Authenticity in language learning/ teaching

By

Abdelmoughit Al assfar

Writing research project

Prof: Mercedes Díez Prados

A/Y: 2013/2014

Abstract

This paper shall question the notion of authenticity in language teaching, an issue that has attracted

significant attention among scholars and practicing teachers. The need of authentic materials in

today’s learning context is not a sort of fashionable or innovative teaching; it is rather an urgent

need for our students. Exploring the nature of these authentic materials is our first point to highlight

in this paper, followed by some suggestions on how to use these materials inside the classroom with

the four skills (listening, reading, writing and speaking). The final section of the paper is dedicated

to the discussion of the possible challenges that might be found when making use of authentic

materials, accompanied by some possible amendments and solutions for these difficulties.

Key words: Motivation, authenticity, authentic materials, macroskills

Introduction

Motivating students, capturing their attention and interest has been one of the most

challenging tasks teachers of language have been facing. The questions on how to make them learn,

how to raise their awareness of language, and how to make their learning experience a beneficial

and enjoying experience have been asked during many years (Oura, 2003: 65). Having motivated

students is a dream that every teacher has, because teachers are all aware that motivation is one of

the key factors driving to language learning success (Dorney, 2001; Ellis, 1994 quoted in M,

Winke, 2005). To be motivated is as simple as being moved to do something (Ryan & Deci, 2000,

p. 54) Different approaches, methods, and techniques have been implemented to cover these needs

and make the most of the learning experience, if we are to list these different methods and

approaches, writing an entire book might not be enough to do so. For the scope of this paper I will

limit my focus on the authenticity in language learning, an issue that has been the main spot of

research during the last four decades; and it is considered as an important factor that might enhance

students’ motivation and interest of language learning (M. Winke, 2005). There have been many

approaches, methods and teaching strategies that try as much as possible to implement authentic

materials in the classroom, in an attempt to make the learning process of a language (English in this

case) a realistic experience and a natural one. However, the notion of authenticity in language

learning is still an arguable issue among scholars, and practitioners alike. This paper shall explore

authenticity in its different aspects, and then suggests manners in which we can bring authenticity to

the classroom. We shall all agree on the possible difficulties that arise when dealing with teaching

approaches that differ a bit from the norms, as a final point I will try to highlight these difficulties

that may appear when bringing authenticity into practice followed by some suggestions on how to

overcome these possible problems.

1. Authentic language materials: what are they and why use them?

For many students the process of learning a language is limited with the classroom,

especially in contexts where English for instance is a foreign language and it is not the language of

communication outside the school. If scholars claim that language’s main function is

communication and that one learns a certain language to communicate his ideas or his feelings, then

students who are learning a foreign language in school are not very motivated enough for the only

reason that their communication needs are fulfilled with the use of their mother tongue. So why

bother themselves with learning a language that has an exclusive and limited use? For many

students they complain that all what they do in a class is a set of artificial tasks and activities

lacking all sorts of authenticity and real use of language (Taylor, 1994)

Authenticity in language learning or authentic materials are a set of texts or recordings

produced by real speakers or real writers for a real audience to convey a real message or meaning

(Morrow, 1977: 13). Harmer (1983:146) defined authentic materials as texts (written or spoken)

which are designed for native speakers, with a focus on the learners of that language who are

English, American or Australian… when dealing with English language. While Wilkins (1976)

agreed on the same definition as harmer, Nunan (1989: 54) claimed that authentic materials are all

sorts of resources that were not designed for language teaching. Although, these definitions might

have some slice differences in terms of content, they shall all be categorized under the umbrella of

communicative approach to language learning. An approach that has been adopted in language

teaching during the last four decades, its philosophy is based on seeing language far more than a

system of rules; rather it considers language to be a dynamic resource for the creation of meaning.

Language in this sense is the ability of its learners to distinguish between knowing various

grammatical rules and using those rules effectively and appropriately when communicating (Nunan,

1989: 12). This approach, according to Harmer (1983), has made a significant shift not only on

what to teach, but also on the way of teaching, he suggested that the communicative approach

includes the use of activities that would involve students on real or realistic communication where

much importance is given to the fluency of the learners rather than their accuracy. A context that is

similar to a situation in real life and the achievement of successful communication is the end point.

