Authentic materials for teaching online

Many of us are homeschooling or teaching from home via the internet. Without the convenience of having a classroom, a library and shared school resources, we may find it difficult to engage our learners. When tutoring online, I found that even having even basic teaching aids can engage students and elevate the learning experience. Below are some suggestions of authentic materials that you most likely have in your home or can easily make.

1. Photos – Whether you are discussing holidays, travels, significant events or even sharing pictures of your life to build rapport, using (appropriate) can assist understanding and encourage discussion. It’s also a good opportunity to sort through, organise and even order prints of photos.
2. Shadow puppets – Ideal for teaching young learners, you can use any that you have around or DIY your own, following this tutorial here; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWp4PJDJ8lo
3. Story books-If you have children’s books laying around, these can break up a long or perhaps dry lesson, and is a good bonding activity between you and the children. One of my friends enjoyed reading a story to her year six class via zoom. Ensure your stories are suitable for the age group you are teaching and include appropriate language.
4. Magazines – If you have older students, you may want to scan and send an article ahead of time and include a task for them to work on ahead of time. This could be discussed during the lesson or in small groups, depending on your class size. I often buy The Big Issue and have often used articles from it in class.
5. Cinema / Bus / Theatre tickets- These are items that you may have floating around your house, and can add authenticity to a role play or even be used in a discussion of hobbies. Having something tactile can make an activity seem a lot more interesting, and again these could be scanned ahead of time. Investigating the information seen on each of these tickets could be an interesting activity.
6. Realia/ Kitchenware/ Props – some stories have vocabulary that is unknown in different varieties of English, so if you are teaching learners of English it can be useful to have prompts on hand to assist understanding. For example, a hedgehog is not a common animal in Asia, so having a stuffed toy or even a pre-drawn picture can aid understanding during a lesson on “Mrs Tigglywinkle”, for example. Similarly, having an iron on hand, may assist with differentiating between the noun and the verb, and different interpretations of the noun.

This is by no means an exhaustive list. If you have any suggestions to expand on the ideas here please leave a comment below. Thank you!