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INTRODUCTION
I have always been interested in alternative and untraditional ways of teaching, since they have not been used for long time in current educational systems at primary and secondary schools. I think that some of them are really profitable and useful. I gained some experience abroad, where I saw alternative approaches and methods in practise. I was fascinated by them as well as with the results. Since that time, I am trying to get proficient in using at least some of the methods in my teaching. Therefore I decided to look closely at one of the alternative ways, use of authentic materials. I think that they are underestimated. I believe that if they were used more, English teaching would be not only more effective, but also more interesting. In the first part of my diploma thesis, I am going to explore literature dealing with usage of authentic materials and with some other important components that should be included in teaching language which are somehow connected with authenticity. In the second part of this work, I am going to describe my teaching project. I created it especially for trying to implement authentic materials into teaching at higher primary school in the Czech Republic. There are three projects with three different classes of different levels. I will also describe the results. It is my first opportunity to use my ideas in practise. I will work under experienced teachers, who can help me to discard my unrealistic ideas, if there were some and give me some valuable pieces of advice. I hope to gain a good base for my future teaching career, because I am definitely going to use some of my ideas, which will show up to be good, in my next practice.

2. AUTHENTIC MATERIALS
Authentic Materials: An Overview (2002) by Alejandro G. Martinez deals with the term authentic materials itself and with advantages and disadvantages of their use as well as possible sources of them. Authentic materials: Sometimes called authentic or contextualized, reallife materials are those that a student encounters in everyday life but that werent created for educational purposes. They include newspapers, magazines, and Web sites, as well as drivers manuals, utility bills, pill bottles, and clothing labels.1 Martinez mentions Widdowsons differentiation between authentic and genuine materials. Authentic materials are materials created for native speaker of the language and use in a class in its original form and design. In other words, they are not changed in any way. Whereas genuine materials are authentic materials adapted for a class, e. g. jumbled paragraphs, cut out headlines etc. Martinez listed following pluses and minuses: Advantages: Students are exposed to real language There is factual acquisition from most of them Textbooks do not include inaccurate language Authentic materials may be inspirational for some students One piece of text may be used for various activities and tasks There is a wide choice of styles, genres and formality in authentic texts They can motivate students to read for pleasure

Disadvantages: 1

Authentic texts may be difficult to understand because of a culture gap The vocabulary may be not exactly what the students need

MARTINEZ, Alejandro. Authentic Materials: An Overview [online]. Mexico City: 2002. Available at <www3.telus.net/linguisticsissues/authenticmaterials.html>

They are rather difficult for beginners Preparation of the texts and activities is often demanding and time consuming There are many various accents and dialects in listenings The materials become outdated quickly (news)

Sources of authentic materials

Newspapers, menus, magazines, the Internet, TV programs, movies, CDs, songs, brochures, comics, literature (novels, poems and short stories), catalogues, leaflets, tickets, postcards, bills, receipts, wrappings, recipes, business cards, labels, stamps, etc.

Where to get authentic materials

the Internet library

There is usually an English department in every city or university library. There can be found not only books, but also magazines and music. a foreign country When visiting an English speaking country, one should think about the great opportunity to get authentic materials.

Difficultness
On British Council web pages, there are described some aspects of using authentic materials. One of them is difficultness of such materials. There is said that they are difficult, but that is the point. Moreover, the trick is to set the task according to the level of the students, not to choose the material according to the students level. However, for lower levels are suitable leaflets, menus, timetables, video and audio advertisements, short reports, short news. The tasks should be rather simple and vocabulary should be introduced in advance. Excessive materials for intermediate levels can be longer articles and news or reports, whole TV programmes. The vocabulary should be pre-taught, too. With advanced

students, any authentic material can be used. Pre-teaching is not necessary, but it is good to have some explanations and definitions prepared. Claire Kramsch had a different view on authentic materials. In her book Context and Culture in Language Teaching (1996), she devoted one chapter to authentic texts and contexts. She agrees with Widdowsons definition: It is probably better to consider authenticity not as a quality residing in instances of language but as a quality which is bestowed upon them, created by the response of the receiver. Authenticity in this view is a function of the interaction between the reader/hearer and the text which incorporates the intentions of the writer/speaker Authenticity has to do with appropriate response.2 As an example, she mentions a German menu, which would not be authentic text if it was used in an English lesson to practice reading prices or learning adjective endings. It would be an authentic piece of text if it was used as a German menu. Next she says that cultural competence does not include the obligation to behave according to conventions of given speech community and that we should not want our student to behave like somebody else or plagiarize behavioural patterns. Behaving like someone else is not a guarantee that the community that speaks the language will accept the person.

Kramsch, Claire. Context and Culture in Language Teaching. Oxford University Press, 1996.

p. 178

3 . PROJECTS
In Introduction to Project Work (1992) by Tom Hutchinson, specifics of project working are described. A project is a result of hard work, because the authors have to find information for their project, get pictures or draw some, make a draft containing their ideas, then put everything together and complete the text, the result of which is a presentation. A project is an extended piece of work on a particular topic where the content and the presentation are determined principally by the learners.3 The teacher can provide the topic, but the authors decide themselves what exactly are they going to write and how will they present it. Because a project is a creative task, it is also personal. The reason for doing project work are based on the fact that there is a strong communicative aspect, which enables the students to use the language in something real, not in an artificial exercise. Principal elements of communicative approach are a concern for motivation, a concern for relevance and a concern for educational values. Motivation is a crucial key for successful learning. Project work is especially useful for developing positive motivation. As mentioned above, projects are personal. The students write about their lives, their families, their cities or their researches into topics that interest them. Because of such personal approach, both sense of the project and its presentation are important for students. Projects are not simulations. They are real. Projects are also very operative. It is actually a play. The learners have to collect information, draw pictures, maps or charts, cut out pictures, carry out interviews and surveys and make recordings.

Hutchinson, Tom. Introduction to Project Work. Oxford University Press, 1992. p. 10

Diane Phillips, Sarah Burwood and Helen Dunfold say in their publication Projects with Young Learners (2003) that projects develop childrens whole personality: intellectual skills (describing, drawing, imagination, reading, planning) physical / motor skills (colouring, painting, folding, cutting etc.) social skills (sharing, cooperation, making decisions, appreciating individual contributions) learner independence (making responsible choices, getting information, evaluating results) According to Hutchinson, project work enables all students to produce a worthwhile product. Therefore it is highly suitable for mixed ability classes and for students with special educational needs. The brighter students can work faster while at the same time, the slower students can work in their own pace and produce something they can be proud of. They can use more visual aid to compensate their language imperfection. The advantages of projects according to Phillips, Burwood and Dunfold are: The project focus is on all aspects of childrens life, not only on their linguistic competences. Therefore they can easily relate what they know from their lives to concrete problems. Projects encourage students to be responsible for their work and their learning. Projects allow students with different competences cooperate when working out the project. It is a kind of solution for mixed ability classes. Personal involvement is high, which support students motivation for further learning. Hutchinson says that projects are good for integration of foreign languages into learners communicative competence. It encourages the use of a wide range of communicative skills, enables learners to exploit other spheres of knowledge, and provides opportunities for them to write about things that are

important in their own lives.4 The language used in projects is more relevant to students needs. They can rehearse use of language, which would be the most useful for them in real life. There is a big culture part in project work. The learner can not only mention their own culture, but also explore into foreign cultures and compare them with each other. Project work supports independent work, cooperation, imagination and selfdiscipline. These are some of the basic aims in the most curricula. Recently, the requirement of cross-curricular learning has been raised and anchored in Czech Framework Educational Programme. Project work obviously encourages using knowledge gained in other subjects such as Geography, History, civics etc. There are also some disadvantages in project working. Firstly, there may be more noise in the classroom when the students are working out their projects. However, Hutchinson claims that there is not really a problem of noise, but a problem of control. The teacher has to be able to manage the class during such an alternative way of work as well as during common teaching. There will always be some noise, because the students need to discuss some thing with their classmates and need to borrow some tools or books. But it is a natural noise, which is comparable with noise made during common teaching: teachers strong voice or whole class repeating after the teacher can be even noisier. Secondly, time management is definitely a thing to consider. If a project is a group work, most of it must be done at school. But students can work outside the class, too. They can have some partial or individual tasks to work out. Lastly, the teacher has to decide whether he prefers the students to speak only English all the time or whether they can use their mother tongue, too. Hutchinson says that is does not matter when they use mother tongue. We
4

Hutchinson, Tom. Introduction to Project Work. Oxford University Press, 1992. p. 12

should rather consider its merits than to see it as a problem. The product will be English anyway, so we can allow the learners to use their mother tongue during working it out.

For teachers, project work has a wide use. It is a flexible methodology, which can be applied on every level except of complete beginners. It is suitable for all ages. The teacher should choose the topic according to the age of his students, their interests, level of English, available sources and the amount of time which can be devoted to the project.

4. VIDEO
Susan Stempleski and Barry Tomalin suggest in their book Video in Action, (1990) some good reasons why to use video in teaching and some important and useful points to concentrate on.

