It's all about materials..

This week's class is basically about materials. Materials is the physical substances used as inputs for production or manufacturing. So, when we relate this to the teaching field, the physical substances will be the teachings aids brought in by the teacher, the input will be the content of the lesson which is reinforces by the teaching aids and lastly the production will be pupils acquiring the four language skills whereby they are able to use and practise the skills accordingly and meaningfully. So this has gave me an outlook in which materials are vital in language learning in which they play the role to assist language learning. Anything could be the materials as long as there are language used in the material. However, the materials should be be taken baldly and being used as teaching aids because of certain reason. First is the suitability, whether the material is suitable for the topic and it have the content that needed for language learning. Second, is the exploitibility factor in which the material can be exploited further for the use of learning activities in class. Third will be the readability whereby it touches the language difficulty in which suits the pupils' level of proficiency. Lastly, familiarity factor in which it does not look akward to the pupils. Not to mention, the material used should gain pupils' interest and lend their eyes till the end of the lesson. In fact, the material selected too should trigger pupils' mind and helps them develop their thinking skill. Before making decision of which material to be used in class, the teacher should first collect few sample of materials and then evaluate them. Factors that should be taken into considerations are mentioned above when evaluating. During this process, the teacher might consider adapting or adopting the material or probably develop a new material based on the actual one. This involves teacher's creativity as well as judgement. I realized that selecting and developing materials to be used in class in not as easy as it is. This is because the material should be functional and useful in language learning. This indirecly influece the teacher's planning of a lesson. So, for all the teacher-to-be, we should always be prepared and always be aware of the challenges ahead and one of them is this which is selecting, developing and using materials. This is because i realized that materials used as teaching aids serve as a bridge to connect pupils with the content. Thus, it shows how heavy the duty played the material in order to make language learning successful for the pupils..