The interest in creating ELT materials, most of them built around social issues, has led me to this course: Creating ELT Materials with Katherine Bilsborough. I am halfway through the course and I am learning a lot. The first homework task was the following:
"Find a very short text or a collection of very short texts appropriate for your learners. Design some learning materials using the text(s) as the content. Think about these things:
"Find a very short text or a collection of very short texts appropriate for your learners. Design some learning materials using the text(s) as the content. Think about these things:
- Aims or objectives
- Interaction
- Skills or language focus
- Support needed (useful phrases, a model, etc.)"
I always say that the best source of inspiration is what happens around us. If we keep our eyes and ears open, we can find stimulating material which we can use in our class.
An everyday situation was the source of the task which I created for the first assignment in which a text as short as four digits, a punctuation mark and two letters turned into a lesson plan on social injustice.