Why to use video?

First of all, it is a big motivation. Students become interested faster when experiencing the language in a lively and amusing was, i. e. through pictures, in this case moving pictures (films, documents, broadcasting etc.). In combination with sounds, video interprets the language in a comprehensive and realistic way. Secondly, video often makes students more communicative in target language. Thirdly, non verbal aspects of communication are presented, too. Robert Merabian, the American psychologist, said that 80 percent of human communication is non-verbal. Our expressions, gestures, posture and clothing is equal to what we say. We can see those aspects in motion on a video. Moreover, the teacher can freeze any moment he wants to and discuss it with the students. Finally, cross-cultural comparison is an indivisible feature of authentic materials. Observing differences in culture is essential for understanding other nations. Awareness of cultural background is important in learning a language. Therefore it is essential to highlight cultural habits, too.

When to use video

Stempleski and Tomalin say that video can be used at any level. It can be used as a supplementary material time to time, e. g. one a week, or it can be a part of every lesson if the course is based on it. Because video is a highly motivating devise, it is useful for beginners and elementary levels as the good motivation at the beginning is crucial.

Usage of video depends, of course, on sources, technical equipment and amount of time, which can be devoted to it.

What to focus on
Active viewing The students should be actively involved when watching. They should know in advance what are they going to watch before they get some tasks connected with watching. Active watching is especially important in watching recipes. Vocabulary Revision of vocabulary students vocabulary can be exercised and reviewed Building vocabulary new vocabulary or lexical units can be introduced and acquired from a certain sequence Grammar Revision of grammar grammar already known to students can be toughen up Grammar presentation certain grammatical structures are presented Pronunciation Sounds, stress and intonation exercises Listening / speaking skills Viewing understanding comprehension of visual component Listening focus on spoken utterances Oral retelling saying the story orally Speaking spoken presentation to the topic of the sequence Discussion discussing the topic in a group Reading and writing Reading reading activities connected with the video sequence Taking notes taking notes during watching Writing summary writing or creative writing

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Cross cultural matters Cultural apprehension cultural concerns, effects Cross cultural comparison comparing learners native culture with culture of the country of which the language are they learning

Testing
Examination based on video sequence There are two types of video material educative video and authentic video. Educative materials are CDs and DVDs which come together with textbook or which had been created for educative purposes. Authentic video is material primarily intended for native speakers, e. g. TV programmes, broadcasting, news, advertisements or films. Suggestions for lesson planning According to Tomalin and Stempleski, it is important to prepare the lesson plan and the material thoroughly. It might be time consuming, but once it is done, it can be used again next year in other class and other teachers can use it, too. The teacher should consider the needs of his students. When selecting a sequence, the teacher should choose a suitable part, which the students will be interested in. They usually do not consider a video to be an educational material. It is rather entertainment for them. If it were a boring sequence for them, they would not be willing to learn through it. The length should be adequate to the length of the lesson, to the level of the students and their age. The shortest sequence may be about thirty seconds long. It should be possible to use the sequence for more than one activity. Otherwise it may be waste of time. The teacher has to consider his pupils skills carefully. The level of language in the sequence should be neither too low nor too high for them. However, it is not a crucial parameter when choosing a sequence.

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The teacher can still provide the script and the video will provide the context, which is a basic clue to understand it. Next he should consider whether there are the relevant language items that he intends to present to the students. If his intention is a revision of vocabulary, it is necessary the sequence to contain it. The teacher is recommended by the authors to use scripts with the video itself as well. He should use it not only in the lesson, but also during the preparation, because it will show him what language is used. The video itself will show behaviour and context. The video and the script complement each other. Once the teacher has chosen a sequence, he may need to prepare some worksheets. He may need and overhead projector presentation, extra activities, transcripts of dialogues, commentaries etc. He should leave himself a lot of time, because it may be extremely time-consuming.

Some basic techniques for using video

1. Sound off / vision on (silent viewing) This technique can be used to imitate the language activity about happening on the screen or to concentrate on language production through guessing or prediction tasks. 2. Sound on / vision off The pupils can guess the characters, setting, conditions etc. 3. Pause / freeze frame control With sound on, the teacher can pause the starting point of every exchange and ask the pupils to predict words or utterances. With sound on, the teacher can pause important moments in the plot and ask the pupils questions about the situation. They can comment on previous actions and predict following ones, too.

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The teacher can pause shots of characters faces and the pupils can comment on their facial expressions, their feelings, thoughts etc.

4. Sound and vision on (listening and viewing comprehension) the pupils get worksheets beforehand and have to fill it in during viewing the pupils get worksheet after the viewing and have to fill in the correct answers or answer questions etc. the pupils are looking for rhymes / something in a certain colour / something beginning with a certain letter in the sequence the pupils are said what are they going to watch and are asked to guess what will they see / hear. After viewing, they can compare their guesses. the pupils are given the script and are asked to mark the direct speech

5. Jumbling sequences The pupils watch pieces of a sequence in jumbled order and should decide what is the correct order. 6. Split viewing One half of the pupils see the sequence without sound, the other half can only hear the sound without pictures. Various activities can follow.

Reading and use of film and TV

In teachers resource material Penguin Readers Teachers Guide to Using Film an TV (1999) by Carolyn Walker, there are useful information about reading, using video in teaching and combining those two methods. The learners can experience the spoken language in action through watching video. They can see the settings as well as the movements, body language and the characters appearances. They can watch the importance of gestures, facial expressions and eye contact in communication. It can be a good background to cross-cultural comparison, too. In comparison with pictures, that are very often

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use in language teaching, video has the main advantage in extensity of movement and time. TV and films are not intended as teaching materials. It means that it is a good source of authentic material. However, it is important to remember that there might appear language difficulties. Students should be aware of active watching, i. e. they are not supposed to relax during watching, but actively respond. There are a lot of activities that can be done before, during or after watching.

Technical equipment
The teacher should familiarize himself with the equipment. He should know how to use the controls. Before the class, the teacher should have enough time to set the equipment. He has to check whether everything is switched on and working correctly. He should play the cassette / DVD to check the sound and picture. Check whether the sound is audible at the back of the room. The teacher should ensure that everybody will be able to see the screen and that there are no lights reflecting on the screen. He should find a good place for himself where he will be during watching so that he can control both video and students.

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5. THE INTERNET
The book How to Use the Internet in ELT (2000) by Dede Teeler and Peta Gray is a very useful handbook for teachers who would like to learn how to use the Internet, where to find information and materials for their lessons and how to manage the computer, too. The authors say that it is not possible to say how many people use the Internet. But definitely, some of them are teachers and they seem to be using it almost for everything: updating language skills, searching for materials, learning about computer technology, keeping in touch with other teachers and friends, teaching, working on projects and another activities, or just enjoying themselves. According to them, the Internet is probably the biggest library in the world. It is still changing and therefore it is not possible to make an index for it. But there are another ways how to search in it the gateways. The gateways sites are common web sites. There are listed links to other web sites or documents. They are regularly updated.

Using the Internet for distance-learning

Teeler and Gray mention some good tips how to use the Internet not only as an individual, but also in a group. As mentioned above, the teacher can keep in touch with colleagues and friends, either through email or through chat (conversation in real time) or discussions and forums. The Internet can be also used for distant learning. There are several courses on-line, which one can attend. The teacher can become a learner and extend his knowledge; or can be a leader and lead an on-line course for his students.

Suggestions for further resources

Stempleski and Tomalin suggest following: Information for research: thanks to the Internet, planning and working out a research have become quicker and more amusing. You can search

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in a database and find out not only information for your research, but also another researches. Practical ideas for classroom use: you can find both materials on various topic and grammar materials such as theory, exercises, games etc. You just have to know how to adapt it for your pupils. Publishers: you can find the offers of various publishers on-line as well as some teaching tips and list of upcoming seminars and conferences. Dictionaries and encyclopaedias: a lot of books are now available in an electronic version on-line. You can even download some of them into your computer or you can have a link on your desktop. Scholarships and grants: you can find a way to fund you project / conference / travel expenses etc.

Why to use the Internet for materials

According to Tomalin and Stempleski, one of the advantages is topicality of course a lot of materials are old, but there are new ones added monthly, weekly or daily. The teacher does not have to buy the publications and can download them from the Internet or print them straight from the web page. Other one is personalization the teacher cannot change the textbook he is working with, but he can find suitable materials on the Internet and modify them if needed. There are some disadvantages, too. Firstly, it is a lack of index. Secondly, a lot of school still do not have facilities and students cannot access the Internet easily, not even in lessons. The teacher can, of course, print papers for students, but it is not possible to include active working on-line into a lesson plan. The teacher has to be aware of the fact that most of the materials on the Internet have not been produced for learners of English. The authors of most of the materials are native speakers, who often tend to use idiomatic expressions and sometimes there are grammatical mistakes, too.

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How to adapt materials

Stempleski and Tomalin give some advice how to adapt materials for certain students. Technically, it is an easy process. The teacher can just copy and paste the pieces he wants to use. The only thing he has to be careful about is the copyright law. He should check the legal notice on the website he uses.

