Target Learners
A group of non-native speaking doctors recently arrived in an English speaking country.
They are doing a language support course whilst also working as doctors. Their level of English varies considerably but they are all united in their reluctance to attend the course.
Coursebook
McCullagh, M. and Wright, R. (2008).Good practice: Communication skills in English for the medical practitioner.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
This is an excellent coursebook for medical students (who will have to pass an examina- tion in English) and for non-native speaking doctors seeking work in an English speaking environment.
4 Materials Adaptation
Unit for Adaptation
Unit 9—Breaking Bad News.
Case study: disregarding a constraint (pp. 91–92).
Reasons for Adaptation
This unit makes use of a text that has great potential for affective engagement. However:
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The text is quite long and some of the language would be demanding for many of the less proficient members of the group (e.g. “The lungs had left-sided rales . . . The chest radiograph showed a large infiltrate on the left and what I feared was a mass”).r
There is no readiness activity to activate the minds of the doctors in relation to the topic of the text, just an instruction to “Read this article, identify the constraint and decide whether the doctor is justified in his actions. Discuss with the rest of the group.”r
The postreading activities consist of conventional and typical coursebook exercises requiring individuals to match and to categorize (probably at the insistence of the publisher and in order to prepare the students for examinations). These activities are unlikely to engage and motivate this reluctant group of learners.r
There are no activities requiring the learners to interact (the most pressing need of this group) or to think for themselves (one of the few activities this group do enjoy).Objectives of the Adaptation
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To maximize the potential for affective engagement of the text.r
To motivate the learners to think and to interact.r
To present all the learners with an achievable challenge.The Adaptation
A Time to Listen
1. Please get into groups of three.
2. One of you is a doctor, one is a patient and one is an observer.
3. If you are the patient you are going to tell the doctor what is wrong with you.
4. If you are the observer do the task you are given (the teacher gives the observers the instruction, “Time how long it takes before the doctor interrupts the patient”).
5. Listen to what happened when a doctor decided not to interrupt a patient (the teacher summarizes what is reported inA time to listen(Barr, 2004), focuses on the problems caused by doctors prematurely interrupting patients—and especially on the case of the old lady whose cancer was only revealed because the doctor let her talk for 22 minutes—and concludes by reading aloud a quote from the old lady, “Oh, don’t worry about all that. I’ve had a good life. But I just wanted you to know—this is the best doctor visit I’ve ever had. You’re the only one who ever listened to me”).
6. Read the textA time to listenand as you read it try think of a way of allowing patients enough time to talk about their problem without creating long queues of patients waiting to see the doctor.
Materials Development for Language Learning
7. Write a letter to your hospital authority telling them about your idea in 6 above. You can do this individually, in pairs or in a small group.
8. Show your letter to another individual, pair or group and ask them for suggestions for improvement.
9. Compare your letter with the one your teacher gives you.
10. Revise your letter making use of the suggestions from 8 and what you’ve learned from the letter you looked at in 9.
Conclusion
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Adaptation is an inevitable and necessary procedure to ensure a match between mate- rials and learners.r
Coherence needs to be achieved between curriculum development, materials devel- opment, assessment and teacher education. It is difficult and rare for adaptations to be made to curricula or assessment procedures so often adaptations need to be made to materials and to teacher education.r
To conduct valid adaptations, teachers need support in terms of acknowledgment, encouragement and guidance, as well as the provision of pre-service and in-service teacher education and the facilitation of classroom research and materials develop- ment.r
Teacher education would benefit from an experiential materials evaluation, adapta- tion and development component in which teachers are helped to become reflective teachers, researchers and materials developers.What Do You Think?
1. Do you think learners should be involved in materials adaptation? If so, why do you think they should be involved and when and how should they be involved?
2. Do you think that you have the awareness and expertise to conduct a materials adaptation? If not, what do you think you need in order to gain this awareness and expertise?
3. What do you think are the most effective ways of measuring the effects of a set of adapted materials on their users? For each way, say what you think are the advantages and the potential problems.
4. Do you agree that criteria need to be developed prior to the writing of materials and then used to drive the development of the materials and the adaptation of them dur- ing and after their development? Why/why not?
Tasks
1. Pick a unit from a coursebook at random.
a) Compile a profile of a target learning context for which the unit might be suitable.
b) Develop 10 universal criteria and five local criteria (see Chapter 3) for evaluating the unit.
4 Materials Adaptation
c) Carry out a criterion referenced evaluation of the unit giving a grade out of 5 for each criterion and commenting on any criterion which achieved 2 or less.
d) Develop an adaptation of the first two pages of the unit so as to improve the score for those criteria evaluated as 2 or less.
2. From the same coursebook you evaluated in 1 above:
a) Select three activities which you think are unlikely to engage and challenge the target students in your profile in 1 above.
b) For each activity suggest a small change that could make it more engaging and challenging for the students.