Coursebook Adaptation and Supplementation

Introduction: This week we are looking at strategies to change and add to what is already in the coursebook you are working with. Complete the following tasks with your partners in order to put into practice the concepts from Chapters 5 and 6 in the McGrath (2016) book.

Task 1: Adaptation - The 3 E's

McGrath tells us that we can think about coursebook adaptation as following the three E's. Read about Extemporization, Extension, and Exploitation below.

• Extemporization: McGrath says that the most common form of coursebook adaptation is what occurs spontaneously in the classroom when the teacher responds to an unexpected challenge or difficulty with the coursebook. In response, he or she gives a clarifying explanation or example or modifies the activity on the spot. This is not usually planned by the teacher in advance.

• Example: Look at the picture below (excuse the quality). Imagine you needed to cover this exercise in class and you are not sure if all of your students are familiar with the sport and its rules. How could you address this and clarify the picture without spoiling the exercise for students? 

Click to see full size image.

• Extension: This occurs when the teacher wishes to make a given exercise longer and provides additional examples and questions. The main difference between Extension and Supplementation is that Extension is more of the same activity type why Supplementation involves giving students additional activity types to do.

• Exploitation: This occurs when the teacher uses materials from the book for purposes that were not intended by the writer of the book. They teacher may or may not have students complete the exercise as intended before having them do something else with the same text or exercise.
• Example: Take a look at these to pages from Interchange. What are ways you might Extend one of the activities? How might you Exploit some of the activities for multiple purposes? CLICK HERE for access. 

Task 2: Coursebook Adaptaptions

McGrath outlines several principles that we might take into consideration to movitate adaptations we could make to our coursebooks.

• Localization: Adapting to our students' national and cultural contexts
• Personalization: Adapting to our students' interests and academic, educational, and professional needs
• Individualization: Adapting to stuents' learning styles and preferences
• Modernization: Adapting to address out of date content and language use
• Simplification: Adapt texts or tasks to make them more accessible
• Challengification*: Adapt texts or tasks to make them more challenging 

Consider the following extracts from a commercial textbook, CLICK HERE to view. 

• What is objective of the activity?
• What does the activity actually have the students do?
• What adaptations could I make (delete, replace, add, change)?
• Which principles could we use to justify these changes?

Task 3: Functions of Worksheets for Supplementation

McGrath argues that worksheets, either published or teacher created, can serve several purposes. 

• Awareness Raising or Practice? - Most of the times we use worksheets to have students apply what they have learned. This is practice. However, we can also use worksheets to raise students' awareness about systemic features (or rules) of the language. This is related to the concepts of deductive vs inductive language teaching. 
• Discuss: What do you remember about the differences between these two approaches? What are their strengths and challenges?
• Example: CLICK HERE to review a worksheet. Do you think the activities are more awareness raising or practice? Why do you say so? What are some other ways that you could use supplementary worksheets to help students notice language forms and patterns?

Task 4: Expanding our Repertoire 

There are many different different activity types to help students learn about or practice language forms like grammar, vocabulary, spelling, pronunciation and others.

• Example: CLICK HERE to review a series of activities to address vocabulary. How do they differ in their specific focus? What other aspects of vocabulary could be an appropriate topic for worksheets?

Task 5: Thinking Critically about Scaffolding

A single worksheet might have student do several activities. The order of the activities is significant because a well scaffolded one can help students gain a better understanding while a poorly scaffolded one can lead to frustration.

• Example: CLICK HERE to review two worksheets on the topic of reported speech.
• Look at Worksheet A: 
• How do the exercises differ?
• Is the order important?
• What is its focus: Form and/or Meaning and/or Use?
• If you were preparing a worksheet on this topic, would you borrow any of these activities? Why or why not? What adaptations if any would you make?
• What do you like about the design and layout? Would you suggest any changes?

• Look at Worksheet B: 
• How do the exercises differ?
• Is the order important?
• What is its focus: Form and/or Meaning and/or Use?
• If you were preparing a worksheet on this topic, would you borrow any of these activities? Why or why not? What adaptations if any would you make?
• What do you like about the design and layout? Would you suggest any changes?

• What are the strengths and weaknesses of worksheet A and B?
• Which do you prefer and why?
• What conclusions can you draw about worksheet design from this analysis?