A Theoretical Approach of The Subject

Chapter I
A Theoretical Approach of the Subject
I. 1. What are authentic materials?
Several definitions of the terms authenticity and authentic materials have been given in
the field of language teaching. To have a better understanding of what authentic materials are we
should begin with the dictionary definition of the word “authentic”. As the Oxford on-line
Dictionary points out “authentic” means “real, true or what people say it is” (we could adapt this
definition to our purpose as it follows: authentic material is real, everyday language as it is used
by the native speakers of the language). A second dictionary definition is that given by the
Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary: “known to be real and genuine and not a copy”, “made
to be exactly the same as the original” (authentic material is neither a copy, nor something
adapted for teaching purposes).
Authentic materials: “Sometimes called “authentic” or “contextualized”, real-life

materials are those that a student encounters in everyday life but that weren’t created for
educational purposes. They include newspapers, magazines, and Web sites, as well as driver’s
manuals, utility bills, pill bottles, and clothing labels.”1 Martinez mentions Widdowson’s
differentiation between authentic and genuine materials. Authentic materials are materials
created for native speakers of the language and use them in a class in its original form and
design. In other words, they are not changed in any way. Whereas genuine materials are
authentic materials adapted for a class, e. g. jumbled paragraphs, cut out headlines etc.
Many different definitions emerged, all of them highlighting different aspects of the
concept of the term ‘authentic’. Cook describes it as “…authentic material simply means using
examples of language produced by the native speakers for some real purpose of their own rather
than using language produced for and designed solely for the classroom.”2 . So any text, which
is meant to copy the real life communicative discourse, is excluded. The implication is that any
text, written or spoken, that is deliberately designed by the textbook writers, teachers, material
designers or any other concerned personnel for the explicit purpose of language teaching are
3. Matthew Peacock, “The Effect of Authentic materials on the Motivation of EFL Learner”, English Language
Teaching Journal 5:2, (1997): 146
4. 7 David Forman as cited in Mary Underwood, Teaching Listening (New York; Longman, 1989), 56
5 Green, M. (1985). Authenticity in the language classroom. Applied Linguistics 6, 60-70
inauthentic, contrived and artificial. Authentic text, then, remains a text that is outside the needs
and goals concerns of teaching and learning language process. They are “… produced to fulfill
some social purpose in the language community”.3
David Forman as cited in Underwood (1989:56) sums it up as it follows: “Any text is

‘authentic’ if it is produced in response to real life communicative needs rather than as an
imitation of real life communicative needs. This can be applied to any text, written or spoken,
and in relation to any kind of situation of language use.” 4
There is a variety of definitions on authenticity; but what is common to all of them is

the fact that, these materials should expose the language learner to real language (such as it is
used by native speakers for their daily lives purposes) therefore to have practical usage in the
community. We agree to this view on authenticity, but mention should be made that foreign
language teachers should always update their knowledge on the evolution of the language they
teach. This is to be achieved through constant exposure to authentic materials such as
newspapers, TV programmes, and magazines. It is not something that requires much effort and
time since the Internet offers us a great variety of materials to do our research on. It is just a
matter of attitude towards research.
We can also talk about different type of authenticity. According to Michael P. Breen 5
there are four types of authenticity:
- text authenticity- which refers to the authentic qualities of the text which help the learner
develop an authentic understanding ;
- learner authenticity- refers to the ability of learners to interpret the meaning present in the
text like the native speakers do in the real world.
- task authenticity- refers to the chosen tasks provided for the learners to be engaged in an
authentic communication and authentic aims for learning. This problem will make the
subject of Chapter IV of our present work.
- and authenticity of the classroom- the most important role of the classroom is to enable
the learners to experience "public and interpersonal sharing of content of language
learning, the sharing of problems with such content, and revealing of the most effective
means and strategies to overcome such problems." Breen (1985, p. 67).
In our present work, we will deal with authenticity in the English classroom as a whole
with special care to the material selected, to the development of the tasks, to learners’
acquisitions in terms of language, as well as to feedback.
I.2. Sources and types of authentic materials
There are many sources of authentic materials in the current time, of which not only
teachers but also language learners can make use. Nowadays these materials are more accessible
and easy to access than it was a few decades ago.
When we refer to sources of authentic materials, we should clearly distinct between:
- Printed materials: like newspapers, magazines, brochures, train schedules, nutrition

