The concept of authenticity came into the field of second language teaching along
with the communicative approach. The necessity of bearing in mind the communicative
function of language called for the teaching of authentic linguistic data, something the
native-speaker teacher was capable of doing. However, according to Widdowson, "authentic
language is, in principle, incompatible with autonomous language learning" (1996,68)
because the autonomous learner has as her priority the process of learning and not the goal
of it. She is not interested in the appropriateness of language in contexts of use but in the
process to make language appropriated in contexts of learning.
After a brief discussion of the matter Widdowson leaves a question for the readers to
answer: "Are there ways, in practice, of reconciling these contraries?" (ibid). The answer to
this question might be found in van Lier's book Interaction in the Language curriculum
(1996), where he proposes a curriculum based on three basic concepts: awareness, autonomy
and authenticity. According to him, with his proposal
students are encouraged to develop their ....awareness to become autonomous (have
choices and responsibilities and to develop their own sense of direction) to strive
for authenticity in their learning experiences in general and in their language
experiences in particular (van Lier; 1996,19)
However, the objective of this section is not to discuss this question, which I think is too
difficult to answer now, mainly because neither autonomy nor authenticity can be defined
with straightforward terms: both have generated strong disagreement in relation to the
different interpretations to their meanings. Rather, what I plan to do is to take advantage of
this dichotomy to explore in more detail the concept of autonomy.
4.3.2 Autonomy and authenticity
The term authenticity has mainly been used to describe the source of materials used
in second language teaching. There exist all sorts of definitions (I already used one in
2.4.3.1, p. 34). The most common is to define authentic materials as those "which have not
been produced for language-teaching or language-learning purposes"(Abe et al; 1985,322)
which for some is a rather negative definition. A more positive one, according to Abe et al,
would be to called authentic materials to those "which have been produced (as messages) in
a real communications situation"(ibid.). However, there are others, still not satisfied with
this definition who prefer to called this type of materials genuine and reserve authentic for