INTRODUCTION
Language teaching has three essential components: students, teachers, and materials. Those are integrated to create the process of teaching and learning in language classroom. The materials play a role as the most substantial and observable component among all of them. Therefore we cannot deny that nowadays the materials has evolved into more complex object (
Rubdy, 2007) which include workbooks, practical guides, audio and video supports, even the sophisticated CALL programs are also taking consideration as result of today’s development.
In this current decade, educators in language teaching tend to use all guidance provided by the material, where the content for instance in the commercial coursebook does not always meet the variety of conditions in a language class. In this regard, teachers as materials developers need to explore their instructional materials in order to be relevant to the need and demands of particular students. In doing so, well-established set of principles and the procedures should be taken into account during teachers’ involvement in material development.
This paper provides insights into how theoritically the materials are designed as well as the practical undertaking of the material development. As
Tomlinson (2007) stated that materials development is both a field of study and a practical undertaking. This paper therefore divided into two sections. The first section will mainly outline the principle and several frameworks concerning material development as a field of study. The second section will present the illustration of how practically the materials are developed with reference on the principle and framework in the first section.
Finally, the content of the paper are designed so as to be applicable for the teachers in a time when they need to design their instructional materials. Every teacher is a material developer (
Nunan & Carter, 2001) so the teachers put themselves in challenging situation. Furthermore by understanding the principles and the procedures of developing the materials, at least these efforts to some extent can contribute to the quality of the instructional material and finally create an effective language classroom.
DISCUSSION
The further explanations contain of theprocess of material development in which devided into two sections. Material as a field of study and the implementation of the material development.
A. The Process of Material Development: In Theory
Materials development refers to anything which is done by writers, teachers, or learners to provide sources of language input and to exploit those sources in ways to promote language learning.
Jolly and Bolitho (2011) in their frameworks for developing materials mentioned that the identification of need (particularly students’ need) are necessary. By considering the latter aspect, any further issue will be overcome as teachers develop their material.
As in introduction emphasized that in this section, it will be focused on the theory developed by scholars to design materials as well as systematically follow the procedure of material development including the process of evaluating, adapting and selecting the material. This part will be as the primary stage/theory to assist the practice in the section B.
1. Materials Evaluation
Tomlinson (2011) considered material evaluation as a procedure that involves examining learning materials to establish their value. It shows us that the materials in language teaching are not a perfect thing and they are likely unripe resources in which the content are needed to be examined as well as making judgments about whether or not it is suitable for the students’ need and their interest.
Furthermore, materials evaluation tries to measure particular aspect for instance, the appeal of the materials to the learners, the credibility of the materials to learners, teachers and administrators; (Do the material looks as though they are going to meet their needs and wants?), the validity of the materials (i.e. Is what they teach worth teaching?, is the learning they attempt to facilitate worth facilitating?), the reliability of the materials; (i.e. would the materials have the same effect with different groups of target learners and when “delivered” by different teachers?), the ability of the materials to interest the learners and the teachers, the ability of the materials to motivate the learners, the value of the materials in terms of short-term learning (important, for example, for performance on tests and examinations), the value of the materials in terms of long-term learning (of language, language skills and communicative), the learners’ perceptions of the value of the materials, the teachers’ perceptions of the value of the materials, the assistance given to the teachers in terms of preparation, delivery and assessment, the flexibility of the materials (e.g. the extent to which it is easy for a teacher to adapt the materials to suit a particular context), the contribution made by the materials to teacher development, the match with administrative requirements (e.g. standardization across classes, coverage of a syllabus, preparation for an examination).
a. Principles of Materials Evaluation
Most evaluations by teachers are impressionistic. However, the evaluations should be driven by an articulated set of principles. In developing a set of principles, it is useful to consider the following;
1) The Evaluator’s Theory of Learning and Teaching
The evaluator’s theory of learning and teaching is a theory that comes from the teachers experience in learning and teaching process. All teachers develop theories of learning and teaching which they apply in their classroom. Many researchers argue that it is important for teacher to try to achieve an articulation of their theories by reflecting on their practice. The experience of one teacher to other is different; it means that every teacher needs to consider their own teaching experience in constructing their teaching materials.