Internet based activities

Before the teacher decides to use an Internet-based activity in his lesson, he should consider following points: What do you suppose the students to get from this activity? Why is it better to do this activity on the Internet rather than through another media? How long will be the activity? (part of a lesson, one lesson, a few lessons, a month, whole year) Will the students communicate with someone? Who with? (each other, another class, another school, foreign school, native speakers, some organizations or companies) Can you use this activity only with one class or can you adapt it for other classes and grades? The teacher should look in the course book he uses and consider whether the activity will be challenging for his students or useless and boring. He has to set some criteria for choosing appropriate websites. There is no use in doing an online activity which could be as well done off-line, only for that the Internet is a novelty factor. In the publication The Internet and Young Learners (2004), the author Gordon Lewis suggests following learning purposes: pure communication, searching for information and producing content. He says that for on-line communication, e-mails and chats are the most useful. Chat is a talk on-line, in real time. It means that two people have to be connected at the same moment, which might be difficult, especially when communicating with foreign people.

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Such communication requires prompt answering, which may be a difficult task for beginners. E-mail has an advantage pupils can write it in advance and then send it. It is similar to a letter, but it can be sent immediately and the answer comes sooner, too. Formulating an e-mail is a good homework task. Searching for information requires a web browser. It is essential to offer to students a list of web pages already approved. Otherwise they may get lost in information mass. When the students become familiar with the Internet, they might want to produce their own web page. It can be a class web page with childrens portfolios. A course class work can be presented there as well. Lewis gives tips for criteria when choosing a web site to work with. The web site should have interesting graphics and should not be complicated. Nice colours and pictures or animations will catch childrens eyes. The navigation should be clear, too. The best navigation is an iconic one, i. e. there are pictures to click on instead of words. The teacher should check in advance whether the site is quick to be loaded. Slow loading can completely damage the lesson. He is strongly recommended to check what is hidden behind the web site. There are a lot of innocent looking web pages, which finally turn out to be advertising something or being a religious or erotic sites. As safety is concerned, Lewis warns against some potential dangers. The teacher has to keep eye on the children all the time. They cannot give their personal information, such as the address or telephone number to anyone. The teacher should check the e-mails before they are sent away and they should used only e-mail addresses already approved. The teacher should also check every unknown e-mail that comes. The teacher and the childs parents must approve all the materials published on web.

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USING PICTURES
The book Pictures for Language Learning (1994) by Andrew Wright is a very useful source for teachers, who want to use pictures in teaching. As Wright says, pictures in teaching are especially suitable for learners with special needs. They are also very useful when introducing new topic. The teacher can thanks to them provoke the students to express themselves emotionally. Pictures can be used with as well beginners as advanced students of all ages. There is usually minimal preparation and low costs. It is important to expose students to various stimuli so that they can develop their skills broadly. According to Wright, teachers resources must include pictures. We are not exposed only to spoken language, but we perceive a lot of context visually. Students have to learn to predict, induce and deduce. Pictures play a key role in motivating students and contribute to interest and awareness of context.

Preparation
The teacher should consider some aspects before preparing the lesson. Demandingness of preparation: if the preparation is difficult in relation to what the outcome should be, then it is no worth doing it Class organization: if the class organization would be difficult, it is no use to do it Interest: the activity should be interesting for students and the teacher, too. Meaningfulness and authenticity: the language should be authentic to the activity. There should be some outcome, so that the student can reflect on their work and see, whether they use the language correctly or not. Amount of language: there should be sufficient amount of language in the activity, otherwise it is no use to do it

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Through pictures, various language skills can be practised: structures (tenses, transitive / intransitive verbs, interrogative etc.); vocabulary (topic-based vocabulary, opposites, adjectives etc.); functions (making request, describing things, expressing likes and dislikes etc.); situations (describing the situation, situation dialogues, role play etc.); skills (listening, reading, writing, speaking). It should be clear to the students what are they going to do and why are they going to do it. They should have the language to be able to do it. Wright says that pictures can motivate students in such a way that they want to pay attention and be included. Pictures bring the world or a street scene or other environments to the classroom. Describing pictures can be objective or subjective (This is a train. / I like travelling by train.) Pictures can stimulate and provide material to be discussed in a conversation or discussion. What kind of pictures can be used? Wright recommends pictures of one person or of several people, people in action, places, from history, with a lot of information, the news, fantasies, maps and symbols, pairs of pictures, pictures and texts, sequences of pictures, related pictures, single stimulation pictures, ambiguous pictures, bizzare pictures, explanatory pictures and student and teacher drawings.

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SIMULATIONS
The book Simulation in Language Teaching (1990) by Ken Jones is a useful handbook for teachers, who are planning to use simulations in teaching. A simulation is and event. It is not taught. The students become participants and shape the event. They have roles, functions, duties and responsibilities as ecologist, king, manager, explorer, reporter, survivor, administrator within a structures situation involving problem solving and decision making.5 The teachers role in simulation is a controller. He introduces the simulation and then observes and assess. He does not interfere. It is a good position for monitoring the language, communicative skills and behaviour of the students. There is no pretence in simulations it is a reality of function in a simulated environment. Simulations and language are inseparable. Spoken language, written language or both can be used. The language in simulations has two main characteristics it is functional and cohesive. It has certain functions because the participants have their role and their problems to solve, jobs to do, tasks to fulfil. Therefore they have to choose appropriate language to achieve what they want to. It is a matter of the students to suit the language to the situation. Because there are usually a lot of opportunities for interaction, action and reaction in simulations, the other participants can deal with their colleagues inappropriate use of language. Although two participants start with opposite view, the situation brings them together. Because of the structure, the language is cohesive.

Motivation
Motivation is an integral part of simulations. It is one of the most important and interesting reasons for using simulation in teaching. The functions, duties and responsibilities given to the participants arise motives. The intensity of
5

Jones, Ken. Simulations in Teaching. Cambridge University Press, 1990. p. 12

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motivation depends on the quality of simulation. If the simulation is good, well prepared, stimulative and provocative, there is likely to be strong emotional component, which leads to motivation. The motivation may be strengthened by the participants appreciation of being powerful, responsible for decisionmaking. They own the simulation. Motivation can help to break down shyness, differences of sex, race, colour or status. Jones mentions that simulation is a good event for students to get know to each other and for a teacher get to know the students. A good simulation can be an icebreaker and can provide an interesting experience, which is good for social relations. Icebreaking may be needed not only at beginnings, but also always when a frosty situation occurs. Routine can be one of the reasons. Not all the simulations are good for breaking ice. A suitable simulation for that must be fully participatory, must not have any passive or part roles and should involve a lot of interaction among the students. Simulations also can help to break down cultural or ethnical prejudices. Benefits of simulations according to Randall S. Davis: appease students demand of realism in learning language increase of motivation, students one as well as teachers one typical teacher student relationship breakdown (students are responsible for reaching their goals themselves) cross-cultural comparison and identification reduction of stress (it is one of the crucial points in successful language learning) possible noteless teachers monitoring

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8. SELF-INSTRUCTION
Leslie Dickinson focused on self-instructed learning in her book Selfinstruction in Language Learning (1988). Authentic texts are a valuable source for self-instructed learners. They allow the learner to meet his needs accurately and economically. They can choose texts they suit the best to their requirements. Frequent problem of second language learners is that they do not understand the context. Using authentic text can help them to minimize this deficiency. According to Leslie Dickinson, learning must always be an individual and personal act. Normally the teacher is responsible for the set up, organization and managing lessons. At least some responsibilities should be shared with learners, e. g. setting goals, choosing materials or evaluating progress.

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CULTURE
Culture Bound Bridging the cultural gap in Language teaching (1992), edited by Joyce Merrill Valdes, deals with place of culture in learning foreign languages. Second language learning is connected with second culture learning. A language is a mean of communication among members of a culture. It is the most evident expression of the culture. When learning a second language, there can be three different contexts: a) learning a foreign language within the culture of this language, b) learning a foreign language within learners own culture if the foreign language is accepted as a lingua franca in this environment, c) learning a foreign language in ones own culture with some opportunities to use the language within the environment of ones own culture. (e. g. learning English in the Czech Republic) Each of these types involves different degrees of acculturation, the process of adapting to a new culture. In learning a foreign language in native culture, degree of acculturation of a learner is influenced by cultural and sociopolitical status of the language and motivation of the learner. Social distance is proximity of two cultures that individuals come into contact with. The word distance is used in abstract sense here. It should express diversity of two cultures. At the base of intercultural understanding is a recognition of the way in which two cultures resemble one another as well as the ways on which they differ. Resemblances usually surface through an examination of the differences.6 Comparisons of a language and its culture open great views for teachers and present basis for understanding a person from other environments. New insights into second language teaching approaches are found there, too. It is
6

VALDES, Joyce Merrill. Culture Bound. Cambridge University Press, 1992. p. 49

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obvious that no one can learn everything about cultures; what is more, no one knows everything about his own culture. Sweeping universal aspects of cultures may be helpful, but one cannot expect all the people to fir the generality. There are usually some native culture habits transferred into learning the second culture and therefore we can expect some trouble spots. E. g. members of a culture expect their culture patter and behaviour to be the correct one and patterns of other cultures to be the wrong one. It does not have to be a wrong one, but a different one. Language cannot be translated word by word. There are idiomatic expressions in almost every language. The intonation carries the meaning, however, there are different patterns of intonation in different languages. Loudness is a characteristic of a language, too. Meaning is conveyed by body language and gestures well, but not all the movements mean the same in different cultures. The language uses different elements and expressions for description of physical world. There are also some taboo topics in every language. We should know what can we say and what cannot we say on what occasion. Addressing people is also different. We should know whether to use first name or second name and titles. In teaching English as a foreign language should be followed these recommendations: teachers hired should have good comparative analysis skills and (or) training in intercultural communication, teachers with overseas experience and those familiar with non-IndoEuropean languages should be preferred, for current stuff, there should be opportunity to be trained in intercultural communication, current staff should be informed about cultural and linguistic background of course participants every semester, syllabus should include intercultural education next to the language,

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materials selected for teaching should encourage intercultural point of view, it is essential to develop some strategies for teaching culture, a special course focused on some cultural topics should be established, students should be provided by a number of excursions, tours, films, sport programmes and if possible homestay with a foreign family, programs against ghettos should be established, especially at universities.

