TED as an Authentic Material

Listening

TED as an Authentic Material 

I think that websites like TED are mainly not helpful for language learners. TED is designed to share knowledge or ideas about many different topics. These topics are usually shared through scholars, scientists…etc. Such people are well educated and usually use language that is very advanced and difficult to relate to daily spoken English. In other words, a learner of English will be more interested in learning the basic vocabulary that helps him to use the language probably.

 So, if I am the teacher I will not use this website for my beginners or intermediate students. While for advanced students I might use it but I would be very careful of the material I am going to choose. The material should not be very difficult and I might introduce some pre activities to prepare the students to understand the gist of the video I am going to give them.

However, the only exception that might conflict my argument is if I am teaching English for specific proposes. That is if I am teaching a class of students who are for example going to attend law college. In this case I will use many materials form Ted to the intermediate and advanced students. Since such students need a lot of exposure to the language that suits their target language content.