2) Learning Theory
Learning theory is a theory that comes from the result or findings of the research that conducted by the expert. There are 7 theories that are convincing and applicable according to Tomlinson (2011) such as: (1) Deep processing, processing is semantically focused on meaning of the intake and relevance to learner, it refers to effective and durable learning, (2) Affective engagement focuses on showing positive attitudes towards the learning process, (3) Mental connection focuses on students are actively making connection that constitute learning which connection need to be made between what is being learned and the learner’s life and between the learning experience and its potential value in the future, (4) Experiential learning is essential (though not necessarily sufficient) and, in particular apprehension should come to the learner before comprehension, (5) Learner’s will only learn if they need and want to learn, (6) Materials which address the learner in an informal, personal voice are more likely to facilitate learning than those which use a distant, formal voice, and (7) Multidimensional processing of intake: mental processes as sensory imagine and the use of inner voice.
b. Types of Materials Evaluation
There aredifferent types ofevaluation, they differ in purpose, in personel, in formality and in timing. Tomlinson (2011) stated that there are three types of material evaluation, they are: pre-use evaluation, whilst-use evaluation and post-use evaluation.
1) Pre-use Evaluation
Pre-use evaluation involves making predictions about the potential value of materials for their users. It is based on three contexts namely, context free, context influenced, and context dependent. Context free, as in a review of materials for a journal, context influenced as in a review of draft materials for a publisher with target users in mind and context-dependent, as when a teacher selects a course book for use with her particular class. Often pre-use evaluation is impressionistic, unreliable, and subjective. It consists of a teacher flicking through a book to gain a quick impression of its potential value. Making an evaluation criterion-referenced can reduce (but not remove) subjectivity and can certainly help to make an evaluation more principled, rigorous, systematic and reliable.
2) Whilst-use Evaluation
Whilst use Evaluation involves measuring the value of materials while using them or while observing them being used. It can be more objective and reliable than pre-use evaluation as it makes use of measurement rather than prediction. However, it is limited to measuring what is observable and cannot claim to measure what is happening in the learners’ brains. It can measure short-term memory through observing learner performance on exercises but it cannot measure durable and effective learning because of the delayed effect of instruction. There are some things that can be measured in a whilst-use evaluation, they are; clarity of instructions, clarity of layout, comprehensibility of texts, credibility of tasks, achievability of tasks, achievement of performance objectives, potential for localization, practicality of the materials, teachability of the materials flexibility of the materials, appeal of the materials, motivating power of the materials, impact of the materials, effectiveness in facilitating short-term learning
3) Post-use evaluation
Post-use evaluation is probably the most valuable (but least administered) type of evaluation as it can measure the actual effects of the materials on the users. It can measure both short-term effect (motivation, impact, achievability, instant learning) and long-term effect (durable learning and application). It can answer such important questions as: What do the learners know which they did not know before starting to use the materials?, What do the learners still not know despite using the materials?, What can the learners do which they could not do before starting to use the materials, What can the learners still not do despite using the materials?, To what extent have the materials prepared the learners for their examinations?, To what extent have the materials prepared the learners for their post course use of the target language?, What effect have the materials had on the confidence and motivation of the learners?, Did the teachers find the materials easy to use? Did the materials help the teachers to cover the syllabus? and Did the administrators find the materials helped them to standardize the teaching in their institution?.
Furthermore, there are some ways of measuring the post-use effects of materials include: tests of what has been ‘taught’ by the materials; tests of what the students can do; examinations; interviews; questionnaires; criterion-referenced evaluations by the users; post-course diaries; post-course ‘shadowing’ of the learners; Post-course reports on the learners by employers, subject tutors, etc. The main problem, of course, is that it takes time and expertise to measure post-use effects reliably (especially as, to be really revealing, there should be measurement of pre-use attitudes and abilities in order to provide data for post-use comparison).
c. Developing Criteria for Materials Evaluation
In order to develop a set for formal criteria for use on a particular evaluation and then to use that set as a basis for developing subsequent context-specific sets. Initially this is demanding and time consuming, but it not only helps the evaluators to clarify their principles of language learning and teaching but it also ensures the future evaluations (both formal and informal) are systematic, rigorous and above all principled .one way of developing a set of criteria is a follows.
1) Brainstorm a List of Universal Criteria
Universal criteria are those which would apply to any language learning materials anywhere for any learners. Brainstorming a random list of such criteria is a very useful way of beginning an evaluation by phrase the criteria as specific questions rather. For example; do the materials provide useful opportunities for the learners to think for themselves? and are the instructions clear?