Teachers should choose textbooks according to following guidelines: 1. A new book should be examined carefully to check whether it provides sufficient cultural point of view. 2. The teacher should make a list of cultural aspects in each lesson and check whether they are positive or negative. 3. The teacher should look in detail at the exercises and consider whether they will support his intercultural activities. 4. He should check whether the vocabulary, examples, grammar structures etc. are placed on some meaningful cultural background. 5. Check whether the pictures and photographs are culturally related. 6. Examine dialogues for cultural context. 7. Re-examine textbooks that may be culturally biased. Check whether they are objective.

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PRACTICAL PART

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9. INTRODUCTION TO PRACTICAL PART

I decided to create some projects for higher primary pupils. The projects are not strictly intended for certain grades; they can be used with younger children as well as with older ones according to their skills, level of English and interests. These projects have various features, which I would like to highlight. Firstly, they should mediate knowledge through an interesting topic and alternative way of teaching. Secondly, they should present useful facts and teach skills such as cooperation, communication, presentation etc. Thirdly, I would like to show how important and useful is using authentic materials in foreign language teaching. Those materials are very interesting for the pupils - they are catchy, original and untraditional. Lastly, they meet cross-curricular topics, namely multicultural education, media education and education to thinking in European and global context. I believe that a complex project can give children more than simple learning from a textbook since there are a lot of activities and many things to do condensed in relatively short time that is devoted to the project. The time given depends on the schedule possibilities and pupils skills. Optimally, there should be time for introduction, motivation and pre-teaching vocabulary before the project itself starts. There is also a demand for suitable facilities and materials such as maps, the Internet connection, video / DVD player, CD player, data projector etc. searching for information, selecting sources, giving

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I wanted to find out the current situation in Czech schooling in connection with untraditional methods. Unfortunately, not all the schools are prepared and equipped for such work. However, my work cannot be considered a research, because I only visited one school. It is just my presumption that the situation is similar at most of the primary schools. I recorded the presentations on a video camera with kind agreement of the pupils. I enclose a DVD with the recording to this work.

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10.

TRAVELLING

8th grade (13 15 years old pupils) Nowadays, thousands of people are travelling abroad every day. Young people and students get a lot of opportunities to visit foreign countries, meet new people and new cultures, which is crucial for their social development and general awareness. This is one of many other reasons why to learn languages. I think that it is important to draw pupils attention to this fact, show them, how are English classes important, because the language can open doors for them. Motivation is very important in any learning. The more complicated subject to learn, the stronger the motivation should be. I believe that motivating through personal experience and catchy materials is highly efficient. I prepared a project about travelling for four groups of students. They were asked to suggest a route in Great Britain and Ireland, visiting interesting places on their way, giving reasons why to visit a certain place and what is interesting there. The first group was to suggest a route in Ireland, the second one a route in Great Britain, travelling only on routes and highways, the third one a route in Great Britain, travelling only on railways and the fourth one route in Great Britain using only waterways. Their budget was limited (5.000 CZK per person) and the week for virtual realization of this journey was set the first week in May 2008. They were supposed to find a flight ticket on the Internet, note departure times too, public transport in foreign country and accommodation. I pointed out not to forget about food, entrance tickets and another extra costs. Finally, they were supposed to present their proposal to their classmates. I supported the pupils with a lot of materials that I brought over from Ireland and Great Britain and some books about those countries written in Czech language. These included: various leaflets, postcards and magazines brought

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from Ireland and Great Britain, county Wiltshire, and books, namely Beautiful Ireland, Salisbury, Trowbridge, Stonehenge, Irish Tales and Sagas, Celtic Inspirations, The Celtic Image, Irsko, Velk Britnie. All of the books except the last two are written in. Beautiful Ireland is a picture book, 90% are photographs of nature, people and cities. Salisbury is a city guide, with lots of pictures, too. Trowbridge is a city guide as well, including interesting historical facts. Stonehenge is a book about ancient monument, rather for people interested in history and such heritage sites. Irish Tales and Sagas by Ulick OConnor is a book of Irish legends. It is completed by beautiful drawings and contains legends such as St Patrick, Cuchulain, Children of Lir and others. Celtic Inspirations and The Celtic Image are books about Celts and their culture. They are very interesting and nicely graphically worked out. The two Czech books are detailed travel guides with hundreds of pictures, photos and descriptions. As they are travel guides, they are designed to help tourist to plan their journey and give them important information. Therefore I chose those books although they are written in Czech. Another source of information I asked the pupils to work with was the Internet, atlas of the world and any other books in libraries they visit. I wanted the pupils to learn not only how to cooperate with other people (group work), but primarily to learn to plan a journey, to look up information on the Internet, plan finances and choose best options out of many presented in advertisements and on the Internet. These are skills they will probably use in their future lives.

Expected problems
I expected the pupils to tell me that they did not have the Internet at home and could not look the information up. I also thought that they would have difficulties to work in groups arguing, division of work etc. I expected the pupils not to like the presentation. I think that Czech pupils are capable of working out a task, write a piece of work, but they are not used to presenting in front of the class, not mentioning public.

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Expected outcome
I had imagined the groups to present their routes on wall charts, showing lots of pictures and describing not only the routes, but also mainly the sites and places that are worth stopping on. I expected almost mistake-free speech because they had enough time for preparation and consultation with their classmates and the teacher (me). I supposed the presentations to be vivid, colourful and interesting. I hoped the pupils would like the topic because travelling is one of the most frequent hobbies among young people. The authentic materials should have support them and show them that it is not impossible to visit a foreign country for some time, although it may look like that to them.

Unexpected problems
I did not expect the classs English teacher to be ill when I was there. As a result, I had no one to refer to me about the pupils and help me with division into groups. I prefer mixing better pupils with worse ones in groups, so that the talented ones can support, guide and motivate the worse ones or those who struggle in languages. I did not expect the school not to have appropriate wall charts, not even atlases of the world. The school was not be able to offer much materials or pictures connected with culture and geography of Great Britain and Ireland; thus I had to rely on my private sources. I have studied the Masaryk kindergarten and primary school. School educational programme and I found out that the pupils of upper primary school, i. e. sixth to ninth grade, have three English lessons a week. It says that they are divided into groups. The subject is focused on improving communication and language skills, vocabulary extension and learning about English speaking countries. They use various methods, such as individual and group projects, dialogues, listening and working with authentic texts.

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According to this School Educational Programme, the pupils learn numerals in the third grade and sentence word order in the sixth grade. In my lesson plans, there are also organizational parts, which take about two minutes and they are dedicated to administrative work and organizational instructions for pupils.

The first lesson plan

1. Organizational part (3 minutes) 2. Introductory questions (5 minutes) 3. Motivation part (5-10 minutes) 4. Introduction of the project We are going to talk about travelling and we will virtually travel to Ireland and Great Britain. etc. Setting the rules and requirements Division into groups Displaying the supporting materials on a desk. Pupils come to see them. Do you like travelling? How often do you travel abroad? Who with? Have you ever been to any English speaking country? Which one? When? Do you know in which countries is English the official language?

5. Working in groups, discussing the way of working out the task, division of work among pupils, asking the teacher questions or for help. Using materials displayed and atlases of the world. (the rest of the lesson) Homework: to look some information up on the Internet

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The first lesson

I went according to my lesson plan. I asked children the introductory questions. They cooperated well. I found out that they travel mostly to Croatia for holiday. Only one girl was in Great Britain some time ago. Then I displayed my materials on a table and invited the children to come there and see them. They were surprisingly interested and spent on them about 10 minutes. After that, I told them about my project and explained what were they going to do. I let them divide into groups as they wished. In the rest of the time, they were supposed to start working on the project. I helped them with choosing materials useful for their tasks. At the end, I asked them to look some information up on the Internet at home. As I supposed, there were huge protests. They argued against my task that they did not have the Internet connection at home. I told them to visit a library and use some books then.

