Today, we’re continuing with the idea of what constitutes appropriate materials and interaction.
In this chapter of his book While We’re On the Topic, Bill VanPatten addresses a hot issue in the second and foreign language teaching community: authenticity.
I addressed this topic when I considered Eileen Glisan and Richard Donato’s book, Enacting the Work of Language Instruction(ACTFL, 2017). If you are interested in reading my discussions, click here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. At the time, I presented some objections to the generally accepted position on “authentic texts”: the definition is demonstrably flawed, at least two different definitions are employed to justify common practices, the restrictions imposed by the definition do not reflect real-world concepts and practice in the first language, and the principle is often misunderstood and misapplied. Other than that, there’s not much to see here.
VanPatten provides an excellent description of the situation:
Authenticity refers to whether classroom activities and materials use authentic language use [sic] and authentic sources from native-speaking cultures. That is, authentic materials are texts (e.g., websites, ads, newspaper articles) written by native speakers for other native speakers. In some circles of language teaching, there is a push to use authentic materials from the beginning. In some cases, advocates push for an exclusive use of authentic materials and “shun” materials written for the second language learner. (2017, p. 721; emphasis in original)
One inherent danger of the emphasis in the last half of VanPatten’s description is the tendency to turn authentic texts into just another text to be got through rather than using it as comprehensible input in the communication-based classroom.
VanPatten raises but does not answer some very important questions with regard to the use of authentic texts. They parallel and complement my own questions. Here are a few:
1. What kind of authentic text would contain appropriate level input for the first semester learner of Japanese? (VanPatten)
2. Should teachers wait to introduce authentic texts and sources once learners have higher levels of ability with language? (VanPatten)
3. And how would the learner interact with that text in the classroom? (Van Patten)
4. If simplification of text for emergent first language learners is considered both acceptable and authentic, why is it not acceptable for second language learners? (Harrell)
5. Under the given definition, how can a learner ever have an “authentic conversation”, especially if the teacher is not a native speaker? (Harrell)
6. How does the definition of “authentic” in language acquisition improve on the more general understanding of authentic as “genuine”, “not false or imitation: real, actual”? (Harrell; hint: it doesn’t)
7. How does “… giving learners opportunities to learn language and content through participation in interpreting and creating authentic texts” (Haley and Austin, 2014; emphasis mine) fit the definition of “for native speakers by native speakers” (or one of its variants), and how does one account for what we know about interlanguage? (Harrell)
8. To what extent does the position described by VanPatten confuse the outcome (interpreting, expressing, and negotiating the meaning of native-speaker texts) with the means to that end? (Harrell)
Here VanPatten approaches the discussion from a different perspective, that of context and communication. His bottom line is, “… we let what we know about language, communication, language acquisition, and the appropriateness of input drive how we use ‘authentic’ materials.” (2017, p. 72)
I find the implications and ramifications of VanPatten’s position more consistent, more satisfying, and more applicable than those of the wider “language community”. Rather than needing different definitions of “authentic”, we have one that covers visual, audible, and audiovisual texts. Rather than pushing an elitist, exclusive agenda about language and language acquisition, we have an inclusive position. Rather than pushing the text as the driving force, we allow communication and acquisition to drive the experience. Rather than putting real-world, authentic use of language “out there” somewhere, it brings it into the current experience of the learner. Rather than making the classroom a “practice session”, it recognizes the classroom as its own authentic context for communication.
VanPatten could have written far more about authenticity than he did. It is a topic that must be brought continually before language teachers. Instead of accepting the commonly held definition, we need to look at it critically and ask ourselves if it truly “preserves the appearances” (i.e. accounts for all the phenomena). To me, the widely disseminated definition of “for members of a language and culture community for members of that same language and culture community” has been tried in the balance and found wanting. Let’s remove its dominion over the field of language acquisition and give it to another.
Once again, I repeat the advice from Mary Ashcraft in the Advanced Placement® Summer Institute I attended in 2011: “Of course, you use materials created for learners. These become the springboards to ‘authentic resources’ that would otherwise be inaccessible. Let’s not confuse the end with the means.”
Beyond that, though, you recognize that the classroom is its own authentic context, and learners are interacting with “authentic texts” as long as the language in the classroom is real or genuine language used for the purpose of communication (expression, interpretation, and negotiation of meaning within a context for a purpose other than simply “practicing the language”).
Here is the irony of understanding and accepting the concept of “authentic text” as language informed by the communicative context in which it occurs:
Teachers who use native-speaker texts without regard to their level appropriateness or the communicative context of the particular classroom in which they teach actually render these texts inauthentic.