It is known that the English presented or given in our lessons should be authentic. For using authentic materials means using examples of language produced by native speakers for some real purpose of their own rather than using language produced and designed solely for the classroom. Anybody who takes into the classroom a newspaper article, an advertisement, a pop song, a strip of cartoon, is using authentic material.
The main advantages of using authentic materials are:
- They have a positive effect on learner motivation.
- They provide authentic cultural information.
- They provide exposure to real language.
- They relate more closely to learners ' needs.
- They support a more creative approach to teaching.
According to Richards, authentic materials present some disadvantages points like: difficult language, unneeded vocabulary items and complex language structures, which causes a burden for the teacher in lower-level classes. On the other hand, Martinez mentions that authentic materials may be too culturally biased and too many structures are mixed, causing lower levels have a hard time decoding the texts. The question is: When then it should be introduced in a classroom and at which level ?
Some authors like Guariento & Morley say that at post-intermediate level attributed to the fact that at this level, most students master a wide range of vocabulary in the target language.
Teachers may use authentic materials for the learners to listen for the gist of the information presented and also Martinez adds that by using authentic materials teachers will have the opportunity to encourage students to read for pleasure especially certain topics of their interest. Matsuta claims that using audio-visual materials aiding students' comprehension is beneficial since it will prevent students especially beginning ones from being frustrated about authentic materials.
According to Kramsch (1998), culture is 'a membership in a discourse community that shares a common social space and history, and a common system of standards for perceiving, believing, evaluating, and action' (p. 127). Goodenough (as cited in Wardhaugh 1992: 216) suggests that
A society's culture consists of whatever it is one has to know or believe in order to operate in a manner acceptable to its members, and to do so in any role that they accept for any one of themselves. That knowledge is socially acquired; the necessary behaviors are learned and do not come from any kind of genetic endowment.
Cultural content is a key to effective teaching and learning and successful language learning requires language users to know that culture in order to get the meaning across.
Cultural content is a key to effective teaching and learning a language and successful language learning requires language users to know that culture underlying language in order to get the meaning across.
Variety and excitement are required when students are learning a language, since many of them lack of motivation; we should help them notice that learning a language is not just learning its grammatical rules.
McKay believes that there should be a variety of culture in the materials, besides, learning about a culture does not mean accepting that culture.
McKay identifies three types of cultural materials:
- target culture materials,
- learners' own culture materials
- international target culture materials.
The international target language materials is the best for her, which supposedly covers a variety of knowledge from different cultures all over the world using the target language.
The key point in introducing cultural content in our classrooms is that we should create a relaxing environment where our students can discuss their own culture together with the target culture. This will ensure that students are doing something with a purpose in their mind.
As a conclusion, authentic materials are indeed a valuable part of the teacher`s resources. They must be carefully selected and controlled and besides all, authentic materials should be use to complete the gap between the competency and performance of the language learners.
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