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<h4>Authentic material gives the students the opportunity to see and hear real language as used by native speakers. Authentic material form an important part of most English language courses. Despite the rich array of commercially available materials, many teachers continue to produce their own materials for classroom use. Indeed, most of us spend a substantial amount of time looking for, choosing, evaluating, adapting or making our own materials to use in our classrooms. With all this work going into preparing supplementary materials, it’s important for us to think about how to make things work as effectively as possible.</h4>
<h2>3.1 WHAT IS AUTHENTIC MATERIAL?</h2>
<h4>Anything that was written or recorded in English without the purpose of teaching English as a second language is authentic material. The following is a compilation of authentic material</h4>
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<h4>sources; however, it is not an exhaustive list, since more and more material gets created on a daily basis.</h4>
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<h4>Ad Banners, advertisements, billboards</h4>
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<h4>Catalogues, college and university brochures, flyers, travel brochures</h4>
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<h4>Movies, scripts, commercials</h4>
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<h4>Radio shows, newspapers, Internet websites, magazines, TV shows</h4>
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<h4>Social media, YouTube, Phonebooks</h4>
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<h4>Ticket stubs, manuals, menus, maps</h4>
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<h4>Greeting cards, horoscopesThe English used in authentic material is natural and its sole purpose is communicating whatever the material was created for, rather than teaching a particular structure. This can make the overall language in the material a little challenging, especially for students in beginner or lower intermediate classes; however, authentic material is an excellent source of new vocabulary. In fact, the interest level rises so much when students are presented with authentic material, that their need for comprehension compensates for the difficulties they encounter.3.2 LEVELSSome people argue that authentic material should be used with higher-level students only, but a menu, flyers or even a newspaper (if you only focus on the headlines or certain words) can be used with beginner students. The key is to make sure that the instructions and activities are aimed for the correct level. A simple ‘word search’ where students have to find words they already know and highlight them, or cut them out of a magazine for example, can expose beginner or lower intermediate students to authentic material in a successful way.</h4>
<h2>3.3 SUPPLEMENT THE TEXTBOOK</h2>
<h4>Authentic material can be used in many different ways.</h4>
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Material

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Activity / Task

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Level

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Flyers &amp; Catalogues

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Vocabulary and Bingo games

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Beginners

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Menu

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Practice ordering / Role-play

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Beginner – Low-intermediate

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Horoscopes

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Future Tense / Conditionals

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Intermediate

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Ticket stubs &amp; Travel Brochures

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Writing a travel journal or a short story

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High intermediate

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Material

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Activity / Task

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Level

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Advertisements

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Reading Comprehension, Vocabulary and Media study

