designing a language teaching materials.

How to design a language teaching material.

Communication is an essential aspect of life and most important to man. With the increase in  human interaction globally , in business circles  and while socializing with friends , communication plays a crucial role . One important to understand,  for one to have an effective communication with someone else, both parties involved opt to have  full command of the language in  use.

Considering the world is a global village,  no one is restricted from holding a conversation with someone from any part of the globe. Hence it's important to really know and understand what language is been  used in the context. Which bring us to  the important of knowing a second language to easily communicate and understand one another.

Being in  the 21st century, learning  a new language, is of great important  and is  increasingly been embraced . For instance those who have studied  a language are  placed at a better position  to acquire new job, at their place of work due to  their language diversity. As a result many individuals have opted to learn these languages.

Due to an increase in cultural diversification  and integration ,there has been a rise in cases of intermarriage between people of different  nationality and ethnic background ,has contributed greatly  to the demand  learn a new language.

Due to the  increased demand to learn, new institutions have been erected and the necessary curriculum,  set in place to meet this need to learn a new language. Today,  one can choose from a wide range of option which language to study  :Swahili, Spanish, French, German, Arabic, Chinese just to mention a few .

For an institutions to be approved to teach a new language ,all necessary requirement and teaching  materials need to be availed and putted in place. Since they are most vital for learning and training of the new language.

Hence the reason  for writing this article. Through it,  I express my opinion on how one needs  to compile  the necessary materials to be used to teach these languages  which I believe to be vital in teaching .

In recent time,the idea of teaching a second(foreign)language has entered a post methodological age, which is:

• people oriented

• One emphasizing cooperation

• embracing the communicative

• tasks based

• theme based

Which are approaches aimed to develop the learners' integrated learning skills.

In my opinion a language teaching course  book should have the following features:

(a) It should be student centered -  to stress the development of students integrated language skills.

It should help to improve students' language skills under the premise of serving their needs for taking the test .

It should as well absorb the strengths of the aural oral and cognitive approaches to cultivate students listening and speaking skills to improve their integrated language ability .

This can be achieved through "situations ,dialogues and pictures"

(b) It should integrate essential ideas of the communicative approach and tasks based language teaching.

The communicative approach , stresses the appropriateness in language use while, the tasks based language teaching , emphasizes the authenticity of language and its acquisition.

(c) It should reflect the concept of theme based teaching - which is a language teaching activity focusing on the content and connotation of the text.

It emphasizes the diversity and richness of content.

This aids students in their internalization and understanding of new concept is accelerated , by further probing into the them thus developing students' creativity.

Once the following formula is followed ,teaching a new languages will be a smooth activity, seeing  that both parties are actively involved in learning process .

With a commendable experiences in learning,it may arouse the interest of many  to study a new languages thus making communication easier for all people of the world.

Each textbook should be supported by a workbook of exercises matching the relative tests.

This will help to familiarize  the learners with question relative to the tests.

The  workbook should also provide the same exact types of exercises arranged in  a systematic order and structure where the content is focused on a specific lesson.

In this way, a learner will be familiar with  the relative tests throughout the course ,rather than spending extra time in trying to get used to the form of the test.

The coursework should also contain independent communicative exercises to serve the need for taking an oral test of the language .

This will help to develop the students' ability in oral expression.

For there to be a continuous and systematic learning process, the lecture or the teacher should prepare a systematically defined scope one which entails the number of hours each class should undertake.