Using Authentic Materials in Teaching English to the Military Students

The use of authentic materials in an EFL classroom is what many teachers involved in foreign language teaching have discussed in recent years. This includes materials that involve language naturally occurring as communication in native-speaker contexts of use, or rather those selected contexts where Standard English is the norm: real newspaper reports, real magazine articles, real advertisements, cooking recipes, horoscopes, etc. The purpose of this study is to highlight the importance and effectiveness of authentic materials in teaching the English lexicon to the military students. This paper aims at answering the following research questions: what difficulties do teachers face when using authentic materials with their students; what are some of the advantages of using authentic materials with cadets; and what are some of the authentic materials teachers use in class. The subjects of the study were 4 English teachers working at the Armed Forces Academy. This research applied qualitative data, which involved a small group of teachers in an informal group discussion. The results showed that teachers are aware of the importance of using authentic materials in class. It was concluded that using different strategies to motivate cadets to learn with authentic materials in their daily life also allows students to interact with each other. Further research focusing on students’ perspectives about learning with authentic materials was suggested to enrich the literature of language learner autonomy.