As you all know, the main difference between authentic vs. non authentic materials is that in the latter, the materials almost always revolve around a particular structure that is presented to the student. For example, if the tense being presented is, say, "The Past Tense", every single speaker in the dialogs or even the texts given to the students are in that tense. It seems as if there were no other tense in the whole world. In reality, when talking about the past, for example, native speakers may use a wider variety of tenses, sometimes even the present tense.

This is not uncommon in real life, but when it comes to non authentic materials, you will never find these types of situations that resemble real-life conversations. In spite of this, graded materials are very useful if you want to raise the students awareness of certain structures or patterns that may be important for them to learn. Every single context they see will contain many instances of the same structure which will enable them to make inferences on how they are used.Authentic materials, on the other hand, are real in the sense that they are not created for students as the target audience but for native speakers. The obvious advantage, of course, is that by using authentic materials you present students with actual everyday language, just as it appears in real life. The main disadvantage of these materials of course, is that sometimes they are not teacher-friendly, and you may need to spend several hours reading or watching videos until you finally find what you need in order to use in your class. In addition, on many occasions in a whole context or situation you may find just one instance of what you need to present your students with. This could be overcome if you provide students with several situations in which the pattern appears, but again, you need to have the time to research and gather the appropriate materials.



SO I SAID:There is a point in what the article says about non authentic and authentic materials reading texts from magazines and newspapers or watching movies or the news that are not tailored to ESL students is particularly useful and helpful. However, if students are given authentic materials straight away it will be very hard for them to get an idea of grammar, that's where graded materials are vitally relevant. So I suggest using authentic materials in classes for more advanced students, who are more aware of English grammar and won't get messed up.