http://blogs.brighton.ac.uk/beatriceseguraharvey/2015/03/10/adapting-and-supplementing/ADAPTING AND SUPPLEMENTINGMarch 10, 2015 byBeatrice Segura Harvey inAdaptationThis 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 2Another 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.ReferencesBell, J. & Gower,R. (1998) Writing course materialsforthe world: a great compromise. In: Tomlinson,B. (ed). Materials Developmentin Language Teaching Cambridge:Cambridge University Press. pp.135150.Cotton, D., Falvey, D. & Kent, S. (2008) Language Leader Intermediate Coursebook. Pearson Education. pp.54-55Crawford (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.