Reminders on Characteristics of Materials (From learners' viewpoints)

Content

English textbooks should be useful, meaningful and interesting for students. While no single subject will be of interest to all students, materials should be chosen based, in part, on what students, in general, are likely to find interesting and motivating.

Difficulty Level

As a general rule, materials should be slightly higher in their level of difficulty than the students' current level of English proficiency. (Exceptions are usually made for extensive reading and extensive listening materials, which should be easy enough for students to process without much difficulty.) Materials at a slightly higher level of difficulty than the students' current level of English proficiency allow them to learn new grammatical structures and vocabulary.

Instructional issues

English textbooks should have clear instructional procedure and methods, that is, the teacher and students should be able to understand what is expected in each lesson and for each activity.

Textbooks should have support for learning

This can take the form of vocabulary lists, exercises which cover or expand on the content, visual aids, etc. Traditionally, language teaching materials in Japan are made up mostly of text, with few, if any, visual aids. However, with the development of technology, photos, visual materials and audio materials have become very important components of language teaching materialss, and they are becoming easier to obtain. Teachers need to learn how to find them, and how to best exploit these characteristics.