MIDTESOL Travel Award Article Fall 2004

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There are a variety of excellent textbooks available now for the teaching of ESL. I know I have my favorites. Many are contextualized, easy-to-use and provide my students with a wide variety of activities, all of which make my lesson and syllabus planning simpler. However, as teachers we need to keep our students’ ultimate goals in mind inside the classroom.. Most students’ ultimate goal is not the ability to complete textbook exercises correctly. They want to understand others’ ideas and communicate their own thoughts to others in the world outside the ESL classroom, whether it be at their schools or universities, their workplaces, or within their social groups.

Certainly these skills can be taught to a certain degree using textbooks, but we need to guard against creating a ‘book-centered’ classroom or becoming book dependant ourselves, primarily because good textbooks may not always be available. (In many EFL situations there is no textbook at all). The textbook you may be asked to use may not be level or class appropriate, or it may lack social context or usable activities. It may also be out of date. Many textbooks contain old statistics and make references to extinct currencies, landmarks, slang terms and pop culture icons. Our students, however, need to become fluent in both the language and the culture of today, so that they can interact successfully with the world around them.

One way to guide students toward this fluency is to have them interact with authentic materials in the classroom. These materials are readily available, inexpensive, appropriate for all skill levels and not difficult to implement. Moreover, they provide students with a variety of long-term benefits. They introduce students to the culture that surrounds them and provide them with opportunities to see where different grammatical structures and types of discourse are used. Furthermore, by presenting authentic materials in the classroom, students can not only be taught to critically analyze the target culture and the beliefs behind it, but also to categorize the massive amount of media they are exposed to each day and so make suitable choices in their own leisure reading, listening, and viewing. Classroom activities become preparation for real-life scenarios.

What kinds of authentic materials can be used in the ESL classroom? Almost anything. In my recent workshop at MIDTESOL I showcased the use of ‘junk mail’. Catalogs, newspapers, magazines, store fliers, telephone books, calendars and travel brochures are just a few of the materials available to us daily. Either they are already present our homes, or they can be easily obtained from various local businesses at little or no cost. You may also want to consider using local maps, tourist attraction fliers, job applications, real estate and automotive booklets, playbills and event fliers, or menus. When choosing materials the important thing to keep in mind is what your students are likely to come in contact with in their daily lives. By introducing to these things in the classroom, your students will feel less intimidated by them when they encounter them in the outside world. They will also be motivated to give their best in your classroom because of the materials’ inherent usefulness.

In conclusion, this is not a call to throw out your books. Books are very reassuring for students and they can certainly make a teacher’s life easier as well. I would, however, encourage you to try a few of the following activities. They are guaranteed to pique your students’ interest.

5 Tips for Getting Started

• Don’t be afraid to ask at supermarkets, travel agencies and retail stores. If they can provide you with materials, they usually will.
• Take a minute to look through newspapers, catalogs and magazine with an ESL eye as they arrive at your home. Cut things out or mark them. Note sources when necessary. It will save you time later.
• Organize your materials. I like expanding files, both letter and coupon size. I also recommend keeping your pictures organized in a presentation book.
• Write down your ideas and the materials that go with them. Make notes of any variations when you use them. My current list has over 130 items.
• Make photocopies of articles and protect pictures. Many of my favorite materials are now looking the worse for wear.

 

Ideas for teaching

Newspapers-

1. Use the advice column to work with modals. Have students write answers to the questions asked in the advice column. These are also great discussion starters for talking about social customs.
2. Have students use the first paragraphs of a story to complete who, what, where, when (and sometimes why) grids. Then give them a headline and have them write their own stories.
3. Use graphs and charts for scanning or for SPEAK Test preparation. Bring in the graphs yourself or have the students find them on their own.
4. Read a movie or book review aloud and have students do global listening to determine if the reviewer liked it or not.
5. Have students phone each other and ask questions based on an ad they have chosen. (Real Estate and Automotive). They can also do this with the help wanted section. Have them chose jobs, brainstorm interview questions, and interview each other.

 

Magazines

1. Pictures can be used for description, comparison, or for writing mysteries or movie plots.
2. Have students bring in recipes and have them write transitional phrases and modals to the preparation section of the recipe. (First, you must cut up the vegetables. etc.) Then have students present recipes from their own countries to the class as process speeches. Articles on home or car repair are also good for process speeches.
3. Have students analyze ads for audience, slogan, product being sold, logo and sales technique. Then have them create their own print ads and explain them to the class.

 

Catalogs

1. Have students cut small pictures out of catalogs to make their own vocabulary picture poster or dictionary.
2. Bring in several copies of the same catalog and have students talk in pairs about

   preferences and colors. (Eddie Bauer, Bombay Company and Land’s End are

   great).

3. Find pictures of decorated rooms and have students use prepositions of place or the there + BE construction. They can also make lists of all the activities they usually do in that room. (I usually cook in the kitchen.)
4. Have students use the order forms to learn how to fill out forms correctly and then call each other to place orders.

 

Sale fliers from supermarkets, department stores, electronics stores

1. Have students scan the fliers to find prices, products, sizes, dimensions and available colors. Or present measures, weights and pricing: ounces, pounds, liters and grams, as well as 2 / $1 and $.59 / lb. Have them comparison shop to find the best product and then have them present it to a partner to practice comparison expressions.
2. Give students a list with specific qualities of certain items to buy and then have them calculate how much money they have spent. Give them coupons to practice subtraction. Have them calculate tax as well. Have other students ask –wh questions to find out about what they bought and how much it cost.
3. Work on the present progressive or articles. Have students tell a partner "I’m going to buy a/ an/ some_______" . You might turn this into a repetition drill with the whole class.
4. Work on negation. Give students different fliers. Have them make list of items.

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