labels, novels, short stories, children’s books, menus, labels, receipts, currency, business
cards, pictures of road signs, greeting cards, calendars, TV guides, traffic tickets, maps,
comics, bills ;
- Audio-visual materials as TV and radio programs, conversations between native
speakers, phone messages, E-books, DVDs, movies, songs, cartoons and even YouTube
films, blogs, wikis.
- Realia (“Real world“ objects) – such as coins and currency, folded paper, wall clocks,
phones, Halloween masks, dolls, and puppets, to name a few. (Realia are often used to
illustrate points very visually or for role-play situations.)
Audio-visual materials are an extremely important aspect in teaching foreign languages.

On the one hand, the learners will acquire a more natural pronunciation and improve their
listening skill and, on the other hand, the impact of the visual especially when combined with the
sound, is very powerful and will enable learners to retain and remember the information
presented easily. Moreover, authentic language videos, CDs, newscasts and radio programs can
provide invaluable insight into current events and cultural aspects of English-speaking countries
for language teachers and learners in other parts of the world. A benefit of recorded material is
the ability to be able to rewind and repeat it as many times as necessary in order to effect
increased levels of listening comprehension. The impact of the imagery provided in these clips is
incalculable. Course books, which are written and marketed for “use in all the world”, simply
cannot hold up to this level of cultural knowledge and impact. The problematic aspect related to
audio-video materials is the necessity for equipment, doubled by the difficulty of finding such
materials in our countries. Moreover, especially with video materials, it is vital that the teacher
pay special attention to time management, since while using video resources can be extremely
appealing, they are also time consuming and there is the risk that students’ concentration will be
drawn to the material itself, and that they will neglect the task that they are supposed to fulfil.
Although radio is easy to use, the comprehensibility of its input is the most difficult for
language learners because all non-verbal information is missing. Pictures, movements, colours
and body language of TV and video, unlike radio, allow learners to access non-verbal
information; therefore, TV and video are easier for the language learners to comprehend.
Elizabeth Hanson-Smith has written an article about the importance of new technology use and
describes the computer use in English teaching as part of authentic materials. Hanson-Smith
(2001) believes that when text is read on the computer,learners’ motivation and learning skills
improve. Another point is that computers can provide lectures and tutorials a lot better than
teachers in four major areas including phonology and phonetics ( Hanson-Smith, E. (2001), Computer
Assisted Language Learning in the text of: TheCambridge Guide to Teaching English to Speakers of Other
Languages, by Carter, R
and Nunan D, p: 109, 110). We also consider TV commercials excellent sources, because they are
short, they focus on music, they are colourful, full of motion and they contain everyday
language. Newspapers and magazines are also ideal sources for students to discuss current
issues.
The sources of authentic materials (whether spoken or written) are endless. Suffice it to
say that the most significant and the most accessed source is „the Internet’. All materials
mentioned above can be easily obtained by using the internet, and such materials are
continuously updated to the needs and interests of the followers. Some of these sources are
updated on daily basis, such as magazines, newspapers, TV and Radio programs.
I.3. Selecting the right authentic materials
When teachers create their own materials, they are usually concerned with picking and
choosing from a wide range of authentic and published materials and worksheets. Selecting
inappropriate materials can be very demotivating for students if they take a lot of effort to be
understood. Students should receive materials they can generally understand
The teacher has to maximize the benefits of authentic materials in their ESL lesson.
The subject of our paper raises another issue for debate and that is the difficultness of such
materials. There are linguists and teachers who consider choosing the right material means
choosing material whose difficultness degree is supposed to match the language level. In other
people’s opinion, the right thing to do is to set the task according to the level of the students, not
to choose the material according to the students’ level. Our teaching experience makes us
supporters of the former opinion, as a rather complex or too long material, which contains too
much unknown vocabulary, discourages the learner and it has serious influence on his attitude
towards the respective lesson, as they can get easily bored.
Nuttall.( Nuttall, C. (1996) Teaching Reading Skills in a foreign language (New Edition) Oxford,
Heinemann) gives three main criteria when choosing texts to be used in the classroom:
-suitability of content- can be considered to be the most important of the three, as reading
material should interest the students as well as be relevant to their needs. A material can be
considered unsuitable if it does not suit the level, if it is too long or too short, if the themes are
irrelevant and they are not adapted for specific use or to student learning style
-exploitability- refers to how the text can be used to develop the students’ competence as readers.
If the text does not respond any teaching purposes, it means it is useless. Being in English is not
sufficient for it to be explored.
-readability- describes the combination of structural and lexical difficulty of a text, as well as
referring to the amount of new vocabulary and any new grammatical forms
present. It is important to assess the right level for the right students.
When selecting the type of authentic material to use in class, teachers should take into
account the type of lesson, the skills they aim at, their students’ age, level and interests (in other
words, what they actually read and write in their daily lives, in their first language as well as in
English), the present linguistic competence. The material we choose has to serve our purpose for
the lesson and to be relevant to our needs and to those of our learners.
As an example, if we take into consideration a Spanish menu, which would not be

