Ways of using authentic materials for communication

The teaching of English as a foreign language or as a second language exists in all parts of the world. Since English has become an international language more importance is being laid on teaching and learning it effectively. Materials are designed to provide appropriate exposure to the learners and enrich the language learning experience. Exposure to natural language plays a vital part in the language acquisition process. Authentic materials that are derived from the culture of the target language give positive attitude towards language learning rather than those specially designed for language learning. However, in most of the classes students are taught using traditional materials and audio materials that do not prepare them to encounter real life situations. Authentic materials act as a vehicle in bringing the target culture nearer to them. It is worthwhile to know what authentic materials are. Using examples of language that are produced by native speakers for their own purposes and newspaper articles, advertisements, pop songs, strip cartoons are considered to be the authentic materials.

Authentic materials are print, video, and audio materials students encounter in their daily lives, such as change-off address forms, job applications, menus, voice mail messages, radio programs, and videos. Authentic materials are not created specifically to be used in the classroom, but they make excellent learning tools for students precisely because they are authentic. Authentic materials are sometimes called contextualized materials which we come across in daily life. Many scholars have defined the term authentic materials in different ways but every definition has one common characteristic that authentic materials have exposure to real language and its usage in its own community. Most of scholar announced their points about authentic materials, such as Jordan, Nunan, Herrington and Oliver, Harmer, Bacone&Finneman, Miller, Otte, Thanajaro, Berardo, Kim, Clark, Kilickaya, Martinez, Norton & Sprague, Mcknight and others. Above mentioned names of researchers defined the term authentic materials and divided several kinds of types or categorized. Besides, scholars argue that the use of authentic materials help students to bridge the gap between classroom knowledge and their capacity to participate in real-world events. For example, [1; 78] refers to authentic materials as any material that has not been specifically produced for the purpose of language teaching.[2; 347] define authentic materials as those that have been produced to fulfill some social purpose in the language community in which they were produced.

The use of authentic materials for English language teaching is a topic which has been discussed for many years by experts in the field and teaching professionals. Most teachers have their own opinions about their use and practicality in the classroom. Most of them like the idea of using authentic materials but avoid using them due to the lack of knowledge of how to select an appropriate text (either written or audio), doubt about how they can be exploited and the belief that students may not find the material stimulating or may find it too difficult. Some less experienced teachers may, after an unsuccessful attempt at using material from an authentic source, decide that it is safer and less time consuming to stick to the prescribed course book.

First of all, use of authentic materials is encouraged by many researchers because they are frequently up to date. They have a positive influence on earners; motivation, comprehension and satisfaction. They inspire students to learn language provide cultural information, give exposure to real language and allow a more creative approach to teaching. [3; 312] add that whenever students have selfconfidence they will learn a language faster. Scholars confirm that authentic materials contain language data and communication which improve students’ communicative skills. They are also channels for communication that deliver messages and meaning to learners [4; 53].

Students not only improve their receptive and productive skills, but using authentic materials also helps them understand linguistic pattern, traditions and culture of other countries. Furthermore, authentic materials can help students bridge the relationship between the language classroom and the outside world [5; 459].

Video, audio, text and graphics are useful for teachers to facilitate teaching in classrooms [6; 28]. Additionally, using real objects such as coins, tools and plants can generate interest and enthusiasm for learning a topic. [4; 47]. Except that they explain that real materials assist learners to develop better attitudes and increase their motivation to learn. Similarly, teaching techniques, materials and competitive activities influence students to develop their intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. These also contribute to students’ language acquisition.Authentic materials play an important part in promoting communicative language skills. They can be exploited to assist students to learn and communicate in the target language. Many scholars say that authentic materials are used for positive results in the classroom by showing positive impact on the students’ results. On the other hand, some scholars do not agree with the idea of using authentic materials in the classroom. For instance, many studies confirm oral language improvement when authentic material used in practice. But Harmer believes that media do not have any effect on learning in any condition, thus there is no question of authentic and non-authentic materials. In addition to that [3; 148] believes that, even though many course books use non-authentic materials to develop language skills, only authentic material genuinely improves listening and reading skills. Many studies prove that authentic materials improve reading skills of students by introducing students to new vocabulary and expressions.

On the other hand, Kilickaya F. [7; 48-57] claims that authentic texts are random in respect to vocabulary, structure, functions, content and length; thereby causing a burden for the teacher. In addition to that teachers face challenges in the access to authentic materials, the expense of purchasing them, and the time required to find an appropriate authentic text and design suitable pedagogical tasks. He argues that authentic materials may create problems for learners in the form of unknown vocabulary, structures and speed of delivery so he prefers using known simplified texts having communicative value.

