Research article the role of newspapers and magazines to teach english in the

THE ADVANTAGES OF USING AUTHENTIC 
MATERIALS IN THE ESL/EFL CLASSROOMS 
Nunan (1999) claims that authenticity is one 
of the three significant principles of task design that 
suggest learners to learn a language in a natural way 
as it is used by the real language users. There are 
several advantages of using authentic materials in 
the ESL/EFL classrooms. First of all, they play a key 
role in motivating the English language learners 
positively and they attract the learners to 
concentrate more on learning the English language in 
a congenial atmosphere. Secondly, the learners show 
more interest on the materials since they have been 
selected and designed according to the learners’ 
needs. Furthermore, they make the learners to 
participate in the classroom activities with a lot of 
enthusiasm. They also prepare the learners to 
perform the tasks in a learner-friendly environment. 
A majority of the learners actively participate in the 
discussions and communicate well with their peers as 
well as their teachers. Due to their cost effectiveness 
and abundant availability, authentic materials are 
profusely used by the teachers of English in their 
ESL/EFL classrooms to make the learners a better 
understanding of the subject taught.
Since the authentic materials are designed 
according to the levels and interests of the learners, 

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167 
Parupalli Srinivas Rao 
VEDA’S 
JOURNAL OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE (JOELL) 
A
n International Peer Reviewed (Refereed) Journal
Impact Factor (SJIF) 4.092
http://www.joell.in
 
Vol.6 Issue 2 
2019 
even the average and shy students can participate 
dynamically. As a result, the learners learn the 
English language skills in a short time with self-
motivation. Moreover, the teachers select the eye-
catching materials that highly attract the learners 
equipped with audio and visual effects, the learners 
grasp the content within no time and showcase their 
skills later in and outside the classrooms. In this 
context, it is apt to quote Brinton (1991 cited in Qura, 
2001), “Authentic materials relate more closely to 
learners’ need, for they build a connection between 
the language classroom and the outside world”. 
Authentic materials function as mediating artifact to 
contextualize the language learning where the 
learners comprehend the TV advertisements and 
weather reports whereas these genres are commonly 
used in day-to-day context.
Another major advantage of the using the 
authentic materials in the ESL/EFL classrooms is that 
they offer a wide range of language contexts, 
registers, styles and genres of both written as well as 
spoken discourses and the materials certainly enrich 
the knowledge of learners’ linguistic resources. Since 
the authentic materials that are used from the 
newspapers, magazines, comics and story books are 
entirely different from the normal prescribed 
textbooks, they reinforce the teaching items taught 
in the classrooms and they surely enhance the 
language skills of the learners immensely. 
Furthermore, authentic materials are more useful in 
teaching the language structure than improving the 
reading skills of the learners. There is no doubt that 
the learners improve their reading skills by reading 
the newspapers, magazines and brochures, but the 
main concentration is laid on the language skills. As 
the resources that are available on the internet are 
updated on regular intervals, they are more engaging 
and stimulating for the learners.
Also, authentic materials provide rich 
cultural content. Since learning a language cannot be 
separated from its culture and both the language and 
culture are inextricably intertwined, both language 
and culture should be taught in combination. Since 
language embodies products, perspectives, persons, 
communities and practices of a culture, the teachers 
of English should teach the language and culture 
inseparably to make the learner acquaint with the 
culture of the language that they learn. When the 
teaching and learning takes place by adopting the 
cultural content in the materials adopted by the 
teachers, the learners understand the content more 
easily and show more interest in the topic as well. 
There are numerous authentic materials that 
comprise cultural information which can be exposed 
and provides more opportunity for the learners to 
expose more to the target language through 
newspapers, 
journals, 
movies 
and 
songs. 
Furthermore, the teachers of English should always 
integrate target language culture with the learners’ 
own culture and also various cultures in order to 
make the learners a better understanding and proper 
respect to the other cultures. One of the main 
advantages of using the cultural content is that it 
results in effective teaching and learning. As there 
are innumerable advantages of the authentic 
materials to use in their regular ESL/EFL classrooms, 
the teachers are advised to select more interesting 
and appropriate materials to make the teaching and 
learning more effective and meaningful. 
Authentic materials are so powerful and 
useful in giving boundless sources of information 
which we can compare with an encyclopedia or a 
library and they also provide an opportunity for the 
earners to enhance their knowledge and language 
skills and facilitate learner autonomy and self-
education. Since mass media convers a variety of 
topics and subjects that create interest among the 
learners, they motivate the English language learners 
to work with the given tasks or activities in the 
ESL/EFL classrooms. This paper primarily focuses on 
the role of print media in the ESL/EFL classrooms and 
how they help both teachers and learners to collect, 
classify, analyze and classify the concepts, 
information and perspectives in promoting teaching 
and learning of English in the EFL/ESL classrooms. In 
this context, the main emphasis is laid on how 
teachers make use of both newspapers and 
magazines to teach English in the ESL/EFL classrooms 
in order to develop the learners’ language skills, 
vocabulary and grammar colossally. 

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168 
Parupalli Srinivas Rao 
VEDA’S 
JOURNAL OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE (JOELL) 
A
n International Peer Reviewed (Refereed) Journal
Impact Factor (SJIF) 4.092