From the Foreign Language Excellence Exchange @MSU_MAFLT in Spring 2021. Presented by Agnieszka Makles, who teaches Polish in New York and New Jersey.

1. Online Authentic
Materials for
Supplementing L2
Textbooks:
LCTLs and Beyond
Agnieszka Makles
MAFLT
FLEX Conference
Michigan State University
April 9, 2021
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2. Online Authentic Materials
for Supplementing Foreign
Language Textbooks
for Polish and any language
Agnieszka Makles
FLEX Foreign Language Excellence Exchange
Michigan State University
April 9, 2021

3. Outline
• Background
• LCTLS and Materials
• Authentic Materials
• Technology
• Peppa Pig
• Excerpts
• Teaching Ideas for Videos
• Student Views of Peppa
Pig
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4. Less
Commonly
Taught
Languages
(LCTLs)
Small number of textbooks
Outdated materials
Lack of materials
Lack of authenticity
Material not sharable across languages
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5. LCTLS: Problems
with Materials
Bad picture quality Outdated materials
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6. LCTLS: Problems
with Materials
Cultural essentialism Multimodally weak
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7. Authentic
Materials
Authentic materials are defined negatively, as
anything not designed for language learning
purposes (Berardo, 2021, p. 60)
Authentic input produces high quality output
(Carreira, Hitchins Chik, & Karapetian, 2019, p.
135)
Authentic materials are better than simplified
materials, “if the pedagogical goal emphasizes
learning from the text rather than simple text
recall” (Crossley & McNamara, 2016, p. 15)
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8. Technology
• Easy access to materials
• Multimodal materials (Kummin, et al.,
2020; Paesani, Allen, & Dupuy, 2016)
• Audio, video, & text all scaffold
each other
• YouTube videos (5 billion videos
watched per day)
• Students can pause, replay and re-
watch it multiple time
• Use subtitles as support
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9. Świnka Peppa
Astley Baker Davies, 2004 – 2027
7 seasons, 321 episodes
• Authentic language
• Various languages (40 languages, 180+ countries)
• Interesting topics
• Real life matters
• Hidden humor
• 5 minutes episodes
• Repetitive vocabulary
• Appropriate speech tempo
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10. Excerpt:
Shopping (1:54-2:14)
Shopping includes:
- Verb to like
- List of items
- Food vocabulary
- Counting
- Repetition, e.g.: makaron
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11. Excerpt:
Recycling (1:30 – 1:37)
• World topics: recycling
• Vocabulary: household items
• Colors
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12. Excerpt:
Painting (2:27 – 3:04)
• Verbal-visual scaffolding
• Colors
• Gender agreement
• Questions:
What color is …?
What is your favorite color?
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13. Excerpt: Peppa
Goes to Dentist
• Use of genitive case
• Imperative (commands: open,
drink it, swish)
• Authenticity – real life problem
that can happen
anytime/anywhere
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14. Teaching Ideas with Peppa Pig:
- How could you use Peppa in your teaching?
• Freeze framing and prediction
• Scaffolding (background knowledge and vocabulary)
• Listening activity and then re-watching with video
• Watching activity and then re-watching with audio
• Retelling story or one partner watches and tells the other peer what the
show was about
• Captions
• Reproduction activities
• Students as actors
• Role play: parents vs kids
• Fanfiction
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15. Student Views
of Peppa Pig
• “Thank God for Peppa!”
• “If you don't understand a word, it is easy to learn by watching the
video and learning from context clues.”
• “I like the language, the variety, and again how friendly and joyful
they are.”
• “The first thing that comes to mind is the snorting noise they make.”
• “Love the hidden humor.”
• “It's not interactive and it's for kids, so it has its limits.” 15

16. Limitations
• Small sample size
• Lack of captions
• Lack of languages
• One culture
• For children
• Lack of body language
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17. Dziękuję!
maklesag@msu.edu
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18. References
• Berardo, S. A. (2006). The Use of Authentic Materials in the Teaching of Reading. Reading Matrix: An International
Online Journal, 6(2), 60–69.
http://search.ebscohost.com.proxy1.cl.msu.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eue&AN=23087145&site=ehost-live
• Çakir, I. (2006). The use of video as an audio-visual material in foreign language teaching classroom. TOJET : The
Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology, 5(4) http://ezproxy.msu.edu/login?url=https://www-proquest-
com.proxy1.cl.msu.edu/scholarly-journals/use-video-as-audio-visual-material-foreign/docview/1288365205/se-
2?accountid=12598
• Carreira, M., Hitchins Chik, C., & Karapetian, S. (2019). In A. Gras-Velazquez (Ed.), Project-based learning in second
language acquisition: Building communities of practice in higher education (1st ed., pp. 135–152). Routledge.
https://doi-org.proxy1.cl.msu.edu/10.4324/9780429457432
• Crossley, S. A., & McNamara, D. S. (2016). Text-based recall and extra-textual generations resulting from simplified
and authentic texts. Reading in a Foreign Language, 28(1), 1–19.
• Kummin, S., Surat, S., Kutty, F. M., Othman, Z., & Muslim, N. (2020). The use of multimodal texts in teaching English
language oral skills. Universal Journal of Educational Research, 8(12), 7015–7021.
• Paesani, K., Allen, H. W., & Dupuy, B. (2016). A multiliteracies framework for collegiate foreign language teaching.
Pearson.
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