Adapting Materials For A Specific Context Education Essay

Adapting Materials For A Specific Context Education Es vocalizeAlthough almost people associate words- eruditeness corporals with unravel discs, in incident materials encompass a much wider scope. A re tout ensembley general definition would be that materials argon anything that instructors and learners use to facilitate nurture of a language. As well as personal credit line binds this could encompass cas intendtes, videos, dictionaries, grammar confines, newspapers, photographs, and much much than (Tomlinson 1998). Added to this is the realisation that materials atomic number 18 non simply the mundane apparatus of the language instructor, they argon a avatar of the aims, determine and methods of the elementicular article of belief or larn stance (Hutchinson 1987). thusly the selection of materials is probably the single most important decision that the language teacher has to enlighten (Hutchinson 1987).With much(prenominal) a wide of the mark definition teacher produced materials go expose obviously play a role. besides in that respect be very few teachers who do not use promulgated configuration materials at some stage in their cargoner and the use of produce materials is now more pervasive than ever before with the dustup book being at the centre (Littlejohn 1998, McDonough Shaw 2003). Although it is convenient to lump both teacher produced materials and commercially sponsored published course materials together in that respect are in fact noteworthy differences pertaining to the circumstances under which they contend to be written, produced and distri just nowed. customarily teacher produced materials are aimed at a more specified topical anesthetic audience, and commercially sponsored materials are for as wide an audience as realiz adequate (Dubin Olshtain 1986).Often the sheer time consuming feat of writing your take in materials coupled with the reality that many teachers deliver little or no control over wh at course book and main materials leave alone be selected leads to most teachers having to live with published materials selected by other(a)s (McDonough Shaw 2003). It is rare to find a perfect fit in the midst of learner selects and course requirements on the one march on and what the course book view ass on the other. Every information and pedagogy space is eccentric and inimitable (Cunningsworth 1995). For this reason the option coarse to the teacher is to lodge and dilate the materials. However before we gutter adapt and develop the materials we have to be able to evaluate the materials. Before we throw out change something we have to be clear about what we are changing (McDonough Shaw 2003).Teachers paygrades of course books and materials usually involves making general impressionistic judgements on materials base upon common assumptions and expectations. Some very common expectations of materials now are that they should accomplish touch on and have a no ticeable effect on learners, suspensor learners feel at ease, help develop learners confidence, and should be sensed by learners as being pertinent and useful. It has make up common for materials to be pass judgment to necessitate learners to come to discoveries for themselves, expose learners to language in au and sotic use, cajole attention to linguistic features of the input, recycle instruction, and present patronise and abundant motion-picture show to the instructed language features in communicative use (Tomlinson 1998). It is alike now super desired that materials bear in mind that learners differ in learning styles and that learners inclination for a particular learning style is variable depending on what is being learned, where, with who, and for what. It is also hoped materials take into account that learners differ in emotive and emotional attitudes (Tomlinson 1998). However a lot of these expectations are things that chamberpot recall distinguishable things for various groups of learners and teachers. For example achieving impact is variable in distinguishable places. What achieves impact in Brazil might not achieve impact in Germany, and what achieves impact in a private language cultivate in Brazil might not achieve impact in a Brazilian high school. Often these expectations and assumptions about what is desirable, and others, such as up to date methodological analysis, being foolproof, and containing realistic language, are all debateable. Is up to date a desirable characteristic in itself (Littlejohn 1998, Tomlinson 1998)?Teachers are also likely to focus less on the programme as a whole in their military rank and more on whether specific activities and techniques appear to constitute in the context of a particular lesson (Ellis 1998). This combination of relying on general impressionistic judgements and concern with specific activities and techniques creates a type of micro military rating that leads to a very discriminati ng type of variant. Rather to envision a good match between what the course book includes and the requirements of the learning and teaching situation, and to avoid an eclectic approach to evaluation and adaptation teachers need to develop more methodical and potentially informative approaches creating a more in- perspicacity