THE USE OF AUTHENTIC MATERIALS WITH LOW LEVEL LEARNERS OF ENGLISH

Meral M. Unver

Abstract


In real life, people are exposed to various listening situations ranging from songs to chatting in social occasions (Ur, 1984). The variety of topics and nature of real-life listening situations put strain on learners of English; therefore, textbooks for language teaching are aimed to reflect these real life situations. However, listening, as stated “the Cinderella skill” by Nunan (1999), is the skill learners experience difficulty, hence low self-confidence, especially in low language levels. This paper aims at sharing ideas about using authentic materials in a language classroom with low level learners of English in a non-English spoken environment to practise listening skills in particular listening for gist and specific information. It is especially low-level learners holding negative attitudes towards listening and expressing frustration even if they listen to it for gist, which results in low self-esteem and self-efficacy. The results show that there is a way to save “the Cinderella skill” by carefully chosen authentic material and well-prepared activities to foster low level learners’ listening comprehension as well as self-confidence. 

 

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Keywords


authentic listening material, authentic material, ESL/EFL, listening for gist, listening in English, low level learners of English, real life listening

References


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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.46827/ejel.v0i0.535

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