Course books or authentic materials ?!

For many teachers, what and how to teach is based on the course book and its syllabus that most of the time is chosen by the institution they work for, which is beneficial for the novice teachers to make them confident through using carefully prepared books that provide a balanced chronological presentation of information which is accompanied most of the time with variety of resources that would save the teacher’s time and energy in thinking, searching and preparing , those teachers sometimes use alternatives to the text book ,that they consider it trusted and prepared in a satisfactory language control, but to follow the allocated syllabus and procedures.

But relying on text books may stifle the teacher’s creativity through books that are structured in a specific way to impose a learning style that may not suit all students. Adding that text books are often bland, to avoid any possible offence and to be acceptable in many different contexts, where these contexts may not be in the best interests and needs of the students.

On the other hand, using authentic materials in teaching provides the teacher with more opportunities to choose and create from all the components of language that can be dealt with and suit all learning styles. Moreover, well-chosen and prepared authentic materials generate more students’ involvement and motivate learners to communicate through real topics that prepare them for real world communication.

However, teaching through authentic materials needs time and effort from the teacher to make it coherent, balanced, and organized with the curriculum standards, as well as suitable for the students’ age, ability, learning style, and social mentality. Because some authentic materials may contain a language that we don’t want to teach, or even they may contain some language errors, without forgetting that the majority of them are copyrighted and we should take that into consideration if we want to use them.

As a teacher, I believe that the balance that results from the students’ interests and needs is always the key beyond the correct choice between books and authentic materials, where the teacher should know when the text book is enough and serves the needs of her lesson objectives and when getting trusted, well-tested authentic materials give better results in achieving her goal.

This balance can occur also through interacting both in the same lesson, as the teacher can explain the text in the book and provide activities based on authentic materials, or giving an authentic material as an introduction for the lesson.

Teachers would master the correct choice better after building a rich repertoire of experiences that allows her to match what is best for every class, lesson, and students, to enrich the learners learning experience in a real authentic but professional accurate manner.

Significantly, knowing what to choose is not always easy, since it’s mostly dependent on the learners themselves, where the learners also are affected by many factors that lead to totally different individuals in the same teaching process.