Another approach where authenticity can take place is the task based approach popularized by N

Prabhu who speculated that learners can equally learn a language if they were thinking about a non-

linguistic problem to solve as when they were concentrating on particular language form (Prabhu,

1987 quoted in Harmer, 2011: 86). He goes further in his explanation by giving an example of what

task based learning can be, suggesting that instead of asking students, for instance, about (e.g. what

is this? It’s a time table, or what does “arrival” mean?) Students ask and answer questions to solve a

problem such as finding train time table information; therefore the questions would be (e.g. when

does the Brindavan express leave Madras/ arrive in Bangalore?).

These are two examples, among many others, of approaches that make use of authenticity in

language learning, with a set of different activities and materials which we shall give note of later

on in this paper. But before doing so, let us first explore some examples of what classroom

materials can be authentic or rather serve for authenticity. Hover (1986, quoted in Nunan, 1989: 53)

suggests a long list of these materials; within this list we can here mention the following:

Letters ( formal/informal)

news paper extracts

picture stories

memo notes

shopping lists

post cards,

family trees

menus

recipe

weather forecast

diary

hotel entertainment programs

The list of course is not complete, nor holistic, for the time being I might extend this list so as to

make it up to date and include the use of social media (Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Instagram…)

movies, and TV series as fundamental resources for authentic materials. In this regard, the elements

of the above list of materials beside my own extension are the range of data sources that exist all

around us (Nunan, 1989: 53).

Clarke & Silberstein (1977) argued that classroom activities should parallel the real world as

closely as possible. Due to the fact that language should serve as a means of communication,

methods and materials should focus more on the massage rather than the medium. The four skills,

they claim, shall have similar purposes when done in class as it is the case outside the classroom. A

reading task, for instance, should consist of obtaining specific facts or piece of information

(scanning), then obtain a holistic idea of the text (skimming), grasp the whole meaning of the text in

what is considered to be a thorough comprehension, finally criticize, evaluate the text and decide

whether it fits to one’s own beliefs, and that is critical reading (Nunan, 1989: 59).

Nowadays the use of authentic materials is of crucial importance, since they provide

stimulating texts, recordings, visuals and contexts of speaking full of cultural information for a

range of students that have different styles, and varied interests. Doff (1988: 170) argued that when

students are presented such kind of appropriate materials, they get interested because their view to

those materials changed from being a merely tool of learning the language to a means of obtaining

information. In addition to this, authentic materials provide the opportunity for students to be

exposed to some incidental or improper language, elements that are not normally found in text

books. A sense of satisfaction is also created when students listen to or read authentic materials

since they feel that their language is being improved and useful in the outside world (Mabc & LLG,

n.d). A question that imposes itself at this stage is the way we can present those materials and bring

them to the classroom, what authentic materials are appropriate for some students and not for

others? The following section of my paper shall explore this issue, and analyze the best way we can

bring authenticity to our language classes.

2. The use of Authentic Materials inside the classroom:

In the first section of this paper, I have tried to define what authenticity is and which

materials can be considered authentic in a language classroom. A list of real materials that surround

us every day was presented in an attempt to provide practical examples. The focus on this section

shall be on the means and the manners in which we can bring those materials to a language class in

the four macroskills of listening, reading, speaking, and writing.

a. Authenticity in listening:

Listening is one of the most frequently used skills in our learning process, when students

first start learning a language they have to start listening to the sounds, recognize some words, build

their vocabulary, develop their language use and proficiency (Barker, 1971, quoted in Thanajaro,

2000: 2) However, this skill is rarely developed inside the classroom, and little importance has been

given to this skill, since teachers believe that it is a skill that can be acquired and improved naturally

and there is no need to dedicate too much time for it. While this belief is still nowadays spread

among many teachers, Dunkel (1986) Curtain & Pesola (1988) argued that the listening skill is the

key to achieving the proficiency in speaking and it is the main channel through which students

make direct contact with the language and the culture (Ibid, 2000: 2). If we are to believe that the

listening skill is as fundamental as the rest of the skills, we should then think of ways in which we

can develop this skill. Maybe one of the reasons why students are not motivated when having a

listening task is the irrelevance of the recording in terms of its form and content. Finding

appropriate and lively materials are the key factor to arise some sort of interest in the listening

activity. If carefully and effectively chosen, authentic materials have this ability to move students

and grasp their attention to the listening task as they expose students to real language, when I say

