Latvian as a foreign language has been taught in different parts of the world since the beginning of the 20th century. Currently, Latvian is taught in some 20 foreign universities in Europe, Asia and the US. Introducing photos of written texts seen in Latvian cities is one way of showing students the authentic use of Latvian in public communication and of drawing their attention to the principles of creating certain types of texts, including typical language tools and their functionality.
The paper has two interrelated aims:
1) to theoretically discuss the usefulness of authentic materials in foreign language teaching by focusing on the involvement of Latvian city texts in the process of learning Latvian as a foreign language;
2) to provide practical advice on how to select city texts and which language topics (grammar, vocabulary, style) teachers may find useful and to illustrate these suggestions with examples of exercises.
The article first analyses the term authentic texts and elaborates on the most common assumptions about authentic materials in language education. Then there is a brief description of existing research on the use of linguistic landscape approaches and data in language learning. Considering the theories discussed by the researchers on the one hand and the practical experience of educators on the other hand, it is shown further which types of texts can be useful in teaching/learning Latvian as a foreign language abroad and how to best utilize them in one’s teaching work. At the end there is a summary with conclusions.
The article concludes that photos with written city texts from Latvia allow students abroad to:
- get acquainted with Latvian cities (architecture, planning, history, social life of inhabitants).
- see authentic Latvian written usage alongside information in other languages.
- pay attention to the principles of text types and the typical linguistic tools notable within them.
- to improve and strengthen vocabulary (especially that related to cities and urban life) and grammar (individual forms of nouns, verbs and adverbs, word combinations, simple syntactic constructions).
The use of city texts in the teaching process is related to the study of Latvian culture and public life, promotes awareness of the language situation in Latvian public communication, and encourages development of linguistic, multilingual, and pragmatic competence and textual literacy.
