Adapting Published Materials

Adapting Published Materials

In the TEFL arena, adapting published materials is indispensable. Quality and innovative teachers always tend not to follow course- books to the letter. They prefer to adopt a choose-and-pick approach whilst looking for materials that may cater the needs of their learners.A case in point is:

Company to Company

[Andrew Littlejohn, 2005] has been chosen to cater for the needs and wants of a group of admin-staff whose job responsibilities involve handling phone calls[1] and replying to and writing business correspondence.

The needs analysis revealed that the group unanimously need to improve their writing skills of e-mails, letters, faxes and memos with topics that are quite common in almost all business correspondence (making enquiries, placing an order, requesting for information/a quotation, making mild and strong complaint, apologising, giving bad/good news, confirming arrangements, writing /declining an invitation and replying to complaints...).

Against this background, Company to Company has been designated to serve the needs of this particular group. The overall design of the book is attractive and looks very professional. In the same respect, the book appears to be professionally interesting and task-based.

The units of this course-book are specialised and perfectly match the kind of needs expressed by the group in terms of both topics and tasks. The latter sound realistic and of much relevance .They present real-life situations almost like the ones the students routinely handle in their jobs.

In conclusion,it needs to be emphasized that any course-book needs to be supplemented with extra materials.No course-book can comprehensively meet one's needs.As such,the select-reject-adapt and supplement approach has been incorporated very often in parallel with the above mentioned course-book.Sometimes some tasks are omitted and others and others are adapted or re-worded differently to ease understanding.

The overall layout of the book allows ample opportunities for extra manoeuvre and adaptation.Some tasks are reformulated to provide further focus and work on the lexical chunks.In fact,Email English (Paul Emmerson 2004 ) has a battery of exercises that provide perfect practice opportunities.

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[1] Focus here is on Company to Company. ‘English for Business Communication’ (Simon Sweeney 2003) has been chosen to cater for telephoning skills.

The Learner Centered Approach.

An introduction to Learner Centered Approach

How self-directed learning could be related to teaching English in a business context and its similarities to designing lessons and courses based on the needs of a group of learners.

It’s undoubtedly that self-directed learning applies perfectly to both learning and teaching as well. Concerning the latter, I think SDL could be much better related to teaching English in a business context than general English. One of the key skills in self-directed learning is the ability to set learning goals and objectives and so does teaching Business English. Unlike students of GE, BE students have well-defined objectives and goals that they aspire to achieve by the end of a given course. That is to say, BE students are aware of which language skill or area they need to improve and hence focus on during a given course.

The whole process of teaching business English starts with identifying the needs of a target group and so does the process of SDL. It is ‘a process in which the learner....identifies learning needs, defines learning goals, develop and implement a learning plan’. Similarly, in teaching English in a business context, the Setting of a well-defined needs analysis is an indispensable element in planning a successful a course outline. So, once needs are identified, teacher develops a teaching plan to deliver these needs. Besides, it should be noted that at times target learners may be unable to identify their needs and goals. Thus, it’s up to the teacher’s discretion and know-how to find out these needs. In the same vein, self-directed learner ‘with or without the help of other’ can identify his/her learning needs.

This being said, self-directed learning is a conscious process that involves constant evaluation and posing of questions to ensure achievement of optimum leaning output. In the same token, delivering a business course or lesson always starts by posing the right questions to identify course or lesson aims, steps to complete them within a pre-allocated limited time span and finally ends up with a self-reflection over your delivery.

In a nutshell, delivery of a successful business course requires an innovator teacher and so does successful learning needs an innovator learner. Clingers, unfortunately, are doomed to failure in both learning and teaching.

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11 Great ELT sites training videos | Teacher Training Videos Free on-line training in using technology in English language teaching

11 Great ELT sites training videos | Teacher Training Videos Free on-line training in using technology in English language teaching