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JUSTIFICATION

The document discusses reasons why teachers may need to adapt teaching materials to better suit their students' needs and abilities. It provides a list of possible areas where materials could mismatch a particular class, such as including too much unknown vocabulary, not enough grammar practice, inappropriate subject matter, or activities that are difficult to implement. The document emphasizes that priorities will vary between teaching contexts and that adapting materials does not mean they are defective, only that modifications are needed to achieve learning goals. The list aims to show potential areas teachers may want to address through adaptation.

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Hamidah Basyir Ahmad
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56 views7 pages

JUSTIFICATION

The document discusses reasons why teachers may need to adapt teaching materials to better suit their students' needs and abilities. It provides a list of possible areas where materials could mismatch a particular class, such as including too much unknown vocabulary, not enough grammar practice, inappropriate subject matter, or activities that are difficult to implement. The document emphasizes that priorities will vary between teaching contexts and that adapting materials does not mean they are defective, only that modifications are needed to achieve learning goals. The list aims to show potential areas teachers may want to address through adaptation.

Uploaded by

Hamidah Basyir Ahmad
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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JUSTIFICATION

I have chosen a poem for teaching reading skill. This poem is selected
for mixed ability year 3 students. It is a reading lesson and the focused skill
is on reading. Based on this material, I did a few specific adaptations works.
Before I start adaptation, there are a few factors I put into
considerations. First of all is level and age of the students. I believe that the
material must suits the level and age of the students . Besides, I realized, it
must cater the students needs and

interests as well as their ability. For

example, stories that are written for the interest of native English speaker
teenagers would probably be too difficult for second language speaker
teenagers. However stories that are at their ability level are likely to be too
babyish for them to be interested. When considering the suitable level of
materials I started to think about, for example, how much new vocabulary is
included, and what grammar structures predominate, and how adult the
topics and content are.
Taking into consideration the principles of adaptation of teaching
materials, first I applied omission strategy. I left out things deemed
inappropriate and unnecessary. For examples, word like brand was omitted in
the phrase I ve got a brand new lunch bow. This was done because I felt
that it is complexity to introduce the

year 2 students with such words. I

addressed it is inappropriate and unproductive words to be exposed for this


age students. Furthermore, I realized the phrases contains to many
adjectives in a line. As my goal is focusing on reading skill, I think teaching
adjectives is not a priority in my lesson. I Besides, grammatically complex
sentences are particularly difficult for students to read.
Apart from that, there were a few unnecessary words omitted too. For
examples, My teachers tall and kind of loud was changed to My

teacher is tall and kind. Here, an omission strategy is done by deleting


the phrase of of loud and the contraction of teachers tall is expanded
clearly to teacher is tall.
Next I deleted a stanza which I think unnecessary part and too long for
my students. Overall there were 4 stanzas all together. Even though I deleted
this stanza, it does not distract the meaning of this poem. I believe long text
and too much information make demands on students attention and working
memory. Thus students attention and span will decrease and it will cause
problems with students readability.
Next, I shorter some phrases which I think too long for my students
level. The sentences structures seem quite complex. So, I made the phrase
short and straight forward by eliminating the unnecessary clauses and
words. For examples, And a pencil box that is green is shorten and
modify to straight forward to this way, a green pencil box. This kind of
strategies is also done to for a few phrases.
In conclusion, I realized material selected for teaching and learning
purpose should adapted carefully to meet the needs of students level, age
ability and interest. Besides, principle of adaptation should be applied in the
adaptation strategies.

JUSTIFICATION
This material is a poster which has been chosen for year 3 students. It
seems a very simple and suitable material to teach a group of mixed ability.
Furthermore, I felt this material suitable to teach about healthy food. For
this reason, a poster is selected.
However I felt there were a few adaptation that I should made. Since
the poster contains too many information and details to be taught in a
lesson. Regardless to my goal, I adapted this material in a few ways.
First of all I applied omission strategy by deleting one of the
bubble(shape) titled How Much Food each Day?. The contents of this shape
was pertaining to a calculation about food consume per day. I felt it was
unnecessary an inappropriate contains to be included under

the topic of

Food for year 3 students. I feel a basic information exposure regarding food
is relevant and sufficient for this level of age. Furthermore, in a reading
lesson a calculation is not crucial to be included.
Apart from that, I also applies addition strategy to this poster. For this
purpose, I added a few pictures which are relevant to the contents given. By
providing pictures, the aim of readability will be defined. Besides, reading
will be more relevant and comprehensible.
As this poster is too simple and contains minimum used of words, I
decided to expand the phrases a little bit. I believe by doing this, the reading
will be more meaningful. For examples, under Five Food Group instead of

fruits , vegetables, I added to fresh fruits and greenly vegetables. And the
same goes to dairy.
Finally I applied restructuring strategy in of the shape provided. I felt
the contents was unclear and quite abstract. Thus, I used a restructuring
strategy to make it clear and comprehensible. I expanded the words and
phrases to the more meaningful ways so that the students may able to
extract the meaning of the reading.