2) Subdivide Some of the Criteria
Subdivide the criteria into more specific question is useful if the evaluation is going to be used as a basis for revision or adaptation of the materials. For example: Are the instructions: succinct?, sufficient?, separated?, sequenced?,
3) Monitor and Revise the List of Universal Criteria
Monitor the list and rewrite it according to the following criteria:
· Is each question an evaluation question? (e.g. To what extent are the tests likely to provide useful learning experiences?)
· Does each question only ask one question? (e.g. Is the book likely to be attractive to your students?, Is it suitable for the age of your students?)
· Is each question answerable?
· Is each question free of dogma? (e.g. Are the various stages in a teaching unit (what you would probably call presentation, practice and production) adequately developed?)
· Is each question reliable in the sense that other evaluators would interpret it in the same way (e.g. are the materials sufficiently authentic?, Do the activities work? )
4) Categorize the List
It is very useful to rearrange the random list of universal criteria into categories which facilitate focus and enable generalizations to be made. Possible categories for universal criteria would be: learning principles, cultural perspective, topic content, teaching points, texts, activities, methodology, instructions, design and layout.
5) Develop media-specific criteria
These are criteria which ask questions of particular relevance to the medium used by the materials being evaluated (e.g. criteria for books, for audio cassettes, for videos, etc.). Example of such criteria would be: Is it clear which sections the visuals refer to?
6) Develop content-specific criteria
These are criteria which relate to the topics and/or teaching points of the materials being evaluated. Examples of content-specific criteria would be: Do the reading texts represent a wide and typical sample of genres?
7) Develop age-specific criteria
These are criteria which relate to the age of the target learners. These criteria would relate to cognitive and affective development, to previous experience, to interests and to wants and needs. Examples of age-specific criteria would be: Are there short, varied activities which are likely to match the attention span of the learners?
8) Develop Local Criteria
These are criteria which relate to the actual or potential environment of use. According to Tomlinson, typical features of the environment which would determine this set of materials are: the type(s) of institution(s); the resources of the institution(s); class size; the background, needs and wants of the learners; the background, needs and wants of the teachers; the language policies in operation; the syllabus; the objectives of the courses;
9) Develop other criteria
Other criteria which it might be appropriate to develop could include teacher-specific, administrator-specific, gender-specific, culture-specific or L1-specific criteria and, especially in the case of a review for a journal, criteria assessing the match between the materials and the claims made by the publishers for them.
10) Trial the criteria
It is important to trial the criteria (even prior to a small, fairly informal evaluation) to ensure that the criteria are sufficient, answerable, reliable and useful. Revisions can then be made before the actual evaluation begins.
11) Conducting the evaluation
From experience, Tomlinson (2011) has found the most effective way of conducting an evaluation is to:
· Make sure that there is more than one evaluator;
· Discuss the criteria to make sure there is equivalence of interpretation;
· Answer the criteria independently and in isolation from the other evaluator(s);
· Focus in a large evaluation on a typical unit for each level (and then check its typicality by reference to other units);
· Give a score for each criterion (with some sets of criteria weighted more heavily than others);
· Write comments at the end of each category;
· At the end of the evaluation aggregate each evaluator’s scores for each criterion, category of criteria and set of criteria and then average the scores;
· Record the comments shared by the evaluators;
· Write a joint report.
2. Materials Adaptation
Material Adaptation is the altering of materials to improve or make them more suitable for a particular type of learner or group of students. In preparation for a particular lesson, teacher may decide to use only part of a unit, add or delete texts or activities, replace or supplement texts or activities with one from other sources. When they teach this lesson, they make further on-the-spot changes in response to the learners’ reactions. They may, for instance: shorten or lengthen an activity, skip an activity and go to the next one, change the order of activities.
What teachers are doing here is in fact materials adaptation. Interestingly, materials adaptation seems to be something teachers do a lot but which is rarely researched or included on training courses. Consequently, teachers may not have any help but their own personal beliefs, experience and intuition in adapting materials.
a. A model for Adapting Courses
In process of adapting material, the important thing that should be considered are the materials tend to focus on the learning styles, the learning needs and the learning interest. Here are the list of key features in doing material adaptation as suggested by
Saraceni (2011);
1) Learner-centered
The material should put learners at the center of learning process and make them the main input providers, while the teacher have a role as a facilitator of language learning and should give a stimulus, starting point, for language exposure as well as for different approaches.
