 Hello, this presentation is going to focus on the use of course books, materials and teaching aids. There are many materials that we can bring to our classroom that will help with the teaching of our lessons, and these include though they're not limited to things such as the whiteboard similar to the one that we're using here, various types of visual aids, created or bought worksheets, the use of cassettes, CDs and DVDs and the use of video. And in these classroom materials we can also include things such as dictionaries and course books, various types of resource book that we'll have a look at, and other materials such as photocopiers, computers, OHPs. So what we'd like to do is just to take a general look at some of the issues relating to each of these types of material. So let's have a look at some of the more general issues when using the whiteboard. Perhaps the most important thing to start with is that we should start with a clean board. Secondly, it's always very useful to make a board plan so that you know where things are going to appear on the board by the end of your lesson. Very simple to do a board plan, just take a sheet of paper which is similar in shape to the board that you're going to use, and then onto that piece of paper decide where all the information that's going on to your board is going to be by the time that you've finished. So a very simple board plan just to show where the information is going to be. Also, it's very useful if you make use of tables and columns to separate different areas of your work, and in the same way you can use colour for the same effect. So by starting with a clean board, decide on which areas of that board are going to be used for your various types of information, and then within that the use of different colours for different types of information. It is important that you only put the essential information needed by the students on the board. They will have a tendency to copy everything down that you put on there, so make sure that you only use the board for essential information. When you're writing on the board, it's very important that you use print and that you separate all of the letters, and as soon as any information is no longer required on the white board, then clear it away. The next idea we're going to consider is the use of visual aids, and visual aids can include some examples such as real objects, which we call reallia, the use of pictures, photographs, and also the use of models. So let's consider some of the ideas surrounding the use of visual aids. Why are they useful? First of all, the use of a visual aid can reduce teacher talk time. It's very much more simple just to show a real object than to try to describe it, so that we could just ask the students what is this, and they would say this is a pen, rather than trying to actually describe it. Again, if we were trying to show examples of fruit and vegetables, rather than to try and describe them, why not use an actual model? So here is my set of model fruits that I can use, and this is going to be much more visually stimulating than me trying to just actually describe them. One of the things that that additional visual information does, studies have shown that by seeing things, it actually aids memory. Another thing that these visual aids can do is that they can actually stimulate discussion by having some form of real object or photo, etc. Then we can actually stimulate a discussion in some way, and they can actually be used to illicit language. An example might be the use of a photograph, so I might show my students a photograph in something like this, and make sure that they can understand what it is, a illicit language surrounding possible scenarios from that photograph and so on and so forth. It is quite important, however, when you're using a photograph of this type, that you make sure that it is big enough for everyone to see. You don't want an example like this where we say, okay, what do you think of this? And there's so much information there that the students can't actually see what it is that you're referring to. So make sure that pictures can be seen by everyone. Finally, in terms of the use of visual aids, although we can buy certain objects and we can cut things out of magazines and newspapers and so on, lots of ideas that we can come up with for visual aids, we can actually make ourselves. So anything that you don't have, have a go at actually making it. Next, a couple of issues surrounding the use of worksheets and work cards. Firstly, these types of materials can either be bought or they could be made by yourself. Very often, many of the book series that we use will have work cards in their teacher resource book. Worksheets and work cards are very useful because they can act as a prompt to introduce an activity or a topic. They can also be used for role plays and one of the things you need to be aware of when making worksheets and work cards yourself is that you need to make them durable. So whenever you create a work card, if you put it on some hard backing and then put it inside some cellophane or covered plastic just to make them durable and those types of work cards and worksheets can last for years. So examples of worksheets and work cards we may have in our teacher's resource book is quite possible that we may have some worksheets actually given inside there and those types of books also contain work cards that we can use as activity sheets. And things like games. This is an example of snakes and ladders that we can use with our students to create language. So worksheets and work cards are very, very useful. If we now consider what we might call the technology that we could use within the classroom then that could include things such as cassettes, the use of CDs, the use of DVD and video. Some general issues surrounding the use of these types of material make sure whenever you're using any of this type of technology that you know how it actually works. When using it for a listening activity for example how long does it take for the whole tape to play through, how long does it take to rewind and so on. Other issues that you might need to think about is if you're using a cassette player or a CD or something that you set the volume level before you actually start the lesson so that when you switch on you don't shock everyone with a very loud sound or that they can't actually hear it. It's also make sure before the lesson takes place that the whole extract of whatever it is you're playing is actually useful and that it works. There's nothing worse than getting to the end of an extract of listening activity and the final bits of information that they need can't be heard because of the quality of the tape or whatever. The ideas around using CDs and so on they have a variety of uses and they're good for different types of activity and they can certainly act as a prompt and create interest in a particular topic. Also because they're not used all that often they can be very motivational but it is important that they are used in the right way and we should make sure that whenever we use this type of material that it has some educational purpose and it's not just seen as something special that takes place during the lesson. The next item we're going to consider is the use of dictionaries and here perhaps the first thing we should do is to make a distinction between the two main types of dictionary and that distinction is between the monolingual and the bilingual dictionary. In a monolingual dictionary you have a word and it's associated meaning and those two are both described for example in English so the word and the description of that word are both given in English whereas a bilingual dictionary that word meaning could often be for example the word given in English and the explanation given in Thai and vice versa. So what can we use a dictionary for? Well within the dictionary itself obviously we can get things like how words are spelled so the spelling of the word we can also get the pronunciation of that word because most dictionaries will involve the phonemic symbols that go along with that word and it's very helpful for the students to be able to pronounce it correctly. It could also give us ideas on what part of speech that that particular word can be used for so quite often after the word in the