“real” I do not claim that the rest of language in the classroom is not real, rather I only try to

highlight the difference between a conversation, for instance, that takes place in a real radio

program, and a piece of it that was made exclusively for academic purposes. A research conducted

by Herron and Seay (1991) found that students who listened to authentic radio tapes as an

alternative for regular listening activities showed greater comprehension than those whose listening

tasks didn’t include authentic recordings, their conclusion indicated that listening-comprehension

skill improves with exposure to authentic materials (Ibid, 2000:35). This conclusion makes sense if

we explore what can be the difference between authentic and inauthentic materials. In an authentic

context speakers tend to say a great deal of words more than necessary, repeat words in what is

known as redundancy, a feature that appears less in inauthentic recordings. An element that might

takes the form of false starts, rephrasing, self-correction, elaborations, meaningless addition, or fills

such as you know, I mean, well, err… as well as a tendency to go back in the conversation and start

the idea again, hesitate and all sorts of ungrammatical utterances etc…( Ur, 1984) Exposing

students to this sort of materials allows some kind of confidence in the use of language later, makes

them aware that language is not that perfect utterance which should respect all the grammatical

forms and linguistic restrictions, it rather naturalizes the language for them and above all, these

materials transmit, as they are by their nature, a culturally rich context.

b. Authenticity in reading:

Reading activity is a very rich context where we can make the most of authentic materials, it

offers students a significant opportunity to explore the language in its real feature, without any

bridging, nor deletion or modification. When we read in real life, we are interested in the

communicative purpose of the text; we want to tackle the wit of the written piece, its humor and its

cultural aspects. This can be easily noticed if we compare a piece of written text in a text book and

another one in a book, a magazine or a newspaper. In a normal classroom setting, we tend to have a

text book which we should finish by the end of the semester or the year, one of the drawbacks of

text books is that they don’t normally contain authentic reading texts, rather modified, bridged and

adapted. A way to improve students reading skills and motivate them is bringing supplementary

authentic materials such as stories, books, and articles from newspapers and magazines, without

forgetting about internet-based materials bearing in mind their interests, their level of proficiency

and their ages. Our main purpose behind exposing students to these authentic materials should be

preparing them for the real life reading situations, where we do not normally read aloud, we have

little help, we should not understand every single word, and furthermore we read as an end and not

as a medium. Therefore, authentic reading materials shall enhance students’ autonomy and

confidence; as well as teaching them to be critical in their reading (Neikova, 2005). The last thing,

which is actually the first step, when assigning these authentic materials three elements should be

taken into consideration; its readability which means that the text should be at the right level of the

students, although the text might be difficult the tasks shall be adapted and not necessarily the text.

Then its suitability of content in terms of interest and information that should meet the needs of the

students, and finally its exploitability in a way that the text should develop the reading skills of the

students in order to become competent and independent readers (Ibid, 2005).

c. Authenticity in speaking :

Until the 1960s, language proficiency was considered as a mastery of grammatical

structures. The shift started in Great Britain when linguists began to question the assumptions

underscoring Situational Language Teaching; therefore, an emphasis was given to the

communicative proficiency (Basta, 2011). The speaking skill has been given little importance in

language classrooms, and it has occupied a peculiar position throughout much of the history of

language teaching, only in the last 20 years that it has begun to emerge as a branch of teaching,

learning and testing in its own right (Bygate, 2001). We have started to notice a focus on the

speaking skills in many textbooks, an element that marks a significant improvement or a better

understanding of the importance of this skill. The questions that emerge here is whether we have

achieved an improvement concerning the speaking performance of our students? Whether these

textbooks activities provide our students with authentic speaking tools and authentic speaking

situations? When we are dealing with speaking activities, students start to tremble and teachers

alike do so, the first for fear of having to face a very uncomfortable situation, and the second for

fear of wasting time in carrying an activity which normally leads to a great waste of time and hardly

tangible results. Why speaking is uncomfortable, when our students spend most of their time

chatting with each other during the classroom. And why speaking is a waste of time, if the main aim

behind learning a language is to acquire the communicative abilities of that language and being

capable of speaking out one’s own thoughts and feelings. Maybe repeating drills and memorizing

dialogues are not the best way in which we can initiate and rise up our students’ interest and

motivation in speaking a language.

