Adaption of "The World Of Work " Seventh Unit In Headway Intermediate Students Book , For lower Intermediate Students In Libya
Introduction :
Beyond any doubt, Every teacher knows the imperative importance of course book in teaching and every teacher also knows it should be the best course book for students .A big number of specialists and educators like Torres and Hutchinson (1994) claim that during periods of change, a course book can serve as a tool for supporting teachers and as an instrument of modifications and alterations.
The infinite eagerness and exploration for finding the "ideal" course book affect every teacher .The EL teacher is no exception and being one of those eager teachers puts me in never-ending search for the right book as well. With no exaggerating, I consider course book as my sword in my war against ignorance of English language in the classroom. As a warrior, how can I fight if my sword is not sharp enough ,the sharpness that I seek for is textbook suitability to my students' requirements, abilities ,interests, and level.
Cannot be denial that headway series sounds appealing selection in my search, since some teachers take it for granted as the best option in any course for learning English, but it is not the case for me .Considering headway book as my course book is something acceptable but when each unit of the book goes under scrupulous operation of modifications and accommodations in order to be ideal for my students .
This paper aims to state clear adaption process to specific unit from headway intermediate students book in order to accomplish its ultimate appropriateness to Arabic-Libyan students .Opening the process by general overview of the unit followed by its strong points side by side with its weak ones and closing with providing comprehensive study, description and analysis about every step of adaption process.
Beneficially, there are various aspects to discuss and comment on, regarding to this unit which has led to both agreement and disagreement of personal stance, supported with reasons, facts, evidences, and examples if necessary. In the following paragraphs, the modifications and comments will be made accordingly, one by one, based on the unit from the beginning which is title until the end of its part which is the transcripts
Before carrying out the purpose of this paper I would like to highlight on the term 'adaption' as it considers the cornerstone of the present paper. According to Webster dictionary " Adaption is a process of changing to fit some purpose or situation and it is a form or structure modified to fit a changed environment". Not very far from this context ,adaption in teaching is any accommodations and modifications tolerable in educational settings which permit the student equal opportunity to obtain access, results, benefits, and levels of achievement. Teachers are often asked to modify instruction to accommodate special needs students. In fact ,when teachers are contemplating adaptation, they should consider some following principles suggested by Mc Grath (2002) – Localisation involves replacing a western setting or context with local or regional ones that let students focus more on language objectives, rather than on the culture. Personalisation engages devising examples and activities that relate directly to students and reflect their academic or professional interests and let them use their experience and learned knowledge .Modernisation involves changing any instances of language usage that seem out of date (Madsen and Bowen 1978); this might equally well apply to changes in the time-bound content of material. Simplification engages making things easier for or more accessible to the leaner: e.g. the editing of texts to reduce linguistic difficulty or breakdown complex tasks into more manageable pieces.
Overview of the unit:
Another cornerstone here, the unit to be adapted "the world of work". The following paragraphs give closure examine to the unit .It is the seventh unit of a twelve units book which titled "headway intermediate students book" .It is intended to be taught for thirty lower-intermediate high school pupils for the duration of two hours (double period).The students' range of age is 14-15 years old . The unit follows "application learning" where formal education is relevant to life and clearly it is an example of content-based approach to syllabus specification and generally a list of “grammatical structures, categories of communicative and cognitive skills.
Amazingly the intended principles here are condensed and valuable comparing to the unit size. However, the first and avowed principle of using this unit in my English program is to produce learners who can speak English “both accurately and fluently .I would like to divide the planned principles to general and specific ,general are ,related to the combining approach, work on developing students abilities in dealing with linguistic content whereas the specific principles ,related to language, work on developing their English skills.
The general principles could be seen in developing the students' ability to think critically, and responsively in regards to their place within society as well as developing and teaching them specific skills and strategies for reading ,writing , comprehension and listening , encouraging them to express themselves and respond to a variety of texts, activities. Sahragard, Rahimi, and Zaremoayeddiʼs (2009)concluded that motivating activities helped students express themselves .While the specific principles of unit seven can be seen where the students should be able to develop worked-based learning which includes actual work training ,to progress into further qualifications and skills related to work, to master using present perfect and present prefect passive, to learn phrasal verbs and telephone phrases ,and to practice writing letters .
Although the authors declared that they have combined the best of traditional approaches (e.g. “in-depth treatment of grammar” and “thorough practice activities') with communicative approaches ,I can see that its approach is PPP or language context .PPP means when the unit follows traditional presentation ,practice and production approach .Where language is presented first in the form of semi or non-authentic model dialogues to provide a context for examples of the target language and is followed by controlled practice activities. These dialogues are then manipulated in controlled practice with pairs of students repeating the conversations word for word .The production stage involves creating more similar conversations using substitution. Grammar is given as a fixed set of rules, which learners then need to apply, in order to successfully complete the production stage. The only element of real communication when the students are asked about their opinions.
In this unit , language input can be seen in six areas, as it is the usual case of headway books, the areas are grammar, vocabulary ,everyday English, Reading, speaking, listening, and writing. Related to the general linguistic contents ,the unit plays the role of youth apprenticeship to the future life (work) and it aims to link students , schools with the workplace by developing the skills needed for job market . This is accomplished through lessons ,vocabulary, and activities all to make the students' educational experience relevant to the world they will experience as adults.
