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Assignment 2, Part 3
Exploiting authentic materials and the internet for language teaching
a) Explain the value of using authentic materials in foreign language teaching (See Units 5
and 9 and do your own research).
There are often multiple internal and external motives and needs that prompt people to study
languages, however, the goal, at least for the majority of learners, is to achieve a level of
competence and familiarity with the language and the environments it is used in, so that the learner
can freely navigate within, and have direct access to, the socio-cultural medium and content of a
language. That being the case, authentic materials have some very significant advantages. As a
person who has been on both sides of the learning-teaching process, I believe that authentic
materials provide an additional dimension to one's learning; give direct access to the language, help
the learner self-assess their level and competence in navigating in a real-life situation, motivate the
learner as they catch a glimpse of what is beyond the semi-artificial environment of the classroom.
An elaborate study conducted by Castillo Losada, C. A et al. at a Colombian Language School
demonstrated an overall positive correlation between the use of authentic materials and students'
motivation, progress, scores, and interest, and even there was a positive influence on teacher
performance. Surely, we cannot solely rely on authentic materials for teaching, as we have to bear
in mind that finding appropriate authentic materials, needed adaptations, etc. can be significantly
time-consuming, yet luckily, modern coursebooks seem to favour the use of such materials and
increasingly larger portion of their content is on the spectrum between semi-authentic and authentic.
b) Describe how you went about finding material on the internet (your authentic text, and
activity). Explain why you selected this text for this class and these vocabulary items for
pre-teaching.
I can safely say that at least half of the time invested into this assignment has been spent on the
search for the authentic text. Finding one that would satisfy all the criteria proved to be incredibly
challenging; Firstly, I decided that the BBC archive would quickly provide me with a material that
is time and content-wise varied, engaging, and appropriate – yet that was not the case. The majority
of the BBC recordings were longer than 7 minutes, and the few that were shorter, ironically turned
out to be too short. Following my disappointment with the BBC radio, I decided to explore the
infinite ocean of content on Youtube; of course, that was way harder, because on Youtube the
content is much less sifted out and one has to be extremely careful when choosing content for a
classroom as most of the videos can be vulgar, insensitive, cynical and generally inappropriate.
By the end of my Youtube journey, I had picked a few videos, which, later, I had to drop, because
they seemed to be too easy in terms of language and vocabulary for the intended level. Only one
seemed to contain enough useful and level-appropriate vocabulary, yet that one was the least
practical for my ''audience'' and their needs. However, I chose to go with it and compensate for the
lacking practicality of the text with the post-listening activities. While my listening text was not
perfect, at least, in my view, the vocabulary and language it contained were level-appropriate and
very useful for C1 learners. Not only were there great expressions and language structures, but also
higher-level elements such as literary devices in the sarcastic expressions, which I think will
provide a more complete and real feeling about the language.
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