Using the Real: Authenticity in Materials Design

Introduction: For the next two weeks we will be looking at the topic of selecting authentic materials and designing tasks with them. Complete the following activities with your partners.

Reasons for Using Authentic Texts: Read four quotes from teachers about their reasons for using texts in their language classes. For each one, summarize the teacher's few in your own words. Then discuss these two questions:

• Which of the teachers seem most concerned that texts should be authentic?

• What are your own beliefs about the role of texts in language teaching?

• A) I want students to have a model (for instance, examples of a new structure or a particular kind of letter) so that they'll feel more confident about attempting new things in the language. The principle of listen/read first and then speak/write seems a basic one to me.

• B) Students iwll only learn to understand native speakers of the language if they're exposed to plenty of samples of authenic language different voices, etc.

• C) Sometimes my students have difficulty talking or writing about topics because they lack imagination or inspiration. I find that if I give them a listening or reading text first, that often helps to get the ideas flowing.

• D) I see texts as linguistic quarries (tajos). My main concern in working with texts - real texts, that is, not texts specially written for language learners - is to draw attention to points of language which are either of interest in themselves (specific structures, lexical items, cultural allusions) or provide a starting point for consideration of related language features. A lot of what I do is in the area of vocabulary. The general idea is to enrich their vocabularies and extend their linguistic repertoirs. We dig at the text together; they then decide what they want to take from it. For the kind of students I teach, upper-intermediate and advanced, this seems to work pretty well. 

Demo Activity: Climate Change Refugees

In this activity you will experience a demonstration of an activity sequence using an authentic text. This was originally designed for a group of intermediate adult learners. The topic of their unit was "People and Places" and it discussed reasons why people live where they do and why people move. 

CLICK HERE to access the collaborative worksheet. 

Demo Activity Processing: Put on Your Materials Designer Hats

Now look back at the demo sequence and discuss the following questions from a teacher perspective.

• Describe the characteristics of the text (video).

• Was it an example of an authentic material? Why or why not?

• What were some potential or real strengths and challenges of using the video with intermediate learners?

• Describe the tasks that you were asked to do and the worksheet. 

• What aspects of the worksheet facilitated the comprehension of the text?

• Brian Tomlinson says that learning materials should serve one or all of the following four functions. Did these texts and tasks serve any of these functions?

• Instructional: They inform learners about the language.
• Experiential: They provide exposure to the langauage in use.
• Elicitative: They stimulate language use.
• Exploratory: They faciliate discoveries about language use.

Principles for Working with Authentic Texts: 

Read the list of principles from chapter 6 of McGrath. How can you relate them to the previous activity? Can you give an example from your own teaching context?

• Help Comprehension: Students will find it easier to cope with "real life" listening/reading if they are exposed to authentic texts in class.

• Put the Learner in the Picture: In most real life listening and reading scenarios, we have context to help us. We are interacting in a conversation and understand the purpose. We are listening to two people talk in line behind us and we the situation informs what is happening, Learners listening to recording in the classroom are at a disadvantage because they are hearing the audio out of context. Before playing the audio, give the learners all the contextual information they would have if they were really there.

• Focus on Meaning: Natural (real life) text processing involves a primary focus on meaning.

• The meanings that we ask students to extract should be related to the meanings the intended reader or listener is expected to derive from the text.

• Give students support: If you want learners to cope with the challenges of the text, give them help.

• Focus on Language: After meaningful processing of the text has occured, you can then draw students' attention to language.