Helo Amir, authentic materials can be very useful when teaching reading comprehension. I use them to develop strategies like scanning, skimming and guessing the meaning of words.

best wishes

Carmen Gloria

Dear Carmen,

Hi

Have you ever used created materials?

Thanks,

Amir

Hello Amir, I haven't really created materials, but I have adapted

best wishes

Carmen Gloria

Hi,

Can you tell me please how do you use real materials in teaching Reading Comprehension?

Regards,

Aziz

Hello Aziz, I use newspapers, especially ads to ask students to look for specifi information (prices, places, discounts, etc.), I also news reports to work with main ideas and to deveop the ability to guess meaning from context. I take news from BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/

regards

Cramen Gloria

Hi,

I agree with Carmen. We can use authentic materials to develop skimming or scanning stratagies. It is well known that reading plays an important part as a source of education and getting information. Where can the students get this information? From newspapers, magazines, books, Internet and so on. At the end of each topic my students usually do Projects. I bring them different authentic materials. Usually they work in groups on the themes they choose themselves (each group on the same theme). So they have to choose what they need. They use dictionaries reading the texts.  I sometimes add a glossary with translation if it is necessary.

We also have partners  in England and America and work on different topics together. So they have to read native speakers' letters and their stories.

The work in international educational programmes is another good way to teach students to read authentic materials.

Best regards

Larissa

Thanks Carmen for sharing the BBC site. I have found it useful especially the information about weather in the UK and Climate Change topic. We are studying it now with my senior students in the programme www.scienceacross.org

Larissa

Exercise 1: Put the following paragraph in the reported speech into conversational form using direct speech.

Peter introduced me to Jack who said he was pleased to meet me. I replied that it was my pleasure, and that I hoped Jack was enjoying his stay in Seattle. He said he thought Seattle was a beautiful city, but that it rained too much. He said that he had been staying at the Bayview Hotel for three weeks, and that it hadn't stopped raining since he had arrived. Of course, he said, this wouldn't have surprised him if it hadn't been July! Peter replied that he should have brought warmer clothes. He then continued by saying that he was going to fly to Hawaii the following week, and he that he couldn't wait to enjoy some sunny weather. Both Jack and I commented that Peter was a lucky person indeed.

It's late, and browsing through the threads I was hoping to find something exciting going on. In this thread, I offer the suggestion that 'authenticity' be more carefully defined. Materials that are used for native speakers, and appear in the context of production for such audience, is not a very full definition of authentic materials. But it appears to be what this discussion is so far limited to. Am I mistaken? Forgive the tone, it is late, and I really ought to hit the hay. Goodnight.  

Hello Carmen...

I am a teacher of Junior High School. I want to use authentic materials (i.e. newspaper) in teaching reading. But I have some problem such as how to select them and how to prepare the lesson plan. Can you tell me please?

Best regards

Rini

Get the students to select them. It is not the text that is 'authentic' it is the interaction between text and reader that makes authenticity.

Therefore, they need to choose articles that interest them or other students. 

There are many directions to go after this. 

The chosen articles can be organised ... grouped under broader headings that Ss can create.

Indiv Ss can choose an article and analyse it for: Vocab, Title, Summary, 5Ws and H. Opinion.

They paste  it in their Journals and then try to follow the story, or find similar stories to it, or find the same story from different sources and compare them.

Good luck. Enjoy.