Utilization of Instructional Materials in Teaching and Learning Theatre Arts in Nigerian Tertiary Institution: Prospects and Challenges

Abstract

The term instructional material has been misunderstood by mostyoung student-teachers and learners to be those materials whichcould be used to “show” or illustrate to learners’ aspects of a topicin a subject. They see it as a material which must be shown or“flashed” to learners during a learning process without whichlearning cannot be effective. To some extent, this assumption canbe myopic in nature because it does not fully capture the essence ofwhat instructional materials are in a learning process. Suffice it tosay that, instructional materials are any item or element which atutor uses to deliver the best teaching experience, Nze, (2008) andAgun (2009) defines instructional materials as the material helpfulto the teacher and students alike, and they maximize learning invarious areas of education endeavor. Uzuegbu, Mbadiwe, andAnulobi (2013) succinctly describes instructional materials as anydevice used to assist the instructor in the preparation of a lesson,the teaching of that lesson and also facilitate students’ learning ofthat subject topic and these include locally improvised materials orcommercially purchased.