Realia and Authentic Materials in the Classroom as supplementing materials
Topic 2: Supplementing Material
Realia and Authentic Materials in the Classroom
It is helpful to bring in objects, photos, and other realia to practice speaking skills. When students practice a role-play for shopping, have them use real objects such as clothing, food, or empty packages for products such as shampoo or soap. You could also use toy money. Other types of realia include restaurant menus, newspaper advertisements, supermarket flyers, and travel brochures. Realia can bring the context to life. You can also use photos from magazines or websites. Ask students to describe the picture, ask questions about it, or use it to tell a story.
Authentic material includes forms, news articles, videos, and websites for speakers of English as an L1. Students can interview each other using forms. They can read a news article and then role-play the people in the article. They can watch a video (an advertisement or a scene from a movie) with the sound turned off and create their own narration for it.
Learner-generated materials are recorded by the students themselves. Such materials are another way of encouraging students to interact through speaking. Students can record a question or an opinion on an audio recorder and or a computer. Then, another student can listen to it and record his response. Finally, you can replay the whole conversation for the class. Students can also create videos of plays, skits, or advertisements. They can post these on a class website and share them with other classes.
[17/05, 00:11] Ms. Ema: Topic 2: Supplementing Materials
Read the text.
Expanding Textbook Activities
There are usually many ways to expand textbook speaking activities to give students more speaking practice. Open the attached file. Refer to it as you read about ways to expand the activities.
Personalization You can personalize Activity 2 (information-gap) by asking students to do a picture dictation in pairs. One person describes the stores in their local mall or street. The other student draws the map. For Activity 3 (guided conversation), students can recycle the conversation by talking about their own plans for next week.
Games To expand Activity 6 (game), you can use a popular board game to practice speaking. Write questions or topics on cards. The students answer the questions or say three sentences about the topic in order to move forward in the game.
Audio-recording To expand Activity 5 (mixer activity), ask students to record their conversations or stories. They can transcribe part of it for homework. Ask them to find ways of improving it. Then they can record the conversation again. The transcriptions can go into their portfolio.
[17/05, 00:11] Ms. Ema: Topic 2: Supplementing Materials
Read the text. When you are finished, click Submit.
More Techniques and Activities to Improve Speaking Skills
Students can use a variety of techniques to develop their speaking skills.
Sing songs. A good way to improve pronunciation is with songs and poems. There are many songs available with lyrics on audio CD and on the Internet. Some are available on video (on DVD or Internet) with words shown on the screen so that students can sing along. Singing can improve pronunciation, as well as help students practice vocabulary and grammar. Singing with your students is a good way to make language learning fun.
Play games. Play games such as Bingo to practice pronunciation. This can motivate students who enjoy competition. Play continues until one person has all the cards. To play Bingo: Students work in groups. Each student writes a set of words randomly in a grid like the one below. You can choose the category of words, for example, food nouns or action verbs. The example below focuses on specific phonemes as shown in the minimal pairs, for example thin and tin. One student in each group calls out words from the cards at random. When the students hear a word, they cross it out or place a coin or paper clip on it. The first one with three markers in a row across or down is the winner.
thin win ran
tin thing ban
rang bang wing
Keep an audio journal. Instead of writing in a journal, students can audio record a few sentences every day to describe what they did, or to talk about their feelings and plans. They can try to use the new words, expressions, and idioms that they have learned recently. Later they can listen to their recordings and see how much they have improved.
Start an English club. Students can start a weekly discussion group to meet and talk about topics of their choice. They could play games for learning English on the computer or watch movies in English. They could also "meet" each other by talking online.
Find an English-speaking e-pal. There are many websites designed to connect students learning English from other countries. Students can talk online, share projects such as videos and stories, and join in discussions. Another way to find e-pals is to link up with a school in another country and have students from each class talk online or exchange emails.
[17/05, 00:12] Ms. Ema: Topic 1: Learning Aims and Outcomes
Look at the textbook activities and listen to the audio. Think about the learning aim and possible learning outcome of the activities. Then read the text.
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Learning Aims and Learning Outcomes
The first step in planning listening for your course is to identify learning outcomes. Your textbook or curriculum often identifies the learning outcomes for a skill. Sometimes you may have to identify them yourself. A learning outcome will often be in the form of a can-do statement. An example for listening might be: Students can follow directions.
To achieve a particular learning outcome, a course will usually have a sequence of activities. Each activity has a specific learning aim that helps students to meet the learning outcome. Look again at the sequence of activities on the left for junior high school students. The learning outcome that these activities work towards is: Students can listen to and understand information about families.
Activity A
The learning aim of Activity A is to match the photo to the description of a family. Students are not listening for details; they are listening for gist, or the general ideas. Students listen for vocabulary for family members in the description they hear. They do not have to remember each word or many details. They only have to know the size of the family.
The first activity in a sequence of listening activities is often listening for gist. Gist activities introduce students to the topic or content. They may also focus on important vocabulary that students need in order to meet the learning outcome. For example, in this activity, words such as mother, father, brother and sister will be important in understanding about families.
Activity B
The learning aim of Activity B is different from the one in Activity A. Students listen again. They decide whether a statement is true or false. This activity builds on the first. While students are still listening to information about families, they now listen for details. In this activity, students listen for specific names, countries, occupations, and numbers.
