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This lesson covered a lot of different possibilities for teaching aids in the classroom including visual (photos, pictures, drawings, OHP, white/black boards, etc.), audio (cassette recorder/player, CD player) and audio-visual (DVD's, video recorders, online videos, etc.). One thing that was not mentioned, and was in fact, assuming that I answered the question correctly, an answer to the question regarding materials NOT commonly used in the classroom was radios. I can understand this exclusion up to a point, but my personal experience says that maybe it could or even should be used. I was a broadcaster with American Forces Network in Tokyo, and I had many Japanese friends who listened to our radio station to practice listening to English and to aid with their comprehension. They would often hear me on the radio and get excited and want to tell me about it when they saw me. They'd summarize news segments that I would produce for radio or report on what I was talking about on the radio. I think that if you're fortunate enough to be teaching English in a locale within the broadcasting range of an English speaking radio station it could be an invaluable source for authentic material. If you know the schedule on which the radio station operates, you can tune in at the appropriate time to listen to a newscast or a regular telephone interview and use it as an aid for classroom discussion to see how much your students were able to pick up from listening to a broadcast. It would require some advance planning and knowledge of the radio station and would only be appropriate for more advanced classes, but I think there's some merit to this idea.
