THE IMPORTANCE OF AUTHENTIC READING MATERIALS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF READING SKILLS

There are many references to authentic material in the ELT literature. Debates are still raging on why it should or should not be included in lessons, and how it is to be used or best exploited. Reading the literature, it is clear that those authors who support the use of authentic material have in common one idea: "exposure". In other words, the benefit students get from being exposed to the language in authentic materials. Peacock (1997) defines authentic materials as materials that have been produced to fulfill some social purpose in the language community differentiates between "authentic" and "genuine material.