I’d love to create my own materials. How can I get started?

After a teacher messaged me to say, “I’d love to be able to create my own materials. How can I get started?”, I posted the question on LinkedIN. The post had over 2,000 views and some very valuable comments. Here’s a summary of the suggestions.

• follow ELT Professionals who regularly upload worksheets and lesson plans; Nik Peachey, Peter Clements, Harry Waters or Silvina Mascitti for starters. Silvina also recommends freeed.com for materials.

• sign up for training:
  • The Cambridge CELTA or Trinity CertTESOL are quality initial teacher training courses which lead to an internationally recognised qualification.
  • John Hughes is running the Creating and Writing your own ELT Materials for Oxford University’s Department for Continuing Education in July.
  • NILE runs an online course in Materials Develoment for Language Teaching.

• get some of these books:
  • any of the books in the ELT teacher 2 writer series
  • John Hughes and Lindsay Clandfield’s ETpedia Materials Writing, Pavilion-elt
  • Nik Peachey’s Peachey Publications has loads of eGuides, including Becoming an E-Publisher

• listen to podcasts, Billie Jago‘s ELT CPD regulary runs mini-series on writing materials.

• join a writing group or SIG (special interest group), for example IATEFL’s MaWSIG.

What are your suggestions?