2) Flexibility and choice
Materials should be flexible which the learners can deliver possibility alternative task, activities, project and approaches and therefore of adapting the materials to their own preferred learning needs. In other hand, they should also be exposed to a variety of different activities and approaches so that they can more flexible and having different experience or way in learning. Materials not only provide choice, but also enable learners to develop a variety of skills and learning styles by stimulate them to be exposed and choose to experience a wide range of task and approaches so they may become independent learners.
3) Open-ended
In this context, the materials aim to make learners open with the other perception or opinion. The aim of materials moves from comprehension testing towards a deeper understanding and awareness of the language exposure with the emphasis on individual differences. If the materials are open-ended, it is become more relevant to learners thanks to adaptation.
4) Relevant
In the process of adapting material, the material should significance and potential for the learners. It is in fact, by virtue of such contributions that materials are produced and adapted. The adaptation process is a process that can make materials relevant and effective for learning development.
5) Universal
Materials should be based on universally appealing topics which are culturally provoking in the sense that they are culturally specific but at the same time, they are present in all cultures. This provides the stimulus for discussion and it enables learners to focus and become more aware of cultural differences as well as cultural similarities and commonalities.
6) Authentic
Material should be based on authentic texts which have been written for any purpose other than language teaching. The task should be based on realistic situation in order to expose the learners to realistic input.
b. Reasons for adaptation
Reasons for adaptation have varied and changed as the field has developed and views on language acquisition and teaching practice have become better informed by research and experience. McDonough and Shaw in
Islam and Mares (2011) have listed the reasons for adaptation clearly reflects a concern that communicative language teaching implies an unsystematic approach to grammar presentation and a belief that a systematic approach to grammar presentation, they are:
1) Not enough grammar coverage in general
2) Not enough practice of grammar points of particular difficulty to these learners
3) The communicative focus means that grammar is presented unsystematically
2) Reading passages contain too much unknown vocabulary
3) Comprehension questions are too easy, because the answers can be lifted directly from the text with no real understanding
4) Listening passages are inauthentic, because they sound too much like written material being read out
5) Not enough guidance on pronunciation
6) Subject matter inappropriate for learners of this age and intellectual level
7) Photographs and other illustrative material not culturally acceptable
8) Amount of material too great/too little to cover in the time allocated to lessons
9) No guidance for teachers on handling group work and role-play activities with a large class
10) Dialogues too formal, and not really representative of everyday speech
11) Audio material difficult to use because of problems to do with room size and technical equipment
12) Too much or too little variety in the activities
13) Vocabulary list and a key to the exercises would be helpful
14) Accompanying tests needed is necessary
Besides, there are other factors of adaptation that is also concluded by Cunningsworth, they are: the dynamics of the classroom, the personalities involved, the constraints imposed by syllabuses, the availability of resources, the expectations and motivations of the learners.
c. Techniques for Adaptation
In conductingthe adaptation, teacher should deal with the techniques in roder to prepare them to face awkwardness in adapting their materials. To ease that, McDonough, Shaw and Cunningsworth in
Islam and Mares (2011) offer lists of techniques that may be used when adapting materials better to ‘fit’ a specific class. These techniques are:
1) Adding
When adding to published materials the teacher is supplementing the existing materials and providing more material. The teacher can do this by either extending or expanding. Extending is when extending an activity the teacher supplies more of the same type of material, thus making a quantitative change in the material. Expanding classroom material is different from extending in that it adds something different to the materials; the change is qualitative. For instance, the teacher may feel her students need to be made aware of the different sounds of verb endings when used in the simple past but the coursebook does not address this phonetic issue.
2) Deleting; Subtracting and Abridging
As with the technique of adding, material can be deleted both quantitatively (subtracting) or qualitatively (abridging). When subtracting, for example, a teacher can decide to do five of the questions practising the simple past tense instead of the ten in the coursebook. When abridging, however, the teacher may decide that focusing attention on pronunciation may inhibit the learner’s fluency and decide not to do any of the pronunciation exercises in a coursebook.