The second lesson plan

1. Organizational part (3 minutes) 2. Working on the presentation in groups, using the same material as in the first lesson. (the rest of the lesson)

The third lesson plan

1. Organizational part (5 minutes)

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2.

Presentations of the groups

Materials used: the same materials as in the previous lessons, wall chart of Ireland and Great Britain

Presentation Unexpected problems

Before the second lesson, I asked the Geography teacher for atlases of the world in which there are detailed maps of Ireland and Great Britain. He surprised me with the answer that there were no atlases at that school, because there had not been money yet to buy some. I was also unsuccessful asking English teachers for a wall chart of those countries. In the classroom, there was only a wall chart of Europe; Great Britain itself was about 5 cm long on this map. I must have helped myself: copy a map from my book on my private copy machine and distribute them among pupils. Because there was not a map in the third lesson when the presentations took place, I decided to give some task to the pupils to keep their attention. I asked them to listen to carefully, follow the presentations and note down the routes that the other groups proposed in three different colours into the maps they had gotten. Although the task was set as individual work, they still had an opportunity to chat and copy from their partners.

Assessment
I assessed attitude (A), speaking (S), content (C) and overall presentation (P). Attitude: goodwill, activity during work, effort, contribution to teamwork, cooperation with classmates within the group and with other groups, working with materials (literally manipulation with materials children sometimes tent to damage things which are not theirs), attitude to the teacher (me as a student teacher) Speaking: distribution of speech among pupils, accuracy and fluency, fillers, speech power, pace

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Content: choice of information, sequence of information Presentation: overall presentation, mainly number of pictures and another materials used, posture of the pupils regarding their listeners, movements, body talk, gestures + speaking and content I did not have any scale set before the lesson. I had some expectations according to the School Educational framework. I compared the groups one with another.

The first presentation Ireland

There were four girls in this group. They started working on their presentation the first lesson and seemed to be really interested. They did not need any help from me. I only showed them which postcards and pictures they should use. They also worked very well in the second lesson. The presentation was not finally as good as I supposed it to be judging from their hard work. One of the girls started to describe the route, but spoke slowly with a lot of mistakes. She used a map that she found in a magazine from Ireland, but it was too small for whole class to see it, although it was A4 format. Time to time, another girl helped her with a few words and some pictures. Then, the third girl described the financial part, but she had serious difficulties with numerals. I checked their notes in their notebooks. They were well worked out. The fourth girl did not say a word during their presentation and the answer for on my question why was that she was too shy and that she had helped with the preparation. I liked the way the girls worked on their presentation, but I did not like the way they spoke. It was obvious that they had not tried it in advance and did not think about the numerals at all. Also the division of speech was not optimal. I wanted them all to speak.

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They made mistake such as: *It cost / * in first May / *we come in the plane / * in the Galway / * its costing. One girl also asked her colleague in Czech how is one hundred in English, which proves that they had not prepare the speech in advance.

The second presentation Great Britain roads

There were three people in the group. The boy who started speaking seemed livelier and his speech was faster and louder than the first groups one. He did not make almost any mistakes. The only mistake was using both names - Praha and Prague. They showed pictures from a book during their presentation. There was not much hesitation, which I definitely cannot say about the first group. The second boy took the speech over later and spoke about the budget. The numerals were correct. The girl did not say anything and gave me the explanation that she had helped with the preparation more than the boys. But again, I wanted them all to speak, so it was their minus. Apart from that this presentation was nice.

The third presentation Great Britain waterways

This group was the worst one. It was my fault that those not really excellent pupils met in one group - I did not know that they were the worst. Otherwise I would not let them work together. There were two girls and three boys. They were disturbing since the first minute I entered the classroom and their distractive behaviour was affecting the whole class, especially during the presentations. I watched them during the lessons more that the other groups, because I soon realized that they were not working very well. All the time I came to their desks, they pretended to be highly concentrated on the work and even asked me some questions concerning the project. The third lesson, before their presentation, they were chatting so loudly that I had to ask one boy to change his place.

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Their presentation was really poor. Each of them said about two sentences and none of them was correct. They seemed to be there for the first time and never see the project before. The girls were giggling and hiding their faces behind sheets of paper. They spoke with lots of mistakes. They only used one leaflet, which I told them to use, because there was a map of water canal in the south of England. They showed it to the class, but did not explain what was in the picture and why it was important for their journey. At the end, when I assessed their performance, they argued with me that it was not true they had not done enough and so on. It was the worst presentation. The cause of this failure was that there were not very good pupils in the group. Next time, I would ask their English teacher or a teacher who knows them, how good students they are and make the groups according to this information. I would mix high ability pupils with low ability ones. If I happened not to have this information, which was actually this case, I would check them more during the work and did not give them so much responsibility as I did. I only checked that they were working, but next time I would like to see some results after every lesson and would check taking notes during the lessons, too. I would also try to motivate them more in case I have more time. The motivation was sufficient for high ability and average ability students, but obviously not for those low ability ones. Maybe it would be essential to motivate them individually. It is, however, complicated in such a big group of pupils. The fourth group Great Britain railways There were three girls in the group. Their presentation was very nice. They used their own materials English magazines and a map, which seemed to be printed from the Internet. They showed a lot of pictures. Their speech was nice and grammatically and lexically correct. I saw them working hard and silently since the first lesson.

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Final assessment
1st group 2nd group 3rd group 4th group A: 1 A: 2 A: 1 C: 1 C: 1 S: 3/4 P: 2/3 S: 2 P: 2 P: 1

A: 4/5 C: 3/4 S: 4/5 P: 4 C: 1+ S: 1

I chose the best group and compared the others with it. The best group worked adequately according to their School Educational Framework. The pupils asked me to tell them the grades they got, they were not interested in the mistakes they made. I would like to have one more lesson and talk about their mistakes and tell them what should they improve and what to concentrate on. Unfortunately, I only had five minutes, so I told them a few sentences at least. I spoke in Czech, because they would not understand fast English and some of them probably would not understand even slow English assessment. First I told them grades they got for their attitude. I praised the first group for hard work since the beginning and reminded the second group that they did not work in the first lesson. The third group started arguing with me, which made me angry, because not only it was rude, but also it was unfair to the other groups. Then I assessed content and commended the fourth group for bringing and using their own materials. I commented speech, too. I said to the first group to pay more attention to numerals and told the third group that it was a disaster, that they were not able to say a single sentence correctly. The first group got 2/3 for overall presentation because of the mistakes they made, uneven distribution of speech and limited number of pictures they showed to the spectators. The second group got grade 2 for uneven speech distribution and chatting in the first lesson. The third group did not need to be commented, I think that they knew themselves that they deserved grade 4. The

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last group was the best one and I did not find anything serious to point out. They got grade 1. I created this project two years ago when I was on an exchange programme in the Netherlands. I had school practice there in a bilingual class, i. e. the pupils had their lessons mostly in English, only some of them in Dutch. I chose 12 year old children and cooperated with their Geography teacher. Unfortunately, he got ill and I had to manage the class on my own. However, it was not any problem at all. The children had completely different way of working in comparison with Czech children. They used the same excuse as my pupils here in Czech they said they did not have the Internet access; they did not go to any library etc. But they all finally fulfilled the tasks and did their homework. They worked independently and were interested in the work. Their approach to education was to be different they seemed to know that they were learning for themselves, not just fulfilling teachers tasks. The result - the presentation was very nice. Firstly, we had a nice big wall chart. Secondly, they spoke English very well, fluently and accurately, too. Lastly, they worked hard and therefore the presentations were nice and interesting. I think their main advantage is that they had been taught how to make project since early stages at primary schools. They have project in all the subjects and they have a lot of them every term. They know how to do it, where to find information, what should be the outcome like and are used to speak in English and in front of the class.

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12. CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY

6th grade (11 12 years old pupils) Roald Dahl, one of the most famous British novelists, is definitely worth to be introduced to children. His most popular books for children are Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, The Witches and James and the Giant Peach, but he wrote many more. These are lovely, funny and readable stories, catching not only childrens attention. I chose the story Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, because it has been filmized in 1995, starring Johny Depp. I therefore supposed at least some children to know the story. I did not work with the book, but the film instead. I had only three lessons to work with the class (finally only two lessons), so I actually had to choose the film instead of the book, because if I wanted to work with almost the whole story, we would not manage to read the book in such a short time. We probably would not manage to read even extracts, because the pupils in the sixth class are eleven or twelve years old and some of them are really slow readers. What is more, I do not expect children to read a lot nowadays. They do not like reading. It does not mean that I agree with this attitude, I think they should read. But they do not and in my opinion a good film can motivate them to read. I killed two birds with one stone I managed to fit in the time given and I tried to motivate the pupils to read through amusing activity.

