Using authentic matrials in teaching writing

Abstract EN

Our study intends to investigate the effect, the use of authentic materials, could have on learners’ performance in writing.

We hypothesized that using authentic materials in teaching the writing skill had a positive effect on learners’ achievement.

To test our hypothesis an experiment was conducted.

The participants were first year students of English at the University of Biskra.

Sixty students out of two hundred sixty students (260) registered in the first year participated in this research.

The participants were randomly assigned to two groups: a control group and an experimental one.

A pretest was conducted for both groups under the same conditions.

Then, during three months, the experimental group did a set of writing activities based on some authentic materials such as newspapers’ articles, songs and movies whereas the control group was not exposed to authentic materials and followed the traditional way in teaching writing.

At the end, a post-test was conducted and the results of both groups were compared.

The results indicated that the use of authentic materials had a positive effect in improving students’ performance in writing.