However, Guariento W[8; 347] suggest that some difficulties can be overcome by designing tasks that require only partial comprehension. But, other scholars prove that learners may experience extreme frustration when confronted by authentic text, especially lower level students.

Furthermore, Allan M [9; 49] suggests that incorporating authentic texts and their comprehension help learners to develop writing proficiency in target language. But sometimes such issues create problems for teachers to incorporate authentic materials in the classroom.

McNeil [10; 313] and Kilickays F [11; 57] claim that incorporating authentic materials in foreign language classroom offers more than linguistic advantages, they argue for motivating power of authentic materials. Both the scholars believe that the use of authentic material in language teaching motivates learners as it gives learner the feeling that he or she is learning the real language - the language as it is used by the community.

Richard J.[12; 304] points out that alongside the advantages in implementing authentic materials, they often consist of difficult and vague language, unnecessary vocabulary items and complex language structures, which cause difficulties for the teacher and learners in lower-level classes. Furthermore, authentic materials may be too culturally biased and difficult to understand outside the language community.Martinez deals with the term authentic materials itself and with advantages and disadvantages of their use as well as possible sources of them.He listed following pluses and minuses:

Advantages:

• -     Students are exposed to real language

• -     There is factual acquisition from most of them

• -     Textbooks do not include inaccurate language

• -     Authentic materials may be inspirational for some students

• -     One piece of text may be used for various activities and tasks

• -     There is a wide choice of styles, genres and formality in authentic texts

• -     They can motivate students to read for pleasure

Disadvantages:

• -     Authentic texts may be difficult to understand because of a culture gap

• -     The vocabulary may be not exactly what the students need

• -     They are rather difficult for beginners

• -     Preparation of the texts and activities is often demanding and time

consuming

• -     There are many various accents and dialects in listening

Despite many benefits, authentic materials have limitations, especially for nonnative speakers of English. Teachers must be aware of various accents, dialects, slang and regional vernacular that create difficulties in teaching English. Even with these limitations, the benefits of authentic materials in the classroom are well worth researching in greater detail.

Analyzing scholars’ views we noticed oppositions in using authentic materials for learning classes. There are a lot of scholars who agree to use authentic materials in the classroom, but other researchers who do not agree with the idea of using authentic materials. As we can see, despite having more benefits, the use of authentic materials for language learning has some negative aspects, and this makes teachers know how and where to use authentic materials.

Considering the advantages and disadvantages of using authentic materials, there come the question of when authentic materials should be introduced and used in a classroom; in other words, can we use authentic materials regardless of our students’ level? Materials should be adjusted for the age of learners, otherwise they could be discouraged of the fact that they don’t understand the text. For young learners adequate should be some easy poetry or lyrics with gaps since as the English

Language Curriculum Guide indicates “Mastery of an authentic text gives learners a strong feeling of achievement and motivates them for further development.

Moreover, teachers could use some posters or advertisements because the language here is very often easy for the learners. When the level of communication skills of learners increases we could try to work with some short article.

Authentic materials refer to texts we encounter in everyday life. They usually demonstrate language in use for some genuine communicative purposes. Our teachers may find it difficult to incorporate authentic materials into the classroom because they are not native speakers of English. In spite of not being native speakers, we think we should know how to use authentic materials and our learners can use authentic materials at intermediate and advanced level. According to this idea Kilickaya and Kim [7; 48, 13; 189] say that authentic materials can be used with advanced level learners only as using it at lower level they de-motivate and frustrate the learners. They add that lower level students lack many lexical patterns and structures which create difficulties for them.

As we can see authentic auditory materials contains theme of our research paper. Movies or videos are a good example of authentic material that can be used in language teaching in order to make the learning process more entertaining, more enjoyable and possibly even somewhat easier. Movies are designed to appeal directly and fully to people’s emotions. Also the aspect of entertainment is strongly present as far as films are concerned. Since the use of movies in language learning has to do with affective factors, it is very important for the teacher to be able to balance between getting the students to become involved in the films while also exploiting the language learning potential of the movies. Thus, using movies as authentic material requires an emphasis on the teaching approach, which should be content- and task based. In addition, also the teachers own attitude towards the films is an important factor in order to be able to treat the films as cultural items instead of mere sources of language input.