authentic text if it was used in an English lesson to practice reading prices or learning adjective
endings. It would be an authentic piece of text if it were used as a Spanish menu. In our opinion,
a newspaper article is more suitable for intermediate to advanced learners, whereas greeting
cards could be the basis for elaborating tasks for young learners. We think that for lower levels
are suitable leaflets, menus, timetables, video and audio advertisements, short reports, short
news. The tasks should be rather simple and vocabulary should be introduced in advance.
Excessive materials for intermediate levels can be longer articles and news or reports, whole TV
programmes. The vocabulary should be pre-taught, too. With advanced students, any authentic
material can be used. Pre-teaching is not necessary, but it is good to have some explanations and
definitions prepared.
Moreover, the selected texts need to be adaptable i.e. they should lend themselves
easily to designing tasks and activities that would elicit authentic responses from the learners,
they should be exploited for teaching purposes. They should allow building a wide range of
exercises, tasks and activities not to fall in a dissatisfying routine lesson. This happening, we will
not achieve our goals as teachers.
We talked about the language difficultness, but cognitive difficultness should also be
taken into account. We should take into consideration whether the text challenge the student’s
intelligence without making unreasonable linguistic demands. There are materials, which could
contain rather accessible and clear language, while the learners could find it difficult to get the
gist of them. This could be due to the social and cultural references the learners are not
familiarized with. The teacher should also give special attention to the quality of the content
which has to be valuable and of course the learners should come across it outside of the
classroom.
Variety and presentation should also influence our choice of the authentic material. An
English class can be made more interesting if a variety of materials is used. Students very often
find it very boring when dealing with only one subject area, as can be the case when dealing with
English for Specific Purposes (ESP). One of the advantages of using materials dealing with the
same subject area is that they use the same vocabulary, with the student having to make very
little conscious effort to learn it. It is also very important when presenting the material to the
student. The “authentic” presentation, through the use of pictures, diagrams, photographs, helps
put the text into a context. This helps the reader not only understand the meaning of the text
better but also how it would be used. An “attractive” looking material is more likely to grab the
learner’s attention.
To sum it up, selecting the best authentic material for our students means paying
attention to the level of difficultness, to whether they create interest for the students and also if
they can be exploited for teaching purposes or they are relevant to students’ needs.
If we observe all the above mentioned points when choosing the authentic material for
our lessons, we will benefit the opportunities offered by them: higher motivation, greater interest,
more attention and positive attitude towards learning English. If we have no plan for using
authentic materials, we are likely to waste time and create an impression of aimlessness. We
must have clear, deliberate goals in mind, and specific plans for reaching those goals.
I. 4. Advantages and disadvantages of using authentic materials
Despite the growing popularity of using authentic materials in foreign language

