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 .