materials.

     As we have seen, there are many factors to take into account when thinking about whether or not to design our own teaching material. The authors give some advice to make this in the best possible way, such as adapt and modify materials to supplement a coursebook rather than starting from scratch. Of course that teachers will become better material designers only with a lot of practice and experience in the matter. The only way is trying, so be as creative as you can and you will succeed. 

To find more information about how to be a good teaching material designer go ahead and take a look to the complete text by Howard and Major where you will find a guidelines for designing efective English Teaching Materials and factors to consider when designing materials .