USING AUTHENTIC MATERIALS TO INCREASE MASTERY OF LISTENING COMPREHENSION Megan Rothrock Heather Applegarth Cara Young

Introduction (The Problem)  As a department, our overall passing percentage in Spanish was as follows for the school year.  % Passing – 93  % at mastery level – 43  View Full Year-End results here View Full Year-End results here

Introduction  One of our goals for this year was to increase our mastery levels (85% and above).  In an effort to achieve this goal, we have been increasing the use of authentic materials in the classroom, especially in the area of listening comprehension.  What are authentic materials?

Rationale: What are Authentic Materials?  “samples that reflect a naturalness of form and an appropriateness of cultural and situational context that would be found in the language as used by native speakers.” (Rogers & Medley 1988)  Yabla (purchased by the district this year) Yabla  Youtube Youtube  SeñorWolly SeñorWolly  Newspaper, magazine articles  Travel tickets (plane, bus, train, etc.)  Various online sources

Rationale: Why Authentic Materials?  “Students exposed to authentic materials in the foreign language classroom are better able to process foreign language input in real-life situations and have a more positive attitude towards learning the foreign culture.” (Erbaggio, P., Gopalakrishnan, S., Hobbs, L.)

Data Collection  For the duration of this class, we were each assigned a level of Spanish in which we would incorporate authentic materials whenever possible that went along with the content we were teaching.  Spanish 2, Cara Young  Spanish 3, Megan Rothrock  Spanish 4, Heather Applegarth

Examples of Activities  Cara-drawing activity Cara-drawing activity

Examples of Activities  Megan-fill in the blank 1 Megan-fill in the blank 1  Fill in the blank 2 Fill in the blank 2  Fill in the blank 3 Fill in the blank 3

Examples of Activities  Heather-A Dios le Pido songA Dios le Pido song  Fill in the blank activity Fill in the blank activity

Results  Pre tests  Test scores for all unit exams  Interim Assessments  All data was recorded into an excel spreadsheet. The spreadsheet compares common levels of Spanish and highlights the class that used the authentic materials. Scores were averaged and placed into a bar graph.

Results-Spanish 2 (Cara Young, Heather Applegarth) Average Summary-Sp 2 Cara YoungHeather Applegarth Ch 2.2 Exam (base)8388 Ch 3.1 Exam8389 DifferenceStayed the sameImproved 1 point

Results-Spanish 3 (Megan Rothrock, Cara Young) Average Summary-Sp 3 Megan RothrockCara Young Midterm Exam (base)7073 Interim Assessment8284 DifferenceImproved 12 pointsImproved 11 points

Results-Spanish 4 (Heather Applegarth, Cara Young) Average Summary-Sp 4 Heather ApplegarthCara Young Randoms Pre-Test (base)4758 Randoms Unit Exam9192 DifferenceImproved 44 pointsImproved 34 points

What do the results mean?  Maturity level and experience may have an affect on the use of authentic materials  Higher level students can understand more, and therefore enjoy the activity and are more motivated  Lower level students can become frustrated at the rapid speed of the native speech and give up  Higher level students have trained themselves to listen for important information  Higher level students are more experienced with different accents used

Things to consider…  Student attendance  Teaching styles  Testing environments  When were tests given?  Student ability levels

References  Erbaggio, P., Gopalakrishnan, S, Hobbs, S., Liu, H. Enhancing Student Engagement through Online Authentic Materials. International Association for Language Learning Technology. Vol 42, Issue 2.  Rogers, C. & Medley, F. (1988). Language with a purpose: Using authentic materials in the foreign language classroom. Foreign Language Annals, 21,