Authentic Materials on Teaching Grammar

Authentic Material

The Nature of Teaching Materials

Teaching materials are the key component in most language programs. It can be in the form of textbook, institutionally prepared materials, or his or her own materials. Instructional materials generally serve as the basis for much of the language practice that occurs in the classroom. Cunningsworth in Richards (2001: 251) summarizes the role of materials in language teaching as follows: A resource for presentation materials (spoken and written), A source of activities for learners practice and communicative interaction, A reference source for learners on grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, and so on, A source of stimulation and ideas for classroom activities, A syllabus (where they reflect learning objectives that have already been determined), A support for less experienced teachers who have yet to gain in confidence. Dudlay-Evans and John in Richards (2001: 252) suggest that the functions of teaching materials are: (1) as source of language; (2) as learning support, (3) for stimulation and motivation; and (4) for reference.

The Nature of the Authentic Materials

Authentic materials refer to the use of texts, photographs, video selections, and other teaching resources that were not specially prepared for pedagogical purposes in teaching. They are often contrasted to the created materials, the textbook and other specially developed for instructional resources. Some have argued that authentic materials are preferred over created materials, because they contain authentic language and reflect real-world uses of language compared with the contrived content of much created material. English textbook, authored by educators rather than professional writers, tend to carry a preaching and patronizing tone. The authors and their readers are inherently not on the equal footing. The advantages of authentic materials are stated by Philips and Shettlesworth 1978; Clarke 1989; Peacock 1997 in Richards (2001: 252) as follows: They have a positive effect on learner motivation, because they are intrinsically more interesting and motivating than created materials. There is a huge supply of interesting sources for language learning in the media that relate closely to the interest of many language learners. They provide authentic cultural information about the target language. Materials can be selected to illustrate many aspects of the target language culture, including culturally based practices and belief and both linguistic and non linguistic behavior.They provide exposure to real language rather than the artificial texts found in created materials that have been specially written to illustrate particular grammatical rules or discourse types.They relate closely to the learners’ needs and hence provide a link between the classroom and students’ needs in the real world. They support a more creative approach to teaching. In using authentic materials as a source for teaching activities, teacher can develop their full potential as teachers, developing activities and tasks that better match their teaching styles and the learning styles of their students.

Using Authentic Materials in Teaching Passive Voice

In teaching grammar for the advanced level students there are three principles that have to be considered, they are as follows; (1) helping learners to identify the relationship between grammar and discourse; (2) encouraging learners to explore differences between spoken and written English; and (3) giving learners systematic exposure to authentic language  data. (Nunan, 2000: 119). In the third principle as the learners develop their proficiency, they should be given increasing opportunities to work with authentic texts. Such opportunities will help to prepare them for dealing with language outside the classroom. In the early stages of language learning, learners are given non-authentic texts to listen to and read because the language is easier to process. Low frequency vocabulary is replaced by high frequency vocabulary. It is important to move advanced learners toward more authentic texts. Most experienced teachers tell that often students will complain that they understand the English in class but cannot understand what people are saying or writing outside of class (Nunan, 2000: 122-124). Language is context-sensitive. This means that, in absence of context, it is very difficult to recover the intended meaning of a single word or phrase. Some words or sentences are sometimes meaningless out of the context. Taking individual grammar structures out of the context is equally perilous, for example, the meaning of ‘He is playing tennis’ is ‘He is doing it now, at the moment of speaking’. But only one of the following examples is consistent with that interpretation: ‘Where’s Tony?’ ‘He’s playing tennis’. He never wears his glasses when he’s playing tennis. Tomorrow morning he’ll be in the office but in the afternoon he’s playing tennis. He’s playing tennis a lot these days. Do you think he’s lost his job? There’s this friend of mine, Tony. He’s playing tennis one day. Suddenly he gets this shooting pain in his chest…

So, questions of correctness are often unrecoverable in the absence of context, and a lot of classroom time can be wasted arguing the toss over disembodied sentences. The confusions that occupy arise when language is like an engine idling, not when it is doing work.  In conclusion, a text-based approach involves looking at language when it is ‘doing work’ (Thornbury, 1999: 72). There are at least two implications of the text-level view of language. The first is that if learners are going to be able to make sense of grammar, they will need to be exposed to it in its context of use, this means in texts. Secondly, if learners are to achieve a functional command of a second language, they will need to be able to understand and produce not just isolated sentences, but whole texts in that language. The aim of giving that activity is the students finally are capable of producing text. The students’ text may be the most effective, since there is evidence to support the view that the topics that the learners raise in the classroom are more likely to be remembered than those introduced by either teachers or course books.    