evaluation of materials. (Cunningsworth 1995, Ellis 1998, Littlejohn 1998, Tomlinson 1998,).How do teachers begin a more in reason evaluation of teaching materials? Firstly by understanding that materials are and then an embodiment of the aims, values and methods of the particular teaching and learning purlieu teachers canful reflect over and probe their knowledge, understanding and experience of how languages are learnt and should be taught. They can relate this to how near a match there is with the aims and values of the materials. This impart lead teachers to be able to clearly state what they really expect from their materials rather than regurgita ting the latest buzzwords in the teaching industry. Teachers are then able to proceed from here and have a basis to analyse what materials contain and aspire to achieve, what materials make learners do while they are learning, how materials wear upon or even demand the teacher to teach learners in the classroom, and the justness of the materials to the learners inevitably and interests (Breen Candlin 1987). This will enable us to make up our evaluation of materials, and by and by our adaptation, on the principles strengthened upon our knowledge, understanding and experience of learning and teaching language. This evaluation helps cultivate insights into various views of language and learning and should be done against an environment of knowledge of our learners demands and the potential of the teaching situation (McDonough Shaw 2003).The subsequent stage is assemblage as much information as feasible about the personality and make-up of a course book (Hutchinson 1987). The information gathering of materials begins with what the materials say about themselves by probing the organization of the materials as stated explicitly by the author and publisher on the cover, and in the introduction and limit. wherefore what is actually presented inside the materials needs a thorough evaluation, and practically the contents can be used as a conduit between the outdoor(a) claims and the reality inside (McDonough Shaw 2003). However as well as the brilliance of information gathering and analysis of the materials, the same is involve of the teaching and learning situation that the materials are required for. This is vital as materials evaluation is basically a twinned accomplish in which the needs and assumptions of particular teaching-learning contexts are matched to available solutions (Hutchinson 1987).The teaching-learning situation and the classroom have a finis of their own. elaboration is most commonly used in a very broad way to describe national husbandry, and there is often a frequent cultural stimulus that may well be attributable to the wider society, governance for example, the rhythm and movement of classroom groups, and gender segregation. However there are also influences from institutional or professional-academic burnishs, which dominate aspects of classroom cultures such as protocols and the formality of true classroom events which therefore typify we need to be far more precise when we are talking about classroom culture (Holliday 1994).Classes will not have permanent membership, groups meet to cover out restricted and limited activities, the length of history is relatively short, and the culture only exists when the class is in session. Expectations are brought to the class that are built on other, previous classroom experiences (Holliday 1994). This in addition to disparate personalities and ethical motive that evolve in different classroom groups makes each classroom contain a unique culture. Cultures of individual classrooms are diffused to new members enabling both teachers and assimilators to be equipped with inferred understandings about what sort of behaviour is acceptable, which they moldiness learn and impart if they are to be fully received into the group. They support a social force that prevents teachers from replicating their lesson agendas with different classroom groups. These understandings in daily round are strengthened by common acceptance by peers (Holliday 1994)habitually in the field of side of meat language teaching there is frequent discord between the conventional and established interaction of the classroom and the base created by new language (Holliday 1994). Many teachers try to stimulate stamp down side of meat teaching with students who are foreign to them, and try to understand their attitudes and slipway of doing things, which to the outsider are obscure and unclear. Conversely teachers who are native to countries they fix in, and of the s ame nationality as students they teach are repeatedly endeavouring to decipher methodologies gracious and developed in the west for ideal teaching-learning situations. Ideal meaning different from the methodologies in their countries and particular teaching-learning situations (Holliday 1994).In some countries and contexts large classes are not necessarily indicative of scarce resources. Large classes might be bearable where prevailing educational ideologies do not see the role of the teacher as a monitor and overseer of learning, but as a fount and spring of knowledge, which is delivered without any dispensation to students, and which students