Authentic Materials for Low Proficiency Learners in EFL Context: Opportunities and Challenges

The opportunities of using authentic materials are students can develop language skills such as listening, reading, vocabularies, and pronunciation. The authentic materials also can motivate students to actively engage in activities, learn good culture from foreigners, and easy to find the sources. Despite, teachers also face challenges which include the linguistic demands that will affect students' interest and motivation, inappropriate culture, and difficult to find suitable text for low learners and also time consuming.

Suggestions

For the English teachers who assigned to teach low proficiency learners, the researcher would like to suggest the teacher to use various kinds of authentic materials especially on the use of ICT or internet both as resource or medium because the school provided the infrastructure and students seems enthusiast when they use technology. Teachers can also let their students work collaboratively with their friends. This activity enables low learners to share their ideas, reduce anxiety, and motivate them to actively participate in activity. Moreover, teacher can use clear instructions so the time will not run out by repeated instruction. Regarding to cultural issue, besides looking for the text that suitable to students' local culture, teacher can develop students cross cultural understanding by comparing their own culture with others culture.

For the further research, deeply analysis on low proficiency students' perception after they use authentic materials is also necessary to develop the effectiveness of using authentic materials for lower-level learners especially in EFL context.

 

REFERENCES

 

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About The Author 

ENDAH SRI ELYAWATI, S.Pd is a teacher in SMP Islam Nabilah, Batam. Her interest includes Teaching English, material development, and ICT in Education.