We all know the importance of providing our students with authentic materials. We want their experiences inside the classroom to be as close to real life as possible so that when they encounter a situation they know how to deal with it. Often, one big challenge with providing authentic materials is that the process of finding them can be very time-consuming, especially if you have to drive around your community to collect various forms and other printed materials to bring to your classroom. Fortunately, many businesses and organizations have made much of their printed materials available online. For example, if you go to Google and search for “Medical Intake Form” (which is used in English Forward Unit 4, Lesson 5) you are shown links to many different websites where such a form is available, and images of intake forms that you may be able to use in class. (Click here to see the results). If you need a map of your local public transportation system (Unit 6, Lesson 1) you can likely find maps of all the bus routes online. For example, the Austin CapMetro system has PDFs available online of every single bus route that they provide (Click here to see a bus route). Many restaurants also have their menus available online, which would be helpful for Unit 7, Lesson 5.
Be sure to use the internet to your advantage when it comes to preparing for class! If there are other ways that you use the internet to access valuable printed material for your lessons, let us know in the comments.