If speaking, as (Chaney, 1998) defines it, is a process of building and sharing meaning through the

use of verbal and non-verbal symbols in a variety of contexts, our approaches of repeating other’s ideas and

communicating them go against what speaking is, and its main purpose. In a rapidly changing world, we

should prepare our students to face the outside world and teach them how to speak up their own voices.

Authentic speaking activities are they key of reflecting reality inside the classroom, a session of free

discussion about topics that interest my students, the pros and cons of Whatsupp mobile application, would

have far greater results than speaking about the investment in space for instance; first because everybody

have Whatsupp, and it is a topic that would arise the curiosity of almost all the students, secondly, because it

is a topic that affects them directly and the discussion might lead to some practical ideas that might be

applied after the class, or at least might make students think about them. Space investment is not a topic of

lower importance; rather it is an issue that hardly raises the interest of the students. Stimulation activities are

very motivating and create an authentic environment for learning and speaking. Another way of making

speaking sound authentic is as simple as speaking with students about their lives, questions such as, how are

you today? What have you done this weekend? How are the preparations of your exams going? have a great

potential in establishing a real use of language and not only motivate students to use the language, but also

create a friendly and stress- free atmosphere of learning.

Speaking as a communicative skill can be a great element to make the best of authenticity in

language learning. It has this ability of being used and exploited during the whole classroom, so there is not a

specific moment of speaking tasks, or “Okay, now let’s do a little bit of speaking”. Speaking must take place

from the very beginning of a class until its end.

d. Authenticity in writing:

When it comes to writing it seems very difficult to make the experience authentic, because

as White (1981: 2) argues, writing is not a natural activity since all physically and mentally normal

people learn to speak a language, yet all people have to be taught how to write. Bell and Burnaby

(1984, quoted in Nunan, 1989: 36) point out that writing is an extremely complex cognitive activity

in which the writer has to demonstrate a set of variables simultaneously, such as content, format,

sentence structure, vocabulary and punctuation etc…Being able to write fluently and expressively

Nunan (1989) argues that it is the most difficult of the macroskills, regardless of whether you are

writing in your first, second or foreign language.

Having tackled the difficulty of this skill, more reasons arise to pay due attention to the

teaching of writing, motivation should be our main concern and our first goal to achieve among

students. A motivated student would always come up with a well done piece of writing, although it

might not be perfectly written, but the learning to write will take place. As we have seen before in

this paper, students tend to be motivated when they feel engaged in the learning process, and this

engagement happens when the learning materials and the tasks students have to accomplish reflect

in a way their interests and preferences. Authentic writing has this potential of providing students

with situations where the writing process is nothing else but a chance and opportunity to express

themselves, their feelings, their thoughts and opinions.

We normally tend to ask our students to write different sorts of topics in different formats,

both chosen by us, or by the textbook, but we rarely give them this freedom of writing about

whatever they want in the way they want, with some guiding of course, so as writing for them

becomes a source of speaking out their views and opinions on whatever they consider important for

them. This happens mainly out of fear to have a decontrol of everything in our classrooms, but we

never think that this way might be the most motivating for our students. If this approach sounds

extreme, there are other manners in which we can make use of authenticity without losing control,

for example; by making them write about their experiences and not opine on others’, which was

your best or worse holiday ever? Have you ever been to a foreign country and got lost? We can also

ask them to write their diaries and share them in the classroom. Concerning email writing which is a

task that everybody has done in school, a simple way of making it look authentic is by using real

email addresses and using computers instead of paper sheets to write them. We might also

encourage students to watch a movie then write about its plot, their favorite character and also their

criticism about the movie. We shall never forget that writing is not an activity in its own right,

independent and unrelated with the three other skills; they all tend to function together and

complement each other. A writing task might be the result of a discussion a class carried out before,

a radio program students listened to, an article of a newspaper they read. Writing in this sense is a

natural reaction to different materials our students get exposed to.

