Learner's perspectives on authenticity

The use of authentic texts has become integral to communicative and proficiency oriented foreign language teaching. However, researchers and teachers alike are still engaged in a debate on several pertinent issues: for example, (a.) whether the definition of authenticity as "produced by native speakers for native speakers" is sufficient; (b.) how learners react to authentic materials, particularly whether they find them irrelevant to their language learning and difficult, and (c.) whether to grade (modify) texts or tasks. The paper describes a survey which asked 190 university-level learners of German to rate 53 situations (composed of 12 authenticity factors) on their level of (a.) authenticity; (b.) contribution to language learning; (c.) ease/difficulty; and (d.) resulting anxiety/enjoyment. Findings show that learners view authentic materials as essential to language learning and enjoyable. In contrast, positive correlations between authenticity and perceived difficulty were rare. Finally, learners assigned great importance to native-inception (produced by a native speaker) when rating situations for their authenticity and considered native reception (produced for native-speakers) as less important. Overall, the number of authenticity factors (quantity) which were present in a given scenario appeared more important than whether any particular factor was included (quality). In conclusion, learners enjoy interacting with authentic materials but are appreciative of pedagogical support, especially in listening situations and when reading literary texts. In short, learners choose grading tasks over grading texts. (Verlag).