This book examines the concept of authentic English in today’s world, where cultures are in constant interaction and the English language works as a binding agent for many cross-cultural exchanges. It offers a comprehensive review of decades of debate around authenticity in language teaching and learning and attempts to synthesise the complexities by presenting them as a continuum. This continuum builds on the work of eminent scholars and combines them within a flexible framework that celebrates the process of interaction whilst acknowledging the complexity and individual subjectivity of authenticity. Authenticity is approached as a complex dynamic construct that can only be understood by examining it from social, individual and contextual dimensions, in relation to actual people. Authenticity is a problem not just for language acquisition but one which affects us as individuals belonging to society.

Authenticity is one of the most rampant buzzwords in ELT (English Language Teaching). Many have weighed in on what authenticity should mean and on how it may be achieved. The book at hand is an extensive analysis of authenticity as a term and as a concept within the academic field of ELT. The research data comprises virtually all definitions and conceptualizations of authenticity in the international ELT literature. However, only a limited number of texts contributes to what can be called an explicit negotiation of authenticity. A discourse analytical approach is taken to disentangle the hubbub of commentaries and to eventually extrapolate from it six distinct concepts which are attached to the term 'authenticity'. Michel Foucault's seminal theories are invoked, affording additional insights into discourse dynamics and power structures among individuals and institutions in ELT.

Adult language learners have specific learning goals that reflect their lives within a global society, and adults negotiate multiple and changing identities throughout their personal, academic, and professional lives. Chapters in Authenticity in the Language Classroom and Beyond: Adult Learners highlight how teachers have the ability to transform language instruction from a mechanical learning experience to a dynamic interaction to assist learners in reaching real-world goals. Rather than focus only on native-speaker norms of language production, English language instruction can provide adult learners with opportunities to create and act on their own texts, engage meaningfully with audiences, and develop interactions that mirror their purpose for learning. The chapters in this volume demonstrate how language teaching practices engage learners' inauthentic experiences, using and producing texts to meet international and localized communication needs. All the chapters in this volume demonstrate that authenticity is more than just the materials we use. Authenticity also means using language for real purposes. It means engaging students in collaborative learning, involving discussions, negotiations, and decision making. Authenticity is creating real uses for English, not just modeling native-speaker language and culture. With English increasingly being used as a lingua franca to connect second language speakers, authenticity takes on new meanings as we seek to develop learners who can face the challenge of communicating effectively in an increasingly globalized world.

This volume makes a unique contribution to the literature on materials development for language learning. It focuses on issues related to authenticity in materials development and includes research-based position statements, applications of theory to practice and developments of theory from observed practice. Each paper concentrates on a different aspect of authenticity and many of them introduce the reader to previously unexplored facets of authenticity. The chapters are sequenced so that the book moves from general discussion about the value of authenticity to reports of evaluations of authenticity to reports of the exploitation of authenticity in specific learning contexts. Many questions are raised, much revealing data is reported and analysed, and many pedagogic suggestions are made. The contributions here have been written so that they are of potential value to teachers, to materials developers, to post-graduate students and to researchers. They are written to be academically rigorous, but at the same time to be accessible to newcomers to the field and to experienced experts alike.

This collection addresses issues of authenticity in second language contexts from a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches along three principal themes: What is authentic language? Who is an authentic speaker? How is authenticity achieved? The volume responds to these questions by bringing together scholars working in a range of contexts, including with language learners in the classroom and in residence or study abroad, with a variety of second or additional languages: Chinese, English, French, German, Japanese and Spanish. Contributions focus on authenticity as it relates to patterns of language and meaning, and to agency, identity and culture, and serve as an opening to an extended conversation about the nature of authenticity and its development in L2 contexts. This volume is relevant for students and scholars interested in learning about or investigating questions of authenticity and interaction in a wide range of language learning contexts.

Introduction -- Myth 1: authentic texts are inaccessible to beginners -- Myth 2: authentic texts cannot be used to teach grammar -- Myth 3: shorter texts are more beneficial for language learners -- Myth 4: activating background knowledge or making a word list is sufficient to prepare students for authentic texts -- Myth 5: authentic texts can be used to teach only listening and reading -- Myth 6: modifying or simplifying texts always helps language learners -- Myth 7: for learners to benefit from using authentic texts, the associated tasks must also be authentic -- Epilogue -- Appendices A-G: myth activities.

This book puts forward an authenticity-centred approach to the design of materials for language learning. The premise of the approach is that language learning should be based on authentic materials drawn from a variety of genres found in the target language culture, and that the learning tasks involving these materials should be correspondingly authentic, by entailing interactions that are consistent with the original communicative purpose of the authentic text. It provides both a theoretical grounding to the authenticity-centred approach, and demonstrates its practical application in a teaching task reference section. In outline, the book: - Refines a definition of authenticity in the context of language pedagogy. - Traces the historical background to authenticity in language learning back over one millennium. - Grounds the use of authentic materials in language learning in L2 acquisition research. - Gives a critical analysis of the authenticity of contemporary language study course-books. - Discusses the use of seven authentic genres for language learning; broadcasting, newspapers, advertisements, music and song, film, literature and ICT (information and communications technology). - Offers a set of practical principles for the design of authentic learning tasks. - Includes a reference section providing step-by-step instruction for the design and classroom procedure of learning tasks for materials taken from each of the seven genres.

Despite the common association between authenticity and motivation in language learning, there does not currently exist a single volume exploring these connections. This book looks at the relationship between authenticity and motivation by specifically viewing the process of mutually validating the act of learning as social authentication, which in turn can often lead to positive motivational synergy between students and teacher(s). The study at the centre of this book uses autoethnography and practitioner research to examine the complex relationship between authenticity and motivation in the foreign language learning classroom. In particular, it traces the links between student and teacher motivation, and proposes that authenticity can act as a bridge to connect learners to the classroom environment and engage with the activity of learning.

Articles in this volume discuss the role and effectiveness of corpora and corpus-linguistic techniques for language teaching but also deal with broader issues such as the relationship between corpora and second language teaching and how the different perspectives of foreign language teachers and applied linguists can be reconciled.

The Routledge Handbook of English Language Teacher Education provides an accessible, authoritative, comprehensive and up-to-date resource of English language teacher education. With an overview of historical issues, theoretical frameworks and current debates, this handbook provides unique insights into a range of teacher education contexts, focusing on key issues relating to teacher and learner priorities, language and communication, current practices, reflective practice, and research. Key features include: a cross-section of current theories, practices and issues, providing readers with a resource which can be used in a variety of contexts; the use of data, transcripts and tasks to highlight and illustrate a range of practices, including examples of ‘best practice’; ‘snapshots’ of ELTE from a number of contexts taken from all around the world; and examples of current technological advances, contemporary thinking on reflective practice, and insights gained from recent research. This wide-ranging and international collection of chapters has been written by leading experts in the field. The Routledge Handbook of English Language Teacher Education is sure to be core reading for students, researchers and educators in applied linguistics, TESOL and language education.