THE USE OF AUTHENTIC MATERIALS IN ENHANCING LISTENING COMPREHENSION

Аннотация:

This study is dedicated to investigating the use of authentic materials in the development of listening comprehension skills. Listening is very often considered the most difficult language skill to learn, while being a basic one in terms of communication. For one, the audio materials that accompany most traditional textbooks are often unnatural in terms of rhythm and speed and are built on poorer lexical options than what one would find in actual speech. This is another subject-matter gap between what is learned inside the classroom and the real-world context. The main objective of the research will be to establish the effectiveness of authentic materials such as news broadcasts, YouTube videos, films, podcasts, and songs on students' development of listening competence. It was conducted on a survey of 33 English language learners. The instruments of research used were a questionnaire that aimed to determine the type of authentic material used, how frequently they were used, how useful they were, and how they influenced the learners' motivation. The results indicated that the most significant advantage, by far, is that authentic materials greatly assist in the development of the learners' aural comprehension skills, together with a sense of correct, natural pronunciation. Further, such material proved a very powerful catalyst in motivating students and therefore raising overall interest in the process of language learning. Some impediments appeared, though: fast speech rates and lexical barriers sometimes were not easy to overcome, especially by beginner students. The researcher was therefore able to conclude that authentic materials can play a crucial role both for advancing students’ listening level as well as for preparing students for real-life conversations while at the same time promoting student engagement. Following this trend, it can therefore be recommended that English language teachers should incorporate authentic material systematically and at the students’ level while at the same time using supporting activities to promote better understanding.