Page 28 - elgazette/ELG1812

COMMENT .

Point

of View

Marek
Kiczkowiak

Whose authenticity

is it anyway?

In a world where native speakers are in the
minority, authenticity should not be limited to
‘native-speaker’ models, argues Marek Kiczkowiak

’ve always thought of ‘authentic’ materials not for teaching language to non-natives.
and input as simply being those not designed It is rather striking to me that authenticity is
for the classroom, reflective of how my said to be tantamount to having been written by
Istudents are likely to use English in real life. or for a ‘native speaker’. This would suggest that
I was quite surprised then that Mike Long, this text, for example, is not authentic as it has
in his otherwise brilliant book Second Language been written by a ‘non-native speaker’. Thus,
Acquisition and Task Based Language Teaching, presumably, it would not constitute a good
kept on referring to authentic language and enough model for students to imitate.
texts as those produced by and/or for ‘native And this is evident in Long’s presentation
speakers’. of some example pedagogical tasks. For
To me this is a prime example of the effect example, on p. 271 he presents a task whose
on our profession of the ideology of native aim is for students to learn to obtain and
speakerism. As Holliday (2005, 2006) puts provide directions. The first pedagogical task
it, this is the notion that the linguistic and involves listening to three conversations and is
pedagogical ideals of teaching English spring incidentally called ‘The real thing’.
from Western culture, in which a ‘native
speaker’ embodies the language. As a result, It is rather difficult
‘native speakers’ are seen as the norm and the to continue to argue that
ideal both in terms of language use and teaching Bearing all of the above in mind, it seems
skills. authentic input can only clear to me that Long considers a ‘native
As with any ideology, native speakerism does speaker’ by definition as a better language model
not spread in a vacuum, but is maintained, be produced by a and the sole provider of authentic input.
supported and normalised by powerful Indeed, when a fellow teacher emailed Long
discourses which make it seem justifiable and ‘native speaker’ to clarify what his position was, his answer
acceptable. These are then used as a basis of was very clear. First ‘non-native speakers’ are
social practices and actions. Guess who recorded the conversations? A inappropriate as task models (unless the target
To give one example, native speakerism ‘native’ or a ‘non-native speaker’? task typically involves ‘non-natives’). Second,
is supported by the discourse that ‘native If you answered the former, then well done! ‘native speakers’ are better models of the
speakers’ are better models of the language for Indeed, Long writes that the three language.
our students, and therefore students should be conversations are to be ‘real examples of NS Since approximately 80 per cent of English
exposed to ‘native speaker’ language in class (native speakers) giving directions’. users worldwide are ‘non-native speakers’, it
in order to improve their proficiency. This Likewise, on page 313 Long discusses the fifth is rather difficult to continue to argue that
might lead us to select predominantly materials methodological principle of task based language authentic input can only be produced by a
created by and for ‘native speakers’. teaching, which involves promoting inductive ‘native speaker’.
So how is the ideology of native speakerism learning of chunks. He suggests that an Save for the few rare cases where our students
manifested in Long’s discussion of authenticity extensive reading and listening program should are going to interact exclusively with ‘native
in task based language teaching? be added to the main classroom course. speakers’, restricting the input and task models
First, Long defines genuine tasks as those That, per se, is justified and empirically sound, to ‘native speakers’ not only fails to reflect
‘originally designed for native speaker – native given the evidence from second language real language use, but it might also fail to
speaker communication,’ not language teaching. acquisition studies. However, what is highly appropriately prepare our learners to use English
Later, he defines authentic materials as ‘genuine questionable in my opinion is his suggestion effectively outside the classroom.
texts, such as song lyrics, news broadcasts, films, that students should listen to and read “lively Finally, focusing only on ‘native speaker’
newspaper articles, and textbook chapters, recordings of the texts made especially for language input can give students the idea that
originally created by and for native speakers,’ language learning by a native speaker.” ‘non-native speakers’ are inappropriate language
28 November/December 2018

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