Authentic Materials in Listening Lessons: : A Study of Swedish Upper-Secondary English Teachers' Attitudes toward Authentic Materials in Listening Lessons

Abstract: This study examines Swedish upper-secondary English teachers’ attitudes toward authentic materials in listening lessons in order to shed light on whether or not teachers implement authentic material in their listening lessons and if so, the reasons teachers give for including authentic material. The reason for conducting this research is that teachers might rely too extensively on simplified, graded and/or scripted purpose-written materials (i.e. textbooks) in their listening lessons. Since the listening material commonly found in purpose-written materials is different from the language in the “real world”, these materials might do a less than adequate job at preparing learners for conversations and interactions in the “real world” outside the language-learning classroom.Data were gathered through a researcher-developed questionnaire followed by interviews with two practicing teachers of English. The findings reveal that all of the participating teachers in this study (n=10) use authentic material in their listening lessons and that the primary reasons for including it are that teachers find authentic material more interesting and because teachers believe that authentic material can be better aligned with students’ interests, societal lives and future working lives. In addition, teachers reading this essay can increase their awareness of and reflect on why and how they themselves implement authentic materials in listening lessons, which in turn can assist teachers in aligning their teaching and their material choices with the subject syllabus for English better than they could without using authentic materials.