UNIVERSITY OF CALDAS

SCHOOL OF ARTS AND HUMANITIES

FOREIGN LANGUAGES DEPARTMENT
MA IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING

COURSE TITLE:

Language Learning Resources

INSTRUCTOR:

Yamith Jos Fandio Parra

Author:

Yamith Jos Fandio

Date:

March, 2016

The Benefits of Textbook Adaptation

In recent years, many EFL teachers have become progressively more aware of the need
for textbook adaptation. Almost everywhere teachers turn, whether it is to a book, an online
course, or an academic event, advice for evaluating and analyzing textbooks showers them.
Although much of this advice is commercially motivated by those eager to sell teaching manuals,
some of it, especially that advocating a careful teaching reflection, merits serious attention. Such
reflection, if it consists of systematic data gathering and solid analysis and if a group of
colleagues or scholars favors it, can provide numerous benefits. Among other things, textbook
adaptation maximizes the appropriacy of teaching materials in context, improves teaching, and
increases teachers evaluation.
The first of these benefits, the appropriacy of teaching materials, is immediate. Good
teachers are continually striving to bridge the gap between the strengths of a textbook and the
needs of those who want to learn from it. They identify areas of mismatch and deal with them so
that the sections and the exercises are more relevant to the learners that use them. As a result,
teachers end up embarking on expanding the appropriacy of their materials, which makes them
change some of the internal characteristics of a textbook in order to better suit their particular
groups or needs (McDonough & Shaw, p. 85). This search for appropriacy ultimately allows
them not only to increase the relevance of the textbook to learners interests and needs, but also
to localize it according to the new demands of the EFL context.

An improved teaching, which is a second benefit of textbook adaption, is not as

immediately apparent as the appropriacy of materials. Teaching quality takes some time to show
its results in engaging, effective, and interesting classes. Improvement, however, will come.
Teachers who are not aware of the expectations and motivations of their learners, for instance,
may be able during this time to start providing more and better opportunities for negotiation,
cooperation, and interaction, thereby modifying the dynamics of their classes. Having improved
classroom processes and practices, Islam & Mares (2003) assert that teacher will better at taking
teaching decisions and actions in a principled manner that reflects the needs within their
particular teaching contexts (p. 100).
In addition to an improved quality stimulated by a maximized appropriacy of teaching
materials, textbook adaptation increases teachers criteria and evaluation. Wiser, more reflective
teachers are obviously more capable of making judgments about the effect of the materials on the
people using them. They are more likely to activate and implement some of the principles that
learning theories and second language acquisition have provided the EFL field. On the other
hand, they are more aware of procedures and features that play a significant role in the success of
language teaching. They, then, tend to measure the value and the effectiveness of aspects such as
the clarity of layout, the comprehensibility of texts, the achievability of tasks, and the teachability
of materials (Tomlinson, 2011, p. 24). Altogether, increased criteria and evaluation are one of the
most important benefits of methodical textbook adaptation.
Although easy solutions to the purposes of adapting textbooks and designing effective
materials saturate the EFL community, actually acquiring their benefits is not an easy task. The
rewards, however, are fully worth the effort of a systematic and consistent reflective endeavor
that ends up in forming EFL teachers capable of maximizing the appropriacy of teaching
materials in context, improving their teaching practices, and increasing their criteria and
evaluation. In the end, I agree with Tpsiplakides (2011) when he maintains that textbook
adaptation could be regarded as an essential professional skill that teachers need to acquire and
develop so that they can both address the weaknesses of their teaching resources and cater for
their students level of language development (p. 761).

References

Islam, C., & Mares, C. (2003). Adapting Classroom Materials. In B. Tomlinson (Ed.), Developing
Materials for Language Teaching (pp. 86-100). New York: Cambridge University Press.
McDonough, J. & Shaw, C. (2003). Materials and Methods in ELT: A Teachers Guide (2nd ed).
United Kingdom: Blackwell Publishing.
Tomlinson, B. (2011). Materials development in language teaching (2nd edition). United
Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.
Tsiplakides, I. (2011). Selecting an English coursebook: Theory and practice. Theory and practice
in language studies, 1(7), 758-764.