Furthermore to enhance the reading

practice, I believe the words used should be clear and provided by


supporting sentences.

JUSTIFICATION
The material is a story titled The Dreamy Milk Maid. It was selected for
a reading lesson for year 3 students. The students are from intermediate
group. When I first chose this material, I found it is short and simple.
However after Ive gone through the story, I realized that the story needs
adaptation in order to achieve the needs of my students level of proficiency.
First of all, I found that the sentences used were quite long and difficult
to be understood. Most of the sentences were constructed in the complex
form. Besides, there were a few inappropriate and high level words used in
the story. It made me realize that without adaptation it may not be able to
cater the needs of students in achieving the learning goal. Most of the things
the students will find difficulty in understanding the story.
Thus, to overcome such problems, I applied simplifying and modifying
strategies to the passage. I do believe in modifying strategy, I will be able to
alter some parts of the contents of the story. For this purpose, I modified the
order of words and structures. As I found that the story used a few passive
voice and complex sentences, I modified the sentences structures to active

voice and to the simple sentences. I also added 1-2 compound sentences
with simple conjunction that is and.
Next, I simplified grammar and vocabulary in the story. I addressed
that the story contains the Perfect Tense which is totally inappropriate to my
students level and age gr. As for them, the basic grammar exposure is
encouraged rather than high level grammar.
In my case simplifying grammar happened naturally when I shorten the
sentences. Furthermore I used simple tense from the beginning to the end of
the story. For eg:, instead of using she was returning home, I changed it
to she walked to home.
Finally I simplified some vocabulary which I think it was beyond their
language proficiency. I replaced long, uncommon with short, simple words
too. For examples meadow is replaced with cowshed.
Finally I have made the adaptation more meaningful and suitable to be
used in the teaching and learning.

Reasons for Adapting Materials


(McDonough, Shaw, & Masuhara, 2013, pp. 67-8)
We have just asked you to consider your reasons for needing to make modifications
to your own
materials, and some of the changes you would wish to make. These reasons will
depend, of course, on the whole range of variables operating in your own teaching
situation, and one teacher's priorities may well differ considerably from those of
another. It is certainly possible that there are some general trends common to a
large number of teaching contexts: most obviously there has been a widespread
perception that materials should aim to be in some sense communicative' and
'authentic'. Nevertheless, it is worth bearing in mind that priorities are relative, and
there is no absolute notion of right or wrong, or even just one way of interpreting
such terms as 'communicative' and 'authentic'. It is also the case that priorities
change over time even within the same context. For instance, decontextualized
grammar study is not intrinsically 'wrong' in a communicatively oriented class, just
as role play is not automatically 'right'. Nor does a need to adapt necessarily imply
that a coursebook is defective.
It will be useful to compare your own reasons with those in the following list. The list
is not intended to be comprehensive, but simple, to show some of the possible
areas of mismatch ('non congruence') that teachers identify and that can be dealt
with by adaptation:
Not enough grammar coverage in general.
Not enough practice of grammar points of particular difficulty to these learners.
The communicative focus means that grammar is presented unsystematically.
Reading passages contain too much unknown vocabulary.

Comprehension questions are too easy because the answers can be lifted directly
from the
text with no real understanding.
Listening passages are inauthentic, because they sound too much like written
material being
read out.
Not enough guidance on pronunciation.
Subject matter inappropriate for learners of this age and intellectual level.
Photographs and other illustrative material not culturally acceptable.
Amount of material too much or too little to cover in the time allocated to lessons.
No guidance for teachers on handling group work and role-play activities with a
large class.
Dialogues too formal and not representative of everyday speech.
Audio material difficult to use because of problems to do with room size and
technical
equipment.
Too much or too little variety in the activities.
Vocabulary list and a key to the exercises would be helpful.
Accompanying tests needed.

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