Expected problems
I expected the pupils not to be willing to dance as Oompa Loompas, because they might have been ashamed. (Oompa Loompas are bantams, Willi Wonkas workers, who are about 30 40 cm tall and come from Oompaland. They can be seen everywhere in the factory. They like singing and dancing, usually when a child makes something bad). I also expected them not to understand the movie very well as I played it in English with English subtitles. I thought that they would be noisy during

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watching and that they would welcomed my lessons with playing a film as a nice pause from learning.

Unexpected problems that appeared

There is only one classroom in the school that is equipped with a DVD player. Although I announced a week in advance that I was going to use it, the class I was teaching was not moved in there. The pupils had to wait for me to come for them and move with them into the audiovisual classroom, where the other class was waiting for our coming to move into our classroom instead of us. Those two classrooms were quite far from each other, we had to go down the stairs, through the assembly hall, up the stairs, to the end of the hall, wait until the other class would go out, move in, sit down, prepare the DVD. It took almost 15 minutes out of the whole lesson. The problem is that I cannot move the children during the break. I have to wait for the bell, and then wait for all the pupils until they come back to the classroom. I have to give them instructions how to behave in the corridors (no running, no shouting etc.). I could not prepare the DVD player during the break either. It is locked in a wardrobe and only teachers have the key from it. Because it is in a common classroom, the children may damage the recorder. Teacher, who is using the recorder, has to be there all the time and keep an eye on it. After my first lesson in this class, their English teacher asked me to have only two lessons instead of three. She said she would have problems to catch up. Last, but not least, the second lesson happened the same as in the first one I had to move with the class again, which took again a lot of time out of it.

The first lesson plan

1. Organizational part (2 minutes) 2. Introducing Roald Dahl Do you know Roald Dahl? Have you ever heard about him?

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Have you read any book by him? Have you seen any movie? (Charlie and the Chocolate factory, Matilda) Brief biography. (5 minutes) 3. Watching a part of video (25 minutes) First 25 minutes from the film. There is introduced Willy Wonka and his factory, Charlie and his family. The competition with golden tickets starts. Four spoilt children find golden tickets; Charlie finds the golden ticket, too. They are preparing for the visit of the factory. 4. Questionnaire (10 minutes) Is Charlies family rich or poor? How many grandparents does Charlie have? Do they have a nice house? What is their house made of? What do they eat every day? How many children are going to visit the factory? Where are they from? Can you remember their names? Are the children nice? Choose one child and describe him / her. (character)

5. Checking the answers (5 minutes) 6. Organizational part (2 minutes)

The first lesson

Because I had not counted with the time loss, I had to improvise a little. I started the first lesson with questions about the author. I mentioned above that I think children do not real a lot nowadays, which is widely known. But it does not apply on 100% of children. Some are on the contrary interested in reading a lot. They are, unfortunately, rather exceptions, as pupils Czech language

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teacher told me. However, there is usually at least one such pupil in a class. Therefore I tried to ask about Roald Dahl and his books. All the children said that they had heard about him and two of them even named some more stories by him. Children knew Matilda when I asked them. They had probably seen it on television. The crucial point on the lesson was the movie, because without watching it the pupils would not be able to fill in the questionnaire. I managed to play the whole part of it that I had planned, but it finished in the moment the bell was ringing. So I asked the pupils to complete the papers (the questionnaire) for homework. Children loved the lesson, not only because they did not have to learn and work with textbook, but also because they liked the story a lot. I had to talk to them in Czech, because they did not react on English. If I were their English teacher, I would not use Czech, at least not so much, but because I was short of time, I had to move on and use Czech to provoke some reactions.

The second lesson plan

1. Organizational part (2 minutes) 2. Watching next part of the movie (20 minutes) The visit of the factory. Naughty children are punished for their bad behaviour. Introduction of Oompa Loompas. using DVD extras dancing reading and translation of a song

Augustus Gloop! Augustus Gloop! The great big greedy nincompoop! How long could we allow this beast To gorge and guzzle, feed and feast On everything he wanted to? Great Scott! It simply wouldnt do!

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However long this pig might live, Were positive hed never give Even the smallest bit of fun Or happiness to anyone. So what we do in cases such As this, we use the gentle touch, And carefully we take the brat And turn him into something that Will give great pleasure to us allA doll, for instance, or a ball, Or marbles or a rocking horse.7 learning dancing and singing according to DVD extra material (20 minutes) 3. Organizational part, homework (Write a prediction of about 6 sentences. What will happen next in the movie? How will the story end?) (3 minutes)

The second lesson

I had to press two lessons in one. We had to move from one classroom to another again. As a result, I had to omit some activities because of lack of time. Firstly, I checked the homework. Only a few pupils did it in paper, but another pupils were able to answer the questions, too. Then we watched next part of the movie and finally we did the activity with pictures and learned to dance. I was surprised how they liked dancing. Unfortunately, we only had about 7 minutes for this activity, then the bell rang and there was no space for any feedback. It was caused by time loss, which happened because of moving. If we had not had to move, I would have had enough time to fulfil my plan. I think that there is imperfect organization in school inner rules. They should find a way to change classrooms without loosing time of a lesson. I felt a little disappointed after those two lessons, because the class was nice and I could have done much more with them if I had had time. The
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introduction was poor and there was not time for any feedback, which was a big mistake. The pupils did not learn much, because everything had to be done in hurry. I really missed the third lesson. I would like them to make some notes in their notebooks and spend some time on revision exercises. We did not have time to do any exercises or activities based on the film practicing vocabulary or grammar. If there was enough time, we could do some of them spontaneously and the pupils would not even recognise that they were not watching the film and playing, but learning. It was not my mistake and I cannot blame their teacher either. She has to follow her long-term plan and I should be grateful that she let me work with the class those two lessons. At least the pupils had two lively lessons and tried different way of work. They liked the lessons and it is one of the most important things in teaching.

The third lesson plan

1. Organizational part (2 minutes) 2. Checking homework, discussion (5 10 minutes) 3. Watching next part of the movie + the end (20 minutes) 4. Playing with pictures every pupil gets a picture (copied from the book Charlie and the Chocolate factory) and their task is to stand in a row in chronological order and say which scene is in the picture. (5 minutes) 5. Discussion Did you like the movie? Why / why not? Who was your favourite character? What was nice / was not nice about the children? Would you like to such a factory? Why / why not?

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Would you like to read the book now? (+ motivating pupils to read the book is much better, because the content is more dense, there are pictures, you can read in your pace, you can read some parts again and again etc.)

(13 18 minutes) 6. Organizational part (1 minute)

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13. COOKING
9th grade (14 15 years old pupils) Food is one of the crucial needs for human beings next to the air and water. Every person eats some food since the day one. Food is a phenomenon. Thousand of books about food have been written; a lot of people dedicated their life to cooking. People love food and its preparation might be lots of fun! Therefore I decided to prepare a project about cooking. Boys are generally less interested in this topic. That is why I chose to introduce a famous British cook Jamie Oliver. He is young and as he is male, he may be more inspiration for boys. Girls may adore him as a handsome guy. I used a DVD, which was enclosed to the Mlada fronta newspaper issue last spring. I chose a recipe for pork chops and traditional Irish champ. The criteria for choosing the recipe were the kind of food prepared I wanted something traditional or typical British or Irish meal; length and language. I played it in English with Czech subtitles, because the two Englishmen were speaking quickly and with such an accent, which I supposed not to be understood easily by the pupils. The video was 20 minutes long. I did not play the whole episode, because it would be too long. At the beginning of the episode, Jamie is coming to a restaurant to visit his friend who works as a chef. Then they go together to Jamies home on a motorbike. There is an introductory song playing on background. It is a kind of pop music. I hoped that this modern image of the film would motivate the pupils and show them that cooking is a job not only for their mothers and grandmothers. I decided to make a simple simulation with the pupils. I chose five different recipes from book Jamie Dinners, which was published in 2004. Pupils got the recipes and therefore were divided into five groups. They were supposed to prepare a presentation together: to pretend cooking, describing the process and trying to introduce or teach new vocabulary their classmates. They were supposed to become cooks and possibly teachers. They did not have to learn

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the recipes by heart - they could read them. I suggested using pictures or tickets with words during the show. I chose recipes for tomato soup, thai watermelon salad, farfalle with carbonara and spring peas, summer tray-baked salmon and bakewell tart. I brought the original book with me so that the pupils can have a look at it, see it in colours and see the photos of Jamie, his family, pictures of his restaurant, the fifteen boys and food and meals, too. I also brought his latest book called Jamie at home, which was published in 2007.

Expected problems
I supposed pupils not to understand the listening very well. That is the reason why I decided to play Czech subtitles. Jamie and his Irish friend speak together quite quickly, because the material is not made to be a study material, but a show for basically British people. Their accent is strong. One has to be concentrated and know English quite well to understand everything. However, it is not so difficult completely and some parts are clear even for preintermediate students. I expected boys not to be interested in cooking. My prediction was correct with a little detail missing the girls were not interested, either.

