53. What can you do when you do not have any books?

- You should always remember that you are your best resource. Your creativity
simply needs to be put to work and your students will enjoy the diversity of your
classes and will happily give you a helpful hand in the preparation of your lessons.

Suggestions:

. 1. Pictures

- A good idea is to keep a picture file. Any picture can turn into a valuable piece of a
teaching material To collect pictures you simply have to read newspapers and
magazines with a pair of scissors at hand.

- Whenever a picture strikes your fancy , cut it out and throw it into a box nearby. You
may ask your students to help you sort and file them under different categories, such as
people, landscapes, food, clothing,animals, houses and interiors, furniture, jobs,
interesting or funny situations, travelling, shopping, human faces, etc. You should not
ignore the small-size pictues when they tell you a story. They may be used in pairwork
or groupwork or individually;

- Newspapers and magazines are a good source of funny cartoons and interesting
advertisements which can become useful teaching materials in class. A picture is worth
a hundred of words if you have it at hand as it can generate a lot of language ;

2. Postcards

- they can be used either to describe places, weathe rbut also to express likes,

dislikes,preferences,wishes,hypothesis (I'd like to be in the mountains now orIf I were at

the seaside Td walk on the beach) You may ask your students to bring postcards to
school and describe them or speak about the people they have received the postcard
from, or the event, or to give their reason why they have brought that postcard to
school. They may also use postcards as context for writing (e.g. holiday messages).

3. Simple Clasroom Drawings

- Very simple figures can be turned into characters in a story by putting them into
relationship, providing a setting, introducing emotions. You don't need very much detail
to convey expression. You can get long way by scribbling or by getting your students
to do that for you. Pictures can be part of a continuum.

4. Cards

- You can prepare cards with pictures and individual words or halves or pats of
sentences or questions and answers to be used in different ways : matching exercises,
as word cues in substitution drills , or for review purposes, or as prompts in speaking
activities.

5. Realia ( Real Objects)

- having a large box in the classroom containing different objects the teacher can gather
and which may be used to illustrate lexical items or cultural concepts. They may also
contribute to creating a friendly atmosphere and to activating the peripheral learning
together with some charts, lists of verbs, posters, famous quotes, maps etc

6. Games

- The language games help give practice in language and keep the class lively a
interesting at the same time. They have to be selected so as to correspond to age of
your students, their interests and learning level. Nevertheless, all student no matter
their age, enjoy playing. Sometimes they may contribute with origi adaptations of well-
known games. Students may be also challenged to make f own games (e.g. board
games containing either lexical items or different st turcs). The games may be used as
warmers or fillers or as a follow up to soi activity. They are fruitful when there is a link
between the game and what students have learnt or are about to learn.

Some examples of games:

1. Magic squares

- each magic square consists of six or eight different words that can be read to right, or
top to bottom. The magic squares may be used in different
• Students find all the words ending in "s" and say whether they are plurals or the
third person singular of a present tense verb ;

• Students are given the words and are asked to create the square for themselves;

• Students list the words according to which part of speech they belong to.Some
words can appear in more than one column;

• Students make up sentences using all the words in the square.

2. Creatures from outer space

-This game can be used to encourage students to practise definitions ;

3. Magic Carpet

- PIace a piece of material on the floor and tell students it is a magic carpet.

Th student writes the name of a country* on a piece of paper and puts it in a hat.
In turns, students take a name from the hat. sit or stand on the "magic carpet"

and describe one thing they can experience in this country for each of their senses
what they can sec, smell, hear, feel and taste). The other students guess where are.
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