Chapter 8: Being Materialistic! Using Course Books and Other Materials 121
Making Use of Authentic Materials
If you’re not using a course book for a particular lesson, or at all for that
matter, you can make use of realia, real objects you take into the classroom
to help you teach – anything from a banana to an old shoe. Apart from
objects, realia can also be some form of text that wasn’t designed for TEFL,
such as an article from The Guardian or a recording of a sitcom.When you use realia, often the object sparks the idea for the lesson rather
than the other way round. If you have an item that’s quintessentially British
(or from your culture) that your students may find intriguing, you may
wonder how you can use it in the classroom. So, a Dr Martens boot and a
Clarks sandal are great props for a lesson on comparisons (This boot looks
much stronger than that shoe, for example) and since, more than likely, every-
one in the classroom has their own shoes you’ll find great opportunities to
expand the theme.When it comes to the banana, the obvious lesson to bring it in for is one on
fruit and veg, but you can also start a more general discussion on healthy
eating, recipes, or idioms (‘Don’t be such a banana!’, a banana republic and
so on).Although the realia won’t give you a lesson, it can give you an air of mystery
and amusing eccentricity as your students anticipate what you’ll turn up with
next.Don’t let the desire to show off the realia be the main point of your lesson. If
anyone should run into one of your students on the way home and ask what
they learnt today, the answer should never be, ‘I don’t know, but she was car-
rying a boot the whole time!’With the advent of the Internet, you can harness an endless supply of mate-
rial in English for your lessons. Hurrah! English speakers also have the advan-
tage of being able to call upon Hollywood movies, decades of famous tunes
from the Beatles to the Scissor Sisters and all the science and technology
papers conveniently written in English. So it makes sense to use authentic
materials like these in the classroom.Using text other than course books has a few drawbacks though, such as
these:✓ It’s hard to find materials just the right length for your lesson.
✓ Material designed for native speakers is often too difficult for learners in
terms of grammar and vocabulary.
✓ The text may contain too much slang or irrelevant vocabulary.
✓ Students may become overwhelmed by the variety of accents and
vocabulary in the English-speaking world.