On Materials Design: "A necessary evil"

At times material design could be seen as really time-consuming and highly incompatible with the routine of a busy teacher, but according to what I have learnt, it is surely worthwhile.  The reasons behind such a statement lay on the words written by Jocelyn Howard and Jae Major in the work: “Guidelines for Designing Effective English Language Teaching Materials”.  As the authors claim, making your own material allows you to contextualize it and up-date it paying special attention to your students’ needs and socio-cultural setting. Moreover, it also offers you the opportunity to give a personal touch to your teaching, something the students will certainly appreciate.

There are, however, as I mentioned before, some disadvantages when designing materials. One of them is that teachers' materials may be hard to organize, and that could cause some incoherence in your lessons. Another is that they may not have a “high-quality”, in the sense that they may leave out some contents they were supposed to cover.

As nothing can be perfect, I believe designing material is a way to improve our teaching. Consequently, it is totally worthwhile, rewarding and a “necessary evil”.