Abstract
The trend of World Wide Web access leads the use of authentic materials increasingly popular in ELT. The teachers can find and use any types of authentic materials to bridge the gap between the language used in the classroom and real world communication. Authentic materials contain complex language features that are not produced for teaching purposes. Therefore, it is different with language presented in the textbook. This study intended to find out the opportunities and challenges of authentic materials for low proficiency learners in SMP Islam Nabilah. The researcher used qualitative approach in which the data were gathered through classroom observation, self-reflection diary, and semi-structured interview with 21 students who classified as low proficiency learners. The findings show that the use of authentic materials such as songs, literatures, movies, pictures, and webs to teach English for low proficiency learners has both opportunities and challenges included the aspects of linguistic, motivation, culture, and resource
BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
According to Gilmore (2007) when teaching activities strict on following the material that provided on the textbook only, students would get bored. Besides, students get a little exposure on how to use language in which they wish to communicate. Thus, the use of authentic materials can be one of the ways to expose students to the language used contextually instead of using the artificial materials like textbook.
The first thing we have to consider is the slight discussion to define authentic material. Morrow (1977) as quoted by Mishan (2005:11) defines authentic text as the real language written or spoken by native to real audience in order to transfer a message in a real communication. The authentic materials contain natural language that commonly occur and used native speaker contexts with Standard English as the norm (Kilickaya, 2004). Which mean it is not only written or spoken by native speaker. Other scholars state that authentic materials are produced not intentionally for teaching purposes but it used in real communication (Tomlinson, 2005; Nunan, 2004; Bahrani & Tam, 2012; Polio, 2014)
The effectiveness of using authentic materials according to previous researchers can be seen from both linguistic and non-linguistic aspect. Authentic materials provides wider range of authentic inputs that expose students to a complex language features (Gilmore, 2007; Richard, 2006). Â Also, Richards (2001) and Gilmore (2007) claim the elements from language use, communication features, and entertainment aspects are closely interesting for language learners that will affect on learners' motivation. Authentic materials provide cultural information based practices and beliefs which reflects social phenomena that expose students to different culture (Mishan, 2005). The use of authentic materials will expose EFL students to language used in real life situation since this student have a less chance to practice language outside classroom (Ozverir & Herrington, 2011). Â Further, the trend of World Wide Web access naturally plays a major role in authentic English language learning (Hafiz, 2013), give the opportunity for teachers to find and use authentic materials in their classroom which lead the use of authentic materials increasingly popular in English language teaching.
In other side, the complexity of language features in authentic materials which typically different from the language presented in the textbook might be too difficult to be comprehended. The difficulty, furthermore, is causing some affective factors as frustration, uninterested, and demotivation. Moreover, authentic materials might be seen as entertainment rather than accepted as valuable learning sources. The other problem is selecting the appropriate texts that suit to learners' ability and local culture.
Moreover, as current researcher noted while doing teaching activities in SMP Islam Nabilah, authentic materials are used to support the textbook. Those materials are in various types of forms such as videos, popular songs, movies, short stories, newspapers, and internet that according to Mishan (2005) are the cultural products that commonly used for teaching. The authentic materials helped to attract students' interest in learning English. However, low proficiency learners felt difficult and they spent more time to finish their work when teacher bring authentic materials. (Polio, 2014) contends that the use of authentic materials for beginner takes up too much time. Furthermore, teachers should take more effort to select the appropriate materials and conduct the relevant activities to suit with students' proficiency meanwhile the meaningful activities should be paid attention (Kirana, 2014).
The authentic materials might contain complexity in language features. However, Mishan (2005) claims that learners in low proficiency level are able to use authentic materials. Further, researchers state that the issue is not only about what kind of authentic material, but also how teachers conduct the activities that fit with learner's proficiency (Mishan 2005; Gilmore, 2007; Kirana, 2014).
All in all, the present study was conducted to focusing on the challenges and opportunities of using authentic materials for low proficiency learners in EFL context. The researcher expected that the results of this research will be as self-reflection by the researcher itself and inspire other teachers to bring a lot of authentic materials in the classroom, further how to deal with the challenges while using authentic materials.
METHOD