The procedure of using authentic text to teach the passive voice is as follows: Step 1: Before handling out the text, the teacher tells the class the title of the article and asks the students in groups to think of and list vocabulary items that they might expect to find in the text. These are written on the board, and the teacher uses this stage to feed in words from the text that might not have been mentioned by the students. Step 2: The teacher asks the class to read the text silently with a view to answering the questions that are related to the text, provided by the teacher. The students check their answers in pairs before the teacher checks in open class. Then the teacher asks further questions about the text. Step 3:  The teacher asks the students to turn the text over and write two sentences, contain passive and active sentence construction, on the board. The teacher asks the students if they can remember which of the sentences was used in the text. The teacher allows the students to check the text if they cannot remember. Then discuss the passive forms and identify their differences with the active forms. Then, they have to study the text again and decide why the sentence is considered appropriate with the context. Step 4: The teacher asks the students to find other examples of passive construction in the text, to underline them, and to discuss in pairs or small groups the rationale for the use of the passive in each case. In checking this task in open class, the following points are made: The passive is typically used: to move the theme to the beginning of the sentence, and/ or when the agent is unimportant, or not known. Where the agent is mentioned, ‘by + agent’ is used. Step 5:  The teacher asks the students to cover the text and, working in pairs, to try and reconstruct it from memory. Then they compare their versions with the original. Step 6: The teacher asks the students if they (or people they know) have had a similar experience. Having recounted their stories in English they are asked to write their story (or one of their classmate’s stories) and this is checked for appropriate use of the passive structures. (Thornbury, 1999: 71-78). The teacher has chosen a text which is both authentic and rich in examples of the passive voice. Because it is authentic rather than simplified, the teacher has to work a little harder to make it comprehensible, but, for the sake of presenting language in its context of use, this is an effort that is arguably worth making. Furthermore, authentic texts offer learners examples of real language use, undistorted by the heavy hand of the grammarian. In steps 1 and 2 the teacher aims to achieve a minimum level of understanding, without which any discussion of the targeted language would be pointless. Step 3 focuses is on the form of the passive voice and also reminds the students of how and why it is used. To consolidate this relation between form and use the teacher directs the students back to the text (step 4), which they use as a resource to expand their understanding of the passive. Step 5 tests the students’ ability to produce the appropriate forms in context. The teacher chooses the writing task rather than the speaking one, partly because the passive is not used in spoken English to the extent that it is in written English, but also because the writing exercise allows learners more thinking time, important when meeting relatively complex structures such as the passive. Then they have a chance to personalize the theme through a speaking and writing activity (step 6): the writing also serves as a way of testing whether the lesson’s linguistic aim has been achieved. This approach is economical only if the texts are neither too difficult nor too long, and if they contain typical examples of the target item. Therefore, the time spent finding the right text, and, having found it, designing tasks to make it comprehensible, detracts from the ease of this approach. However, assuming the texts are available, this approach must rate highly in term of efficacy for, apart from anything else, the experience of successfully learning grammar from authentic texts provide the self-directed learners with a powerful tool for independent study. Moreover, even if some learners are already familiar with the targeted item, authentic texts are usually so language-rich that students is likely to come away from the lesson having gained in some other way, such as learning new vocabulary.    

Authentic materials have a positive effect in taking the students to the relax and interesting situation in the teaching learning process, because they are intrinsically more interesting and motivating than created materials. In the media, such as newspaper and magazine there are many supplies of interesting sources for the language learning that relate closely to the interest of many language learners. They provide authentic information about the target language.  Authentic materials also provide exposure to real language and its use in its own community - the language used in daily life. The language is considered to be accurate language. They meet the requirements of suitable materials in teaching grammar. Furthermore, students have to apply what they have learnt (target language) in real world and the authentic materials provide many and various examples of the target language in daily usage. Using authentic materials, the grammar teaching learning process will be more interesting and clearer as the students are given new circumstances and a various number of the examples of the grammar rules. The various numbers of examples give the students opportunity to know many kinds of real example of the passive forms. Then, from those examples, the students are able to identify the usage of the passive voice in daily usage, so they can make their own language in the correct form and meaning. Finally, it is expected that authentic materials can improve the students’ passive voice mastery and they are able to use the passive voice in the correct form and meaning both in written or spoken language.