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Using authentic materials is one of the mainstays of an imaginative and motivating higher level course, but rarely features at levels lower than intermediate.

Authentic materials are written or spoken texts used with learners without changing the level of language.

In this article I would like to focus on two key areas of developing our students' listening skills.

Do you find yourself spending hours preparing your lessons? Are you getting very little support from colleagues? Is it difficult to know what to teach your children without a syllabus? Would you like some tips on how to create a good lesson when you find yourself with ten minutes to prepare a lesson, a broken photocopier, and your bag of teaching goodies safely locked up at home?

Sometimes looking back can help us look forward. My talk - The History of Video in ELT, given at the Image conference – came about as a way to trace the changing role of video in the language classroom.

Lewis Lansford, co-author of Keynote, winner of the 2016 British Council ELTon award for Excellence in Course Innovation, looks at how teachers can help students at every level to engage with authentic input. Using TED Talks, he’ll look at brain science related to listening and offer practical tips for creating success-oriented lessons at any level.

An authentic task is a task that native speakers of a language would do in everyday life.

Fred Gordon explores using authentic texts with low-level learners.

Exposure refers to the contact that the learner has with the language that they are trying to learn, either generally or with specific language points.