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Advanced

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<h4>In conclusion, authentic materials have an indefinite number of uses for all kinds of lessons and levels. When we include authentic material in our ESL lessons, the way students learn is more natural and resembles acquisition of the language rather than forced learning of certain grammatical structures.</h4>
<h4>3.4 CONTEXT IS KING</h4>
<h4>Ok, so what do we mean by contextualization? Basically, all materials should be contextualized to the syllabus they are intended to address. When designing your material, the objectives of the syllabus must be kept to the fore. Although we’re not suggesting you stick rigorously to a particular vocabulary list or to one or two specific syllabus objectives, these should nevertheless be among your preliminary considerations.</h4>
<h4>In addition to the content of your syllabus, materials should match the context in terms of the experiences, daily realities, and even the first languages of the learners. This essentially refers to understanding the ‘socio-cultural appropriacy’ of things such as the material maker’s own style of presenting material. In its simplest terms, this might mean making adjustments from what you consider to be a good piece of supplementary material to what learners think is good. This might mean, for instance, making materials more serious then you’d like and cutting down on the fun aspect.</h4>
<h4>Finally, contextualization refers to the kinds of topics and themes that can provide meaningful, purposeful uses for the target language. Relevance and appropriateness are key here; for many learners, this will actually mean sticking to tried and tested topics such as family, holidays, or money. One action is vital here: find new angles on those topics! Having done that, the next thing is to develop activities which ensure purposeful production of the target language or skills.</h4>
<h4>Key questions for your materials</h4>
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<h4>What is it in your material that will make it compelling to your teaching context?</h4>
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<h4>Is there anything in your material that will be totally unknown or inappropriate?3.5 USING VIDEOVideos are one of the richest authentic materials because of the context, visuals, sounds, and variety of themes they provide. Let’s look at seven ESL activities and tasks that students can complete before, during, and after watching a video.</h4>
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<h4>1) Fill in the Blanks</h4>
<h4>This is the most common kind of activity. As a teacher, you can listen to the movie and prepare a part of the script and blank out some of the words for students to listen and complete. Very often the script can be found online as well. To make this activity a little more challenging you can ask the students to guess the word or phrases that have been blanked out using the context around it, and to make it simpler you can provide the first letter of the word or phrase or just provide options in a box for students to choose from.</h4>
<h4>2) Spot the Word</h4>
<h4>Another fun listening activity is to give the students a set of words or phrases that they have to listen for and check them off on a handout. This can be even set up like a bingo card and students can yell ‘Bingo’ when they have them all.</h4>
<h4>3) Spot the Still Image</h4>
<h4>Similar to the activity described above, you can provide the students with a set of still images from the movie and as the scene takes place they must let you know they’ve recognized it. This is ideal for lower-level students and to ensure they pay attention while watching.</h4>
<h4>4) Match the Dialogue to the Character</h4>
<h4>Another listening activity would be to give the students a dialogue that has been mixed up and they have to match the sentences to the characters who say them. An extension to this activity would be to ask the students to pretend to be those characters and read out the dialogue trying to imitate the way the characters speak. This extension can actually be applied to many other activities and it helps develop fluency and intonation.</h4>
<h4>5) Silent Watching</h4>
<h4>Another activity is to watch a scene without any sound and ask students to guess what is happening and why. For more advanced students they can even be challenged to guess what the characters are actually saying and re-create the dialogue. As an extra challenge, you could ask them to read the lines they created as the movie plays silently. This is a great activity to help develop more speaking fluency through practice.</h4>
<h4>6) Comprehension</h4>
<h4>When watching a full movie, or full episode, comprehension questions in short answer form or multiple-choice form can help you check how much the students understood. Even students who</h4>
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<h4>are not good at listening skills tend to do better with movies or TV shows because the context helps them to comprehend more.</h4>
<h4>7) Write a Summary or a Review</h4>
<h4>You can ask students to write a summary in order to recommend the movie to their friends; or to write a review pretending to be a critic. Ideally, you could let them read some reviews of other movies so they can understand the style in which to do it.</h4>
<h4>Other Creative Activities</h4>
<h4>Depending on the level of the students they can also interact with the plot by changing or predicting the ending if they haven’t seen it before. They can write interviews with the characters or even add ‘deleted’ scenes that they can even act out as a special project or extension of the activity.</h4>
