authentic materials_ an overview

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Authentic Materials: An Overview

by Alejandro G. Martinez, M.A., Mexico City

There are many references to authentic material in the ELT literature. Books and journals contain thorough explanations of why it should or shouldnot be included in lessons, and how it is to be used or best exploited. But those authors who support the use of authentic material have in common on

idea: "exposure". In other words, the benefit students get from being exposed to the language in authentic materials.

The definition of authentic materials used in this paper is taken from Peacock (1997): materials that have been produced to fulfill some social purposein the language community.

Widdowson's (1990) differentiation of the terms "authentic" and "genuine material" has been a seminal one in the field so I should like to mention ihere:Authenticwould be material designed for native speakers of English used in the classroom in a way similar to the one it was designed for. For

example, a radio news report brought into the class so students discuss the report on pollution in the city where learners live.

Most of the time, though, this material is used in a genuineway, in other words, not in the way it was intended, but in a somewhat artificial way. Forexample, a news article where the paragraphs are cut up and jumbled so students have to put them back together in the correct order.

Another view is the difference between artificial and authentic materials (see Shortall, 2001).

Advantages

Using authentic material in the classroom, even when not done in an authentic situation, and provided it is appropriately exploited, is significant formany reasons, amongst which are:

Students are exposed to real discourse, as in videos of interviews with famous people where intermediate students listen for gist.

Authentic materials keep students informed about what is happening in the world, so they have an intrinsic educational value. As teachers, weare educators working within the school system, so education and general development are part of our responsibilities (Sanderson, 1999).

Textbooks often do not include incidental or improper English.

They can produce a sense of achievement, e.g., a brochure on England given to students to plan a 4-day visit.

The same piece of material can be used under different circumstances if the task is different.

Language change is reflected in the materials so that students and teachers can keep abreast of such changes.

Reading texts are ideal to teach/practise mini-skills such as scanning, e.g. students are given a news article and asked to look for specificinformation (amounts, percentages, etc.) . The teacher can have students practice some of the micro-skills mentioned by Richards (1983), e.gbasic students listen to news reports and they are asked to identify the names of countries, famous people, etc. (ability to detect key words).

Books, articles, newspapers, and so on contain a wide variety of text types, language styles not easily found in conventional teaching materials.

They can encourage reading for pleasure because they are likely to contain topics of interest to learners, especially if students are given thechance to have a say about the topics or kinds of authentic materials to be used in class.

Disadvantages

The disadvantages mentioned by several writers are:
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They may be too culturally biased, so unnecessarily difficult to understand outside the language community.

The vocabulary might not be relevant to the student's immediate needs.

Too many structures are mixed so lower levels have a hard time decoding the texts.

Special preparation is necessary which can be time consuming.

With listening: too many different accents.

The material can become outdated easily, e.g. news.

There are many headlines, adverts, signs, and so on that can require good knowledge of the cultural background. Instances of this abound in the mediasuch as headlines that many times use abbreviations (P.O.W., M.I.A., G.O.P. and so on).

Sources of Authentic Materials

In today's globalized world, examples abound, but the most commonly used perhaps are: newspapers, TV programs, menus, magazines, the internet,movies, songs, brochures, comics, literature (novels, poems and short stories), and so forth.

I would like to look at some authentic materials in a bit more detail and then move on to a variety of sample tasks .

Literature

The reason for using literature in the class has been stated by Pound: "Great literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost possibldegree." (Ezra Pound, How to Read, Part II.). Of course, the focus should be on teaching language, not literature. In other words, the idea should be

using literary texts as one kind among other texts. With that in mind, the tasks should aim at meaning and not form, especially literary form orstylistics.

Computer Software

Software that has been specially designed for English instruction has received some criticism particularly from teachers who back up a humanisticapproach to language teaching. They state they see no reason why exercises that can be done with a textbook should be carried out with a computer.

This idea stems from software such as Gapkit, Grammar mastery IIand others that are really computer-guided drills. This position is quiteunderstandable. However, together with Tense Buster, and others that drills are not all computers have to offer to EFL teaching.

