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Skip to 0 minutes and 4 secondsOh, loads of resources, authentic materials. So for example, all the newspapers, anything on the internet. I mean anything. Anything that you would use in your day-to-day life could be used as a teaching resource. Teachers can use books, magazines, songs, films, TEDTalks, board games. The world is your oyster, really. I don't think there's any limit to what resources teachers can use. Anything can be a resource, really. You just have to be curious. I think, perhaps, a whiteboard or a blackboard or some kind of board is the basic minimum. I might be wrong. There could be teachers who can teach a fantastic [INAUDIBLE]. I would struggle without a whiteboard, I think. But I think you - any resources.

Skip to 0 minutes and 54 secondsSo the internet is a big one. YouTube. I probably download a new YouTube video every day for one of my classes, short clips. They can do so much for the students, related to areas of interest or needs. I use - and this is, again, something personal - but I use songs. For example, lately I had to teach second conditional and third conditional. Bingo! Beyonce, Adele. And they don't realize that they are learning grammar and they are listening to English. Which Beyonce and Adele? Which song? "If I Were a Boy," and "If It Hadn't Been for love," Adele.

Resources, resources and more resources

In the previous activity Monica and Marie Therese provided some examples of resources. In this video our teachers give more examples. Watch the video, list the resources mentioned and say what category they fall into (eg published material, authentic material, realia).

You can do the task in a table like this one (we’ve given you an example):

Resource Category
Newspaper Authentic material


These teachers talk a lot about authentic material, don’t they? This is interesting when you consider that in most schools teachers and learners will have a coursebook which they follow and use during the course. So, why do teachers talk so much about authentic material? How does the use of authentic material work with using a coursebook? Use the comments section to share your answers.

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This video is from the free online course:

Exploring the World of English Language Teaching

Cambridge Assessment English

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