3) Simplifying
When simplifying, the teacher could be rewording instructions or text in order to make them more accessible to learners, or simplifying a complete activity to make it more manageable for learners and teachers. It is worth pointing out here that there is a distinct danger of distorting language when attempting to simplify a text and thus making the text inauthentic.
4) Reordering
When reordering, the teacher has decided that it makes more pedagogic sense to sequence activities differently. An example is beginning with a general discussion before looking at a reading passage rather than using the reading as a basis for discussion.
5) Replacing Material
When replacing material a teacher may decide that a more appropriate visual or text might serve an activity better than the ones presented in the published material. A teacher could decide to replace an illustration for one that students could identify with more closely or use information concerning a popular figure with whom the students are familiar rather than the one presented in the published materials. Or teachers may also decide to replace a whole activity depending on the goals of a particular class or lesson. For example, a reading activity might be replaced with a listening activity.
3. Materials Selection
The selection of material includes; corresponding the material to the context which they are going to be used according to the needs and interest of students and teacher. It is aimed to find the best fit of them. Littlejohn (1998) in
Rubdy (2007) observes that the use of a set of material need to be able to examine whether or not the methodology and content is appropriate to the students, teacher, and classroom for particular language teaching context.
The selection of materials inevitably includes a process of evaluation which can be taken from variety of purposes and carried out in a variety of ways. The essential analysis in Materials involves two stages. The first stage would consist of evaluating the content of the book in relation to its professed aims. This stage would also include considering whether the target age range, culture, assumed background of students have been clearly specified in the blurb and the extent to which they are valid and appropriate to the intended learners.
The second stage of analysis involves assessing the effectiveness of materials in terms of the specific needs and context of the intended learners as well as how well they serve the teaching–learning process. The framework basically addresses stage of evaluation and consists of three broad categories: (1) the learners’ needs, goals and pedagogical requirements; (2) the teacher’s skills, abilities, theories and beliefs; and (3) the thinking underlying the materials writer’s presentation of the content and approach to teaching and learning respectively.
a. A Framework for the Selection of Course books
When it comes to design a course book,
Rubdy (2007) provided a framework for choosing course books. There are three elements namely ‘psychological validity, pedagogical validity and process and content validity’. In other words, it focuses on students, teachers and materials. When developing materials, the materials should be coherent to students’ needs, objectives and academic requirements. The materials should also concern with teacher’s skills, abilities, theories and beliefs. Lastly, the materials should consider how the teaching contents are presented and the process of teaching and learning.
1) Psychological Validity
Psychological validity represents a need for student-focus. Materials should be developed to include such factors as learners’ needs, learners’ autonomy, self-development, creativity and cooperation. Materials should be relevant to the needs of language learners. The experience of working with the activities contained in materials should provide students with confidence in their ability to communicate despite difficulties (Hall in Brian Tomlinson, 2007).
2) Pedagogical Validity
Pedagogical validity focuses on teachers’ needs and developments. While it is their role to teach students, teachers should be encouraged to improve their skills and capabilities and obtain new ones. This can not only be achieved by teachers’ abilities and willingness to reflect on their practices but it also requires teachers to have a positive attitude to a possibility of acquiring new skills. As a result, materials should provide detailed teachers’ notes but with a balanced guidance. Materials should be flexible to allow a wide variety of teachers who have different teaching styles and personalities to use a course book effectively. Materials should cater for nonnative teachers to meet their expectations, perspectives and preferences. Materials should encourage teachers to create their own choice of teaching in such ways that they can add or delete teaching contents or structure their lessons in their preferred ways. Materials should offer teachers opportunities to adapt and localize the teaching contents.
3) Process and Content Validity
Process and content validity concerns about a course book’s design and a process of a course book’s writer intention for its book to be used. In this section, it focuses on such factors as the methodology, content, format, appropriacy, authenticity, layout, cultural sensitivity, accessibility, linkage, selection/grading, sufficiency, balance/integration/challenge, stimulus/ practive/revision, flexibility and educational validity.
Materials including activities, should be realistic and taken from the real world’ settings. Materials should encourage the real-world’s communication developments. Materials should concern about students’ cultural differences and offer contents that are suitable for each culture. Materials should offer similarities and differences of cultures for learners’ exposure. Materials should be accurate without typographical errors, colorful and have enough white spaces on each page. Materials should be user friendly with a clear flow and a list of indexes, vocabulary lists and other methods to aid students to use materials without difficulty especially when they want to revise or study by themselves. Materials should be challenging that go beyond the superficial understanding of the contents and it should require students to challenge their own abilities for their further development. Materials should allow students to make their own revision and evaluation where self-checks should be made available.
