A Study of Undergraduate Students’ Attitudes toward English Authentic Teaching Materials
Keywords:
English authentic teaching materials, attitudeAbstract
This study aims at investigating undergraduate students’ attitudes toward authentic teaching materials exploited in English classes. The sample group consisted of 230 English-major undergraduate students of the Faculty of Liberal Arts, Huachiew Chalermprakiet University who enrolled in English courses in which instructors used authentic teaching materials for their classes in the academic year 2016. Questionnaires were applied as research instruments. In order to investigate the students’ attitudes toward English authentic teaching materials, the term “attitude” was categorized into three aspects; cognitive, affective and behavioral attitude.
After analyzing the results, it was found that in general the students had positive attitudes toward English authentic teaching materials with the average attitude score of 3.88. Most students agreed that authentic teaching materials are beneficial for their lives and future careers with the highest average attitude score out of the 18 items in the questionnaires. Also the students stated that authentic materials can improve their English reading skills, and increase the knowledge and understanding of native speakers’ cultures. However, a number of students expressed low average attitude toward English authentic teaching materials in the points that such materials contain complicated grammatical structures and difficult vocabulary. Possible factors underlying these results were discussed and recommendations for the highest effectiveness of English language teaching were provided.
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