Using authentic materials to make your students really care about learning

Have you ever opened a textbook and seen a picture of the first iPhone under the text that says, “Newest technology”? And when you tried to use an audio file about the first season of “Simpsons” as a listening task, you found your younger students yawning and glancing at their phones in hopes of ending the lesson and their suffering. Then you also might have wondered how to work with materials so outdated, that they are no longer relatable to both you and your students. But it is in our power, as ELT professionals, to light our students’ eyes up with interest by having a more modern approach to our lessons. 

In this session, we will talk about the importance of relevant exercise sources both to teachers and students. We will look through different approaches to creating reading and listening tasks, as well as how to find the best and the most up-to-date, popular resources that will spark up your students’ interest.

Key takeaways:

 - Ways to stay on top of modern tendencies in media and literature to create relevant and relatable tasks;

 - Different approaches to creating original learning materials based on listening and reading sources;

 - Importance of storytelling in teaching and incorporating it into your classroom.