<h4>Possible Drawbacks</h4>
<h4>Younger students, children and teenagers, will definitely welcome this kind of activity and take it as a treat or special event. You must make the most of the students’ engagement, but also be careful that they do not tune out and start doing something else because they consider it an unimportant moment in the class.</h4>
<h4>Older students could question the validity of such a fun activity, especially if they have grown up in an educational system that was quite strict and used only direct instruction. Therefore, you must make sure the aim of the lesson is clear at all times and they know that they are not just watching for fun, but also for a reason</h4>
<h4>3.6 USING SONGS</h4>
<h4>When we consider that almost 100% of students enjoy listening to music and most of them also enjoy songs in English, we realize that songs in ESL classes can prove to be a very valuable resource.</h4>
<h4>Thanks to globalization and the ever-present media in our lives, music in English is popular all around the world and readily available through a number of sources. In fact, students often listen to music in English – and sometimes even sing along – without knowing the language yet.</h4>
<h4>Another reason why it’s beneficial to bring music and songs into ESL classes is that it can set a better pace and a better mood for everyone in the class. Improving the overall atmosphere of the class by using a song can have long-lasting benefits for everyone involved.</h4>
<h4>Last but not least, songs can be easily adapted to fit different goals or aims in a lesson. Once the song is chosen, the teacher can easily adapt it according to the level of the students, and the need of the lesson.</h4>
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<h4>When to Include Songs in The Lesson</h4>
<h4>Songs can be added to any part of a lesson. If a teacher is using the Presentation-Practice-Production model, songs can be used mostly as part of the presentation and practice stages, and even the production stage if the students in the class are very creative.</h4>
<h4>With a Test-Teach-Test model, songs can be used in any of the test stages and even the teach stage if the song talks about the language point being taught and practiced in class, or if the teacher can create a song about the rules of grammar.</h4>
<h4>If a Task-Based approach is used for the lesson, songs can also fit in several stages during the class. They can be used as pre-tasks, as the main listening task, and even during the language focus stage if the song discusses the concepts necessary to understand the language point being taught and practiced.</h4>
<h4>Tips for Success</h4>
<h4>Firstly, there are certain things to bear in mind when deciding which song to use and how. Teachers need to do some detective work to find out what kind of songs their students like and what they don’t like at all. Of course, classes are not “a-la-carte”, but if we can cater to students’ interests the motivation factor will always create a more lasting memory and a better experience for everyone.</h4>
<h4>Secondly, the timing is also very important. Songs will change the pace of a lesson and the right type of song can be used to liven up a group of students who are slowly getting disengaged or to calm a rambunctious group down when it is needed.</h4>
<h4>Having the right handout for the lesson is key as well because a handout with too many blanks can become frustrating for students. Once the handout is created the teacher should try to complete it or ask someone else to complete it before using it in the classroom in order to make sure it is neither too challenging nor too easy for the level of the students in this particular class.</h4>
<h4>Finally, it is also important to bear in mind the noise level in and around the classroom when working with a song. On the one hand, the volume of the song needs to be loud enough to be clear for all students, but not too loud to disturb other classes. On the other hand, the noise level outside the classroom should be taken into account because it can become a hindrance when working with a song. For example, if the lesson happens to coincide with a moment or a day when there is construction nearby, the teacher will have to change the lesson plan and save the song portion of the lesson, or maybe the whole lesson for another moment or another day.</h4>
<h4>Interes8ng and Useful Websites</h4>
<h4>The website lyricstraining.com is a great free online resource with a varied database of songs and videos for students to practice and work on either in class or at home. On this website, students can choose a song to work on and as it plays they have to fill in the blanks. The level of difficulty can be chosen and it is also interesting that each song includes the type of English it uses.</h4>
<h4>As the song progresses students can complete the blanks. If they are running behind, the song is automatically paused and restarts when they complete the word or skip it by pressing the tab key.</h4>
<h4>Finally, the website runs on a timer and it keeps track of how many words were completed correctly in order to give students a score at the end of the exercise.</h4>
<h4>This website can be used as part of a lesson in class or it can be assigned for students to do on their own at home to continue practicing.</h4>
<h4>Furthermore, it is believed that when students listen to music and / or sing about what they must learn, auditory learners especially, and all students, in general, have a higher chance to succeed. To this effect, the website educationalrap.com was created and it provides a variety of raps that can be purchased and downloaded for use in the classroom.</h4>