B. The Process of Material Development: In Practice
In this section, it will be focused on the practical undertaking of the process of material development. By considering the theory which already discussed previously, the writer develop the process regarding the evaluation and adaptation of the course book.
1. Material Evaluation
In this section the writer applies pre-use evaluation to evaluate the material. The writer develops some areas concerning material evaluation as follow;
a. General Apperance
The material evaluated is the students’ commercial coursebook entitled Bahasa Inggris for Second Grade of Senior High School (SMA/MA/SMK/ MAK) of first semester. The students’ course book is prepared by governments as regard to the implementation of 2013 Curriculum (K-13). For the purposes of this paper, the evaluation is limited only to Chapter 2 with the main topic Stop Bullying Now. The topic is considered as a relevant material for students since bullying in educational context is still rampant and must be eradicated.
The font size used is Calibri, 11pt, it size and type are considered fair for the particular students. The layout and design of the materials reflect a very structured approach. There is a clear structure and consistency in appearance throughout the student book in terms of activity and colours. This is good for learners who like the familiarity of such a structured approach, but not so good for those who prefer more variety. The illustrations in the books and on pictures are generally realistic and functional, but there is also ambiguous. in page 28, there is a picture of a boy and there is written in the middle of the picture, stand up and speak out. It informs the students to fight for himself if they are bullied rather than avoiding any harsh behaviour that ead to bullying.
b. Learning Context
The learning context is an EFL school in Indonesia. The students attend only two hours of English lesson per week which means the allocated time is very limited. The syllabus is closely linked to the course book with student progress reports being issued twice a year indicating whether learners can satisfactorily use the language from each of the course book units that they have studied. The group of students being considered in this paper is around sixteen to seventeen years of age. The students have all been learning English for a minimum of five years and have slightly differing proficiency levels.
c. Activities
The content of chapter 2: Stop Bullying Now contains of several activities including; pre reading activities-post reading activities, personal journal writing, answering the question from particular tasks, role play conversation, writing connection, parents connection.
Although there are various activities presented in the chapter, there is an inappropriate balance of activity types. As an example, in individual acitivities, there are four kinds of activities including pre-reading, personal journal writing, task completion and writing connection. Where the others have insufficient scope like in pair only has role play conversation activity and for group work there are post reading activity and parent connection activity. The activities allow for some individual to recognize some expressions and practice them, but overall reflect on the topic (bullying). Therefore the consistency of the materials are well presented.
While many activities are sufficiently challenging and engaging for students, some appear to be of little difficult and exhausting for sixteen- or seventeen-year old learners. For example, in the post-reading activity, the students are asked to note down their opinion regarding the open questions. Some of them are presented in writing question which are largely used in IBT TOEFL test (for example. Do you think bullying is a serious issue in your school? Give reasons to support your opinion, on page 30). Here the subjects are EFL students, by asking such questions and answering them will take too much time and in fact, there are seven of them and this will eventually make the students feel exhausted.
Such activities, as presented, do not engage the learners’ interest or provide a sufficient linguistic or cognitive challenge. However, it is possible to adapt materials such as the flashcards, which come in small and large sizes, for use in more interesting and challenging activities.
d. Language Skills
The materials provide adequate opportunities for developing language skills of reading, writing, and speaking. Reading activities in the material consist of three phase; pre, while and post reading and each of them has provided detail instruction about what the students have to do. In Writing, most of the activities are presented in a way that the students put their own idea into their writing. The last language skill cited in the material is Speaking. Unfortunately the activities concerning the instruction of speaking skill is not maximized as good as the tasks. The materials have provided some expressions about; statement, agreement and disagreement but not followed by innovative instruction to support interactive speaking. For example, on the page 36, there are a lot of sample of expressions that the students can use when they talk, but there is no any instruction that lead the students to apply them in certain condition. Another lack of this chapter is that Listening activity is not mentioned explicitely in the material.
