I was asked recently by a well-know organisation to do some teacher development work with ESP teachers and I was asked to work on using authentic materials. After a little discussion about exactly what they thought authentic meant – any text produced by native speakers not intended for language teaching – and what they wanted me to do, I decided I was not interested in the work and that I needed to investigate the meaning of authenticity in ELT.  So in preparation for the BALEAP Professional Issues Meeting (PIM) at the University of Leeds in February next year, I have been thinking about the meaning of authenticity in EAP.  The concept has been around for a long time, particularly since the communicative 1970s. Indeed Dick Allwright (1981, p. 173) points out that when working on a pre-sessional course at the University of Lancaster in 1974, he was instructed to “use no materials, published or unpublished, actually conceived or designed as materials for language teaching”. More recently Helen Basturkmen (2010, p. 62) has reminded us of the importance of authenticity in ESP and EAP:  “One of the key characteristics of ESP is that teachers and course developers value the use of authentic texts and tasks.”

The concept of authenticity in language teaching is not new. Henry Sweet, for example,  emphasised its importance as long ago as 1899.

The great advantage of natural, idiomatic texts over artificial ‘methods’ or ‘series’ is that they do justice to every feature of the language … The artificial systems, on the other hand, tend to cause incessant repetition of certain grammatical constructions, certain elements of the vocabulary, certain combinations of words to the almost total exclusion of others which are equally, or perhaps even more, essential (p. 177).

If we look, though, at more recent definitions of authenticity, we find the following, some of which have relevance to ESP and EAP:

“Authentic materials refers to the use in teaching of texts, photographs, video selections, and other teaching resources that were not specially prepared for pedagogical purposes”  (Richards 2001).

The problem with this for EAP is that almost all texts that our students might read have been prepared for pedagogical purposes. So if we broadly agree with this statement, we need to distinguish between texts that have prepared for the teaching of the student’s main subject and those texts that have been prepared for language teaching.

“An authentic text is a stretch of real language, produced by a real speaker or writer for a real audience and designed to convey a real message of some sort” (Morrow, 1977, p. 13).

This is fine, as long as we can decide what is meant by “real”.

“Authentic texts (either written or spoken) are those which are designed for native speakers: they are real texts designed not for language students, but for the speakers of the language in question” (Harmer, 1983, p. 146).

This is not of relevance to ESP or EAP. A text on consumer behaviour produced by my Hungarian colleague who teaches marketing  is just as authentic as one produced by her UK workmate. I’m also not sure how relevant the concept of native-speaker competence is in 2013.

“A rule of thumb for authentic here is any material which has not been specifically produced for the purposes of language teaching” (Nunan, 1989, p. 54).

This is fine.

“Materials which were originally directed at a native-speaking audience” (Wilkins, 1976, p. 79) .

Again, this not not relevant for ESP or EAP in 2013.

Bearing in mind the quotation from Basturkmen above, in which she points out the importance of authentic texts and tasks, we will see that all the quotations above refer only to texts, not tasks. Widdowson’s (1976) distinction, then, between “genuine” and “authentic” is useful.

“genuineness” – a characteristic of the text or the material itself.

And similarly, Stevick (1971), but slightly differently, makes a difference between authentic – a characteristics of a text – and real and realistic ways of using the language:

Authenticity in EAP

It is usually clear what we mean by an authentic text in ESP ( EAP or EO/PP). By authentic,  we mean materials – spoken or written, productive or receptive – that students have to deal with as part of their subject courses.

We need to make sure that our students are aware of the purposes of the texts the students have to read or listen to and ensure that any texts they produce have a clear purpose.

This means ensuring that our students are recognised as the intended audiences of texts the students have to read or listen to and ensure that any texts they produce have a clear audience.

This means that the tasks we give our students should be “real” in Stevick’s words or  at least “realistic”.

As well as considering the audience and purpose of the texts, other users need to be kept in mind.

And all this should be carried out in an appropriate context.

References

Allwright . R. (1981). Language learning through communication practice. In C. J. Brumfit and K. Johnson (Eds.), The communicative approach to language teaching (pp. 167-182). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Basturkmen, H. (2010). Developing courses in English for specific purposes. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan .

Harmer, J. (1983). The practice of English language teaching. London: Longman.

Morrow, K. (1977). Authentic texts and ESP.  In S. Holden (Ed.), English for Specific Purposes (pp. 13-17). London: Modern English Publications.

Nunan, D. (1989). Designing tasks for the communicative classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Richards, J. (2001). Curriculum development in language teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Stevick, E. W. (1971). Adapting and writing language lessons. Washington, D.C.: FSI.

Sweet, H. (1899). The practical study of languages. London: Oxford University Press.

Widdowson, H. G. (1976). The authenticity of language data. In J. Fanselow & R. Crymes (Eds.), On TESOL ’76 (pp. 261-270). Washington, DC: TESOL.

Wilkins, D. (1976). Notional syllabuses. Oxford: Oxford University Press.