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ADAPTING AND SUPPLEMENTING
March 10, 2015 by Beatrice Segura Harvey in Adaptation
This week we looked at adapting and supplementing materials. As a teacher I do this for nearly every lesson I teach
and it feels instinctive (McGrath, 2006, p63). There seems to be few materials in a textbook that completely meet the
needs and wants of my students and more often than not do not cover what I think the students need (Bell & Gower,
1998). For example, extended speaking practice or grammar practice through speaking and grammar practice
through freer writing.

At the institution I work for, they adopt the syllabus within the coursebook (McGrath, 2006) which is understandable as
it will result in the syllabus fitting the coursebook. However, does this mean that the students will have sufficient
opportunities to meet their personal learning aims? And do the overall objectives of the course meet students aims
and the current level of knowledge? Furthermore, does the official syllabus meet the needs for students who will be
taking public examinations?

It seems evident that the aims should come first and that the needs, lacks and wants (McGrath, 2006 p58) of the
students are intrinsic to the development of language learning. Therefore, it is left to the decision of the teacher to
decide the focus of the lesson or aims for their students but McGrath (2006) explains that cutting the textbook a lot (or
adapting it) is a high risk strategy which I agree with. Thus, while the teacher is the ultimate decision maker when
adapting a coursebook, they are also restricted to the syllabus and aims within the books.

Adaptation collage

Adaptation collage part 2

Another issue that the coursebooks raise is the audience they are made for. The textbook I analysed for the seminar
this week was Language Leader Intermediate. It is very clear that the book is written for a wide audience.
Consequently, this has caused the aims and objectives to be broad and the content and tasks within the book are
varying as well (McDonough, Shaw & Masuhara, 2013). In this instance I have found myself adapting nearly every
page of the textbook. According to McGrath (2006), the textbook should not be the totality of learning experiences
which I agree with but in the case of the textbook analysed, whilst they are attempting to cater for a larger number of
students as possible, it has resulted in generating a syllabus that doesnt meet the needs of the students.
Furthermore, many activities and a lot of the content seems irrelevant to my students learning. (See the images of my
adaptation collage of one of the lessons from the book)

This then comes to another point that I think is intrinsic to adapting and supplementing materials: evaluation. It is the
teachers role to micro-evaluate the material for each lesson so that they can then adapt and supplement the textbook
for the lesson (McDonough, Shaw & Masuhara, 2013; McGrath, 2013). But as a teacher, short term planning like this
is time consuming and potentially risky as long term planning reduces that gap between the syllabus and book and if
there is constant short term planning due to the evaluation of the materials for each lesson then the long term aims
and plans could be easily forgotten or missed. So this brings me back to think about book-student compatibility and if
writing for a wide audience is effective for learners at all. This industry desires generic materials for worldwide sales
but the students learning and aims require personalisation and in many cases teachers adapting and supplementing
materials to meet the personalisation.

Thus, understanding the processes involved when adapting materials seems important to both the teacher and the
publishers. The literature highlights the needs for processes and principles during adaptation, which could include a
logic diagram that incorporates objectives and methods. However, I feel there is another element that must be
considered during adapting materials: reflection. It is down to the teachers experience and ability to reflect on past
experiences to adapt materials effectively and also to evaluate the textbooks efficacy for their learners. This leads me
to the question of what adaptations really means.

The power of adaptation, according to the literature, is vast, scholars have devised lists in order to define it which
have included editing, expanding, personalising, simplifying, modernising, localising, retaining, rejecting, re-ordering,
reducing, adding, omitting, as well as moderating for cultural/situational content, differentiation, complexities and
simplicities (Bell & Gower, 1998; Crawford, 2002; McDonough, Shaw & Masuhara, 2013; McGrath, 2006). But I feel
these examples are mixed, some explain what a teacher might do and others offer reasons why a teacher might
change the material. Regardless, for me it comes down to one very scary truth. As a teacher, I adapt on feeling, I
dont know what type of adapting I am doing when I do it and more often than not it is spontaneous and I cannot
explain why I have made those changes so quickly. After some reflection I could explain my reasons and nearly
always it is because I want to make the lesson more suitable and to compensate for deficiencies within the materials
and to increase the appropriacy for my students.

Adapting materials feels like second nature to me as a teacher. I completely understand that there isnt a perfect
coursebook for any class and I have always felt that the coursebook is a contributor to the learning process but this is
also how I feel about the materials I adapt and use to supplement. Personally, adaptation is an incredibly creative part
of teaching, it requires me to know and understand the students aims and what I think they need to achieve and then
combines that with my experience and knowledge as a teacher to generate ideas of what, when and how to adapt
something so that it is ultimately better. This seems similar to other creative industries, such as design. But maybe a
personal development within my teaching career should be to start asking why during this process. I am sure my
subconscious is asking that question sometimes but by bringing it to the forefront of my mind may help to establish
more understanding of what type of teacher I am and learn my limitations when adapting materials in order to improve
them in the future.

References

Bell, J. & Gower, R. (1998) Writing course materials for the world: a great compromise. In: Tomlinson, B. (ed).
Materials Development in Language Teaching Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp.135150.

Cotton, D., Falvey, D. & Kent, S. (2008) Language Leader Intermediate Coursebook. Pearson Education. pp.54-55

Crawford (2002) The role of materials in the language classroom: finding a balance. In: Richards & Renandya.
Methodology in Language Teaching: Anthology of current practice (2002) Cambridge University Press.

McDonough, J., Shaw, C. & Masuhara, H. (2013) Materials and Methods in ELT: A Teachers Guide. 3rd ed. Oxford:
Wiley-Blackwell.

McGrath, I. (2006) Materials Evaluation and Design for Language Teaching. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

McGrath, I. (2013) Teaching Materials and the Roles of EFL/ESL Teachers: Practice and Theory. London:
Bloomsbury.