must(prenominal) exert great apparent motion to attain. This leads to interesting observations in countries where this type of mentality holds sway such as Hollidays (1994) observation in Egypt of a newly graduated junior topical anaesthetic anesthetic lecturer. The local lecturer had undergone numerous hours of teaching in communicati ve English language teaching methodology from expatriate personnel and was supposed to be exploitation a course book whose objectives were communicative teaching of orthoepy. The local lecturer was playing what she perceived to be the lecturer role very well. This was built on the basis of the local lecturers conviction that their responsibility stretched to the consequence of presenting the musical theme matter to their students, not as far as overseeing and administrating learning. Szulc-kurpaska (1992 as cited in Holliday1994) reports an interesting object lesson in Poland of how discontent on the part of students arose pertaining to the degree of informality practised by expatriate lecturers both in and out of the classroom. Students became perplexed and apprehensive over hazy definitions of teacher and student (Holliday 1994). Here we must realise the importance of understanding each unique classroom culture and not trying to enforce an ideal teaching-learning situation in different contexts. What is important is that learning takes place.Unfortunately even fetching into guideation that all learners, all teachers and all teaching situations are different, published materials have to treat them as if they were the same, commonly for commercial reasons (Maley 1998). Whether we like it or not any course book will directly or indirectly communicate collections of social and cultural morals and standards that are inbuilt in their make-up. This may be referred to as the hidden curriculum that will bring up issues of sexism, ethnic origin, occupation, age, social class, and disability (Cunningsworth 1995). Whether this is intended or not, it is a reality. thusly the need to ensure a course book situates its material in the social and cultural contexts that are comprehensible, significant, detach and clear-cut to learners, in terms of location, social mores and traditions, personal interests of learners, and age group is passing important (Breen Candl in 1987, Cunningsworth 1995). Often this can only be done by evaluation leading to adaptation.Lack of matching the teaching-learning situation to the materials leads to teachers returning from training programmes incapable of instigating what they have learnt, because it does not correspond to the conditions, needs and philosophies of their classrooms, institutions, and communities (Holliday 1994). In fact the materials become a constraint upon teachers sense of what may be appropriate at a given pedagogical moment, and on the autonomy and liberty of teachers actions. The reality in the classroom is a trade off between materials, teachers, and learners (Maley 1998). If learners are to judge materials as legitimately offering them the prospect to develop their language knowledge and capabilities, the materials must take account of what learners perceive their needs to be, no matter how various and vague these perceptions may be (Breen Candlin 1987). consequently information gatheri ng and analysis of materials and the teaching-learning situation although without doubt can be driven by the teacher must include the input and feedback of learners. oddly in situations where the classroom culture is totally alien to the teacher they must be careful not to trample over the already set protocols and behaviours. Although classroom culture is open to large degrees of change, especially in the flake of English language education which has supplied an abundance of new methodologies, it is largely conservative. When there is a lack of knowledge of the particular classroom culture, often on the part of the teacher, and a lack of input from the students, change can come that is too abrasive and disturbing. This develops into a crisis that leads to the closing of ranks within the classroom culture (Holliday 1994). Both the information gathering and analysis of the materials and the teaching-learning situation must be establish on knowledge, feedback, experience, and negot iated learning objectives. This will enable the reduction of drawn time and effort and result in clear pin meridianing of the go which compel attention in the continuous process of evaluation (Bolitho Jolly 1998).The evaluation process is never static, when materials are considered suitable for a particular course after a preliminary evaluation, their ultimate success or visitation may only be ascertained after a certain amount of classroom use (McDonough Shaw 2003). Therefore materials whether they are for publication or a teachers next lesson need to be persistently and incessantly evaluated and revised. ideally materials need to be monitored by authors, other experts not involved in the writing team, and by representative users of the material such as teachers and learners (Tomlinson 1998). A pooled evaluation effort such as this can develop sensation in a number of slipway. It obliges teachers to analyse their own presuppositions as to the constitution of