Unexpected problems
I did not expect to move the class from their classroom to the audio-visual classroom as well as the sixth class and loosing time on it. I expected the pupils to know basic vocabulary connected with cooking: ingredients, food, some basic verbs such as grate, stir, pour etc., tools such as pan, pot, oven etc. Some pupils did not know much and had to look everything up in dictionaries. Some pupils were good and did not need my help or dictionaries so much, but there were only a few of them. My lesson suddenly happened to be using grammar-translation method, although it was not my intention, and tent to be boring in some groups, where were not any good students and pupils had to translate the text word by word

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with dictionaries. I tried to help them, but I did not want to translate the text instead of them, so my advice was rather sporadic.

The first lesson plan

1. Organizational part (2 minutes) 2. Introductory questions What do you thing we are going to talk about? miming Do you like cooking? Can you cook? Is it a good / interesting job to be a cook? Do you know some cook? Etc. (3 minutes) 3. Introducing Jamie Oliver Jamie Oliver is a young Englishman established a restaurant called Fifteen in London. Every year, he hires fifteen young people living in streets and provides one-year-education course. They become cooks. He has published a few cookery books; the latest is called Jamie at home. (They can have a look at the book - I have the English original.) He also has a popular TV show. He is married and has two small children. (2 minutes) 4. Brainstorming cooking (3 minutes) 5. What do you like to eat? What would you like to be able to cook? 6. Watching DVD, filling in the questionnaire (20 minutes) 7. Checking the answers (with partner, then with teacher) (3 minutes) 8. Explaining the project task, showing the scene with pictures, division into groups, distributing recipes. (10 minutes) 9. Organizational part (2 minutes)

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Homework: translate the recipes so that you know new vocabulary and you can understand the procedure of preparation.

The first lesson

After we moved to audio-visual classroom and lost about 10 minutes from the lesson, I went according to my lesson plan. I tried to motivate the pupils and describe Jamie Oliver in the best way, but I heard them saying that he was stupid boy and that it was silly. Most of them also said they did not like cooking and did not know any cook. Generally, the response was negative all over. Nevertheless, I played the DVD hoping that they might get interested. I asked them to fill in the questionnaires, but soon I recognized that they would not be able to. They seemed not to listen to the video at all and I think they only read the subtitles. At the moment they read the answer they needed, they started to listen to the English, but it was already gone. The result was sad. What is more, they were not happy with the recipes I gave them. I was disappointed after the first lesson with this class.

The second lesson plan

1. Organizational part (2 minutes) 2. Working out the presentation in groups (drawing pictures, division of roles among pupils, asking questions the teacher etc.) (40 minutes) 3. Organizational part (3 minutes)

The second lesson

The second lesson was much better than the first one. The pupils seemed more interested in the topic or were at least somehow reconciled with it. However, only one group had translated the recipe at home, the rest pull them out of their bags, some of them badly creased. Some pupils did not even bring it, but those were exceptions. I brought dictionaries to the class and distributed them among

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children. They started translating. Some pupils divided the work among themselves within the group, which means that some of them translated and some were drawing pictures for presentation and helping with the translation if they understood something from the recipe. I was monitoring all the time and helping student with difficulties. I was shocked when I found that they had to look up in the dictionaries words like a pot, a slice or even a peanut. At the end of the lesson, I asked the pupils to divide the rest of work among them and finish it before the next lesson, when the presentation would take place. I meant to finish the translation and prepare the presentation, draw pictures or another way how to present the recipe.

The third lesson plan

1. Organizational part (2 minutes) 2. Presentations of the groups (42 minutes) 3. Organizational part (1 minute)

The third lesson

The presentation lesson was little bit hectic, because in two minutes after the beginning of the lesson, an English teacher teaching in the neighbouring class entered out classroom and told me that we had to be joined together with the other group, because of some reason I do no remember. The only possible answer was yes, so I waited until the group come in and sat down and then we could start. The first group presented the recipe for farfalle with carbonara and spring peas. Two pupils from the group were chosen to present it. They had nice pictures of the ingredients and one of them showed the picture during the other one read the recipe. After this introduction, one of the pupils continued reading, but the

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show stopped. It was obvious the he read it for the fist time loud. I could not understand him very well because he did not pronounced correctly. I stopped him in a while because it was no use listening to him. I am sure that neither his classmates could understand him, because if they did not know basic words, they definitely could not understand the more difficult ones. The second group was supposed to present thai watermelon salad. When I asked them to come in front of the class and start, they did not move. It took me a second to understand that they were not prepared. I did not know why, because they had translated the whole recipe the previous lesson. I asked them to come and read the recipe at least, but they had left it at home. I was disappointed and angry. I told them to rewrite the translation of the recipe at home and bring it to their English teacher the next lesson. The next group presented the recipe for tomato soup. There were only two girls in the group, but they did very well. They had prepared some pictures and showed not only the ingredients, but also pretended cooking. Unfortunately, they wished not to be recorded, so I do not have them on my video. The fourth group showed us preparing salmon. I knew that those boys had been translating the recipe last lesson and did not manage to prepare any pictures. I did not supposed them to do it at home, either, although it was their homework. So I brought some plastic food from home and lent them a pan and a spatula too. Their presentation was nice and humorous and everybody liked it. However, they were not good at reading and I stopped them after short time. But their attitude was good. The last group spoke about bakewell tart. I really liked their pictures they were A4 format papers folded in half so that they made roof and could stand. Pupils could see all the pictures displayed. They read the recipe well. At the end of the lesson, we still had some time left because of the one group, which did not do the presentation. I asked the pupils to take a piece of paper and write al the words connected with food and cooking they could remember

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from the last three lessons. I was positively surprised with the result. I left them of about five minutes and some of them asked me for extra time, they still knew some words they wanted to write down. Some pupils did very well, they managed to write down a lot of words and add translation, too. The maximum number was twenty-four and all the words were translated. Two children wrote twenty-two words, one of them with translation. Two pupils eighteen, one seventeen with translation, one sixteen, one fifteen with translation, three thirteen words, one twelve, one eleven, two ten and one boy wrote only six words. I monitored the class during writing because I wanted them to sign their papers and not to copy from their recipes. They surprised me with words such as sea salt, fresh mint, gas stove, extra virgin oil, smoky bacon, tablespoon or large pan. In the last five minutes we played a game called The alphabet game. Children were asked to say words connected with cooking and food in alphabetical order, i. e. a word beginning with a, then b etc. Who knew one could stand up and write it on the board. They were quite creative and used some words they could remember from their recipes, e. g. farfalle or gas.

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14. FEEDBACK
To get some feedback, I asked all the pupils anticipating in the projects to fill in questionnaires. They were anonymous, because I wanted to know the truth. TRAVELLING GENERAL QUESTIONS 1. What do you prefer: a) learning from a textbook b) learning from another materials such as books, movies, leaflets, magazines 2. Have you ever done a project in English class? .. If yes, how many times? . Was it easy or difficult for you? what was the most difficult part of the project? a) preparation searching for information b) working out the presentation cooperation with your classmates, summarizing the information, choosing information etc. c) presentation speaking, standing in front of the class

TRAVELLING PROJECT QUESTIONS 3. Did you like the project about travelling to England and Ireland? Why yes or why not? 4. Circle the statements you agree with:

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I learned new things I didnt learn any new things I liked working with materials such as leaflets, books, maps I didnt like working with materials which were different to my textbook

I liked working with the Internet I didnt like working with the Internet I liked presenting the results orally in front of the class I didnt like presenting the results orally in front of the class

The whole task was rather easy for me The whole task was not easy nor difficult for me The whole task was difficult for me I was interested in the topic I wasnt interested in the topic It was better that working with textbook It wasnt better than working with textbook I wish we had more time for this project There was enough time for this project

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CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY GENERAL QUESTIONS 5. What do you prefer: a) learning from a textbook b) learning from another materials such as books, movies, leaflets, magazines 6. Do you use additional materials in English language lessons? (books, magazines, songs etc.) If yes, what materials? .. CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY 7. Had you known the story before we watched it at school? 4. Did you a) understand spoken English in the movie b) understand the subtitles in the movie c) didnt understand at all, watched the pictures only 5. Did you learn anything new or not? 6. Did you like dancing like Oompa Loompas? a) Yes, I did. b) Yes, I did. I like when I can move in lessons. c) No, I did not. d) I dont care. 7. Would you like to read the book now? Why?

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8. Do you wish we had more time for working with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or was it enough?

COOKING GENERAL QUESTIONS 1. What do you prefer: a) learning from a textbook b) learning from another materials such as books, movies, leaflets, magazines 2. Do you ever listen to spoken English? a. no, not at all b. yes, at school, listenings in my textbook c. yes, on TV, in movies (video DVD) etc. 2. Have you ever done a project in English class? .. If yes, how many times? . Was it easy or difficult for you? what was the most difficult part of the project? d) preparation searching for information e) working out the presentation cooperation with your classmates, summarizing the information, choosing information etc. f) presentation speaking, standing in front of the class JAMIE OLIVER, COOKING 3. Had you heard about Jamie before we spoke about him at school? 4. Do you like him?

