Authentic Texts for Language Learning

"We are born, self-directed learners."

Benson
A. Key Points

 The use of authentic texts in language learning enhances language acquisition.

 Input would appear to be most valuable when it is in the form of authentic texts which contain a
rich variety of unmediated elements from which the language learner can source his/her language
acquisition.
 Authentic texts, selected by the teacher on the basis of their learners’ interests, will inevitably be
more interesting for them than inauthentic ones.
 The more texts are related to learners’ personal concerns and interests the deeper and more rapid
the processing will be.
 The influence on affect of using authentic texts can admittedly be negative as well as positive.
 All learners might be encouraged to adapt to the learning styles that cope best with authentic texts
and with the activity-types they involve.
 Authentic texts implicate autonomy partly because their use demands greater personal investment
on the part of the learner.

B. Significant Factors in Language Learning

1. Input
a. Comprehensible input (i+1), signifying that input should be just above the current level
of the learner but comprehensible enough for him/her to grasp the meaning
(Krashen,1981)
b. Comprehensible input strictly ‘facilitates’ language acquisition but cannot guarantee it
(Ellis, 1994).
c. The principal way of ‘externally manipulating’ input in order to render it more
comprehensible, is that traditional strategy used in ELT course books and readers,
simplification.
i. Morphological and syntactical adjustments
ii. Semantic adjustments
iii. phonological side
2. Affect: Motivation
a. ‘Given motivation, it is inevitable that a human being will learn a second language if he
is exposed to the language data (Corder, 1974).
b. Motivation concerns ‘those factors that energize behavior and give it direction’ (Gardner
1985).
c. Motivation can be seen as having a quantitative dimension, intensity, and a qualitative
dimension, goal-directedness (Dörnyei,1994).
d. Authentic learning texts would appear to be the ideal motivators (Peacock, 1997).

3. Affect: The ‘Affective Filter’, Engagement, Empathy & Attitude

a. Affective Filter - ways in which affective and attitudinal factors alter learners’ receptivity
to the target language
b. Authentic materials tend to lower the affective filter as ‘comprehensible input on topics
of real interest’ (Krashen,1989).
c. Being involved or engaged in a text and/or activity distracts the learner from the basic
objective (language acquisition), thereby reducing anxiety, lowering the affective filter
and allowing acquisition to take place.
d. Engagement and empathy with the learning text actually have a direct effect on the
language learning process (Little,1989).
e. A positive socio-cultural attitude is displayed by a willingness to become involved with
the input, which helps promote language learning.

4. Learning Style

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 a. Learning style is a core learner variable to influence the second language acquisition
process and one that is keenly relevant to learners’ reactions to authentic texts and
tasks.
i. The use of physical senses
ii. Dealing with other people
iii. Handling possibilities
iv. Approach to tasks
v. Dealing with ideas

5. Instructed SLA
b. Formal instruction is defined as ‘explicit grammar instruction’ (Terrel, 1991)
c. ‘Instruction’ applies to that which takes place within the classroom environment.
d. Traditional presentation and practice of grammar rules has no overwhelming empirical
justification in terms of enhanced language acquisition.

6. Autonomous Learning
a. L1 acquisition is essentially an autonomous process. It precedes formal education and
is controlled and directed by the child-learner.
b. ‘If language learning depends on language use, we shall want to embed the language
learning process from the very beginning in a framework of communicative language
use, and one indispensable part of this framework will be an appropriate corpus of
authentic texts’ (Little,1997).
7. Consciousness Raising
a. Acquisition does not occur until the learner is ‘ready’ for it.
b. Language teaching methods should foster this by (a) exposing learners to as rich a
variety as possible of (authentic) language input, and by (b) guiding them towards these
inductive ways of learning from such input.
c. The rationale of the consciousness-raising approach is that given sufficient exposure
and opportunity, learners will discover elements of L2 grammar and ‘reach conclusions
which make sense in terms of their own systems’ (Willis,1998).
8. Language Processing
a. bottom-up processing, i.e. decoding the incoming message itself (Nunan 1989) and top-
down processing (deployment of ‘background’ knowledge)
C. Implications
1. Authentic texts provide the best source of rich and varied comprehensible input for language
learners.
2. Elaborative changes to a text enhance comprehensibility better than does simplification.
3. Authentic texts impact on affective factors essential to learning, such as motivation, empathy
and emotional involvement.
4. Learning style (individual or culturally-conditioned) need not be an impediment to the efficacy
of the use of authentic texts and tasks for learning.
5. Authentic texts are suited to a naturalistic, consciousness-raising approach to learning TL
grammar.
6. Authentic texts are particularly suited to the deployment of the more holistic mode of language
processing, top-down processing.
7. Authentic texts (from the audio and audio-visual media in particular) stimulate ‘whole brain
processing’ which can result in more durable learning.

Theory for INDEPENDENT STUDY: Krashen's Natural Hypothesis

The Lord disciplines those He loves Hebrews 12:6

Hebrews 12:6

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