Adapting Coursebooks: Moving Beyond Coursebooks

Sarah Khan, MA TESOL

DCA Session 6

Aims of this Session

In this session we will:

Discuss the reasons why coursebook adaptation may sometimes be required

Analyze different types of adaptations
Consider some examples of adaptation
Consider use of authentic materials in English language teaching
Explore creative ways of using low cost or no cost resources to teach English
Discuss the use of available technology to teach English

Reasons for Adapting a Coursebook

Why Adapt a Coursebook?

There is too much/little material for time constraints.
Unsuitable for age/proficiency of learners.
Activity may require skills/knowledge that learners do not have.
Activities do not meet learner needs (linguistic, skills, content, strategies).
Does not apply important principles from applied linguistics (e.g. recycling).
You want to involve the learners in the curriculum design process.
There are important aspects of language learning not covered.

Other Reasons for Adapting a Coursebook

Littlejohn (2010):

There is too much/little material for time constraints.

Unsuitable for age/proficiency of learners.

Activity may require skills/knowledge that learners do not have.
Activities do not meet learner needs (linguistic, skills, content, strategies).
Does not apply important principles from applied linguistics (e.g. recycling).
You want to involve the learners in the curriculum design process.
There are important aspects of language learning not covered.

Basically, we adapt for two broad reasons:

To better motivate learning.
To improve the effectiveness of the materials/course.

To Fill Gaps in the Content:

Nation’s Four Strands (2009):

Form focused Instruction
Meaning focused Input
Fluency Development
Meaning focused Output

The syllabus The textbook:

Incomplete coverage of course goals and objectives.

Take account of how people learn/SLA theory:
Evaluate materials in relation to how the field of TESOL and education understands how learners:
Become more skillful readers, speakers, listeners, writers.
Acquire linguistic competence, grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, pragmatic competence, discourse competence, strategic competence.

Partial overlap with an examination that is developed separately from the course and textbook:
Mismatch between what students can do at the start of a lesson and the starting expectation of the texts and tasks they meet in the lesson.
Scaffolding may be needed.

Mismatch between textbook and the following:

Teachers’ familiarity or expertise with methodology of the textbook.

Teachers and/or students beliefs about language learning.

Local educational culture.

Issues relating to the following:

Class size
Classroom layout
Lesson length (longer or shorter)
Opportunities for practice
Cultural appropriacy of lesson topics

Scale of Adaptation (How much can be adapted?)

Activity level Adaptation:

Changes are made to an activity. The rest of the class, unit, and syllabus remains intact.

E.g., modifying the vocabulary and grammar of a text/changing an output activity to a 4/3/2 to promote fluency development.

Lesson level Adaptation:

Changing content of a whole lesson. This implies changes to activities as well, but units and syllabus remain intact.

E.g., adapting a reading session to promote better coverage of microskills and MFO (Rosenkjar, 2009).

Unit level Adaptation:

Changes are made to all the lessons in a unit. The syllabus remains intact.

E.g., changing the content of a unit because it is not appropriate (culturally, etc.) for a specific learner group.

Syllabus level Adaptation:

Changes to the syllabus as a whole. This will impact units, lessons, and activities.

E.g., adding a meaning focused input component (e.g., extensive reading) to a syllabus, to ensure balance and meet all the needs of the learners.

Four Key Questions

What is the objective of the activity?
What does the exercise actually get the learner to do/learn?
What do I want the learner to do/learn?
How can I get the exercise to do what I want it to do for the learner?

Important Questions to Ask:

Is there sufficient instructional content to meet the learning outcomes?
Is there sufficient input to help learners develop linguistic knowledge?
Is there sufficient practice? Controlled/Free?
Are there opportunities for students to use language in new contexts?
Have the subskills for a larger task been taught?
Do the materials offer sufficient challenge?
Is there sufficient variety to maintain motivation?
Are the activities structured to allow differentiation?

Considerations

What considerations should you keep in mind when adapting?
Are your changes quantitative (more) or qualitative (the nature of the task)?
Does your adaptation change the intended learning outcome? Is this okay?
How does your change affect the overall coherence of a lesson or the course?
Are there any unintended consequences of your change?
Will your change negatively affect a future lesson?

Terminology in Materials Adaptation

Localisation:

Graves (2000) – A textbook is written for everyone and it also written for no one. You must adapt textbooks so they meet the needs of the learners in your specific context.

Prabhu (1989) Because teaching must be matched to the learners’ current knowledge, course books will not be totally effective as they are not in touch with the state of this knowledge.

Supplementation:

Find the gap (syllabusdriven materials design)

I need something to practice X, where X is a point in your syllabus that is either not covered in the course book or is not dealt with adequately…If you know something readymade that will fit the bill, the problem is quickly solved. If not, you will need to design material specially for that purpose.

