The Tools of the Trade

THE TOOLS OF THE TRADE

First of all, let’s define what tools of the trade means.

The tools of the trade or the tools of your trade are the skills and equipment that you need to do your job. It means all the things that will be useful to develop a class.

It is important to take into consideration all the tools that will make you be a good teacher since those things will help you to define if you are doing a good job or not.

We can also include the Words creativity and imagination in this part because they are two very important elements for teaching.

It is necessary to explain why the words creativity and imagination are included in the tools of the trade as i mentioned in the paragraph above.

The answer for that is that creativity and imagination go together with the ability that a teacher owns at the moment to develop a class, but also, the physical world is the main means of conveying meaning to Young learners. A long list of aids is necessary in the classroom to convey a meaning in some way.

If a teacher wants to convey a very clear message to his/her students, to make use of different kind of objects will be the best way to do it. If you make a full use of things and objects as well as the language, you will have good results as a teacher because in that way, you can get the student’s attention, and the process of learning will be easier for them.

As teachers to bring universal learning ideas to life in your classroom by creating and sharing your own educational materials is essential. Some of the materials that teachers can carry out to the classroom are:

Class mascot

A class mascot could be a good tool to use in a class. It can be a teddy bear, a doll, or a character that is significant for them.

Puppets

The teacher can create his/her own puppets. The puppets can be made with paper, bags, glove puppets and even puppets made with your hands or fingers. This technique is very useful if you apply it to develop activities such as, stories, dialogues, and sketches.

Paper dolls

This could be a good option to teach topics such as, the body parts, and clothing.

Picture cards

In here, the teacher can collect several drawings, pictures or cut-outs from magazines. They would be created in different size. It depends on the activity that the teachers want to do with the students. Then, the teacher may assign those picture cards to each student to develop the topic.

Card games

Most of the teachers use this technique to develop a topic. Card games can help students to memorize words just seeing them since thanks to those games they will recognize them later. Find innovative games that teach critical thinking.

Word/sentences cards

In here, the teachers can make cards that contain words or sentences that students are used to hear during the classes, so they can recognize and know how they are written.

I would add more of these tools to the list of materials that teachers need to have to improve their teaching process, and they would be:

Calendar, a clock, maps, wallcharts, toys, building blocks, cassette recorders, projector, and all the things that the teacher thinks are necessary.

There are several tools that teacher can use for the teaching process. However, there will be some of them that will not be appropriate or useful for any student that is why, teachers must have several more options in order to supply every student’s necessities. Textbooks, audio and video recordings, websites, and teacher-designed worksheets, tasks, and activities represent just some of the many “tools of the trade” for language and literacy teachers and learners.

Teaching/learning materials such as these play a very important role in the classroom and thus deserve careful analysis and evaluation to ensure that they are engaging, supporting and inspiring learners to the fullest extent possible. One way to check if these tools will work for the students is to examine the materials for the knowledge processes, to experience, and to analyze them.

Nowadays, technology plays a big role in the teaching process that is why, some teachers have started to use apps to make the process more efficient, and the students can be more interested about it since technology is a topic in which students are very familiar with.