Using Authentic Texts in Teaching Romanian as a Foreign Language for Specialized Purposes

This paper discusses the possibility of using authentic texts in the teaching of specialized Romanian languages to foreign students enrolled in the Preparatory year at Romanian universities. Focusing on the case of the Romanian chemistry language, it is argued that real texts pose challenges to foreign students due to their length and lexico-grammatical complexity. Possible modifications and simplifications of three authentic texts are presented. The first text is addressed to students with limited knowledge of the target language and the simplification consists here in elimination of the largest part of the original content. The other two texts are addressed to students with an intermediate level of Romanian language knowledge. The second text has undergone various modifications, ranging from content selection to the replacement of new terms, substitutions of connectors and modifications of the original topic. The third text maintained the largest part of the original material, including various specialized terms and some syntactic difficulties. The students’ reactions and their performance in class have been monitored in regard to the exercises based on the three texts. The findings indicate a difference between students’ performance and their attitude towards the texts. For the majority, the first text was the easiest one to comprehend, while the third text was viewed as the most difficult. At the same time, the third text was considered as the most interesting and the most useful one for the students’ future career. These findings indicate that authenticity should not be the only criterion taken into account and that the relevance of the topic chosen in regard to students’ needs and interests plays an important role in the selection process of course materials.