TEACHING MATERIALS

By teaching materials we mean the materials which the! teacher can use to help pupils learn a foreign language through visual or audio perception. They must be capable of contributing to the achievement of the practical, cultural, and educational aims of learning a foreign language. Since pupil-learn a foreign language for several years, it is necessar for the teacher to have a wide variety of materials which make it possible to progress with an increasing sophistication to; match the pupils' continually growing command of the foreign language. Good teaching materials will help greatly to reinforce the pupils' initial desire to learn the lan­guage and to sustain their enthusiasm throughout the course. The following teaching materials are in use nowadays: teacher's books, pupil's books, visual, materials, audio mate­rials, and audio-visual materials.

A teacher's book must be comprehensive enough to be a help to the teacher. This book should provide all the recorded material; summaries of the aims and new teaching points of each lesson; a summary of all audio and visual materials required; suggestions for the conduct of the lesson and examples of how the teaching points can be developed.

Pupil's books must include textbooks, manuals, supple­mentary readers, dictionaries, programmed materials.

Textbooks. The textbook is one of the most important sources for obtaining knowledge. It contains the material at which pupils work both during class-periods under the teacher's supervision and at home independently. The textbook also determines, the ways and the techniques pupils should use in learning the material to be able to apply it when hearing, speaking, reading, and writing.

The modern textbooks for teaching a foreign language should meet the following requirements:

1.The textbooks should provide pupils with the knowl­edge of the language sufficient for developing language skills, i. e., they must include the fundamentals of the target language.

2. They should ensure pupils' activity in speaking, reading,.mil writing, i. e., they must correspond to the aims of foreign language teaching in school.

3. The textbooks must extend pupils' educational horizon, i. e., the material of the textbooks should be of educational value.

4. The textbooks must arouse pupils' interest and excite their curiosity.

5. They should have illustrations to help pupils in compre­hension and in speaking.

6. The textbooks must reflect the life and culture of the people whose language pupils study.

Each textbook consists of lessons or units, the amount of the material being determined by the stage of instruction, and the material itself.

The lessons may be of different structure. In all cases, however, they should assist pupils in making progress in speaking, reading, and writing.

The structure of the textbook for beginners should reflect the approach in developing pupils' language skills. If there is an oral introductory course, the textbook should include a lot of pictures for the development of hearing and speaking skills. Thus the textbook begins with "picture lessons". See, for example, Fifth Form English by A. P. Starkov and R. R. Dixon.

If pupils are to be taught all language skills simulta­neously, the textbook should include lessons which contain I lie material for the development of speaking, reading, and willing from the very beginning. See, for example, English 5 by S. Folomkina and E. Kaar.

The textbook should have a table of contents in which the material is given according to the school terms.

At the end of the book there should be English-Russian dictionary which include the words of the previous year and the new words with the index of the lesson where they first occur.

Every textbook for learning a foreign language should contain exercises and texts.

Exercises of the textbook may be subdivided: (1) according to the activity they require on the part of the learners (drill and speech); (2) according to the place they are performed at (class exercises and home exercises); (3) according to the form (whether they are oral or written).