IMPORTANCE OF INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIAL

Instructional materials are essential tools in the English language arts classroom. They allow students to interact with words, images, and ideas in ways that develop their abilities in reading, listening, viewing, thinking, speaking, writing, and using media and technology. Because instructional materials are a primary resource for English language arts teachers, they must be selected wisely.

The base of consistent, pedagogically selection practices is a clear, written policy for the selection of materials in the English language arts program. Such a policy not only helps teachers to achieve program goals, but also helps schools protect the integrity of programs increasingly under pressure from censors, propagandists, and commercial interests.

To select the correct materials it's key to understand that adults learn in a different way than children. Adults want their learning to be immediately applicable to their lives, adults want to know why something needs to be learned, they are self-directed and problem solving oriented learners; that’s why it´s very important to choose an appropriate content, materials and activities according to their needs and interests, to keep the students interested in the class it´s important that the teacher plans the lessons responding to the learners needs.

It is recommend to follow a learner– Centered class, where it can be develop activities in pairs and group work, or a project- based learning, that allows adults pursue their own interest with the opportunity of incorporating authentic material to the class.

It´s important to remember that the selection of teaching and learning materials is an integral part of curriculum planning and delivery, the school has the responsibility to select and provide access to them according to the student needs, the diversity of value and belief systems in the community, the backgrounds and the environments of the students should be reviewed in the process.

The idea is to pick the best materials and most appropriate for the particular learning activities from the available resources, providing access with equal opportunities to all the students to their learning process, considering the importance of the technology and the different sources available for the teaching of English in the media and multimedia materials to which today's young people have access to.