Overall, the materials provide sufficient opportunities (yet need to be revised) to develop all the essential elements in language.
e. Language Content
The language presented provides generally American English and it is appropriate (no harsh words) for the age and abilities of the EFL students. Most of the vocabularies in the passage (Page 29) are high frequencies which means that the students will easily recognize and understand the content of the passage. However, there are some of them who still have low frequency level of vocabularies. In addition, the content of the dialogues are too formal which not representative of everyday speech, also the expression sounds like writing structure rather than speaking.
f. Topic Content
The topic content is generally realistic and likely to appeal the students. The topic of negative behavior like Bullying can be experienced by students any time in their real life. The materials also mostly avoid presenting negative racial, cultural and sexual stereotypes. The example case in the passage is also taken from the indonesian context, it can be clearly seen from a kind of mocking like Sumatran elephant or baboon gentong. However, the activity of let’s create/contribute (page 45) appear to be more irrelevant to the topic since it discussed about the corruption.
g. Teachability and Flexibility
The materials are easy for teachers to use. It offers extensive teaching support, providing complete lesson plans and many ideas for games and activities. However, it is based again on the teacher’s skill to manage them all. The activity in chapter 2 of the book is particularly well-suited to teaching in EFL classroom. The materials provide Indonesian-specific content it is possible to localize and personalize most activities. Furthermore it is possible to adapt the materials to cater for different preferred learning styles.
2. Material Adaptation
Previously we have just illustrated about material evaluation. It shows us that there are some aspects in the material that need to be adapted, including the aspect of inappropriate balance of the activities, limited instruction, missing essential language componet (listening activity) and irrelevant topic. In this section, the writer presents the example of how activities from the English book in chapter 2: Stop Bullying Now can be adapted to make it more effective for language learning.
The writer’s model for adapting is based on a learner-centered perspective outlined on page 10 of this paper because the topic of Bullying has more potential to create effective learning envrionment if they are given more chances to deliver their opinion and become the center learning process. The writer therefore emphasizes at interactive lesson with various approaches and instruction that the teacher may use.
a. The activity and the instructions
As in the evaluation section discussed that the students book in chapter 2: Stop Bullying Now has inappropriate balance of activity types where the activityies are dominated by individual effort. The topic of Bullying is best delivered in group or at least in pair. The phenomena of bullying become worse because students as victim are afraid to tell their experience to their parents, so if they have many friens to share, the problems to some extent can be resolved. Having regard to this discussion, the interative activity in chapter 2 should be added for instance grouping the students.
In post reading activity (page 30), the instruction and the question should be MODIFIED into;
Read the questions carefully. Note down your opinions and reactions to the questions. Discuss with your seatmate about the best response of each questions.
The question is also REDUCED (Substracting) into three from seven questions so that the students will give their best answer easily.
1) Did this opinion article raise/change your awareness about bullying? Please explain.
2) Discuss the article on bullying in a group? Does it change your perspective on bullying or not? Give reasons to support your answers.
3) What can young people like you do to prevent or stop bullying? List at least three things you and your friends can do to prevent or stop bullying.
In writing activity (page 31), the instructions quite clear and creative. The writer consider that this activity should be maintained and no need to make any change at all.
In speaking activity (expressions), the writer OMITS (Abridging) some of the lessons (page 33-35) and SIMPLIFY them so as the content of the activity will be easily followed by the students. The structure of lesson will be more like the table as presented in page 36 but cover all the previous lesson that ommitted previously. The instruction will be like;
Complete the agreement and disagreement expressions below into a sentence that involving your reasons! Please complete at least two expressions of your choice for each statement. The first one has been done for you!
After completing this lesson, there is a follow up activity that allows students to work in pair concerning their previous answers.
Compare your answer to your seatmate, and discuss what best decision of each answer. Then the teacher will conclude of all the students’ answer.
Because there was no explicitly listening activity in the book of chapter 2, the writer expects that the teach can provide the an example of an audio or a video regarding debate contest session so that the students will listen to the conversation, the debate between pro and contra party. During that process, the students will identify and differentiate between the expression of agreement and the expression of disagreement in a piece of paper.
Please note down any statement you hear from the audio/video, make sure that the statements are considered as disagreement or agreement.
b. Language Content
Most of the vocabularies in the passage of Bullying : a cancer that must be eradicated on page 28 are designed in high frequencies which mean that the students will easily recognize and understand the content of the passage. However, there are few vocabularies which have low frequency level that need to be changed into high level frequency.