General software can be used in class, be it in a genuine or in an authentic way. An example is Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?byBroderbond, which gives students opportunities to interact not only with the computer but with other students as well. There are other examples of

adventure games where learners need to discover clues and unravel mysteries. These games usually involve a good amount of reading and with the usof multimedia they involve a good range of sounds, speakers of different ages and accents, and excellent images. Students can play in pairs or threesand discuss what to do next, so that the interaction that takes place is also a part of the learning process. Another advantage these games have is that

they promote computer literacy, a badly needed skill in the modern world.

The Internet

With the advent of the World Wide Web, teachers have at their disposal large amounts of texts, visual stimuli, newspapers, magazines, live radio andT.V., video clips and much more. There are endless lists of useful materials for the language classroom. I should like to focus mainly on newspapers

and radio stations. As with other media, there is no point in asking students to just go to the web and read some text or other. There needs to be a taskpreferably one in which meaning is central and has some connection to the real world. Treasure hunts and other information searching activities areprobably the most useful. More and more sites have interactive sections. For example: http://www.bbc.co.uk/communicate/which contains message

boards and where students can chat with native speakers.

Other useful websites are:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardian/

http://www.nytimes.com

http://www.google.com

Task

The task, or what students are supposed to do with the given material, is what often makes all the difference. There is material that can be used forbeginners, intermediate or advanced students, provided the task that comes with it is suitable. This task should relate to the student's own life as muc

as possible, as proposed by Clarke (1989).

Sample Tasks

WANT ADS

A series of 4-5 want ads can be used with adults in the following way: beginners are asked to say which of the jobs they could qualify for,intermediate students can write an application letter or write a C.V., and advanced students may discuss who in the class could qualify for the job and

why, re-write the ads or role-play job interviews.
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TREASURE HUNT

Students get a news or magazine article and a sheet of paper with a series of questions so that they look for certain items: dates, events, peopleinvolved, etc.

MENUS

I have found menus to have great potential as authentic material. Students willingly get involved in a role-play where one is a waiter/tress and 2-3students are the customers, provided they have been supplied with the necessary functions and structures to carry out such task, i.e. sentences such as

"What would you like?", "I'll have...", "Anything else?", and so on

ADS IN MAGAZINES

Guessing the product. In this task, the teacher cuts out advertisements from magazines, hides the products being advertised and shows them tolearners one by one to see if they can guess what product is being advertised. To practice specific vocabulary, the teacher gives learners three or four

options per ad.

A second example involving magazine advertisements is the following: Students are set in groups of 3-4 and get some 4 adverts. They are to imaginthey are working for an advertising agency and compare the ads taking into account the texts and the photographs. Students are to decide which is the

best and which is the worst. Then they re-design the worst ad, including the text. Ads with short texts are used with basic students, whereas thosecontaining more complex texts are for intermediate or advanced students.

THE AGONY COLUMN

Four or five letters to the agony column are cut in half and pasted onto cards. Students work in pairs or groups of three and match the beginnings withthe corresponding endings of the letters, and they match the corresponding answer to each letter.

TRAVEL BROCHURES

An example of how to use travel brochures is the following:

Students sit in groups of 4-5. They are given travel brochures of interesting places. They are to design a "phoney" brochure of an invented place. In itthey include a mixture of characteristics of that place. e.g. spaghetti is the typical food, you can visit a theme park, drink vodka, etc.

FURTHER READING:

Clarke, D. (1990), Communicative theory and its influence on materials production. Language Teaching25/1, pp73-86

Lund, S. (1992), Giving Your Courses a Dose of Reality. ELT Forum3 pp.10-15

Richards, J.(1983), Listening Comprehension: Approach, Design, Procedure. TESOL Quarterly17/2 pp. 219-239

Sanderson, P. (1999), Using Newspapers in the Classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Shortall, T. (2001), Distinctions and Dichotomies: Artificial and Authentic. English Teaching Professional, 21, pp35

Ur, P. (1984), Teaching Listening Comprehension. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Widdowson, H. (1990), Aspects of Language Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press

Alejandro Martinez 2002. All rights reserved.
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