dictionary there will be letters like N or ADV for noun and adverb and so on and so forth. Another thing that it can do is to sometimes show you a typical context of that word. So within some dictionaries they actually give example sentences showing how that word can fit into context. It's quite important that we don't allow students to overuse the dictionary within the classroom itself but having said that there are some very useful homework activities that we can get the students to do by using their dictionary which is much more suitable. Our next item that we're going to consider is the use of resource books. There are many different types of resource books available and within those books there tends to be a general pattern and typically the resource book pack will come in a three book series. Typically that three book series will be in the form of the student book, a work book and a teacher's resource book. So for example here are those three books in a particular series called Total English and in the student book the type of information that we can gain from here is the actual background to the teaching points themselves plus some additional information in terms of short worksheets and so on and so forth and tape transcripts at the end for listening activities which these days often come on a CD rather than a cassette. So within the student book itself what this will give us is the actual information for the teaching point. The work book will often give us activities that are very useful in an ESA lesson for the study phase of the lesson and the teacher's resource book will not only give us some additional background to the actual teaching point but it often gives activities that are useful for the activate phase of an ESA lesson. So the three books contained in the book series basically will provide us with all the information that we need to know for the actual lesson content itself, activities to do during the study phase and activities to do in the activate phase. Now quite often some of the activities that are suggested here may not be culturally suitable or we may not have covered the exact teaching points as they have in the book so very often the activities taken from the work book and the resource book would need to be adapted or changed in some way. Let's just consider next when using these resource books the student book, the work book and the teacher's resource book what are some of the advantages and disadvantages of using those types of materials? Well firstly the main advantage perhaps of using these types of material is that it's quicker than actually creating your own. Secondly the course books that you will get will be graded for a particular level so there will be a set of books for the starter level, a set of books for the elementary level and so on and so forth. So you know that the activities and materials in there will have been graded for level. The use of the book can also offer continuity so the syllabus has been covered in a particular way by the book itself and it's presented in a logical order. Another advantage of using these types of books is the students often expect it and finally they are good for inexperienced teachers who are perhaps not able to create all of the materials that they need for themselves. Having said that particularly looking at that advantage for the last one then some of the disadvantages of using these they shouldn't be used for class because just using that course book can become very boring. Other disadvantages the books themselves will not have been created for every type of class and situation that you teach so do they actually cover the needs and interests of your class. Another possible disadvantage is that because these books have been created by large companies they always tend to be something of a compromise. It's very unlikely that these books have been created and set up for any particular teaching situation. Also another disadvantage is that over reliance on it can mean that the book is actually dictating what is being taught and obviously it should be the other way around our teaching should then lead us into what can we use from these books rather than the books telling us what we need to teach. Another final disadvantage very often it's not our decision which particular type of book that we have to use and very often either we or our students don't actually like the presentation that's given in that book. So how do we actually make best use of the course book? Well just a couple of factors that you need to keep into consideration when using these types of material. Use the course book to help you create a balance lesson in terms of the range of skills that are being taught and the actual types of material within that be it grammar or vocabulary. Secondly, don't use it all the time. Particularly with things like activities we can create our own materials and we can tailor those materials much more specifically to the actual class that we're teaching. As very often the actual creations in the book are very general we can make our own materials much more specific. Third thing you need to be aware of is that you can't always rely 100% on the information that's presented in those books both in terms of accuracy there are very often mistakes and secondly the way in which the information is presented may not be the best way for your students to understand it. So you may need to actually change the way that the books present the material to make it more understandable for your students themselves. Finally, it's very important that you actually match the material that's given in the book to your particular student's needs. Within any particular lesson they may have an equal focus on various types of skill and information but your students may need more work in one particular area than that book actually presents. So don't rely just on the information given in the book. Think about what your students need what do I need to add to it and so on and so forth. So four different possible approaches to using the course books may be to omit to replace to supplement or to adapt. With omit basically what we mean is that we leave out selected parts of the material presented in the book either a single part of a lesson or indeed a whole lesson or maybe even two or three lessons in a row so we omit certain parts of the book. We can replace material within the book with what we think is more suitable material. We can supplement additional material into what's already given in the book so in areas where we think our students need more help we can add additional material as appropriate and we can adapt. So sometimes we would perhaps like to use our own style of materials based on the information that's given in the course book rather than the course book materials themselves. Just to finish this section on materials we'll have a look at the difference between what are called authentic and created materials. Authentic materials as the name implies are actual materials that are created for any reason outside of the classroom. So examples of authentic materials would be things like newspapers. Those are generated for the general public and they're certainly not generated for the use in the classroom however they can be used within the classroom. Other ideas would be things like songs and poems and even things such as brochures and magazines and indeed menus from restaurants. So these are materials that all can be used within the classroom but they have not been created for that purpose whereas created materials as the name implies have been produced purely and simply to be used in the classroom. Examples of these would be flashcards so we may have a series of flashcards like this. Crosswords that have been created within the teaching material that we've got and at a lower level than crosswords we have things like word search and we could also include things such as picture stories, role play cards and games. In terms of the materials that you use in the classroom what we should try to do is to create a good balance of authentic versus created materials. Authentic materials have certain advantages in that because they are real the students tend to give them a little bit more value than those that have been created. So try to have a balance authentic and created materials within your activities.