Many practitioners in the field of teaching English to speakers of other languages recognize the need to use authentic materials, particularly in teaching speaking. They believe that learners should have access to models of native speakers’ interaction. One source of such models of interaction is TV shows (e.g., Gebhard, 1996). Watching and listening to lengthy spoken TV materials (such as soap operas and sitcoms) is also widely suggested for extensive listening practice, autonomous listening strategies development, listening fluency development, and even for speaking fluency (e.g., Dunkel, 1986; Flowerdew & Miller, 2005; Lazaraton, 2001, Sherman, 2003).

While the adoption of authentic spoken materials in teaching is recommended, there seem to be two issues. First, there is no clear agreement on the definition of authenticity or authentic spoken materials. Second, the classification of what is authentic is not objective. Regarding the definition of authentic materials, some define authentic spoken materials as those that were not produced for teaching purposes (e.g., Porter & Roberts, 1987) and some emphasize the fact that such materials should be produced by native speakers for native speakers (e.g., Löschmann & Löschmann, as cited in Chavez, 1998). It seems that each definition emphasizes a different aspect. The first definition, for example, focuses on the purpose of the interaction while the second puts emphasis on who produces the interaction. Whatever the aspect is, Rogers and Medley (1988) argued that the criteria for identifying authentic materials should be the appropriateness and naturalness of the language.

Following the argument of Rogers and Meldey, any piece of conversational discourse should be evaluated for its naturalness. In fact, most practitioners are motivated to use authentic materials because they presume that authentic materials mirror natural interaction. I would like to point out that the two terms natural and authentic have been used interchangeably in the literature and that such use of these terms may create some confusion in the minds of many practitioners. I suggest that these two terms be used in different ways. I refer to a natural conversation as a conversation that occurs between/among interlocutors who are spontaneously conversing in a daily situation in their speech community and when the language they are using is the predominant and day-to-day language. The conversation should be initiated for the sake of daily communication purposes, not for the sake of teaching. An authentic conversation, on the other hand, is defined, for the sake of this argument, as a nonspontaneous conversation that occurs between/among interlocutors in a specific context (stage, TV show, classroom, etc.) for the sake of reproducing, replicating, or mocking a real natural conversation. This distinction assumes that any authentic piece of discourse should reflect as many features of natural discourse as possible. This leads us to the second issue, which is how the naturalness of given discourse can be evaluated.

Early evaluations of the naturalness of so-called authentic materials were based on personal impressions and intuitions. For example, Rings (1986) classified spoken conversational interactions into 16 types starting with native speakers’ spontaneous conversations as the most authentic (1 on the scale) to conversations presented in textbooks as the most inauthentic (16 on the scale). Along this scale, simulated role play by native speakers was classified as close to spontaneous speech (3 on the same scale) and plays whose dialogues do not correspond to actual dialogue as close to inauthentic discourse (14 on the scale). One may question how this evaluation was determined. How would one know whether a dialogue in a play is not close to natural interaction? According to Gilmore (2007), determining authentic materials should rely on “objectifiable criteria” (p. 98). However, the question remains, how could that be achieved? This short article attempts to present or suggest an objective methodology that could be used to determine the naturalness of conversational materials, especially TV shows. The methodology is the register corpus analysis.

Register corpus analysis is a reliable, objective way to show the similarities or differences among registers. Therefore, if we want to evaluate the language of a TV show and see whether it is similar or different from natural conversation, then register analysis can answer this question for us. Register analysis is based on the idea that register variation is recognized through a set of lexical and grammatical features that are prevalent or frequent in one register versus another (Biber & Conrad, 2001). Thus, to determine whether register A is close to or far from register B, a quantitative frequency comparison of the set of features associated with register A, for example, could determine whether register B is close to or far from register A.

Although this methodology may seem interesting and attractive, it is not easy for teachers to utilize. This method is used more by researchers interested in the field of register corpus analysis. However, the hope is that a group of researchers take the initiative to start evaluating what is perceived as authentic conversational materials such as TV shows and be able to inform teachers whether a particular TV show is close to natural language or not. The ultimate goal is generating a list of TV shows that are more authentic for instructors to choose from. This method has been already used by Quaglio (2009) to compare the language of the famous sitcom Friends to that of natural conversation. Quaglio found that sitcom language is rather closer to natural conversation than different from it. I look forward to seeing more and more studies that use this methodology to objectively evaluate the naturalness of TV shows.

REFERENCES

Biber, D., & Conrad, S. (2001). Multi-dimensional analysis and the study of register variation. In S. Conrad & D. Biber (Eds.), Variation in English: Multi-dimensional studies (pp. 3-12). London, England: Longman.

Chavez, M. (1998). Learner’s perspectives on authenticity. IRAL 36(4), 277-306.

Dunkel, P. (1986). Developing listening fluency in L2: Theoretical principles and pedagogical considerations. Modern Language Journal, 70(2), 99-106.

Flowerdew, J., & Miller, L. (2005). Second language listening: Theory and practice. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

Gebhard, J. (1996). Teaching English as a foreign or second language: A self-development and methodology guide. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.

Gilmore, A. (2007). Authentic materials and authenticity in foreign language learning. Language Teaching, 40, 97-118.

Lazaraton, A. (2001). Teaching oral skills. In M. Celce-Murcia (Ed.), Teaching English as a second or foreign language (3^rd ed., pp. 103-115). Boston, MA: Heinle & Heinle.

Porter, D., & Roberts, J. (1987). Authentic listening activities. In M. Long & J. Richards (Eds.), Methodology in TESOL (pp. 177–190). Rowley, MA: Newbury House.

Quaglio, P. (2009). Television dialogue: The sitcom Friends vs. natural conversation. Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

Rings, L. (1986). Authentic language and authentic conversational texts. Foreign Language Annals, 19, 203-208.

Rogers, C., & Medley, F. (1988). Language with a purpose: Using authentic materials in the foreign language classroom. Foreign Language Annals, 21, 467-478.

Sherman, J. (2003). Using authentic video in the language classroom. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

Mansoor Al-Surmi has a PhD in applied linguistics from Northern Arizona University. He has taught English for about 10 years in his native country Yemen as well as in the United States. His research interests include investigating theoretical and practical issues in the areas of corpus linguistics, assessment, second language acquisition, and computer-assisted language learning. Al-Surmi is now an assistant professor of English at the University of Central Missouri.