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<h4>These raps can be used as part of the presentation in a PPP lesson, or the language focus stage in a task-based lesson. They can also be edited and blanks can be added to be used as the practice stage in a lesson.</h4>
<h4>From Grammar Clozes to Debates</h4>
<h4>With popular songs, one of the typical ways of including them in the classroom is to edit the lyrics and add blanks, making the song a cloze exercise for students to complete. For instance, some songs lend themselves well to be turned into exercises on verb tenses by just blanking the verbs and asking students to listen and complete. If the teacher decides to leave the base form of the verb in the lyrics between brackets, students can be asked to try to fill in the blanks before listening and use the listening portion of the exercise to check their answers. If the blanks do not include the verbs in base form, students would have to listen and complete the blanks and then take up answers with a classmate or as a whole class.</h4>
<h4>Apart from tenses, more complex structures can also be taught or practiced with the aid of songs. The fact that often phrases are repeated in songs becomes a somewhat natural way of drilling a structure students need to learn.</h4>
<h4>Furthermore, there are many songs that deal with interesting themes and topics that can spark great discussions in the class. These can be used for excellent lessons focusing on listening and speaking skills in which students can be encouraged to discuss their opinions.</h4>
<h4>Current events are frequently the inspiration for popular songs, and these songs can spark great debates. When including controversial topics, however, it is important to be well aware of the kinds of students in the class and be sure to avoid offending anyone.</h4>
<h4>In conclusion, songs can be used for a very wide variety of lessons in ESL; such a versatile resource should not be wasted!</h4>
<h4>3.7 USING COMICS</h4>
<h4>ESL teachers can find comics in newspapers and online. This is a simple and very interesting authentic material that many ESL teachers often overlook. Comics can be exploited in similar ways to regular text and they have the added element of fun and humour to attract the students’ attention. Different comics can be used for the following activities:</h4>
<h4>Presen8ng or Reinforcing Grammar Points – Teach English with Comics</h4>
<h4>Students are used to grammar being a ‘boring’ topic in English class and they often dread learning new grammar points or practising what they have already learned. A great way to surprise them in a favourable way is to use a comic strip to do this.</h4>
<h4>When presenting a new grammar point, you must make sure that the use is very clear through the context of the comic strip. Avoid using a comic strip that has the new grammar point as part of the punchline, since comprehension of the grammar point is tied to understanding the punchline and it could become too difficult for the students. On the other hand, if the grammar point or structure is, in fact, part of the punchline or even is the key part of the punchline, the comic strip becomes a perfect tool to practice this particular grammar point once your students have already understood it completely.</h4>
<h4>When you use the comic strip to present new grammar, highlight it and use eliciting questions to lead the students to understand its meaning and use. If, on the other hand, you use the comic strip to practice the grammar point, you can blank it out or ask more challenging comprehension questions about its meaning and use in the comic strip.</h4>
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<h4>Introducing a Discussion</h4>
<h4>Comic strips are concise and to the point by nature, thus they can be used to introduce a discussion for a speaking class in a direct, yet creative way.</h4>
<h4>The fastest way to start a discussion would be to use only one comic strip and lead a whole-class discussion. This can be effective if it has a different kind of follow up, or if the aim of the class is not to have the students talking for a long period of time. If the aim is to make the students practice their speaking skills, it is better to divide them into groups, or pairs, to ensure more students practice speaking at the same time. After they discuss in groups or pairs, you can ask them to share a conclusion per group or pair as well.</h4>
<h4>Introducing or Prac8sing Vocabulary</h4>
<h4>As comics are almost always based on dialogue, they are an excellent source of vocabulary that is used frequently. Also, they often include many idiomatic expressions. The images in comic strips can often provide a reliable context for students to infer the meaning of the new vocabulary words.</h4>
<h4>Character Study</h4>
<h4>If students are presented with a series of comic strips once or twice a week, they begin to develop an understanding of the characters in the comic that is similar to that of a character study in a novel. For students who can’t read a novel yet, this is a great precursor activity that will help them learn the basics of this literary activity.</h4>
<h4>Teaching Wri8ng</h4>
<h4>After students have read different comic strips, they can be encouraged to create their own by filling in the speech bubbles of a comic strip that has been blanked out; or by creating the images to go with speech bubbles that are already provided by the teacher. This kind of creative writing is less daunting than writing a short story, but just as challenging – or more challenging sometimes, depending on what the students are accustomed to. If students find this particularly difficult, working in pairs or groups is a great way to start.</h4>
<h4>A word of cau8on ...</h4>
