The use of authentic material in teaching reading descriptive text: review of literature

Keywords
: Teaching, Authentic materials, Reading, and Descriptive text. 
INTRODUCTION 
According to the PISA survey on 2018, Indonesia has lower chart than Australia, France, or 
even China in reading performance. It had increased but more over 2 years Indonesia got 
decreasing. It is on the 20
th
position of all countries through PISA. Upgrading the quality of 
teaching is a must to improve students’ ability not only for school but also for students in 
outside world after they graduate. One of the solutions is to evaluate the teacher through the 
media that they use and the method also the strategy. Engaging to the student’s ability, 
teacher should have a media or strategy to be upgraded. In this era, English is kind of 
challenge for every student to be mastered. The solution can be from many aspects, start 
from doing some habits in reading since young age, or from the school that encourages 
students to do reading activities every week so they have time to read from any sources to 
master reading skill. Of course, school must have something to attract their students doing 
reading every week as habit instead of assume it as an order. It will be better to have a 
persuasive method for students to do it as heartfelt as proven in several studies which has 
conducted by the researcher. Authentic materials are suggested to apply in the classroom 
since it found the motivation result in their reading ability (Hatimah, Rofiq, & T, 2013). 

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Fitri Puspita Sari
1)
, Gusti Nur Hafifah
2)
, Linda Mayasari
3) 
The Use of Authentic Material in Teaching Reading Descriptive Text: Review of Literature 
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.33603/perspective.v8i2.4365 | 123
Other study confirmed that authentic materials has great impact in students reading by 
presenting new words and expression (Bacon & Finneman, 1990; Berardo, 2006). Supported 
by Harmer (1991) showed that reading and writing skill are able to develop only by authentic 
materials.
In the other words, authentic materials can be defined as a materials or tools which can 
attract student to have creative minds and interest to understand the topic. When authentic 
material is applied in learning process, it is as an alternative material for teaching. Moreover, 
it can increase student’s motivation like what Oguz & Bahar (2008) said in their research 
that authentic materials are the suitable materials for students to develop their interest and 
create learning process as a real life for the teacher. Furthermore, it is not only for English 
subject, teacher from any field able to have more creativity through authentic materials. 
Authentic materials also contain various types of texts which can be used in class. Even 
authentic materials are not designed for teaching purpose but it can fulfil what student’s 
need. For teaching, it can be an alternative material which can create the learning process be 
more creative and provide information about what happening in the world. Not only that, it 
should relate to the topic which is taught in the classroom. Correlating to the authentic 
materials that applied to teach descriptive text, educator should be able to search the 
materials creatively and interesting because learners often find same texts which cause them 
bored and less interest. Errors while providing materials are often made by teachers. 
Sometimes, material isn’t in accordance to the topic yet authentic material is also claimed 
as a better alternative. Although, the teacher should prepare the materials, filter it which one 
is the suitable for the student’s ability and related to the topic will be discussed in the class, 
and deliver it but it gains student’s motivation as the result (Kramsch, 1993). Despite, it is 
worth to try by teachers.
These days, several researches show using authentic materials give the positive impact in 
learning process. In Berardo (2006), the research found that students chose the authentic 
materials rather than textbook. Based on the Pisa above, the lack of the knowledge in 
Indonesia got increasing. It must be changed. Authentic materials can be one of the solutions 
to improve student’s reading skill. Related to the Anggaira & Aryani (2016) in their research, 
authentic materials are able to influence students reading performance and motivation. It is 
clearly inspired the researcher to analyze the the use of authentic materials in teaching 
reading specially in descriptive text. That is the reason of researcher to review several 40 
journals related to authentic materials, teaching reading and descriptive text in order to gain 
information and conduct the idea to be implemented by educators in teaching reading 
descriptive text using authentic materials. Through this paper, researcher hopes that it is able 
to be a motivator or inspiration to adapt and increase the quality in teaching reading on 
descriptive text.