Филологические науки/1. Методика преподавания языка и литературы

Teacher Bondarenko I. Oleksandra

National Technical University of Ukraine “Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute”, Ukraine

Authentic materials in ESP teaching

For better understanding of the material that will be outlined below, first of all, we need to clarify terms, such as English for Specific Purposes (ESP) and authentic materials. ESP involves training learners in the particular skills and language they need in order to function in a particular set of professional situations in English. Learners are grouped according to their needs (not just their language level), and the trainer tries to tailor each course to the learners’ particular needs [1]. Authentic materials (AM) are materials produced by proficient users for the specialists in a certain field of science (not for language teaching purpose).

AM can be as following:

· Books,

· Videos,

· Internet resources,

· Texts and articles,

· Documents,

· Magazines, journals etc.

The whole purpose of English for vocational purposes is to help learners in a particular vocational area to use English effectively. This can only be achieved by meeting their needs through authentic tasks and activities [2]. Task is a piece of work to be done especially one day, regularly and very often unwillingly or with difficulties. Activity is the work of a group or organization for an aim. Task in ESP is an activity to be done by learners. Task in ESP is a real – life situation.

What or who are the components of a task than? Components are:

v Teacher’s role,

v Learner’s role,

v Settings,

v Activities,

v Inputs,

v Goals.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of working with authentic materials? Authentic materials offer great advantage over materials written for the purpose of language learning: help prepare learners for the ‘real’ world of communication, guide learners toward the language they need for their particular context and motivate learners to communicate, because they help make communication ‘real’ [3].

References:

1. British Council Coursebook “Certificate in Vocational English Language Teaching (CiVELT), Module 1 – What is ESP?, p.3

2. British Council Coursebook “Certificate in Vocational English Language Teaching (CiVELT), Module 16 – Materials in ESP: developing authentic tasks, p.2

3. Lewis Lansford, Published 16 May 2014, http://www.cambridge.org/elt/blog/2014/05/16/authentic-materials-classroom-advantages/