Which ONE piece of advice would you give a teacher who wanted to create their own classroom material?

Which ONE piece of advice would you give a teacher who wanted to create their own classroom material?

Start with your students. And come back to them often. Try to see the material the way they would see it. Ask yourself frequently if the material (still) meets the need you are trying to meet.

When using an authentic audio or video it is important to use only ‘native speakers'.

When using an authentic audio or video it is important to use only ‘native speakers'.

Do you agree or disagree? Give reasons.

Along with many others in this community, I disagree with this statement. But I do like the quotes around "native speaker" - who is a native speaker anyway? That's a discussion for another time, perhaps.

I don't think I have anything new to say. I teach very young learners, and they haven't developed preferences for accents. They just want to communicate and tell their stories and play. Kid language transcends borders. I'll never forget the two kids playing in the caves in Slovenia who didn't have a spoken language in common so they just played dinosaurs or something and roared at each other and chased each other around.

All that said, much of the audio and video materials we use in my school are made in-house for our students. So they are not in any way "authentic". I would love to learn more about "authentic" materials for very young learners, particularly those that use a variety of Englishes.

Reading the really thoughtful posts here that people have already contributed has almost made me change my mind...

Reading the really thoughtful posts here that people have already contributed has almost made me change my mind about my most important principles! But I'll stick with what I originally wanted to say.

First of all, I like materials that have clear instructions (and even examples). I like instructions that are not more difficult than the activities on the page. For very young learners, that often means the instructions can be images (like pencil icons). I like everything on the page to be useful and designed with the learners in mind, from the title down to the page number.

The other thing I really care about is contextualization. I like materials that fit into a wider context of what is going on in the learning environment (which might in turn fit into what is going on in the world in general or whatever microcosm the student inhabits). I like materials that have a clear goal (clear to the teacher AND the students), especially when that goal ties into the goals of the class or curriculum.

Reading others' posts have also drawn my attention to the importance of images, especially images rich in language, interaction, and balance. I hope I can think more about these things as I create more materials for my students.

Hi everyone.

Hi everyone. I'm a little late to join the group. I'm Anne. I teach young learners (ages 2-12ish) in a small English conversation school (eikaiwa) in the middle of nowhere, Japan. I create materials to supplement our curriculum at school. I also sometimes work with materials freelance - mainly proofreading and editing but occasionally creating materials as well. I'd like to get better at it and that's why I'm here. I look forward to learning from you all.