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

 
The Effect of Authentic Material for Student’s Learning Process 
In reading, school often use a textbook as a material to teach and for student to learn. 
Classicaly, textbook is used everyday for student but mostly, the student get bored if they 
have to open page by page with no something new. Follow up on it, authentic material can 
be something new for student to learn because it doesn’t only provide text fiction but also a 
news which is booming and happening. When they interest to the materials, the learning 
process will be enjoyable. In othe words, authentic materials also able being the solution 
improving and influence the student’s motivation based on several researches which 
investigate the effectiveness of authentic materials for student’s reading skill. Bacuse 
authentic materials has been proven used for natural condition, it can motivate students ( 
Nuttal, 1996). So improving student’s reading motivation can be overcome by using 
authentic materials.
Discussing the effect, there are some researches which has proved increasing student’s 
motivation by implementing authentic materials in classroom. Authentic materials are more 
motivating for students, even lower level student than artificial materials (Rao, 2019). 
Related to what Briton ( 1991) said that the teacher should use all the variable teaching such 
as newspaper, book, radio, story book, songs, label, TV and etch to fulfil what student’s 
need and build the connection between the classroom and outside world. Some experiment 
from Zohoorian (2015), Assidiq (2019) and Anggaira & Aryanti (2016) proves that 
Authentic materials was effective to be implemented to attract their interest. Although the 
researches has different subject, it proves that authentic materials can be implemented in 
every level depend on how to implement it. 100 % student’s agree that authentic materials 
are better than using books (Anggaira & Aryanti , 2016). Observation and questionnaire that 
Anggaira & Aryanti ( 2016) done shows that most student’s has positive attitude and interest 
in reading using authentic materials. Different with Assidiq (2019), the researcher use EFL 
student’s as participants and use MRQ ( motivation for reading questionnaire ) to prove how 
authentic materials can influence student’s motivation in reading. Related to Zohoorian 
(2015), the researcher has the same participan in higher level. Based on the questionnaire, 

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Academic Journal PERSPECTIVE: Language, Education and Literature Vol 8 (2) November 2020, 122-134
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.33603/perspective.v8i2.4365 | 128
student got the positive experience. Both Assidiq ( 2019) and Anggraini & Aryanti ( 2016 ) 
has found the same purpose to improve and measure the motivation in reading 
comprehension aspect.
Not only Assidiq ( 2019) and Anggraini & Aryanti ( 2016 ), but Hatimah, Rofiq, & T (2013) 
also has the experiment on student’s reading comprehention achievement on higher level. 
The student’s in experiment class has been showed the motivation, interest and got better 
result in reading comprehension. Authentic materials is the sample of real target. Even the 
authentic materials are harder than non-authentic materials or text book but it can develop 
the student’s interest, motivation and culturally enlightening ( Lee, 1995 ). Furthermore, 
authentic material able to make learning process be more enjoyable and understandable 
(Kramsch, 1993). The result of Baniabdelrahman’s (2006) experiment indicate that the 
experiment group has higher score than control group which means authentic materials 
effective implemented on EFL student. Move to qualitative research.
There was evidence that the materials which is impelemented in the classroom can help 
student to gain the learning target because they got real life information (Losada, Insuasty, 
& Osorio, 2017). It proves classroom enviroment able to motivate student and due to the 
teacher able to enrinch their teaching practing, yet authentic materials could be greatly 
effective depend on the relationship between the topic and school’s educational dealing with 
teacher’s experience. Concluding some researches above, Authentic materials provide the 
opportunity for the teacher or educator to have some strategies to teach and also the learners 
has the better way to learn english in the classroom. Both experiment or observation 
researches has the same result in student motivation through authentic materials in teaching 
reading. It connected to this paper which has to applied authentic materials in teaching 
reading.
Berardo's (2006) used an observation method conducted for 6 weeks, the study proved that 
the use of authentic materials motivated students to understand text in more detail, students 
showed improvement in language use, students get the motivation to learn reading text more 
deeply. Baniabdelrahman (2006) used a quasi-experimental using one control group and one 
experimental group, a control class of 37 students and an experimental class of 35 students. 
According to the data, the average score of the experimental class (62.57) is higher than the 
average score of the control group (58.51). Although the experimental class scores did not 
differ greatly, it showed that there were differences between the average scores of the control 
group and the experimental group. After twelve weeks the application of authentic material 
in the experimental class becomes a positive effect so that it can improve students' 
understanding of learning English using authentic material. Next result is done by Apsari 
(2014) who used experimental method and applied 25 students from the two groups 
observed. Pre-test and post-test are used as research data, the results of the study that use of 
authentic materials in teaching reading does not significantly improve students' reading 
comprehension. However, research reveals that authentic material can be used as 
supplementary material in class that must be used and corresponding with the abilities and 
topics of students in learning English in class. 
 
To sum up, the reading skill can be mastered using authentic materials based on several 
studies above. Most of research found that the experiments are succeed implemented to the 
students in any level. But it needs to underline that increasing student’s motivation to read 
the text should be done by creating the proper topic as what the student needs.

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