Student's Perception on Using Authentic Material and Autonomous Learning

Authentic materials is one of the mainstays of a imaginative and motivating higher level course, but really features at levels lower than intermediate. In a EFL classroom is what many teachers involved in foreign language teaching have discuss in recent years, we have heard persuasive voice insisting that the English presented in the classroom should be authentic, not produced for instructional purpose. Generally, what the means is materials which involve language naturally occurring as communication in native-speaker contexts of use, or rather there selected contexts where Standard English is the norm real newspaper reports for example, real magazine article, real advertisement, cooking recipes, horoscopes, etc. Most of the teachers thought the world agree that authentic texts or materials are beneficial to the language learning process but what is less agreed is when authentic materials should be introduced and how they should be used in an EFL classroom. The definitions of authentic materials are slightly different in literature. What is common in these definitions is ’exposure to real language and as use in its own community’. Roger (1988:467) defines it as “appropriate” and “quality” in terms of goals, objectives, learners needs and interest and ”natural” in terms of real life and meaningful communication. Harmer (1991:45) defines authentic texts as materials which are designed for native speaker; they are real text; designed for not language students, but for the speakers of the language.

Jordan (1997:85) refers to authentic texts as that are not written for language teaching purpose. Authentic materials is significant since increases students’ motivation for learning, makes the Lerner be exposed to the ‘real’ language as discussed by Guariento & Morley (2001:347). The main advantages of using authentic materials are (Richards, 2001: 66):

(a)     They have a positive effect on learning motivation;

(b)      They provide authentic cultural information; (c) They provide exposure to real language; (d) They relate more closely to learners ‘needs; and (e) They support more creative approach to teaching.

We can claim that learners are being exposed to real language they feel that they are learning the ‘real’ language. These are what make use excited and willing to use authentic materials in our classroom, but while using them, it is inevitable that we face same problems.

Richards (2001:235) points out that alongside with these adventives, authentic materials often contain difficult language, unneeded vocabulary items and complex language structures, which causes a burden for the teacher in lower level classes. Martines (2002:24) mention that authentic materials may be too culturally biased and too many structures are mixed, causing lower levels have a hard time decoding the texts. There comes the question of when authentic materials should be introduced and used in a classroom; in other words, can we use authentic materials regardless of our students’ level.

Guarinto and Moreley (2001:73) claim that at post-intermediate level, the use of authentic materials is available for use in classroom. This night be attributed to the fact that at this level, most students master a wide range of vocabulary in the target language and all of the structures They also not that at lower levels, the use of authentic materials may cause students used in the target language. It means that the use authentic materials is a burden for the instructors teaching beginning students as they have to spend a lot of time to prepare for authentic materials regarding the ability level of the students. Do all these mean we are not able to use authentic materials in lower-level classes apart from post intermediate and advanced levels?

According to the findings of the survey carried out by Chavez (1998:36), learners enjoy dealing with authentic materials since they enable them to interact with the real language and it use. Also they do not consider authentic situation or materials innately difficult. However, learners state they need pedagogical support especially in listening situation and when reading literary texts such as the provision of a full range of cues (auditory and visual including written language).

We may conclude that learners feel better with authentic materials helping them involve in the ‘real’ language as long as we, as teacher, provide them with pedagogical support. In order to achieve this, we have a wide range of choices. Martinez (2002:28) suggest that teachers may use authentic material for the learners to listen for the gist of the information presented and also he add that by using authentic materials teachers will have opportunity to encourage students to read for pleasure especially certain topics of their interest. It is claimed that using audio-visual materials aiding students; comprehension is beneficial since it will prevent students especially beginning ones from being frustrated about authentic materials. Materials such as popular and traditional songs will help us to create a non-threatening environment.

Guariento and Moley (2001:75) suggest that authentic materials should be used in accordance with students’ ability and adds that suitable tasks can be given to learners in which total understanding is not important. According to Jordan (1997:69), in the earlier stages, non-authentic materials can be used, but stresses that upon students’ dealing with materials from their own subject area, authentic materials should be introduced. Westerhuis (as quoted by Cheung, 2001:56) defined ‘culture’ as the customs, values, laws, technology, artifact and art of a particular time or people. Culture in English for the use culture contain in classroom is for the supposition that it will foster learner motivation. Changes in linguistic and learning theory suggest that culture can be used as an important element in language classroom, but many students say that they do not want to learn about the culture of the target language. That might be because of the fear of assimilation into what they perceived as something strange to them. Also, misrepresenting cultures by reinforcing popular stereotypes and constructing these cultures as monolithic, static ’others’ rather than as dynamic, fluid entities might result in making cultural content an effective element in language learning and teaching. Therefore, writer believe that cultural content is a key to effective teaching and learning a language provided that problems arising from introducing culture in EFL classroom are dealt with effective and teaching strategies and learning materials are chosen appropriately.

The use of authentic material is expected to be more effective to enhance the student’s competence if it is supported by the learners ’autonomy. In order for learning to be truly useful, students need to be fully engaged in the learning process. Learning is only possible if learners are autonomous or if they make the choice to learn and are responsible for their learning. According to Little (1996:204), autonomous learner entails establishing a personal agenda for learning, taking at least some sense of the initiatives that shape the learning process, and developing a capacity to evaluate the extent and success of one in learning. Chan (2001:285) also describes the autonomous learner as being actively involved at all levels of learning, from goal-setting, defining content and working out mechanisms for assessing achievement and progress and points out that the locus of control for decision-making shifts from teacher to student. From previous researches, they are shown that autonomous learning was closely related to student’s achievement in learning process. If a student is kind of autonomous learner, she/ he will not find any difficulties in learning process, since he/ she has been aggravated by his/ her intrinsic motivation. In return, it is hoped that his/her achievement in learning process (represented by collocation awareness) will be optimal.

Why do EFL learners need to learn collocation is an interesting question to answer , learning collocation may help EFL learners to speak and write English in a more natural and accurate way. Learning collocation will also help EFL learners to increase their range of vocabulary, for example, they will find it easier to avoid words like very or nice or beautiful or get by choosing a word that fits the context better and has more precise meaning. Based on the studies findings, it is clearly show that the students’ English proficiency was significantly and positively related to their learner autonomy (Dafei, 2007:14), that is way the writer intents to find out whether the authentic materials and autonomous learning also affect the collocation awareness. If so, the writer is also going to find out how to improve the students’ collocation awareness as well. Based on the problem, some problems appear in teaching learning process, the using of authentic material and learning autonomy; the writer would like to limit the problem on the effects of students’ perception on using authentic material and autonomous learning towards students’ collocation awareness at Private Vocational Schools.