WEEK 8

a) Compare and contrast McDonough and Shaw, Maley and Tomlinson and Masuhara adaptation techniques. Are there are differences or are they similar?

          The material adaptation techniques that all of them applied are almost similar in terms of the quantity. All of them mentioned about addition, omission/reduction, expansion/extension and many more in their adaptation techniques. Only McDonough and Shaw apply the simplification technique, which is simplifying the sentence, lexical content and grammatical, where Maley and Tomlinson and Masuhara did not apply. McDonough and Shaw categorised their techniques into 5 different types, which are addition, deleting, modifying, simplifying and re-ordering whereas Maley divided the techniques into 8 parts, which are omission, addition, reduction, extension, rewriting/modification, replacement, re-ordering and branching. On the other hand, Tomlinson and Masuhara categorised their techniques into 3 categories based on the quantity, which are plus (addition, expansion), minus (deletion, subtraction, reduction) and zero (modification, replacement, reorganisation, resequencing, conversion). They used different terms but all in all, it is almost the same.

b) Compare and contrast McDonough and Shaw with Tomlinson and Masuhara’s materials adaptation procedures. Are there any differences or are they similar?

Compare and contrast

1.     

            Adaptation framework

Tomlinson and Masuhara’s framework	McDonough and Shaw framework
Have 7 steps	Have 4 steps
Covers huge area not only adaptation of material (but also the reasons for adapting to using it in teaching and revising it)	Covers a narrow area which is only the adaptation part.

2.      Adaptation Technique

Tomlinson and Masuhara’s framework	McDonough and Shaw framework
Uses all 3 category of technique which is known as plus, minus and zero category technique.	Uses 5 technique which is known as adding, deleting, modifying, simplifying and re-ordering. (can be categorize into the plus, minus and zero category technique).

3.      Evaluation

Tomlinson and Masuhara’s framework	McDonough and Shaw framework
Does evaluation after adapting and using it in teaching.	Does not do any evaluation after finish adapting.

c) List and discuss the levels of materials adaptation.

Levels of adaptation can divided into 3 parts which are macro adaptation, adapting a unit and adaptation of specific activities in a unit.

1^st level: Macro adaptation:

-      The first level will be done before the language program begins.

-      Macro adaptation helps to avoid waste of time and energy of the teacher and the students.

-      Helps the teacher to see what he/she needs to supplement so that he/she can keep an eye on                materials that could be used.

-      After comparing between what is covered in a textbook and what is required by the syllabus or examination, teacher can find certain areas or whole chapter of the book can be omitted, and certain contents need to be supplemented.

 2^nd level: Adapting a unit:

-      Helps to make the classroom teaching more smooth and cohesive.

-      Helps teachers to better fulfil the aims of a unit.

-      In this level we will reordering activities, combining activities, omitting activities, rewriting or supplementing exercise materials.

3^rd level: Adaptation of specific activities in a unit

-          Activity in a unit is regarded as valuable but it is not well-designed or not practical in a particular class. If teacher still want to use the activity he/she need to adapt it.

-          Adaptation involves supplementation, which is teachers add materials from other.

-          Teachers can used authentic materials for their supplementation which is better than non-authentic materials.

-          Teachers who use authentic materials will find it much easier to adapt textbooks.

-          Although, authentic materials are not always readily to hand, some adjustment have to be done so that teachers can use the materials as their supplementation.   

d)Chapter 4: Stop Air Pollution

The level of materials adaptation applied to this task is the first level, called and known as macro adaptation. Meanwhile the techniques that will employ to enrich the chosen chapter are by supplementing an audio-visual material as well as ‘realia’ which is a pamphlet. 

Under the speaking task (Let’s Talk, page 45): Teacher will play a video about haze and also distribute copies of pamphlet issued by the Ministry of Health regarding on haze. In pair work, students will record a video for a role-play between a news reporter and an officer who working in the Ministry of Health by answering these questions;

            1.         What causes haze?

            2.         What are the effects of haze?

            3.         What is the basic precaution you would take if you are exposed to haze?

Later on, students need to upload their video in Facebook so that they can state their comments and awarding the ‘Like’ button to each other for the whole class. The video which achieves the highest ‘Like’ button will get a reward from the teacher.

Media accompaniment: Video, pamphlet and social media network.

Reflection

How it affects me?

Well for us, as future English teachers, we need to know how to adapt. This is very crucial and can probably affect the students and direct them to the wrong direction if we do not know how to adapt. We should be aware that materials created should be relatable to the students and the difficulty is not too high or too low. On the other hand, we should also focus on how we can adapt the materials so that if the materials exceeds or does not fit the learners, we can always fall back on a backup. By understanding that there are a lot of techniques that can be used to adapt materials, we can be sure that we are on the right track of being a well-educated, well-prepared English teachers. Besides that, by understanding why there are needs for adaptation, we can know whether we are effective teachers or just run-of-the-mill, regular teachers.

 How does it affect my current level of knowledge?

Honestly, we do not really know about adaptation, because we have never found out about that in context. All the techniques in adaptation were regularly used by teachers throughout the world and somehow, that slipped our attention. When we were exposed about the materials adaptation techniques and procedures, we know that teachers do a lot of things to make sure their students will understand and learn from their lessons. Adding, deleting, modifying and simplifying are all the techniques used by teachers to adapt their materials and we as future teachers, should be able to understand the need and be able to adapt the materials if necessary.

 How can I use that knowledge to improve myself?

Learning how to adapt is very crucial because even though you feel that your materials are good enough, it may not fit the students during the lesson. Materials adaptation can ensure that your materials can fit the students even if they are weak students. Adaptation techniques work wonders even when teachers cannot carry on with their materials. In our opinions, we think that materials adaptation is a must skill for teachers as anything can happen in this doggy dogged world. We should always be prepared for anything when we are teaching and materials adaptation is just the solution.