What are authentic materials?

The important thing to start with is to narrow down the meaning of 'authentic materials'. Yes, it is obviously a worthwhile thing for the students to have meaningful experiences in the classroom, to make language learning an educational process of self development and discovery as well as the learning of a language tool. But this has little or nothing to do with authentic materials. For using authentic materials simply means using examples of language produced by native speakers for some real purpose of their own rather than using language produced and designed solely for the classroom. Anybody who takes into the classroom a newspaper article, an advertise­ment, a pop song, a strip cartoon, or even a bus ticket, is using authentic materials. Teachers have always introduced such realia into their classrooms, and always will. The question really is whether it is helpful to their students.