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

2.
 
The Effect of Authentic Material in Teaching Reading 
In this article the teacher does not understand what authentic material is, but after being 
explained by researchers the teachers realize that all this time what they have used in learning 
is authentic material. Teachers who use authentic materials have the reason that the teacher 
wants to provide a different atmosphere in the classroom, a pleasant atmosphere in the 
classroom can improve students' understanding of the material being studied, and also avoid 
boredom students when learning in class. The teacher also explains that using authentic 
material can motivate students to understand the topic being studied, because authentic 
material used is directly related to student experiences or student activities. The teacher 
considers that the use of authentic material is very effective and in practice in the classroom, 
students get good results because students' understanding of the material increases. As what 
Gillet (1982) said that the rest will be following if the learner can catch up the meaning of 
the text which being read. 
Furthermore, according to Bahar (2008) the teacher acts as a guide for students in interacting 
with the learning environment, so the teacher still utilizes the use of authentic materials in 
learning so that the teacher can evaluate which material is suitable and suitable for student 
learning. There are four categories of authentic material that can be used by teachers and 
adjusted to the needs of students, namely Authentic Listening-Viewing Materials, Authentic 
Visual Materials, Authentic Printed Materials, and Real Object Used. While Benavent 
(2011) analyzed the use of authentic materials in the ESP class. The use of authentic material 
on ESP participants who uses realistic contexts that suits the needs of ESP students. In this 
case authentic material still needs to be continuously updated to meet the needs of students 
especially ESP students.
Move to the experiment on Watthanaboon (2017) and Khoshbakht & Gorjian (2017), both 
research has the same result that authentic materials improving and satisfying the student’s 
reading. It can be said that the participant who got authentic materials group has developed. 
The same result also found out by Apsari (2014) experiment, the researcher recommended 
teacher using authentic materials. Different method by Kabilan, Seng, & Kee (2010) 
Albiladi (2019) and Shokrpour & Jafari (2012), three of the researchers uses qualitative as 
their method which means they used observation and interview also some questionnaire to 
collect the data. But all of those research has the same result, authentic materials able to 
motivate and improving student’s reading skill (Albiladi, 2019). Not only that, 
implementing authentic materials give the reader chance to get information and what 
happening in the real world around them (Berardo, 2006). In Berardo (2006) also explain 
that student highly motivated and they also agree that more up to date than text book and 
more interesting.
Another three studies explain that the use of authentic material has a positive impact with 
varying degrees of success. The first review conducted by Berardo (2006) reading are 
activities that have a specific purpose, reading will have different meanings according to 
people's perceptions and the purpose of reading itself. The use of authentic material in the 
teaching reading of descriptive text in class provides benefits that students get the language 

---