Chapter 3: Analysis of data and suggestions for materials adaptation
3.7. Recommendation for the course book‟s adaptation
Generally, taking everything into account, NCEE, like any course book, is not definitely perfect, but if using creatively, it will bring the amazing effects for the learners. Adapting and reorganizing it might help to gain more experiences, fresh ideas, and what is the most important- an environment in which students would be happy to work.
Moreover assuming that compiling a teaching course book is a hard job which requires much time and effort, so basing on the experience and the survey findings the researcher herself would suggest some adaptations for teachers to deal with the challenges in NCEE, and create good learning conditions for students to achieve the targets set by the course requirement. The recommendation for the course book‟s adaptation will be introduced here by using supplementing, expanding, editing, simplifying, personalizing and localizing.
3.7.1. Supplementing
The main purpose of the activity is to provide learners more time and exercises to
practice when studying grammar or vocabulary. At the researcher‟s HPPC College, teachers often apply these methods to help students revise the grammatical structures.
Let‟s see the samples for revision of “some/any” in module 6 as below:
Sample 1: Module 6 - Eating and Drinking Use “some or any” to complete the sentences 3.7.2. Editing
The activity of editing should also be used for the part of pronunciation in the course book NCCE. Beside listening skill, pronunciation should also be taken into consideration as the amount of this part supplied in the book is quite limited.
Particularly, in each module, the book writers only give the examples of word stress, or sentence stress but do not generalize them into form. This caused many troubles for students to pronounce words correctly. Hence, the pronunciation should be referred by adding techniques of the simple issues such as international phonetic and how to use the dictionary to check pronunciation; pronunciation of individual sounds - vowels and 1. Are there _______ eggs in that basket?
2. There aren‟t _______ peppers in the fridge.
3. There is _______ bread on the table.
4. Is there _______ chicken soup?
5. Why don‟t you eat _______ oranges?
6. Would you like _______ coffee?
7. There isn‟t _______ tea in the tea pot.
8. We don‟t need _______ bananas but we need _______ pineapples.
9. Can I have _______ sugar, please?
10. Don‟t buy _______ tomatoes; buy _______ cucumbers because there aren‟t _______ left.
11. I‟d like _______ glass of water.
Are there _______ carrots in the fridge?
consonants; pronunciation of sounds from the tail of the chain and connector words;
word stress and sentence accent; rhythm and intonation. The sample of this activity for pronunciation should be conducted at the beginning of the course in module 0 – (Appendix2)
3.7.2. Expanding
So as to help students revise and enrich their vocabulary, technique of extension should be also suggested. Here is the samples:
Sample 1: Module 3: Everyday life
- The purpose of this part is to provide students with the common verbs which are frequently used in daily activities. After the students finish writing the verbs in the circles, and show the pictures using the verbs, teachers should give some more common verbs to enlarge their vocabulary, and then ask them to discuss in groups to find the phrases going with these verbs such as:
+ Play: kinds of sport (football, badminton, basketball, tennis….) musical instruments (the guitar, the piano, the violin…)
+ Do: exercise, homework, housework, ...
Something, anything, everything, ...
+ Listen: to me, to him, to her,...
to music, to the tape script, to the radio, reason,...
This is a chance for students to not only recall their vocabulary and but also an opportunity for teachers to check their students‟ vocabulary under a certain topic of common verbs.
Sample 2: Module 10 – Street life
- Vocabulary (clothes): this part is aimed at helping students get used to and practice talking about clothes. Actually, this is not a difficult task for students, however due to the limited time and exercises in the book, they don‟t have opportunities to practice these words quite often. Therefore, the game “Clothing Bingo” is expected to improve their vocabulary right in their class and also the chance for the teacher to check their students‟ vocabulary under a certain topic.
- Here are the main steps for teachers‟ instruction:
+ Step 1: PREPARE: Print out different BINGO cards for each child plus a call sheet. Cut out the call sheet and put the squares into a hat or bowl.
+ Step 2: DISTRIBUTE: Hand out one Bingo card to each student (each card should be different).
+ Step 3: CALL: The teachers should pull out one image, describe it and show it to
the students.
+ Step 4: WINNING: Once a predetermined pattern is made on a card, the student with that card calls out BINGO.
3.7.3. Personalizing
There are many ways to motivate students in learning English. Among them, personalizing/localizing should be considered to apply in this book. Students like to talk about themselves and whatever relates to their lives, or their country. As the writer‟s suggestion, teachers should let their students talk about the topics relating to their real life or culturally familiar to their country.
At first, for personalizing activity, in each module, teachers should often create the opportunities for students to share the personal information with their classmates by giving the simple topics such as fv introduce yourself, talk about your hobby, your favorite things,… To help students express their own personality more fluently, in module 4 – Loves and hates, in task of reading “Find an e-mail friend”, after reading a short text about the like and dislike of Teresa, ask students to write about their own hobbies and let them say it to their classmates. It is really useful because through the activity, students may have more time practicing speaking and grammar and then they know more about each other.
3.7.4. Localizing or modifying cultural/situational content
Localizing is somewhat similar to the way of personalization. Obviously, there are few topics or tasks in the book which do not become popular in our lives. Therefore, the teacher should modify them in the way that is easier for them to say. In module 9 – Buying and Selling, in part of reading, page 80-81 (The World‟s most famous market);
it is more useful and interesting if students have chances to find out more about the different famous markets in Vietnam through flash cards.
3.7.5 Simplifying
The activity of simplifying is designed to deal with the situations in which students have troubles with the tasks or exercises beyond their abilities. Listening always becomes the most difficult skill for students of all levels, and this part in the course book also received lots of complaints from the learners. Since the difficult listening tasks and exercises beyond students‟ abilities, some teachers in HPPC do not focus on this skill in class. This led to the result that most students in our college are bad at listening and then they were scared of the final test which focuses much on listening and speaking. So the writer suggested here the activities of simplifying with the sample of module 6: Listening - Breakfast around the world/ Page53
Sample 1: Listen to the tape and fill in the gap with only one word
Kermal: Well, I usually have breakfast at home before I go to..(1).. I always have tea, black tea, maybe two or three glasses. And I have..(2).. cheese and eggs and tomatoes, and in Turkey we have fantastic..(3).. so I usually have bread with..(4).. and..(5).., and sometimes I have..(6).., too.
Mi-Kyung: I always have breakfast with my family. We usually have white..(7).., and we have Kim-chi. We cannot live without Kim-chi! Kimchi is a traditional ..(8).. of mixed Korean..(9).. It‟s very hot and..(10)..
Dimitry: Well, for breakfast, I have tea, usually black tea, with..(11).. and lots of ..(12).. never with milk. Then I have..(13).. and cold meat and some cucumbers as well. And then I have a small..(14).., or some biscuits to finish.
This chapter has presented the results of survey research mainly by questionnaires given to teachers and students at HPPC and the recommendation for the course book‟s adaptation. The writer herself recognized that the above samples of adapting the course book - NCCE are just simple ones done by common techniques. They may not be the best ones but at least, hopefully, they are suitable to elementary students and learning context in our college.
PART C: CONCLUSION