NATIVE SPEAKER AND CULTURAL AUTHENTICITY IN EFL CLASS: A LINGUISTIC ANTHROPOLOGY PERSPECTIVE

In Bali, there are many schools that combine national and international curriculum, English is used as a medium of instruction. Moreover, English as a foreign language (EFL) is considered an important subject. Thus, these schools try to design the teaching-learning process that emphasizes language and its culture. After doing the library research by reviewing some related textbooks and research articles, this conceptual article figured out that the ideas of involving a native speaker and cultural authenticity in teaching EFL classes should be based on the learning objective. Both are important if the focus of the EFL class is put toward giving students a contextual experience of EFL use. However, if it is primarily intended to make the students experience the real cultural contexts of English, the ideas of involving the native speaker and cultural authenticity might be irrelevant. This might happen because teaching nowadays is intended to provide students to deal with the 21st century so that they should experience different cultural contexts that enable them to collaboratively work. To summarize, a native speaker and cultural authenticity are important in EFL class; however, they should not be used as a basic assumption of the success and failure of EFL class.

Essence of Authenticity and its Criteria in the English Language Classroom

The main goal of our research was to analyze students can sound authentic in the English language classroom. The theoretical analysis of scientific and pedagogical literature plus the analysis of the empirical experience of teaching foreign languages were chosen as the leading research methods. the results showed that most of the surveyed students expressed a wish to be able to sound authentic and improve their language skills. When the essence of authenticity in teaching and learning EFL is identified and approbated there can be chosen appropriate teaching techniques and learning activities which have the power of bridging the eternal divergence between two targets of L2 learners: sounding more like a native speaker or simply sounding more fluent. This frames the research goal of the experiment which is scheduled to be conducted at the second (final) stage of the research.

SECONDARY MATHEMATICS PRESERVICE TEACHERS’ CONCEPTION ABOUT AUTHENTICITY OF MATHEMATICAL TASKS

The teaching approaches of mathematics derived from humanity involve positive interactions that support meaningful and relevant learning. The main objective of the teaching approaches is to prepare students with the competence to solve daily life problems and one of the most important tools is using authentic tasks. There are different opinions on "task authenticity" in teaching and learning mathematics. This study examined how secondary mathematics preservice teachers think of the authenticity of tasks. Drawing on a framework of tasks authenticity adopted from the research literature, we analyzed PSTs’ response to the criteria of task authenticity. The results show that the PSTs attended to the event feature and the tool feature of task, but overlooked other features. Implications for teacher training are discussed.

Essence of Authenticity and its Criteria in the English Language Classroom.

The main goal of our research was to analyze students can sound authentic in the English language classroom. The theoretical analysis of scientific and pedagogical literature plus the analysis of the empirical experience of teaching foreign languages were chosen as the leading research methods. the results showed that most of the surveyed students expressed a wish to be able to sound authentic and improve their language skills. When the essence of authenticity in teaching and learning EFL is identified and approbated there can be chosen appropriate teaching techniques and learning activities which have the power of bridging the eternal divergence between two targets of L2 learners: sounding more like a native speaker or simply sounding more fluent. This frames the research goal of the experiment which is scheduled to be conducted at the second (final) stage of the research.

Exploring Authenticity and Playfulness in Teacher Practice Spaces

Teacher practice spaces are learning experiences, inspired by games and simulations, that allow novice teachers to rehearse for and reflect on important decisions in teaching. Practice-based teacher educators use various approaches to simulation in methods courses, and these simulations often attempt to holistically replicate the complexity of teaching conditions. In this research, we present a range of practice spaces that don’t attempt to replicate teaching, but explore design spaces with varying levels of authenticity. We define four dimensions of authenticity in teaching simulations: authenticity of complexity, of situation, of role, and of task. We discuss how these different dimensions of authenticity intersect with playfulness in the examination of five case studies of teacher practice spaces. We hypothesize that authenticity of task is essential to most teacher practice spaces, but interesting new design spaces can be found by moving away from other dimensions of authenticity.

Language Educators’ Understanding of Authenticity in Teaching and Its Impacts on Their Practices

This grounded theory study explored the conceptualization of authenticity in language education. The participants were 30 Iranian English language educators, who were studied as adult learners. The findings revealed that authenticity was conceptualized by language educators as a social and reflective practice under the influence of the instructions of Islam and the collectivist culture of Iran as a country in the Middle East. Three main themes were identified as follows: three-way pedagogical relationship, reflectivity, and context-appropriate adjustments. Three-way pedagogical relationship addressed educators’ learning experiences, subjects driven from the context, and the importance of learners. Also, reflectivity included reflection on content, process, and premise. Furthermore, context-appropriate adjustments referred to the disagreement with conformity to educational systems encouraging nativeness. Indeed, the participants conceptualized authenticity as finding one’s own voice in the midst of the dominant native voices, while reflecting on one’s own pedagogical practices and respecting one’s own religion and context.