Second Language Learning and Language Teaching

Motivation and interest. Students will be better motivated by texts that have
served a real communicative purpose.
●
Acquisition-promoting content. Authentic texts provide a rich source of natu-
ral language for the learner to acquire language from.
Additional reasons are:
●
Filling in language gaps. Designers of coursebooks and syllabuses may miss
some of the aspects of language used in real-life situations; we often do not
know what people actually say in railway stations or offices. This lack can be
filled most easily by giving students the appropriate real-life language taken
from situations appropriate to their needs.
●
Showing L2 users in action. While it may be hard for the teacher or course-
book writer to imitate L2 users, authentic L2-use texts can do this readily, for
example, the English-speaking newspapers mentioned above.
Language and interaction inside the classroom 159

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The fact that the language is authentic does not in itself make it more difficult
than specially written language. Difficulty depends partly on the amount of 
material that is used. A BBC Russian course recorded people on the streets of
Moscow saying ‘Zdravstvujte’ (Hello) to the cameraman – totally authentic, but
no problem for the students. The recording or text does not have to consist of
many words to be authentic: ‘EXIT’, ‘This door is alarmed’, ‘Ladies’, to take three
authentic written signs. Difficulty also depends on the task that is used with the
material. You can play a recording of two philosophers discussing the nature of
the universe to beginners so long as all you ask them to do is identify which is a
man, which a woman, or who is angry, who is calm, or indeed who said ‘well’
most often.
It is up to the teacher whether authentic language should be used in the class-
room or whether non-authentic language reflects a legitimate way into the lan-
guage. In other words, the choice is between decoding and codebreaking: are the
processes of learning similar to those of use, so that authentic language is needed,
or are they different, so that appropriate non-authentic language is helpful? Other
factors involved in this decision will be the goals of the students and other con-
straints of the teaching situation. And of course, the classroom is a classroom;
authentic language, by definition, is not normal classroom language and is being
used for purposes quite other than those of its original speakers, however well
intentioned the teacher.
One problem is that many teachers still think of an L2 class as language 
practice above all else, not related to ‘real’ communication – mock communica-
tion disguising language teaching points or tasks. If the student’s answer leads
away from the language point that is being pursued, it is ignored, however 
promising the discussion might seem. Seldom does genuine communication take
place in which the students and teacher develop a communicative exchange 
leading away from the language teaching point. Yet one of the early claims of 
the direct method pioneers was that genuine interchange of ideas was possible in
the classroom. Lambert Sauveur boasted that he could give a beginners’ class on
any topic; when challenged to give a class on God, he succeeded brilliantly
(Howatt, 2004). The IRF exchange, particularly the teacher’s evaluation move, is 
a constant reminder to the students that they are engaged in language practice,
not use.
Classroom interaction and Conversation Analysis