The table below will show the lists of vocabularies level of frequency.
Another activity that need to be revised is in the Building Blocks activity (page 32), the conversations between a man and a woman look so rigid. The word choices and sentence structure seem like difficult for the EFL students and some of the conversations are more like writing structure rather than speaking in action. For example;
Woman : In my opinion Government should provide means of sustenance for under privileged people instead of building tall towers.
Man : I agree with what you are saying but have you ever thought that building tall towers provides work for unemployed people?
In woman line, her reason is so too and contains of several low level frequencies which most of the students will difficult to understand her. Notice that the purpose of the conversation is we are as the listener can get information from the speaker. So we should make clear the point we want to deliver.
The sentence can be SIMPLIFIED into;
Woman : In my opinion, the government serve their society first instead of building tall towers
In man line, he shows disagrement expression yet it sounds like the writing structure. Instead of saying I agree with what you are saying, it is better if we just say I agree wih you. This sounds much better and simple, and the EFL students will probably apply this expression in their real life.
c. Topic Content
There is no significant change to the topic content of the material. However, the activity of let’s create/contribute (page 45) appear tobe more irrelevant to the topic since it discusses about the corruption, smoking and others unrelated issue. The writer will change the content (DELETING) into more interactive activity in order that is connecting to the topic. Below there will be detail instruction as well as the task that the students will deal with.
Let’s create/Contribute
The objective of this activity is to gather opinion of people by conducting an interview. With a partner, develop a series of questions (not more than 6) related to prevent a bullying behavior, and ask your friends, your neighbor or your closest family. After the interview, make a poster and put the opinions you have collected on the poster or you can make a flash card by your own drawing and share it in your class.
d. Flexibility of the material
In earlier explanation about material adaptation, the writer decides to apply the model of learner-centered in order that the students feel aware about the topic. Regarding to the flexibility of the material, the students’ English course book in chapter 2 about Bullying has interesting activities but still needed to explore more. For instance in the tips box (on page 32), it should be EXTENDED. The students’ feel curious about interesting and unusual fact. The tips box that should be added for instance;
DID YOU
KNOW?
1 in 3 teens on the internet has experienced harrashment
NOTICE THIS?
160.000 children miss school everyday due to fear of attack or intimidation by peers
CONCLUSION
In this paper, the writer have attempted to show that while commercially produced materials can be valuable language learning resources, evaluating and adapting activities found in them can increase their potential for effective learning. This process has been shown to involve several systematic steps. Although many of the analysis only give prediction rather than measurement, the writer infers that it is better to recognize the students’ responses first and then begin to design appropriate materials for them. And also before evaluating and adapting the materials, it is also necessary to have a teaching approach which suit to the needs of the particular students.
Furthermore the evaluation of the materials revealed that although the contents of the students’ coursebook in Chapter 2 with the main topic Stop Bullying Now contain several creative activities, the contents still have flaws in certain parts. Therefore it is always worth conducting adaptation to make the materials are more suitable for language learning in classroom. By adapting activities found in course book to make them engaging tasks, teachers can provide young learners with experiences that enhance opportunities for effective language learning.
REFERENCES
Islam, C., & Mares, C. (2011). Adapting Classroom Materials. In B. Tomlinson (Ed.), Materials Development in Language Teaching (2 ed.). UK: Cambridge.
Jolly, D., & Bolitho, R. (2011). A framework for materials writing. In B. Tomlinson (Ed.), Materials Development in Language Teaching (2 ed.). UK: Cambridge.
Nunan, D., & Carter, R. (2001). The Cambridge guide to teaching English to speakers of other languages. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Rubdy, R. (2007). Selection of Materials. In B. Tomlinson (Ed.), Developing Materials for Language Teaching. London: Continuum.
Saraceni, C. (2011). Adapting Courses: A Critical View. In B. Tomlinson (Ed.), Materials Development in Language Teaching (2 ed.). UK: Cambridge.
Tomlinson, B. (2007). Introduction: Are Materials Developing? In B. Tomlinson (Ed.), Developing Materials for Language Teaching. London: Continuum.
Tomlinson, B. (2011). Materials Evaluation. In B. Tomlinson (Ed.), Materials Development in Language Teaching (2 ed.). UK: Cambridge.
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