Authentic writing shall not be the exception or a revolutionary way of dealing with this skill,

but a norm that can be adopted by all teachers, and syllabus designers so as to demolish all the fear

our students have towards writing, a fear that accompany them during all their study career. The

weird demands and exigencies that we, teachers, tend to ask our students when writing are

creativity and authenticity. The logical thing and the common sense all teachers share, is the

principle of giving something, and then ask for it, and not asking for things we never give, or at

least never show them where they are.

3. The challenges of using authentic materials in the classroom:

Bringing authentic materials to the classroom is something out of the norm; it implies

leaving apart the textbook and creates one’s own activities. This extra task takes the teacher out of

his/her comfort zone, it involves more preparation; therefore, more efforts. When teachers choose to

use authentic materials they should be very careful in selecting level appropriate materials and

linguistically profitable ones (Allwright 1990: 136, cited by Pegrum, 2000). The factor of time

makes this task quite challenging in two different levels, first, the choice of the appropriate moment

to introduce these materials into the classroom, second, the issue of time consumption that such

activities might require from the teacher in terms of research and preparation, and since authentic

materials are related with the outside world, a fact that makes them ever changing and quickly

outdated, obliges teachers to be constantly renewing their materials and hunting for new topics and

issues, especially when it comes to reading news articles or watching TV programs ( Georgieva,

n.d). Some materials, for being authentic, are very difficult for learners and might contain a lot of

new and unfamiliar vocabulary, as well as complex grammatical structures, and this in a way can be

demotivating and frustrating for students.

In order to avoid, or at least lessen from these drawbacks, teachers can make a list of

adaptations to these authentic materials. They can add certain grammatical structures or vocabulary

if teachers feel the need for further exposure to these linguistic elements. Deletion of irrelevant

content is also possible whenever teachers consider it helpful and appropriate, modifying and

simplifying authentic materials is a process that contributes in making the most of them especially

when the level of students is not high enough to understand the content of some texts or recordings

(Mabc & LLG, n.d). This process of adaptation is not, by no means, depriving these materials from

their authenticity; it is rather a process that makes possible the use of authentic materials in all

levels with all kind of students. While speaking about modification and adaptation, materials are not

always the target of these processes; teachers can adapt the activities and the exercises

accompanying the materials and make them appropriate for their students’ level without the need of

changing or modifying the original materials.

4. Conclusion:

The issue of authenticity in the classroom cannot be seen as a revolution against the norms,

or as an approach that tries to ridicule textbooks. The concern of every teacher is to have motivated

students in the classroom, students willing to learn and interested in what they are learning, but we

should never forget that authenticity is not an approach that can be exploited only inside the

classroom, teachers might encourage their students to listen to radio podcasts, movies in original

versions, songs etc… The internet has made it such an easy task for all of us to search for and

obtain these materials. In my paper I have made clear what scholars mean by authentic materials, I

have given practical examples of these materials, then tried to show in which way we can make use

of them in our language classes; however, I also tackled the difficulty of the approach, and how

challenging these materials can result both for teachers and students. Conducting a successful

language classroom is not conditioned by the use of this approach or that one, authentic materials, if

not carefully selected and well prepared, might have disastrous results. This paper doesn’t claim at

any moment the perfectness of this approach neither it claimed any sort of mathematical results of

success. A good approach to language teaching is rather conditioned by a good teacher, and a good

learning atmosphere. Successful teachers are those teachers whom I tend to call, teachers a la carte,

teachers that adapt their strategies and their approaches to the needs of their students, teachers that

find out how they can motivate their students and what is best for their learning. Using authentic

materials in the classroom is not the obligation of the century; it is the personal choice of every

single teacher that might consider this approach fits into his classroom.

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