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5. Did you like the video we watched? a. yes, I did, it was interesting b. yes, I did, but I didnt understand it c. no, I didnt, it was silly d. no, I didnt, I dont like cooking e. other: 6. Circle the statement you agree with: - I learned some new things - I didnt learn anything new - I liked presenting the results orally in front of the class - I didnt like presenting the results orally in front of the class - I was interested in the topic - I wasnt interested in the topic - It was better that working with textbook - It wasnt better than working with textbook - The whole task was rather easy for me - The whole task was not easy nor difficult for me - The whole task was difficult for me - I wish we had more time for this project There was enough time for this project

I did not ask the pupils to fill in the questionnaires immediately after our lessons, but I left some time for them to settle down and asked their English teachers to do it with them in about three weeks. I wanted the pupils to come back to their common lessons and think about my teaching with the benefit of

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hindsight. I was afraid that some pupils, especially the worse ones, might have judged the lesson too emotionally immediately after them and might have tried to be completely negative just to tell me I was a bad teacher, because I gave them bad marks. I also supposed some pupils to think about my lessons at home and maybe discussed them with friends, classmates of teachers. The teachers helped them with translation, too. I told them that I would accept answers in Czech, because I appreciated the information more than knowledge in this case.

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15. RESULTS
Travelling
I got 18 completed questionnaires. I found out that two thirds of the pupils prefer working with supplementary materials to working with textbooks. All of them had done a project at school before and two thirds found it easy. The next question dealt with demandingness of a project. Eleven pupils of eighteen found the presentation itself the most difficult part of the project. Five of them did not like working out the presentation and two of them preparation. The next part was about my project. Seven pupils did not like it. Two of those said that they did not like doing projects, another two wrote * It is bored. Eleven pupils liked it. Eleven pupils think that they learned some new things; seven did not learn anything new. Fourteen pupils liked working with additional materials, four did not. All the pupils liked working with the Internet, although part of them told me in the lesson that they did not have the Internet at home and therefore could not have done the homework. Only two pupils liked presenting the project in front of the class, the rest did not. That is what I had expected. They were able to work with materials I gave them very well; they chose the needed or the most important information and made notes in their notebooks. But they did not like speaking and being watched by their classmates and the teacher. Two pupils found the whole task rather difficult, one pupil easy and the rest think that it was adequate. Two thirds of the pupils were not interested in the topic, but the same number of them think that it was better than working with a textbook. Half of the class thinks that there was enough time for the project and the other half thinks there should have been more time for it.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

I got sixteen completed questionnaires, which means that all the pupils who did the project filled it in.

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Seven children prefer learning from a textbook to learning from supplementary materials. It is a huge difference between them and higher grades, where almost all the pupils answered that additional materials are better. Most of the children wrote that they use additional material seldom. I think that the teacher translated this word for them from Czech and they used it, because they did not know any other suitable word. It is strange when one gets the same answer from 70% of respondents. Fifteen pupils had known the story; it was new only for one pupil. Most of the children said that they had understood both spoken English and subtitles. I wanted them to choose one answer only, but they circled two of them. I think they wanted to say that they had been listening and reading the subtitles and therefore had understood. Seven pupils think they learned something new, nine of them did not learn anything. Five children do not think anything special about dancing, they did not care, but the rest liked it and some of them mentioned that they like moving in lessons. Ten children do not even think about reading the book, because they do not like reading. Four of them would like to read it and two would like to read it in Czech. Fifteen children wish to have more time for this project, but I am afraid that they only liked watching the film. If we did more grammar and exercises, they probably would not have liked it so much.

Cooking
I got 17 filled questionnaires. Fifteen pupils prefer learning from different materials than textbooks according to them. Eleven children meet spoken English on TV, in movies etc, six of them only at school in listening exercises from their textbooks. There was not any child who would not come in contact with spoken English at all. All the pupils had experience with making a project, but they could not remember the exact number. One pupil wrote *I dont no. One half (nine) found it easy, the rest difficult. The next question about the most difficult part of the project was not so one-sided as in other classes. Whereas children in other classes unambiguously did not like presentation itself, it was different here. Five children did not like preparation, four children working out the presentation and eight of them the presentation.

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Twelve pupils had heard about Jamie Oliver. Fourteen pupils do not like him. Most of the children liked the video I played for them, but they did not understand it. Four pupils though it was silly. Only one pupil said it was interesting. One half of the class thinks that they learned something new and the same amount of pupils was interested in the topic. Thirteen pupils did no like presenting in front of the class. Fourteen children think it was better than working with a textbook and twelve pupils did no find the task to be neither easy nor difficult. Nine children wish to have more time for this project.

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16. CONCLUSION OF THE PRACTICAL PART

The use of authentic materials in ELT is mentioned in almost all the modern teaching approaches and methods. I used them in practice at a primary school with sixth, eights and ninth graders. The result was positive and it only confirmed its irreplaceableness. The main advantage of this approach is the wide range of materials that can be used. I mostly worked with leaflets, pictures and audio video material, but there are many more possibilities. The main method I used was a project method. We can generally say that the preparation for a lesson with a use of authentic materials is more demanding for teachers, but the yield for pupils is much higher that from a common lesson. In addition, they are learning to use a language for life more than from most textbooks. The also develop a lot of skills next to learning the language itself, e. g. working with the Internet, searching for information, social cultural understanding, long-term planning etc. I chose three topics for my practice, which I thought would be the most interesting and most beneficial for the pupils. The topics were travelling, cooking and film. I was not difficult to find materials. I used my own materials, which I had brought from Ireland and Great Britain, but those topics should be easy to prepare for all teachers. The pupils were delighted with the change from their textbook. However, I found out that they were not used to making projects. They can work out a very good piece of work, but they cannot present it very well. Their knowledge background was not as it should have been in most cases; they made a lot of mistakes. Most of the pupils also liked the topics I had chosen. Surprisingly, they did not like the topic cooking. In spite of their lack of interest, they worked well in most parts of the project. I would recommend using authentic materials and modern alternative teaching approaches and methods to all the language teachers. It is important to have good class management skills and be able to inspire the pupils. The positive results will definitely delight both teachers and their students.

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17. CONCLUSION
In this chapter I will sum up the conclusions I have come to during my working on the topic and my practical work at school. During my work, I have found out that authentic materials play an important role in teaching a second language. They enrich the traditional lessons and are interesting for students, too. However, the pupils are not used to learning from alternative sources. They do not have much responsibility for their learning. In my opinion, they should be taught independence since early age. I see the problem in fossilized image of lessons, which have been in Czech since Austro Hungarian era. There are some attempts for a change, but the alternative approaches still have to recede to traditional systems. There is a lack of experience with alternative methods among teachers, who cannot use them effectively or do not consider them to be useful. It is demanding to prepare a lesson with use of authentic materials and it is also not easy to get the materials, too. It may be one of the reasons why they are not used much. I very appreciate the possibility to try to implement authentic materials into teaching. In future, I will be aware of some difficulties, which may unexpectedly appear. I will not condemn authentic materials at all. I still consider them to be very useful and enriching. I will keep collecting them and finding ways of using them. I hope that my work will be an inspiration for teachers of future teachers, although the result of my teaching practice was not completely positive. Hard work, which is connected with alternative teaching, should not discourage teachers. On the contrary, they should take it as a challenge of better teaching.

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18. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Dickinson, Leslie. Self-instruction in Language Learning. Cambridge University Press, 1988. Gill, Simon; akov, Michaela. Intercultural Activities. Oxford University Press, 2002. Hutchinson, Tom. Introduction to Project Work. Oxford University Press, 1992. Jones, Ken. Simulations in Teaching. Cambridge University Press, 1990. Kramsch, Claire. Context and Culture in Language Teaching. Oxford University Press, 1996. Lewis, Gordon. The Internet and Young Learners. Oxford University Press, 2004. Phillips, Diane; Burwood, Sarah; Dunford, Helen. Projects with Young Learners. Oxford University Press, 2003. Stempleski, Susan; Tomalin, Barry. Video in Action. Cambridge University Press, 1990. Teeler, Dede; Gray, Peta. How to Use the Internet in ELT. Pearson Education Limited, 2000. Tomalin, Barry; Stempleski, Susan. Cultural Awarness. Oxford University Press, 1993. Valdes, Joyce Merrill. Culture Bound. Cambridge University Press, 1992.

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Walker, Carolyn. Penguin Readers Teachers Guide to Using Film and TV. Penguin Longman Publishing, 1999. Wright, Andrew. Pictures for Language Learning. Cambridge University Press, 1994.

Internet sources:
www3.telus.net/linguisticsissues/authenticmaterials.html (01/04/2008) http://www.proliteracy.org/downloads/litscape/LitScapeWinter06.pdf (15/03/2008) http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/articles/using-authentic-materials (21/03/2008) http://www.esl-lab.com/research/simul.htm (03/04/2008)

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19. SUMMARY
The work deals with use of authentic materials, such as books, video, music etc. in teaching English language. It refers to specialized sources and gives reasons for authentic materials usage. Particular attention is drawn to multicultural background. Another important feature which the work deals with is practical use of authentic materials in real environment of a primary school. The work describes the process and elaborates the results.

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ATTACHMENTS

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