Adopting,adapting and modifying elt materials Maked by Yulduz Pardaboyeva Group: 742-21

Adopting,adapting and modifying ELT materials

Maked by Yulduz Pardaboyeva

Group:742-21

What is material adaptation and teaching materials?

• Materials adaptation means matching materials with the learner’s needs, the teacher’s demands and administration’s purpose. 
• Teaching materials are important parts to help teachers achieve better teaching and students’ desired learning outcomes. Carefully selecting materials, language teachers can present new knowledge and language items to be taught clearly, purposefully and systematically. As a result, students learn better because appropriate tools enhance their interest and understanding, practice

What is the difference between adopting and adapting and modifying materials? 1.Adopt is to take something over, For adopting materials: any course-books or commercial textbooks can be used 2.to adapt this to change something to suit your needs. 3.Modify is to change smth such as plan, opinion law or way of behavior slightly usually to improve it or make it more acceptable.It’s divided into two group

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Teachers should be able to choose materials that are the best suitable for the students’ needs in terms of the course’s goals and objectives,their ages, levels their language proficiency and learning styles.

Why a material need to be adopted and some suggested adaptation and modification

• Not Appropriate Level: The level of the text in some lessons may not suitable for the learners’ level.
• Not Enough Grammatical Input: Some course books may lack the grammar coverage to meet specific curriculum goals
• Not Communicative Enough: The course book may lack communicative input to increase communicative performance which may root a huge gap between the overall aim language teaching and the lesson material
• Not Appealing to Learning Styles: The activities may not appeal to students of a certain class who may have different ways of learning. In such a case, some of the learners are easily grasped, while some will be missed obviously
• Too Long / Too Short: Lesson sessions are time-controlled. This obliges the teachers to manage the time of the inclass activities
• Not Balanced Skills: The balance of skills may be deficient in quality or there may be too much emphasis on one specific language skill area.
• Uninteresting Topics: Some topics in the course book may not be interesting to the learners and they need to be changed to get learners’ attention

ADOPTING TECHNIQUES

McDonough (2013) talks about different techniques that can be applied to content in order to bring about change. There are: 1. Adding 2. Deleting or omitting 3. Modifying 4. Simplifying 5. Re-ordering

• Adding

The notion of addition is, on the face of it, straightforward, implying that materials are supplemented by putting more into them while taking into account the practical effect on time allocation. Example: If students find the explanation of a new grammatical point rather difficult, further exercises are added before they begin the practice material.

• Deleting or omitting

Deletion is clearly the opposite process to that of addition. Addition and deletion often work together. Material may be taken out and then replaced with something else. Modifying/ Rewriting

• Modification

. is a very general term in the language applying to any kind of change. In other words, the act or process of changing something in order to improve it or make it more acceptable is known as modification or rewriting

Simplifying

Strictly speaking, the technique of simplification is one type of modification, namely, a rewriting activity. The main application of this technique has been to texts, most often to reading passages.

• Reordering

refers to the possibility of putting the parts of a course book in a different order. This may mean adjusting the sequence of presentation within a unit, or taking units in a different sequence from that originally intended.

Littlejohn (2011) suggests that the following aspects of the target situation should be taken into account when adapting ELT materials: the cultural context, the educational institution, the course aims, content, methodology and means of evaluation, the teachers, the learners.

CONCLUSION

To sum up, choosing appropriate materials and activities helps teacher better manage the class and helps the students learn effectively and achieve the ultimate goals of the course