EFFICIENCY OF USING AUTHENTIC MATERIALS IN THE EDUCATIONAL PROCESS

Abstract

The article considers the study of using authentic materials during the foreign language teaching in comprehensive schools. Special attention is given to the study of features and methods of using authentic materials for the reading and listening skills development among primary school students. The work uses a multidisciplinary approach with the involvement of relevant general scientific and linguistic research methods, that allowed considering the “authentic materials” concept in the methodological discourse and defining this material as a key tool for teaching English, which contributes to increasing the students’ motivation level to learn a foreign language. In frames of the analysis of the authentic materials main types in the teaching English process, printed texts and video materials with audio are studied. Based on the analysis, the authentic texts and video materials influence on students’ reading and listening skills of a foreign language is revealed. Corresponding to the theoretical material, an empirical study was carried out. Its task was to improve the foreign language proficiency level among the 4th grade students of a comprehensive school levels I through III, who became subjects. A set of listening exercises was developed on the basis of authentic video material in order to assess the knowledge and understanding level of the text by students. The empirical study results prove that viewing, assimilating the video material and completing the tasks after viewing contribute to the listening skills improvement and contributes to the students’ acquisition effectiveness of foreign language communicative competence. The conducted empirical research also helped to determine and formulate the main tasks and recommendations for the further using authentic materials combined with exercises during the foreign language teaching to students of comprehensive Ukrainian schools.