Authentic Activities

Characteristics of authentic activities

Ozverir, Herrington and Osam (2016) and Ozverir, Osam and Herrington (2017) propose 11 design principles for authentic activities in EFL and argue that appropriate implementation of these characteristics have the potential of providing necessary conditions for language acquisition to occur in EFL contexts.

Authentic activities

1. have real-world relevance

2. are complex and ill-defined, requiring students to define the tasks and sub-tasks needed to complete the activity over a sustained period of time

3. provide the opportunity for students to examine the task from different perspectives, using a variety of resources

4. provide the opportunity to collaborate

5. provide the opportunity to reflect

6. lead beyond domain–and skill–specific outcomes

7. are seamlessly integrated with assessment

8. yield polished products valuable in their own right rather than as preparation for something else

9. are open-ended allowing competing solutions and diversity of outcome

10. are conducive to both learning and communicating

11. provide motivational factors