language and l earning. With the almost certain reality that there will be a variance between the various materials that are available for evaluation it forces teachers to establish their priorities, and helps teachers to see materials as an integral part of the whole teaching and learning situation (Hutchinson 1987).It must be stated that evaluation takes on a wider and more extensive role than merely evaluating to be able to adapt and develop materials by teachers. There is an increased concern for focusing macro evaluation of programmes and projects, carried out for accountability and developmental purposes and rationales by accumulating information relating to various administrative and curricular aspects and features of the programme. Educational decision makers formulate insurance policy and work out strategies for budgeting and purchasing and therefore teachers do not ceaselessly have direct involvement. At go around they may be invited to make suggestions and comments (Ellis 1998, McDo nough Shaw 2003). Such an approach to evaluation is not in concurrence with the attitude that many teachers have about what evaluation involves (Ellis 1998).There is a solid relationship and connection between evaluation and adaptation. Adaptation is a process subsequent to, and dependent on evaluation (McDonough Shaw 2003). Moving from the evaluation of materials and the teaching-learning situation in to the practical aspect of actually adapting the materials teachers will need to consider both external and intrinsic factors. External factors are dynamics such as the characteristics of particular teaching situations, and content, organization, and consistency of the materials being an example of internal factors. To adapt materials is to endeavour to bring together these elements. Just as materials evaluation is a matching process so too is adaptation of materials. A good teacher is persistently striving for congruence and correspondence among materials, methodology, students, and course objectives. The teacher must satisfy the demands of the textbook but in ways that will be satisfying to those who learn from it by matching. Therefore maximise the appropriateness of the teaching materials in the particular teaching-learning context at hand (McDonough Shaw 2003).With evaluation of materials often constructed and fostered upon very impressionistic general judgements, teachers first steps in materials adaptation will also frequently be based on very vague motives and rationales leading to haphazard eclectic adaptation. Teachers will sometimes give the textbook a rest. The songs and games on a buckram Friday afternoon are familiar to all teachers. However these dont have to reside part of a chaotic adaptation method. Rather they can be built into teaching in a principled way (Maley 1998). This gist returning to our understanding of the underlying principles that evaluation of materials is based upon and subsequently facial expression at what adapting o f materials actually involves. What must be noted is that this doesnt automatically mean adaptation has to continually be a rather formal process, although it often is. Rather, it can also be transitory. A teacher instantly rephrases a textbook elucidation of a language feature and so adapts. A good teacher is constantly adapting whether formally or informally (McDonough Shaw 2003).Therefore adaptation can be quantitative, by altering the amount, or soft by altering the methodological nature. This can be done using an assortment of techniques or a single technique applied to different content sections such as leaving out, adding, replacing, and changing. Materials may require adapting because they are not ideal in areas such as methods, language content, subject matter, balance of skills, progression and grading, cultural content, or image (Cunningsworth 1995). All of this must be done within a framework of gauging what materials contain against the requirements of a particular te aching environment and being sensitive to students interests, learning styles and motive (Cunningsworth 1995, McDonough Shaw 2003).We can add to materials by supplementing them. More is put into them by extending or expanding. Materials are extended when we add more of the same, such as but grammar exercises if the grammar point being studied is difficult. By expanding we actually add to the methodology by moving outside it and developing it in novel directions. to a fault additions can be made before a language point appears in the framework of the book (McDonough Shaw 2003). Leaving out material is the other side of the same coin from addition. Generally subtracting does not have a significant impact on the overall methodology (McDonough Shaw 2003).Often using other published general course books or our own material for supplementary options is unsuitable. However there are numerous books that focus on skills. These afford a simple option to find exercises at a lower or highe r level than the perpetual course book being used. For example, some general courses do not cover pronunciation as comprehensively or systematically as is necessary. Supplementary pronunciation books can fill in the gap. Usually vocabulary is covered more fully in modern books until now there is