INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCHERS
ISSN: 3030-332X Impact factor: 8,293
Volume 10, issue 1, February 2025
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Mavlonova Shahzoda Turg’unovna
Fergana state university
AUTHENTIC MATERIALS
Annotation:
In order to demonstrate and to teach a language in the classroom, there are some
real objects or materials that teachers can use. This is what teachers call realia. It is a supporting
tool to make language acquisition and production possible. What realia does is to provide
learners with concrete vocabulary that permits them to have a direct contact through the senses
of seeing, hearing, smelling and touching the objects. As Richards and Rodgers say, real-world
materials are brought to class by the students in the form of newspapers, signs, handbills,
storybooks, and in the case of adults printed materials from their workplace are also another
resource. Students also produce their own materials. Besides, realia does not have to be limited
to food or drink. Calendars, coupons, magazines, and fashion may all be recycled to help open
life into lessons, and help deal interest.
Key words:
realia, support, acquision, seeing, feeling, hearing, smelling, touching, limit.
Most foreign language teachers face many problems related to the lack of tools and materials
which would make their work in the classroom an efficient activity, and at the same time, an
enjoyable experience for learners.
Thus, considering the topic of this research, it is relevant to begin by defining what realia is.
To explain this word some people can say that realia’s meaning is implicit in the same word, and
they are right indeed. In English as Foreign Language settings, the word realia refers to the use
of real objects as a means to teach English. However, according to the Merriam-Webster
Dictionary (2007) realia are “objects or activities used to relate classroom teaching to the real
life especially of peoples studied” and the dictionary also provides the origin of the word
REALIA which comes from Late Latin, “neuter” plural of “realis” which means “real” and can
be used in general pedagogy.
In order to demonstrate and to teach a language in the classroom, there are some real objects or
materials that teachers can use. This is what teachers call realia. It is a supporting tool to make
language acquisition and production possible. What realia does is to provide learners with
concrete vocabulary that permits them to have a direct contact through the senses of seeing,
hearing, smelling and touching the objects. As Richards and Rodgers (2003, p.111) say, real-
world materials are brought to class by the students in the form of newspapers, signs, handbills,
storybooks, and in the case of adults printed materials from their workplace are also another
resource. Students also produce their own materials. Besides, realia does not have to be limited
to food or drink. Calendars, coupons, magazines, and fashion may all be recycled to help open
life into lessons, and help deal interest. As we can see there are many objects around us which
can be used as material for teaching. Those materials can be brought to the class by the teacher
and also by the students but the teacher can use the objects that are already in the classroom.
Moreover, during the class the students can make their own supplies.
The uses of realia in language teaching
Some reasons for using real objects in the classroom to illustrate and teach vocabulary are:
The real aids such as realia are helpful tools to attract student's attention because they offer
imagination and variety to the class and to the students too.
It is useful to open curiosity and maintain the interest in the real objects the teacher shows
(Yilmaz, 2011,p.13).
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCHERS
ISSN: 3030-332X Impact factor: 8,293
Volume 10, issue 1, February 2025
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The usage of realia is only narrowed by your imagination and possibly practicality too. Using
realia motivates the mind, and makes vocabulary more unforgettable than an image would.
Students can touch, smell, and with a food article, taste it. Realia saves time, as appreciation of
an object is often instantaneous, elicitation of vocabulary becomes easier since it is simply
holding up the object and showing it to the students.
As it was explained above, realia is a good aid to make students remember the new vocabulary
because they experience vocabulary through the senses. All objects can be used in a foreigner
English class. So, it is feasible to employ realia to teach concrete vocabulary.
Moreover, as it involves the senses, it promotes creativity and the acknowledgment of the object
as direct (Richards and Rodgers 2003).
Realia can be used as an icebreaker, and it serves as a valuable tool to encourage conversation. It
also makes the students’ minds concentrate on the object. When teaching English vocabulary to
children, realia is a good option. For example, children love toys, so they can be used in a lesson.
Realia can be used also to construct a dialogue, to tell a story, and to explain concepts such as
traditions; realia is practical in teaching prepositions of place such as: on, in, under, next to, and
in front of over. The teacher can take an object and put it on a box, in a box, under a box and so
on. Finally, some of the ways we can help students to understand the meanings of new languages
are illustrated by means of the use of realia (Yilmaz, 2011).
According to Harmer, the following example shows how realia helps to learn vocabulary with
beginners.
Example 1: „It’s a pen!
“This is perhaps the easiest level at which to explain meaning. The teachers want students to
understand the form „pen’ so she holds up a pen and says „pen’. The meaning will be clear. She
can do the same with words like „pencil', „table', „chair’ etc. (....) some of the ways of helping
students to understand, then - especially when dealing with fairly simple concepts - are: objects,
pictures, drawings, gesture and expression” (Harmer, 1998, p 51). Therefore, realia is useful
with children because it is a helpful instrument in making the abstract world, concrete.
