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Reading Reflection #3 - Text and Task Authenticity (Guariento & Morley)

William Guariento and John Morley - Text and Task Authenticity in the EFL Classroom

Although this article was not long it was very informational and brought up a lot of good questions and suggestions. The article begins by discussing "authentic texts" which is defined as texts which embrace both the written and spoken word, which help to bridge the gap between classroom knowledge and a students capacity to participate in real world events. (Wilkins)
These texts allow learning in the classroom to be useful and very motivating to students and should always try to be incorporated. However, these texts can be difficult to find and difficult to use with certain low-level users. The article then continues to question if these texts can be manipulated to suit the needs of lower level users or is it ok for these users to not completely understand the whole text. Will this help them or will it have a negative consequence of making them feel frustrated, confused or demotivated?
The article then turns its attention to "task authenticity" which is defined as a degree of instruction or focus on form, together with learner production that is now considered important for classroom based second language development. Guariento and Morley state that both task and text authenticity are important for maximizing the students ability to learn a second language. They also state 4 very important aspects of task authenticity which must be met in order to maximize results.
1) Authenticity through a genuine purpose - emphasis should be on meaning and communication which makes it an authentic task
2) Authenticity through real world targets - authenticity in terms of content, must be related to a real world task.
3) Authenticity through classroom interaction - communication about how best to communicate when tasks are negotiated and it is this process of negotiation that is authentic.
4) Authenticity through engagement - are students engaged by the task??

The authors seem to think that there is more flexibility with the audience that can benefit from authentic tasks and I would agree with them. I think that with "tasks" a teacher is able to more easily manipulate the situation to fit his/her objectives and that tasks can have a wide range of input/output communication opportunities. It is much easier to develop a task based on your learners and be able to change it on the spot if you feel it is demotivating or not engaging. With texts, there is not this amount of flexibility (most of the time).

However, I think that there needs to be a mix or interaction of text and task authenticity to maximize learning in an ESL or language classroom. With the increased use of technology and the internet in classrooms it allows teachers more choice in tasks and texts and can be very helpful. But I would also remind teachers that there could be dangers with only using the internet as it does not usually allow for spoken communication which is key to second language competency. Overall, if the tasks and texts are varied and the teacher strives to create authentic situations, students will find learning a second language to be beneficial and relevant.

posted by Christine Parker @ 9:54 PM