Использования аутентичных материалов в преподавании английского языка как иностранного
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the tasks conductive to language learning 3. Authenticity of situationAuthenticity of the actual social situation of the language classroom is important to understand how authenticity works because, then, we, as teachers, can teach more effectively and avoid many pitfalls. Concerning authenticity of language, probably learners will not automatically like materials just because they are "authentic" or "real". The materials should be properly interpreted by students. By "properly" we mean as it was pedagogically intended. It is not always easy to interest student in doing an activity, especially, when you do not know them well. Any authentic materials should have communicative potential, be relevant to learners experiences, and meet their personal needs. So, language teachers should be concerned about students attitudes towards the materials they brought in a classroom. Authentic materials should be well-prepared and well-presented, otherwise there is no sense in using them; in such a case it is better and easier to use only textbooks and audio materials for them.the same manner, we can have a wonderful newspaper article and at the same time absolutely irrelevant tasks for it, for instance, find the longest words in this article and gauss what they mean. This is an example of inauthentic task. An authentic task in its turn is something taken from a real everyday life, for example, have small talk with your pair. Unfortunately, often teachers in Russian schools come up with tasks along the way, when some time before the class for developing tasks is certainly required. It is not enough to bring an interesting newspaper article found, for instance, in The New Year Times or a funny video downloaded from YouTube, the teacher needs to think ahead of time about how he or she will introduce it and what teaching instructions he or she will give. It is vitally important to be able to match the level of difficulty of the task with the level of students competency. A task for specific authentic materials presented in a classroom should be neither too easy, nor too difficult., we need to look at authenticity of situation that stands for the actual social context (or discourse) of the language classroom. By default it is inauthentic since the place and time are artificially designed for students and teachers convenience. It is not natural and spontaneous as in a real life. In fact this facet of authenticity could be omitted because it does not have much practical application value. Nevertheless, it helps to see the whole picture. In addition, learners, in their capacity as knowers and users of language, are quite capable of extrapolating from the classroom situation, and that consequently we need not be worried about the artificiality of the classroom situation.is also some criticism of the common understanding of authenticity. In particular Taylor arrives to the conclusion that the main problem of authenticity and genuineness concludes in the idea of "naturalness". What is "natural"? Does "naturalness" mean the same thing to everyone? However, he suggests to leave this endless debates and concentrate instead on "the use and interpretation of texts, which alone can make them authentic" (1994, p.4). He says that we should:
...acknowledge that there is no such thing as an abstract quality "authenticity" which can be defined once and for all. Instead we should acknowledge that authenticity is a function not only of the language but also of the participants, the use to which language is put, the setting, the nature of the interaction, and the interpretation the participants bring to both the setting and the activity (p.4). other words, texts themselves can actually be intrinsically "genuine" but that authenticity itself is a social construct. Tatsuki (2006) states that "authenticity is created through the interaction of users, situations and the texts" (p.1). So, we do not bring "authenticity" in the classroom, we create "authenticity" together with our students. The classroom is like a small stage where we can play real life situations. We use "scripts" (authentic materials) to make it sound real.observed a sufficient number of other critical articles on the use of authentic materials, we have come to a conclusion that, although they help to see a bigger picture, they do not offer any reasonable useful alternative for authentic materials. However, in a view of advantages of the use of authentic materials (that will be introduced below) we still believe that the concept is useful for language teaching and can be successfully applied.
1.2 Advantages of using authentic materials
are many reasons why so many researchers and teachers get involved in exploiting and using different authentic materials in classrooms. Here is the list of major advantages:
1.Authentic materials have a positive effect on students motivation to learn. We consider it as the most important benefit that authentic materials offer. Guariento and Morley (2001) wrote "...the use of authentic texts is now considered to be one way of maintaining or increasing students motivation for learning. They give the learner the feeling that he or she is learning the real language; that they are in touch with a living entity, the target language as it is used by the community which speaks it" (p.347).
2.Students can get the sense of achievement using authentic materials.
.Real discourse is presented, as in video interviews with famous people where intermediate students can listen for gist. They provide exposure to real language.
.Textbooks often do not have examples of incidental or improper English.
."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" (Sanderson, 1999).
.The use of authentic materials leads to a more creative approach to teaching.
.Authentic texts can encourage reading for pleasure because they are likely to contain topics of interest to learners, especially if students are given the chance to have a say about the topics or kinds of authentic materials to be used in class.
."Reading texts are ideal to teach/practice mini-skills such as scanning, e.g. students are given a news article and asked to look for specific information (amounts, percentages, etc.), basic students listen to news reports and they are asked to identify the names of countries, famous people, etc. (ability to detect key words)" (Martinez, 2002).
.The same piece of material can be used under different circumstances if the task is different.
.Books, articles, newspapers, and so on contain a wide variety of text types, language styles not easily found in conventional teaching materials.
.Language change is reflected in the materials so that students and teachers can keep abreast of such changes.
1.3 Disadvantages of using authentic materials
, there are some obstacles waylay teachers and their students on the way of using authentic materials. It is always important to be aware of these difficulties and to think ahead of time about possible solutions. Several researchers pointed out these disadvantages:
1.There are many adverts, signs, headlines, and so on that can require good knowledge of the cultural background.
2.Authentic materials may be too culturally biased. They can be unnecessarily difficult to be understood outside the language community.
.The vocabulary might not be relevant to the students immediate needs.
.Too many different accents can be heard which can cause some confusion.
.Too many structures are mixed so lower levels have a hard time decoding the texts.
.Special preparation is necessary which can be time consuming.
.The material can become outdated easily, e. g. news.
1.4 Using authentic materials with the students of lower levels
into consideration all advantages and disadvantages of authentic materials, we arrive to the question when authentic materials should be used in a classroom. In other words, can we neglect students level when we bring materials that have not been anyhow changed for the purpose of teaching? Guariento & Morley (2001) wrote, "At post-intermediate level an ever-widening range of authentic material has become available for use in the classroom" (p. 348). Students at this level have usually mastered all of grammatical structures and a wide range of vocabulary, so they are prepared for challenge of authentic materials. Concerning lower levels, they stated,lower levels, however, even with quite simple tasks, unless they have been very carefully selected for lexical and syntactic simplicity and/or content familiarity/predictability, the use of authentic texts may not only prevent the learners from responding in meaningful ways but can also lead them to feel frustrated, confused, and, more importantly, demotivated (p. 348). In addition, it requires considerably more time to adapt and prepare authentic material for beginners/low intermediate students than for intermediate and higher levels of proficiency., Chavez (1998) carried out a survey and found out that students enjoy dealing with authentic materials since they allow them to interact with the real language and its use. Also they do not consider authentic situations or materials innately difficult. But learners also stated that they need pedagogical support especially in listening and reading activities that contain a full range of cues. A