TEFL Oakville Iowa

A well combination of created materials, authentic materials and course book can be great beneficial to both teachers and learners. As we all know, the main difference between created materials and authentic materials are; created materials are materials created specifically by the teacher to meet the needs of the target learners, it can support authentic materials, supplement a lesson or a course book. Created materials help teachers to improve on the teaching. In addition, it gives students the chance to learn new concepts out of the course book. Created materials such as games, flashcards, picture stories, etc, may help rise learners' interest in the course. Although, created materials may have some disadvantages, such as, created materials are not original and sometimes they may not be interested if they are not prepared carefully. Most times it is expensive to get the necessary materials to use, but both materials are equally important. For instance lesson plans could be considered as created materials, it is written by teachers to guide when teaching. The procedures, the objectives, materials required we use in our lesson plans are sometimes created materials. Many teachers will create their own, or obtain these supplementary materials, to replace certain unsuitable chapters of a course book or to add interest and prevent boredom in the classroom. Authentic materials on the other hand are real materials but are not created for students as the target uses. Although, the use of authentic materials in an efl classroom is what many teachers involved in foreign language teaching have discussed in recent years. Rogers (1988) defines it as 'appropriate' and 'quality' in terms of goals, objectives, learner needs and interest and 'natural' in terms of real life and meaningful communication. Authentic materials, such as, real magazine articles, real advertisements, cooking recipes, horoscopes, etc, help students to bridge the gap between the classroom knowledge and the students' capacity to participate in the real world event.(Wilkins ,1976:79) Most of the teachers throughout the world agree that authentic texts or materials are beneficial to the language learning process, but what less agreed is when authentic materials should be introduced and how they should be used in an efl classroom. For instance introducing video in class is one of the powerful tools in today's classroom. It provides strong context through which to teach english. Meaning comes alive and it brings the outside world into the classroom and gives your teaching “reality”. Video also provides all the paralinguistic features of language that audio only can't. Nowadays, students are very much visual learners. Further, with the quick spread of broadband internet access, it is making the use of video in the classroom much more reliable. Video is a medium which is replacing print; it is changing both the way we learn and the way we interact with each other. However, for students who are more accustomed to a traditional approach to reading and writing through course books and tests only, an explanation from the teacher may be required, as to why authentic materials and activities such as creating real shopping lists, filling out real applications, reading real food labels ,medical reports, reading newspapers or magazine articles are necessary. Therefore, taken into consideration of all levels of learners, all backgrounds of learners, and with possible time constraints on both the teachers' part and the duration of the course in mind, using a combination of created and authentic materials creates a mutually beneficial approach for both teacher and students in meeting the language needs of most learners. Bibliography 1. Jacobson, Erik, Sophie Degener & Victoria 2. Purcell-Gates, 2003. (Philips and Shettlesworth 1978; 3. Clarke 1989; Peacock 1997, cited in Richards, 2001): 4. Authentic Vs Graded Material in Second Language. EzineArticles.com. International tefl teacher Training. Course Books and Lesson Materials. ITTT 016. Bergquist, W.H. & S.R.