This paper addresses the issues involved in selecting texts for a course that aims at the simultaneous development of reading comprehension skills in three Germanic languages: Dutch, English and German. It is part of a research project carried out at the Facultad de Lenguas, UNC. The course is aimed at Spanish speaking adult learners with elementary knowledge of English, language that is used as a bridge for the development of comprehension in the other two.
During the process of selection of texts in three different languages for the materials we designed, we faced a number of challenges that made us feel like jugglers -street artists- who needed to ?toss? a multiplicity of variables that had to be given simultaneous attention. First and foremost, there was the strain between authenticity and intelligibility. We had agreed that we would use authentic texts since they provide more natural language. However, we found that we needed to make some pedagogical adjustments to make the texts more accessible to the learners and to our objectives but keeping their original structure and visual appearance and trying not to alter the text cohesion and coherence. Among the other factors that we needed to juggle with were text type, text length, linguistic and cognitive demands and authenticity of tasks considering the nature of intercomprehension.
In this juggling process, we agreed that for both the selection and adaptation process, we would base our criteria on McGrath (2002), the concept of the ?Seven Sieves? (Klein y Stegmann, 2000), which are transference strategies, and the three levels of intelligibility described by Reissner (2007).
Text selection is a task that requires careful and constant weighing of many variables in order to make the right choices. This can ensure an adequate balance between authenticity and intelligibility.
