Creating Learning Material? Come on!

Learning material is important for students as learning source. We can give the learning material by write it down on whiteboard, display it on LCD in form of PowerPoint presentation, or of print it out. Or, commonly, many teachers use a student worksheet (LKS) and/or textbook as the learning material. But sometime we are not satisfied 100% with the LKS and/or textbook; we need or want to create learning material by ourselves. Sometime we need or want to combine materials and exercises from some resources in one paper (one bundle of papers) which are accord with the planned learning activities. Here are some things we must pay attention about creating our own learning material.

Learning Material contains:

• ·         The clear name of each stage

There must be stage name. Stage here can be meant the skills (e.g.: listening section, speaking practice, etc), the activity stage (e.g.: elaboration, exploration, and confirmation/ building knowledge of the field, modeling of text, joint construction of text, and individual construction of text). You can manage the stage based on your teaching style or teaching principle.

• ·         The explanation of the material

A learning material should contain material explanation. For example: the material is about narrative text, so there must be an explanation about the generic structure of narrative, social function of narrative, etc. You can give brief explanation or long and detail explanation. But it is suggested to write the brief but clear explanation to avoid a boring learning material. If you think the students must know the very specific, detail, or wider information about the material, you can give longer explanation when you are delivering the material.

• ·         Example of the material

To give the students an image of the material, we must put anor some example(s). Example(s) can make students more understand the material. Give an interesting, unique, or unusual example. It will make students pay their attention more and more to the example and it may lead them to recognize and understand the material.

• ·         Exercises

Practice makes perfect. That proverb represents the existence of exercises in learning activities and also in a learning material. We give the students chances to practice their knowledge through exercises in learning material. The forms of exercises can be created as creative as you can, as long as they are get along with the material and learning objectives. You can make multiple choice, essay, short-answer test, crosswords, make a match, picture cued question, jumbled words, or jumbled sentences, etc.

• ·         Pronunciation/ phonetic transcription

May be in the class, we do not give pronunciation or phonetic transcription course in specific time. But we can deliver a little by a little about pronunciation and/or phonetic transcription from the selected vocabularies in the material. We can display some vocabularies and the phonetic transcription in the beginning or in the last part of the learning material. Usually some book writers write it in the last section of the learning material.

A learning material should:

• §  Be interesting

The content and the appearance of learning material should be interesting. If we want the students read the material enthusiastically, we must create an interesting learning material. Then, how to make our learning material interesting to be read?

First, the content should be interesting. As I said before, the content should be delivered briefly and clearly; and the samples should be unique and interesting one. We can add some unique, funny, or wonderful facts or myths or joke related to the material. We can give up-to-date texts or samples. Try to create some variations of exercises form.

The appearance of the learning material will affect the students’ willingness to read the learning material. We must pay attention to the font size and style, the alignment, the color (if the learning material is displayed in colorful pages), etc.  A vary and unique appearance also can make students wonder and then read it. Insert some clip arts, shapes, smartArts, or charts whenever it is proper. Be creative with the alignment. You can use centre or align text right to raise the students’ interest to read it.

• §  Suitable and appropriate for the age of the learners (contextual)

Both the content and the appearance of the learning material should be contextual. The knowledge we want to display will be accepted well by the students if we provide it proper with their age.

Use proper vocabularies and grammar by considering the age of the students. Use simple sentences for students in elementary and junior high school.  In junior high school age, we can use complex sentences but use simple and common conjunction for junior high school students. Provide suitable and appropriate samples for the age of the students. There were some cases of which students were given improper sample texts. They were elementary students, but the texts were about marriage problems, money problems, etc. provide our next generation with the good ones, not the bad ones.

The appearance of the learning material should also be contextual. The use of font type and size, color, and pictures should be adjusted with the students’ age. For example: it is proper if texts using Comic Sans MS, size 14 is delivered for 4^th graders.

• §  Put the SK (standard competence) and KD (basic competence)

When we create a learning material, it should be based on SK and KD. The SK and KD we used should be put in our learning material as a reference and control toward the material. By putting SK and KD, the readers know whether the learning material is in line with the SK and KD or not.

• §  Prevent plagiarism by giving the source or modify it by ourselves.

We got our knowledge from other sources. When we want to share it to other, it is better to modify the way we say or deliver it in order to avoid plagiarism. We can restate a theory or story using our sentence, explain it wider or explain it in summary. For example: the review of Negeri 5 Menara novel, we can read other’s review but we have to modify by ourselves if we do not want to be called plagiarist. We can quote other source’s sentences exactly as it is, but we have to write the source name. For example: we want to put someone’s review of Negeri 5 Menara novel as it is, we should state the source’s name.

• §  Include clear instructions

A learning material can be said as a good learning material if it includes clear instructions. Completing with clear instruction, with or without the existence of the teacher, the students will get the instruction well without being confused. A clear instruction commonly will use one order in one sentence. If there is more than one action for an instruction or a problem (question), the sequence of the action must be written one by one sentence. It is better if the instruction is followed by an example.

Ready to create the learning material by ourselves? Cool! Let’s do the best for our better next generation.