Richard S. Pinner

Authenticity and motivation are very common collocates in discussions surrounding language learning. However, these two concepts have rarely been the focus of empirical inquiry, largely due to their ambiguity and the difficulty of gaining evidence-based insights into the complex nature of their relationship. Similarly, it is commonly acknowledged that teacher motivation is closely linked with student motivation, yet again this idea is hard to research and difficult to examine. This inquiry utilises practitioner research and autoethnography in order to gain rich insights into these phenomena from inside the classroom.

This book examines the concept of authentic English in today’s world, where cultures are in constant interaction and the English language works as a binding agent for many cross-cultural exchanges. It offers a comprehensive review of decades of debate around authenticity in language teaching and learning and attempts to synthesise the complexities by presenting them as a continuum. This continuum builds on the work of eminent scholars and combines them within a flexible framework that celebrates the process of interaction whilst acknowledging the complexity and individual subjectivity of authenticity. Authenticity is approached as a complex dynamic construct that can only be understood by examining it from social, individual and contextual dimensions, in relation to actual people. Authenticity is a problem not just for language acquisition but one which affects us as individuals belonging to society.