McGrath, 2016

Find the Gap:

Define the gap carefully.
Find language examples to use.
Produce activities to exploit language examples.
Produce materials to present activities to learners.

Adding or Omitting Content:

Add content for extra practice for important/difficult items.

Add content to enhance understanding of other content.

Add content to match state of the art in applied linguistics.

Omit confusing/unimportant parts.

Omit culturally inappropriate parts.

Extend an activity so that it meets other learning outcomes (e.g., add MFO to MFI).

Change the Sequencing of the Content:

Change the order of the content to help learner motivation.

Change the order of the content to help comprehension.

Change the order of the content to help learning.

Change the Format:

Change a speaking activity to a writing activity.

Change a reading activity to a reading while listening activity.

Change an individual task to a group task.

Change the nature of the task – a dialogue 🡪 fluency focused event.

Change the Presentation:

Change a paperbased activity to a computerbased activity.

Change a listening activity to a viewing activity.

Change examples from the familiar to the unfamiliar/known to the unknown (and vice versa).

Add or Omit Monitoring:

Add monitoring opportunities to check student progress.

Add tests to encourage students to do homework.

Omit tests to reduce pressure on learners.

Change a summative assessment to a formative assessment.

Key Questions about Your Chosen Book/Materials

Does it suit the environment in which it will be used (localisation)?

Does it meet the needs of the learners (personalisation)?

Does it apply sensible principles of teaching/learning?

Do its goals match the goals of the course?

Does the content match the proficiency level of the learners? (individualisation/simplification)

Is it interesting and engaging (personalisation)?

Does it include mechanisms for monitoring student progress?

Are the units an appropriate length to match the environmental constraints?

Does it include any behavior/topics that might offend the learners?

Are the materials up to date (modernisation)?

Examples of Adaptation

Example 1: Syllabus Level Adaptation

Example 2: Lesson Level Adaptation

Example 3: Lesson Level Adaptation

Using Authentic Materials

Moving Beyond Coursebooks:

Conceptdriven Materials Design

Discussion 1: Teaching Without Coursebooks

Using authentic materials

How can you teach with everyday simple materials that you or your students may bring to class?

Choose an everyday object and discuss your object/idea with the people on your table and make a list of educational and language points that you can teach using that object.

Syllabus Design (Graves, 2014):

Learners

Purposes for Learning

Principles of Language Teaching & Learning

Resources

Contextual Constraints

Principles of Language Teaching (Tomlinson, 2010: 9597):

The content and methodology of the teaching should be consistent with the objectives of the course and should meet the needs and wants of the learners.

The teaching should be designed to help learners to achieve language development and not just language acquisition.

The teaching should be designed so as to provide the learners with learning opportunities that will help them to develop educationally in the sense that they become more mature, more critically astute, more creative, more constructive, more collaborative, more capable, and more confident as result of the course.

The teacher needs to be able to personalize and localize the materials and to relate them in different ways to the needs, wants, and learningstyle preferences of individual learners.

Discussion 2: Working with Limited Resources:

Imagine

that you have been asked to teach in a context without access to coursebooks, internet, audio/video, and photocopying equipment. How might you approach the following?

Choose one of the following prompts and discuss:

1. Pronunciation practice

2. Group projects (focusing on content and language)

3. Speaking activities

4. Writing activities

You may continue to focus on the materials you considered in Discussion Task 1. Use the Padlet link to share your materials and language focus.

[https://padlet.com/sarah_khan/authenticmaterialsforenglishlanguageteachingandlearni40oe4l85gszz2uuh](https://padlet.com/sarah_khan/authenticmaterialsforenglishlanguageteachingandlearni40oe4l85gszz2uuh)

Moving Beyond Coursebooks

Discussion 3: Exploiting Technology

In your groups, discuss:

What technological devices and facilities are available in the context you have selected for your course?

What kinds of online tools can you use for language teaching?

Would there be any difficulties in accessing online learning?

Please discuss and make a list.

Teachers Using Their Own Materials

"I’m more encouraged to teach when I use my own materials … it carries with it my personality, my beliefs about language learning and language teaching … preparing my own materials is of course more convenient, because then I get to do reviews and changes … if I make it myself, it’s more, it’s easier to navigate around." [T2]

Tarrayo & Anudin (2021)

Next Steps

At this stage, you should have:

Your goals and objectives clearly written out.
Started evaluating books to select a suitable coursebook for your course (if applicable).

Now you should:

Create a content map for your course and indicate which units from the book you will use in your course (if using a book). Specify which units will be used in which weeks in the course.

Analyze the units in the coursebook that you wish to use and identify some opportunities for adaptation.

Indicate adaptations in your course map.

LMA-BD

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12 Jun 2024