teaching and their growing importance in developing the learning of English, they also trigger a
series of disadvantages.
J. Richards’ table clarified the benefits and drawbacks of using authentic materials:
Avantages Disadvantages
 Expose learners to real language  Language may be beyond learners’
 Encourage learners to process real competence. (it can be difficult or
texts Provide models relevant to complex for the learners; as a
learner's target need consequence they may demotivate the
 increase learner's motivation and learner or cause boring atmosphere in s
strategies. the classroom because if students are not
 Facilitate creative teaching to involved with the content they will
exploit texts. enjoy the course );
 Maintain natural coherence and  Place's high demand on teacher
cohesion of text expertise and time;
 May be difficult to obtain a range of
texts;
 Can be bland, boring, and demotivating.
 May be poorly written.
 Class use does not reflect original
purpose
If we take a close look to Richards’ table, a great number of the disadvantages listed can
be removed or overpassed. It depends on the teachers’ skills to choose the appropriate material
for their class
Martinez also listed the following pluses and minuses (7):
Advantages:
- Students are exposed to real language. In classroom, students have to be exposed to
language of the world for which they are developing functional skills. This exposure helps them
deal with the everyday situations they might encounter outside the classroom.
- There is factual acquisition from most of them if the materials are connected to their
life experience,
- Authentic materials may be inspirational for some students,
- One piece of text may be used for various activities and tasks as unlike textbook
materials, they are not edited for specific purposes, only to serve one purpose.
- There is a wide choice of styles (from a very formal style, such as legal documents, to
less formal, such as newspaper articles, to colloquial language, such as comic book; such styles
are difficult to find in textbooks), genres and formality in authentic texts. Concerning the
grammatical structures, the sentences in written authentic materials are very well-formed with
few if any mistakes, which gives the students a possibility of acquiring language structures in a
natural way. Furthermore, appropriate materials can always be found for all levels. Authentic
materials can be used for practicing a large variety of skills. The authentic material sources are
endless, offering teachers endless opportunities to choose the right piece.
- Incorporating authentic materials in teaching a foreign language can also motivate
students to learn the language, coming into direct contact with the reality and with real English,
This can also bring self satisfaction.
Disadvantages:
- Authentic texts may be difficult to understand because of a culture gap. This gap can
be overcome if the teacher offers enough data to clear all ambiguities. But the students’ coming
in contact directly with the realities of the modern language in question will trigger out a better
understanding of the different, as well as of the common points between the respective culture
and their own.
- The vocabulary may be not exactly what the students need,
- They are rather difficult for beginners if not properly chosen to be close to the
language level of the students. This can trigger demotivation and make the students frustrated
and confused.
- Preparation of the texts and activities is often too demanding and time consuming for
teachers;
- There are many various accents and dialects in listening;
- Some of these materials become outdated quickly (news). We need to mention that
this could not be considered a real disadvantage as only information becomes outed while
language remains authentic for a larger period.
When bringing authentic materials into the classroom, it should always be done with a
purpose, as highlighted by Senior “…we need to have a clear pedagogic goal in mind: what
precisely we want our students to learn from these materials.” (Senior 2005:71 Senior, R (2005)
Authentic Responses to Authentic Materials in English Teaching Professional,38, pp71 -).
Students feel more confident, more secure when handling authentic materials as long as the
teacher offers them some basic pedagogical support. The teacher should take into consideration
students' ability, designing suitable tasks in which total understanding is not important.
In order to overcome the problems created by difficult authentic texts, one solution is to
simplify them according to the level of the learner. This can be done by removing any difficult
words or structures but this can also remove basic discourse qualities, making the text “less”
authentic. When simplifying a text we should consider:
