The topic of "authentic resources" (frequently shortened to #authres) has come up again in a language teaching-related facebook group I'm a member of, as it does from time to time. This time regarding the recommendations straight from the big guy: ACTFL. The "authenticity" discussion has a lot of dimensions, and it's a topic that consistently gets under my skin. For this particular post, I'll restrict myself to opining about the ACTFL's initial statement at the link. Before getting into that, though, first a bit about the classic definition that floats around everywhere: "by native speakers, for native speakers," which I find hopelessly reductive and frustrating. There are a number of simple arguments that easily poke holes in the basic definition, which I won't get into here. ACTFL currently expands that definition slightly to "written by members of a language and culture group for members of the same language and culture group," which at least theoretically admits nonnative speakers into the exclusive club of potential "authentic" content producers. Though, of course, who gets to decide who and at what point of proficiency someone becomes a "member" of a given nonnative language/culture? But ACTFL defines "authentic" in the context of making the following recommendation: Interactive reading and listening comprehension tasks should be designed and carried out using authentic cultural texts of various kinds Here they've added "cultural" into the mix: authentic cultural texts. What does that mean? Do texts now need not only to be produced by language/culture members, but be about the target language culture? That seems unnecessarily restrictive. Infographics seem to be a popular #authres, but is the Spanish (or what have you) translation of e.g. the FDA's food pyramid (a popular choice in food units) not authentic enough to be considered "use of authentic text" (even if it was translated by a native speaker and is clearly translated for the benefit of native speakers) just because it's a translation of a U.S. cultural product?
And just the definitiveness of the phrasing "Interactive reading and listening comprehension tasks should be designed and carried out using..." They could have said authentic materials should be incorporated into the classroom (leaving it open as to what other texts are used in combination, e.g. learner-centered materials to be used for extensive reading/listening). But the implication here is that they're the only material that should be used.😤 The definitiveness of the recommendation wouldn't bother me nearly as much, maybe not at all, if they didn't go on to define "authentic" in the way that they do. I much prefer a more communicative definition, and my personal definition was influenced substantially by Day and Bamford's Extensive Reading in the Second Language Classroom, specifically the chapter "The Cult of Authenticity and the Myth of Simplification." Instead of defining authenticity by the author's or audience's group membership, it is defined by the text's purpose. Is the purpose of the text to communicate meaning (as opposed to practice discrete language)? Then it's authentic, regardless of who wrote it or who reads it.
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June 2019
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