Authenticity

ISSUE of AUTHENTICITY IN
ELT
Authenticity in
a) Language
b) Situation or context
c) Materials/Texts
d) Purposes
e) Activities/Tasks
f) Interaction
g) Evaluation
Authentic Language
• Authentic language would be undoctored, exactly as people in ‘real
life’ use it, in situations where people are not paying attention to
monitoring their language use, and are not thinking about what
people might be doing to judge their language ( or make judgements
about them)
• Issue 1: Graded vs. Ungraded
• Issue 2: Scripted vs. Unscripted
Authentic Language?
• M: What type of exercises are you keen on?
• W: I’m keen on running
• M: Do you do it regularly?
• W: Three or four times a week.
• M: Where do you run?
• W:In the park.
Is this authentic?
• Michael: You know, I was reading an article just yesterday in the news that the
government in England is bringing in a law to make it illegal to show TV
advertisements for junk food. On any…
• Lori: Really?
• Michael: …but on any programmes that are targeted at the under-16s, so kids’
programmes…
• Lori: Ah ha.
• Michael: Umm, they’re going to completely outlaw it, umm…and…and… I mean,
junk food, I mean, it’s anything — that’s from McDonalds to any kind of food
that’s high in fat or sugar or anything like that — it’s…and it’s something that
people have been talking about for years, you know, that…that…how bad junk
food is for people.
Authentic?
• CAP: DESCEND IN 3 MINUTES. THEN --- 20 DEGREES --- THANKS. 45'29"
• CAP: LET'S COMPARE. WE --- COMPARE --- NOW, USE RUNWAY 30,
THEN 2 KINDS OF WINDS --- 10 KNOTS, AND DIRECTION --- BETWEEN
--- AND --- (ATC COMMUNICATION OF OTHER AIRCRAFT) 45'45"
• F/O: NAGOYA ---, MSA --- WE ARE AH APPROACHING FROM SOUTH
EAST, PROBABLY AT 4800 TO 5000 FEET, --- 250 OF 302, SET, SET, THEN
--- 500 FEET, HEADING 340, AFTER THAT, TURN LEFT TO 230 RADIAL,
WITHIN 10 MILES, THEN CONTINUE TO 3000 FEET, THEN TURN LEFT 10
MILES, UH, WITHIN 10 MILES, HOLD ON 110 RADIAL, ON 110 RADIAL
• Source: http://www.rvs.unibielefeld.de/publications/Incidents/DOC
S/ComAndRep/Nagoya/Nagoyappend/CI140Cvr.htm
Features of Authentic Texts
• Overlaps and interruptions between speakers

• Normal rate of speech delivery
• Relatively unstructured language
• Incomplete sentences, with false starts, hesitation, etc
• Background noise and voices
• Natural stops and starts that reflect the speaker’s train of thought and
the listener’s ongoing response
• Loosely packed information, padded out with fillers
Non-authentic or scripted texts
• Little overlap between speakers

• Slower (maybe monotonous) delivery
• Structured language, more like written English
• Complete sentences
• No background noise
• Artificial stops and starts that reflect an idealized version of
communication (in which misunderstandings, false starts, etc never occur)
• Densely packed information
Authentic Text or not?
• To simulate the ‘real world’ outside class?
• To develop effective communication skills?
• To motivate learners?
• To provide a real sense of achievement?
• To challenge learners who have reached a certain level of
competence?
Against Authenticity
• “I would … argue against using authentic language in the classroom,
on the fairly reasonable grounds that it is actually impossible to do
so”
• “The language that is authentic for native speakers cannot possibly be
authentic for learners”
(Henry Widdowson 1998 ‘Context, Community & Authentic Language’,
TESOL Quarterly 32/4)
Linguistic Variation and Authenticity
• The spread of English around the world and its success as the primary
medium of global communication has considerably complicated the
issue of teaching the language and the concept of authenticity in the
process”. (Gilmore 2007)
Authentic Materials
• “Material created by native speakers for other native speakers for
communicative purposes in the world outside the classroom. In this sense,
‘authentic’ material excludes material produced for language teaching
purposes …..
• For material to be authentic in the outside world, it must have some
personal relevance to the listeners/readers. …. We might call this
authenticity of purpose to the individual listener/reader
• For material to remain authentic in the real world, the listener/reader
must respond to it in an authentic way …. What the listener/reader does
with the material is more important perhaps than where the material
comes from. We might call this authenticity of response.” (Clark 1988: 205)
Authentic Materials
• Learners are not communicators in the outside world at the time
when they are receiving classroom communicative data. They are
learners in a classroom.
• There is therefore another perspective on authenticity that needs to
be taken into consideration. Material needs not only to serve an
authentic communicative purpose, but also to serve the purpose of
language learning, in order to be authentic to the purposes for which
learners find themselves in the classroom. We might call this
authenticity of purpose to the learner as learner” (Clark 1987:206)
So Factors to consider,
 Content : 1. Interest
2. Entertainment
3. Cultural accessibility
4. Speech Acts
5. Discourse pattern
• Density
• Language level
• Delivery : 1. Length
2. Speed and number of speakers
3. Quality (e.g. of recordings)
4. Accent

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ISSUE of AUTHENTICITY IN

• Overlaps and interruptions between speakers

• Little overlap between speakers

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