- Linguistic simplicity : grammatical structures, lexical items and readability;
- Cognitive simplicity : age, education, interests of the learner;
- Psychological simplicity : does it follow traditional social norms?
It is also possible to overcome such difficulties if the teacher elaborates proper tasks
such as Filed (1998) stated that “instead of simplifying the language of the text, simplify the task
that is demanded of the student.”( Field, J. (2008). Listening in the language classroom. Cambridge
University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511575945. The key is to find the balance and the
teacher is responsible for the balance between the material, the task and the level of proficiency
of the students.
The amount of advantages clearly overweighs the number of disadvantages. In addition,
in our opinion the main advantages offered by the usage of authentic materials in the English
language learning classroom are:
- The positive effect they could have on the language learner, as they could be a great
motivator;
- The authentic cultural information they give are priceless as a better understanding of the
language is necessarily accompanied by the knowledge of the cultural and social
background; The publishing English teacher Daniela Tamo says that: “Authentic
materials keep students informed about what is happening in the world, so they have an
intrinsic educational value. As teachers, we are educators working within the school
system, so education and general development are part of our responsibilities” (Tamo, D.
(2009): The Use of Authentic Materials in Classrooms, Retrieved from
http://www.lcpj.pro/skedaret/1277547685-74_pdfsam_LCPJ,%20Per%20shtyp.pdf, n.d.).
- Exposing students to real life language prepares them for real life situations, not to
mention the fact that self-confidence increases;
- Coming closer to students’ needs;
- Supporting a more creative approach to teaching as they offer a wide range of
opportunities to be dealt with within the class.
To benefit all the enumerated advantages authentic materials need to be used:
- through regular exposure;
- not only in-class but also at home as homework;
- as a model – promoting subject-based language;
- in language – as a source and a model of correct vocabulary, grammar, style, formality.
We consider that the use of authentic materials will definitely increase the learner’s self-
confidence, as they will see that they can manage in a real-life situation, while their language
will become more “natural” since the student will get the chance to discover the ‘living’
language, and not the highly polished language from the textbooks. Once outside the safe
language learning classroom, the student will not have to face the artificial language of
textbooks. The student will make clear distinction between authentic and non-authentic
materials. “It is not that a text is understood because it is authentic but that it is authentic because
it is
understood. …Everything the learner understands is authentic for him.” (Davies 1984:192)
Davies, A. (1984) Simple, simplified and simplification: what is authentic? in Alderson, J.C. &
Urquhart, A.H. (1984) Reading in a Foreign Language London, Longman pp181-198.
To conclude, the success of using authentic materials depends to a great extent on how
meaningful and challenging the materials are; how well teachers can design and present the task,
how well the teachers can manage the cultural and social gaps and how well the materials are
exploited in the class with respect to the achievement of the initial teaching purpose. It is crucial
to correctly decide on an appropriate text length, its language level, difficulty of vocabulary,
timing, feedback and other important factors. Bearing in mind the practicality and feasibility of
using authentic materials and preparing and setting tasks with motivating factors in mind
ultimately determines the quality of the collaborative teaching and collaborative learning
process.
I.5. Authentic vs. non-authentic materials
There have been many controversies concerning the usage of authentic materials or of non-
authentic materials in English language classrooms. There are two opposing points of view on
whether authentic materials offer more benefits rather than the materials offered by textbooks.
Clear distinction should be made between authentic and non- authentic materials. While
the former are especially designed for native speakers, with no pedagogical purposes or with
other purposes than to teach language, the latter have been especially written by authors as a text
for language students in order to facilitate their learning of the language, concentrating on the
language the EFL teachers wish to teach.
As we have previously seen, authentic materials bring along both advantages and
disadvantages. The advantages are student oriented while the disadvantages are teacher oriented.