Language aims of the unit, the grammar section brings together all the uses of present perfect to eliminate confusion between present perfect and past simple because although students at this level are familiar with present perfect ,they probably do not understand completely its uses .In Vocabulary area ,the unit focuses on phrasal verbs where the students have to learn whether the verbs are literal or idiomatic and separable or inseparable while Everyday English sector introduces useful telephone phrases through different types of formal phone conversations. In "The worlds of work" students study how to differentiate between present prefect and past simple by learning interviewing for job and discussing past life experience and they learn present prefect passive and active in the context of news stories. Associated to speaking and reading part ,students are exposed to interviews with workers whom love their job while listening and speaking part they are exposed to man's retirement lifestyle .Finally ,the writing section is about writing letters of application for job and stories based on news headlines.
Adaption process
Mixed gender lower intermediate students who study in public school are my students ,they live in the urban side of Libya .They are eager to learn English and I know they will be happy to be exposed to such unit ,but in order to satisfy their eagerness in the right way I need to adapt parts of the unit according to my student's needs and requirements. In general, the level of my students' proficiency is acceptable. Their ability in writing and speaking skills is not excellent ,however ,they are good in the grammar. The grammar is very important to the learners to express their ideas through writing or even when they speaking. I would like to adapt some parts of the unit, which provides opportunities for my students to learn and use as many speaking and writing practice as possible. My students have the willing to speak and communicate with others but they feel hesitate and shy because their mistakes
From personal perspective, there is no permanent formula for adapting general education syllabus to meet each student’s needs. Each teacher, each student, each classroom is unique and adaptations are specific to each situation. In the one hand, we have to keep in mind that any educational material do not always need to be adapted. On the other hand ,in many cases and mine is one , educational pieces can be made more smoothly accessible through accommodations .Hence, before constructing my adjustments ,an evaluation for the unit to be carried out in order to figure out both weak and strong areas. This evaluation makes my adaption process more balanced and intelligible.
As O‟Neill (1982) admits “No textbook can expect to appeal to all teachers or learners at a particular level”. This means that within any one teaching or learning context, material will unavoidably display both strengths and weaknesses in relation to that context. This section will examine the positive and negative aspects of the unit. A lot of textbook evaluation researchers such as Harmer (2001), McDonough and Shaw (2003), Byrd (2001), and Tomlinson (2003, 2008) used checklists to help the language teachers evaluate ELT textbooks(Litz,2005).I will use Acklams 'checklist. When I applied unit seven (The world of work) of coursebook “headway intermediate ” to evaluate according to Acklams’ checklist (1994), Despite New Headway‟s traditional approach, it does, in my opinion, present strengths. One of the main strengths of this unit is the syllabus fit is extremely and they have the opportunity to develop enough skills to survive in most situations. In my opinion, the world of work gives learners maximum opportunity to acquire language. Another strength of the unit is the use of the activities ensures students draw on existing knowledge before undertaking the main task. Boldly I could say the unit is satisfying me in regard to the presence of structures and vocabularies. As a matter of fact, the unit provides opportunities for fluency practices and the material for practices in all basic four skills. The evaluation of Ranalliʼs (2002) showed that the New Headway books were well-written on the basis of fluency.
However, this unit has many shortcomings which negatively could affect my teaching process . "The world of work" main weakness, in my opinion, it does not give complete opportunity for the students to express opinions and ideas on the topic. Also, the unit is weak regarding the balance between skills ,I cannot see the extensive speaking practice as the syllabus is concentrating on reading and listening more than other skill which causes problems for my students because they have already been suffering from weakness in speaking.Mc Donough and Shaw (1993) stated that material developers should provide the students with sufficient opportunity to develop skills through adequate practices. It can enable students to gain deeper understanding of how communication works in the foreign languages In my working context, many students feel learning fails to occur if speaking is not extensively taught .Additionally. grammar is taught deductively ,which does not give students the opportunity to figure out the rule themselves and build up their skills .Seliger (1975) "The task of the learner is to work in the opposite direction and to recover the rules from the examples. It is, perhaps, not surprising that despite discernible advantage over the more traditional deductive approach of "rule first, practice second"
With respect to writing skill, I am not sure that the unit is my whether writing activities were appropriate according to the use of staging style, According to Koda (2005), comprehension occurs when the reader extracts and integrates information from the text and combines it with what he/she has already known. My students are not familiar with news headlines and this part should be simplified as it might be inferred that my pupils are likely to find the related activities difficult to cope with. It seems that this drawback may decrease students’ desire to write more. Also related to the non-authentic selection of reading passages,I see this as negative point to some extent.Cunningsworth (1995) stated that the teachers should check if the reading passages are as authentic as possible.
Another area of failing is the quantity of material, it is impossible to cover all the material in two hours .In the Libyan setting, the period is 45 minutes and double period is one hour and half and even though I supposed ,I have two hours as double period. It would not be enough especially the students are mixed abilities. Finally, I find it frustrating that this material limiting as everything is pre-determined and there is little scope for adaptation and creativity
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