Teacher summarizes the lesson by saying: Using an authentic example situation, this article has demonstrated a process which inexperienced and/or busy teachers can use to evaluate coursebooks, individually or comparatively, for the purpose of either selection or maximizing effective use.
As a teacher, school manager or Director of Studies, it is advantageous to be able to select appropriately from available materials, be creative and modify and supplement coursebooks (Dudley-Evans and St. John (1998) in Richards, 2001: 260). Furthermore, the process of evaluation itself can increase understanding of the factors involved in evaluation and the advantages of systemized analysis and evaluation (Ellis, 1997b: 41).
Lesson 25-26. Adapting educational materials. Part 1-2
Module:
Topic:
Time:
Aim:
Materials:
Aids:
Foreign language teaching in special directions (fields)
1. Harding, K. (2007) English for Specific Purposes (Resource books for teachers). 2. Jordan, R. R. (2005) English for Academic Purposes: A Guide and Resource Book for Teachers. 3. Dudley-Evans, T. & M-J. St John (1998) Developments in English for Specific Purposes.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Charts, laptop with speakers, handouts, white board
Procedure : Warm up: Teacher invites students to review the previous lesson
While activity: In many cases, the teacher using published materials in any given classroom is not involved with creating the materials and may have little to do with adopting the materials for her institution. However, even when the classroom teacher selects the book, knows every student in the class well and is using materials designed specifically for the context they are in, she will still have to adapt the materials either consciously or subconsciously.
One reason for adaptation is that published materials are necessarily constrained by the syllabus, unit template and other space concerns. Not all material, therefore, is fully developed. A good teacher’s guide will supplement materials with useful alternatives and adaptations, but where this does not happen or a teacher does not have the teacher’s guide, adaptation will become part of the creative dialogue between teachers and published materials.
There are always sound practical reasons for adapting materials in order to make them as accessible and useful to learners as possible. However, reasons for adaptation have varied and changed as the field has developed and views on language acquisition and teaching practice have become better informed by research and experience.
Within this historical context, it is easy to understand why some teachers will wish to adapt materials. For example, before the advent of the communicative approach, many coursebooks focused largely on structure and were heavily influenced by the legacy of grammar translation methods of teaching. Language was viewed primarily in structural terms and was not treated as a tool for communication, while learning was seen in terms of forming correct behavioural patterns.
Despite an increased awareness and sensitivity to language as communication and learning as a developmental process, many teachers were finding themselves faced with materials that did not reflect these teaching and learning principles.
In their book Materials and Methods in ELT (1993), McDonough and Shaw devote a chapter to the issue of adapting materials. They quote Madsen and Bowen (1978) to set a context for materials adaptation: ‘Effective adaptation is a matter of achieving ‘‘congruence’’ . . . The good teacher is . . . constantly striving for congruence among several related variables: teaching materials, methodology, students, course objectives, the target language and its context, and the teacher’s own personality and teaching style.’
McDonough and Shaw’s list of reasons for adaptation clearly reflects a concern that communicative language teaching implies an unsystematic approach to grammar presentation and a belief that a systematic approach to grammar presentation is necessary.
Not enough grammar coverage in general
Not enough practice of grammar points of particular difficulty to these learners
The communicative focus means that grammar is presented unsystematically
Reading passages contain too much unknown vocabulary
Comprehension questions are too easy, because the answers can be lifted directly from the text with no real understanding
Listening passages are inauthentic, because they sound too much like written material being read out
Not enough guidance on pronunciation
Subject matter inappropriate for learners of this age and intellectual level
Photographs and other illustrative material not culturally acceptable
Amount of material too great/too little to cover in the time allocated to lessons
No guidance for teachers on handling group work and role-play activities with a large class
Dialogues too formal, and not really representative of everyday speech
Audio material difficult to use because of problems to do with room size and technical equipment
Too much or too little variety in the activities
Vocabulary list and a key to the exercises would be helpful
Accompanying tests needed
According to Cunningsworth, adaptation depends on factors such as:
Adaptation is also appropriate when materials are not ideal, as presented in the following:
Methods (e.g., an exercise may be too mechanical, lacking in meaning, too complicated).
Language content (e.g., there may be too much emphasis on grammar your students learn quickly or not enough emphasis on what they find difficult).
Subject matter (e.g., topics may not be interesting to students or they may be outdated or not authentic enough).
Balance of skills (e.g., there may be too much emphasis on skills in the written language or skills in the spoken language, or there may not be enough on integrating skills).
Progression and grading (order of language items may need to be changed to fit an outside syllabus or the staging may need to be made steeper or more shallow).
Cultural content (cultural references may need to be omitted or changed).
Image (a coursebook may project an unfriendly image through poor layout, low quality visuals, etc.).
Candlin and Breen (1980) focus on adaptation issues that relate to materials specifically designed for communicative language learning. Their list implies that published materials are limited in that they do not provide many opportunities for real communication; instead they simply provide oral practice of linguistic structures:
Communicative materials do not provide enough opportunities for negotiation (personal or psychological) between the learner and the text.
Communicative materials do not provide enough opportunities for interpersonal or social negotiation between all participants in the learning process, between learners and teachers, and learners and learners.
Activities and tasks do not promote enough communicative performance.
Activities and tasks do not promote enough metacommunicating opportunities.
Activities and tasks do not promote co-participation. Teachers and learners are not involved as co-participants in the teaching–learning process.