We have previously seen in our paper, in order to erase a great deal of the disadvantages, time
consuming action should be taken by the teacher. On the other side, non-authentic materials
bring advantages and disadvantages as well, but this time the disadvantages are student-oriented.
It has long been recognised that the language presented to students in textbooks is a poor
representation of the real, informal English, used during a lifetime.
English language textbooks are a source of activities for teaching English. As such they
provide information about English and examples of how English is used. They also contain real-
world information: they present information about countries, cultures, people, life styles, beliefs
and values. Two important issues textbooks raise thus have to do with the authenticity of
language they contain, and the representations of content that they provide which seem rather
unnatural/
Non-authentic materials are easier, understandable, they are adapted for a particular
aspect, relevant, focused on what students are learning at that specific moment, for the purpose
of a curriculum based lesson repetition of structures and sometimes they do not read very well.
Therefore, we can also name non-authentic materials “simplified” materials. These simplified
materials do not faithfully represent the real language, presenting the learner artificially unvaried
constructed texts or contexts, containing a series of “false-text indicators” which make different
from the real texts or contexts, Meaning is therefore lost because of simplifications and they may
be outside the original context, which means they are not sufficient. Authentic materials,
therefore, lose their authenticity since they are removed from the original context. We can also
talk about semi-authentic materials. The semi-authentic material tries to include the
characteristics of real-life language, but at the same time still focus mainly on teaching and
reinforcing the language goals. The latter includes newspapers in easy English or edited stories
(readers).
In the light of the above, we consider that non-authentic texts are useful for teaching
structures, it is not recommended to be used to teach reading or listening skills. When facing a
real life listening situation, the students may not understand what they heard because of their
unfamiliarity with native accents, vocabulary items, and native speakers’ normal speed of
utterance. Nevertheless, if the students are exposed to authentic listening materials, they
gradually develop their language comprehension as they have opportunities to experience
language used by native speakers of the target language via extensive listening practices. If the
students become familiar to the authentic language, this will be beneficial for the comprehension
of both unfamiliar and familiar text contents.
1.Martinez, A. (2002). Authentic materials: An overview. Karen's Linguistic Issues.
Retrieved November 20, 2003 from http://www3.telus.net/linguisticsissues/authenticmaterials.html
2. Vivian Cook, “Using authentic material in the language classroom”,op.cit., 4
4. David Forman as cited in Mary Underwood, Teaching Listening (New York; Longman, 1989), 56
5 Green, M. (1985). Autenticity in the language classroom.Applied Linguistics 6, 60-70
6. Richards_Jack_C._and_Renandya_Willy_A._E. p95
7 MARTINEZ, Alejandro. Authentic Materials: An Overview [online]. Mexico City: 2002. Available at
<www3.telus.net/linguisticsissues/authenticmaterials.html>

A Theoretical Approach of The Subject

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Chapter I

A Theoretical Approach of the Subject

I. 1. What are authentic materials?

Authentic materials: “Sometimes called “authentic” or “contextualized”, real-life

David Forman as cited in Underwood (1989:56) sums it up as it follows: “Any text is

There is a variety of definitions on authenticity; but what is common to all of them is

I.2. Sources and types of authentic materials

When we refer to sources of authentic materials, we should clearly distinct between:

- Printed materials: like newspapers, magazines, brochures, train schedules, nutrition

Audio-visual materials are an extremely important aspect in teaching foreign languages.

As an example, if we take into consideration a Spanish menu, which would not be

I. 4. Advantages and disadvantages of using authentic materials

Despite the growing popularity of using authentic materials in foreign language

I.5. Authentic vs. non-authentic materials

1.Martinez, A. (2002). Authentic materials: An overview. Karen's Linguistic Issues.

Retrieved November 20, 2003 from http://www3.telus.net/linguisticsissues/authenticmaterials.html

2. Vivian Cook, “Using authentic material in the language classroom”,op.cit., 4

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