still scope for supplementary vocabulary learning materials. Most books cover grammar meticulously, but there are still occasions when surplus grammar work is needed, or an option approach (Cunningsworth 1995). Often the reasons why more pronunciation, vocabulary, or grammar is needed are the particular culture of that institution, managerial influences and teacher perceptions as well as the perceived needs of the students. The teacher has to take consideration of all of these to be successful.In my particular experience of teaching in Saudi Arabia the perceived importance and need for exhaustive grammar teaching, that was an influence of the culture of the institute, students, and the wider academic culture in Saudi Arabia, led me to adapt my teaching materials by supplementing the regular course book with grammar exercises from a well known grammar book (See vermiform appendix 1, 2, 3). As a new teacher presented with the challenge of supplementing just because grammar was needed without any questioning I adapted in an extremely eclectic style without any worthwhile evaluation. A return to teaching will provide me with the opportunity to base my evaluation and adaptation on my understandings of teaching and learning and very importantly the context of the teaching-learning situation.Where we can usually make a noteworthy impression on the materials is by changing or modifying. Teachers can effect internal change in the style or focus of an exercise or other piece of material by rewriting when some of the linguistic content needs amendment. A primary example would be relating activities directly to learners backgrounds and interests (McDonough Shaw 2003). We could take a clearly mechanical, pre-communicative military action such as a drill and utilize the idea groundwork it by making the interaction more genuine and communicative by personalizing the content whilst keeping focus on structure and using authorized content. The important thing is to learn what students are interested in and build on that, showing that the English lesson is not just about English, but is about all aspects of life (Cunningsworth 1995). Restructuring involves classroom management, as in the case of when materials contain role-play for groups of a certain size and the class is too big. We can use simplification by rephrasing instructions, explanation, or even the visual layout. Obviously there are repercussions and implications for simplification, such as the possibility that any linguistic change will have corresponding stylistic do and therefore change the meaning or intention of the original text (McDonough Shaw 2003). As well as adapting by adding, t aking away, or modifying we can transform the way the content of the materials is presented. Teachers can reorder by position parts of a course book in a different order. For example we can adjust the sequence of presentation within a unit, or put units in a different sequence. We may do this in circumstances where the teaching programme is too short to work systematically through the book (McDonough Shaw 2003).Obviously there are observable areas of overlap among the various techniques that can be employed in adaptation. At one end adaptation is a practical activity carried out mainly by teachers to make their work more relevant to learners, however it is directly and indirectly related to a wider array of professional concerns such as administration and management of education. Adapting is one consequence of setting of objectives in a particular educational context and can only be executed effectively if it develops from understanding of realistic design features of syllabuses and materials (McDonough Shaw 2003).We must be circumspect of becoming enslaved to course books. Rather course books are best seen as a resource in realizing aims and objectives that have already been resolute in terms of learner needs. They should not determine objectives themselves or become the aims. The concern must be with teaching language and not the textbook. The course book should be at the service of teachers and learners and not their master (Cunningsworth 1995). However we must strike a balance and not fall into dismissing all course books of being devoid of any value. The need to adapt does not necessarily entail that a course book is defective (Tomlinson 1998). We have to realise the entire arena of evaluation and adaptation is about matching between materials and the teaching-learning situation, basing this on our understanding and knowledge of teaching, learning and the context. Therefore the possible and inevitable areas of mismatch often can be dealt with by ada ptation rather than abandoning the materials available (Tomlinson 1998).APPENDIX 1Taken from Headway, a characteristic EFL course book. The presentation of the grammar point here is not considered in depth enough and so the need to supplement.APPENDIX 2Taken from English Grammar In Use, a popular grammar skills book. Present the same grammar point to students as we studied in course book but with some more detail.APPENDIX 3Taken from English Grammar In Use. Present these additional exercises to the students usually by writing questions on the board. The students copy questions and complete with answers.