FRANK AMECA QUINTANA

ISSUES IN LANGUAGE TEACHING

Authentic Materials: A New Trend In The

Classroom
When it comes to teaching a foreign language instructors make use of teaching
materials to ease the process of learning. Firstly, it is necessary to define what
teaching materials are. They are anything used by teachers or learners to facilitate
the learning of a language. Therefore, teaching materials form an important part of
most English teaching programs from textbooks, movies, videos and pictures to the
Internet; teachers rely heavily on a diverse range of materials to support their
teaching and their students learning. Having said what materials are it is now turn
to define authentic materials. There are various definitions of authentic materials
but joining them into just one would say this: Authentic materials are the ones
created to fulfill different purposes in everyday life not for pedagogical purposes
moreover they are created by native speakers.
There is a great polemic about using authentic materials in language teaching
lately since nowadays what people want is to speak the real language the one that
people use every day and not the one from pedagogical books. Many people in the
field of language teaching have expressed their thoughts about how beneficial
those materials can be. On the contrary, there are some disadvantages of using
authentic material in language learning.
Nowadays, authentic materials play an important role in teaching and learning a
foreign language. The resources for teaching materials are available for almost
everyone. The internet is regarded as a very important and rich source for
authentic materials. Authentic materials can be classified into three categories as
follows:
1. Authentic listening materials, such as radio news, cartoons, songs, etc.
2. Authentic visual materials, such as street signs, magazines and newspapers
pictures, post cards, etc.
3. Authentic printed materials, such as sports reports, newspapers, restaurant
menus, train tickets, etc.

FRANK AMECA QUINTANA

ISSUES IN LANGUAGE TEACHING

Advantages of using authentic materials in language learning and teaching

When using authentic materials in the classroom they might be a great source of
information and might keep students informed about what is happening in the world
so they add one more educational value. Besides those advantages, authentic
materials expose real language in real contexts to learners the language as it is
actually used by native speakers communicating with other native speakers. In
addition, it is said that these materials motivate learners to carry on their task of
learning the target language since they provide a sense of achievement when
learners are able to understand native materials. Similarly, authentic materials
present the culture of the target language by exposing real events and can
introduce the way of living of the people residing in the source place where the
materials have been extracted from. Finally, authentic materials make learners
more confident to deal with real life situations.
These are some reasons what make instructors willing to use authentic materials in
classrooms, however, it is necessary to mention the problems that they could face
when dealing with them.
Disadvantages of using authentic materials in language learning and
teaching
There are some significant disadvantages of using authentic materials in teaching
and learning a new language. The use of authentic materials makes especially
lower level students confused and demotivated by the complexity of language,
authentic material articles are not typically written at the A2 or B1 level thus
students would not be able to handle them. Moreover, the vocabulary might be not
relevant for their needs nor aim any objective in the class. Another one is that they
might be copyrighted. Materials, especially emails, might contain some error, or
might not follow conventions that are settle down in textbooks. Similarly, they might
contain many different accents and this can confuse learners. They may also be

FRANK AMECA QUINTANA

ISSUES IN LANGUAGE TEACHING

too culturally biased causing learners to have little understanding when revising the
material due to the huge amount of specific abbreviations or regional vocabulary,
events to name some. Finally, authentic materials add a burden on teachers, as
they may contain difficult vocabulary and structures which need more effort to be
simplified and explained, in order to make them appropriate for learners.
Culture when using authentic materials
Authentic materials are an excellent manner of teaching culture of the target
language since the material used is originally native from the target culture.
Teaching culture provides learners with the tools for surviving the communicative
process in the target country where the language is used. Some learners might not
want to learn for fear to get new knowledge about the way of living of other people.
A negative point of learning culture is that it might create a stereotype.
Conclusion
As seen, the role and the importance of authentic materials are great in classroom
when they are used in a proper way, even though, there are disadvantages it has
been demonstrated that they provide more advantages in the process of learning a
new language. Here, as important factors, instructors should consider how suitable
the content of given task for students. It is also the instructors responsibility to
choose exploitability high materials, and presentation of authentic texts is another
point that should grab the students attention in the second language classroom.

FRANK AMECA QUINTANA

ISSUES IN LANGUAGE TEACHING

REFERENCES
Kelly C et.al.. (November 2002). Effective Ways to Use Authentic Materials with
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http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Kelly-Authentic.html
Kilickaya F.. (July 2004). Authentic Materials and Cultural Content in EFL
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February

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http://iteslj.org

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http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Kilickaya-AutenticMaterial.html
Lansford L.. (June 2014). Authentic materials in the classroom: authenticity and
published materials. February 2016, de http://www.cambridge.org Sitio web:
http://www.cambridge.org/elt/blog/2014/06/authentic-materials-classroomauthenticity-published-materials/
Martinez A.. (2002). Authentic Materials: An Overview. February 2016, de NI
Sitio web: http://www3.telus.net/linguisticsissues/authenticmaterials.html