Realia opens life into new vocabulary, and the opportunities of the students to remember the new
words the teacher has taught them. For example, take the word, “sweet”. The possibility of
calling to mind the word develops much higher after feeling the taste, touch and smell of an
object.
Taking into account the previous information, realia is a material used in second language
acquisition. Richards and Rodgers, (2003) say that realia can be used in different approaches and
methods. They explain that some methods require the instructional use of existing materials,
found materials, and realia (p.29). So, it explains that most of the methods to teach English as a
second language need materials. All those materials help teachers to enhance English learning in
the classes.
The materials including realia should accomplish the following features:
Materials will focus on the communicative abilities of interpretation, expression, and negotiation.
Materials will focus on understandable, relevant, and interesting exchange of information, rather
than on the presentation of a grammatical form.
Materials will involve different kinds of texts and different media, which the learners can use to
develop their competence through a variety of different activities and tasks (Richards and
Rodgers, 2003 p.29).
Realia is also considered great material to teach English. It is because realia uses the senses to
understand the meaning; this example is explicit in Multiple Intelligences. It explains that since
the intelligence can be broken in other intelligences, some of them can help humans in the
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCHERS
ISSN: 3030-332X Impact factor: 8,293
Volume 10, issue 1, February 2025
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purpose of language. It means communication. This is attributed to the fact that language has its
ties to life through the senses. The senses provide the accompaniment and context for the
linguistic messages that give it meaning and purpose. It is necessary to have a multisensory view
of language, it means, to build an adequate frame of language as well as effective development
of skills for language learning (Richards and Rogers, 2003, p. 117,118).
One approach that considers the use of realia as a good helper to make students understand the
meaning of an item is Multiple Intelligences. In this approach it is mentioned that “Through
multisensory experiences- touching, smelling, tasting, seeing and so on - learners can be
sensitized to the many-faceted properties of objects and events in the world that surrounds them”.
Moreover, “students strengthen and improve the intelligences by volunteering objects and events
of their own choosing and defining with others the properties and context of experience of these
objects and events” (Richards and Rogers, 2003, p. 117-118).
Christison cited by Richards and Rogers (2003) describes a low-level language lesson dealing
with description of physical objects: “The teacher brings many different objects to the class.
Students experience feeling things that are soft, rough, cold, smooth, and so on”. Experiences
like this help activate and make learners aware of the sensory bases of experiences. (p. 117).
This is one way to awake the intelligence.
Another way is to amplify the intelligence. Students are asked to bring objects to class or to use
something in their possession. Teams of students describe each object attending to the five
physical senses. They complete a worksheet including the information they have observed and
discussed (p. 118). It means that when the students bring a personal object to the class, they have
a real context to describe. So, it makes the students pay attention to the given and gotten
information.
Another method that considers realia as a material to bring in classes is Communicative
Language Teaching. It says that there are many proponents who have supported the use of
“authentic,” “from-life” materials in the classroom. These materials might include language-
based realia, such as signs, magazines, advertisements, and newspapers, or graphic and visual
sources around which communicative activities can be built, such as maps, pictures, symbols,
graphs, and charts. It means that different kinds of materials can be used as realia to support
communicative exercises and to provide a good environment for the learning process (Richards
and Rodgers, 2003, p.170).
Additionally, to the coherence in the fundamentals of the research, some considerations about
vocabulary need to be made, given that the focal point of this research is the application of
Realia for learning vocabulary.
References:
1. INDICATORS OF SPEED PHYSICAL QUALITY OF STUDENTS
2. G Ernazarov, S Mavlonova
3. Science and innovation 2 (B1), 177-183
4.
5. M Shaxzoda
6. Modern science and research 2 (5), 1217-1222
7.
Muhaddis, whose eyes have returned to the light
8. M Shahzoda, A Khurshida
9. Asian Journal of Multidimensional Research 11 (11), 278-281
10. PHILOSOPHY AND ITS HISTORY
11. MS Turgunovna
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCHERS
ISSN: 3030-332X Impact factor: 8,293
Volume 10, issue 1, February 2025
https://wordlyknowledge.uz/index.php/IJSR
worldly knowledge
Index:
google scholar, research gate, research bib, zenodo, open aire.
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=ru&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=wosjournals.com&btnG
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Worldly-Knowledge
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29
12. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SOCIAL SCIENCE & INTERDISCIPLINARY
RESEARCH ISSN
13. MODERN DIDACTIC TEACHING METHODS
14. MS Turgunovna
15. Ethiopian International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research 10 (09), 123-128
