I took my first teaching qualification, the equivalent of the CELTA or Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults, more than twenty years ago. The course involved then, as it still does, doing teaching practice almost everyday of the four weeks. I, like all past and present CELTA trainees, spent hours and hours and hours preparing lessons. Which often didn't work, probably because I (like others) was so obsessed by the lesson plan. I remember desperately hoping that the students wouldn't do or say anything that I hadn't included in it. With experience and more confidence, you get a bit more relaxed about that.

One reason for the hours of preparation was that I had to make my materials from scratch. ELT materials in those days were thin on the ground. What's more, the few that did exist were quite impenetrable. What on earth were you supposed to do with them?

One of the books we had consisted of about fifteen units, each on a different function. Requests, offers, invitations etc. A longish dialogue (with no task attached to it) followed by endless lists of exponents for the function. Do you think you could .. I wonder if you could possibly.. will you .. can you and so on. And shorter dialogues, presumably for repetition? I couldn't quite see the value of all this but I was an innocent then. (The purely functional approach to syllabus design didn't last long, it has to be said.)

Nowadays we are bombarded with new materials and highly user-friendly coursebooks and teacher's notes. It's impossible to keep up with new materials as they come out. Or new versions of old books. We're surrounded by wonderful ideas on how to use all kinds of materials. Not just from the materials themselves but there are journals, websites, conferences, associations of English teachers to guide us. Teachers clamour for new ideas, new techniques, ready-made photocopiable worksheets.

An old DTEFLA (currently DELTA) exam question asked about the use of telephone directories in class. One suggestion from a candidate was that they were useful for small students to sit on. We laughed about that. Actually though, it's probably a more student- oriented response than endless, very tedious scanning activities which is presumably the kind of response that was expected. (Sorry, but would you want to read a telephone directory in class?) This teacher with short students had at least noticed who her students were.

For good or bad, we've been bombarded with materials and ideas over the last twenty years or so. The students become a bit lost in front of the videos, behind their books, under mountains of cut-up card - not only with trainee teachers. We shouldn't lose sight of the fact that the students themselves are actually our primary resource - not just for teaching 'She's got brown eyes' or 'Joao's taller than Maria'. They are our most interesting resource and should be the central feature of any lesson or lesson plan.

In fact, you could write a book the length of a telephone directory on how to use your students in class.

Julie Tice
Editor: 'in English'