Teaching materials: adopting and adapting

 
Adopting material 
A. Using Textbooks 
A convenient and easy way to adopt a 
material is to use an existing textbook. 
Once assigned to teach a course, new 
teachers have freedom of material 
selection and how to teach with their own 
lesson plans. Novice English Teachers may 
look for relevant commercial textbooks by 
publishers or a course book with syllabus 
designed by previous teachers based on 
the curriculum specification. The teachers 
can simply follow units in the selected 
textbook and its activities or provide other 
supplementary materials. They have to 
primarily familiarize themselves with the 
textbook and seek further supporting 
information and clarification about how to 
use it as classroom teaching material in an 
accompanying teacher’s manual.
Teachers should be able to choose 
materials that are the best suitable for the 
students’ needs in terms of the course’s 
goals and objectives, their language 
proficiency and learning styles. Amerian 
(2014) concludes in his research findings 
that benefits of a textbook can be derived 
from its contents - a list of vocabulary, 
grammatical structures, functions and 
reading passages, etc. As textbooks are 
various; no course book can be absolutely 
ideal for a particular group of learners 
(Cunningworth, 1995). It is essential for the 
teachers to know how to evaluate a 
textbook and select appropriate additional 
materials to use.
Using textbooks has its own value.
Some consider them valid, useful, and 
labor-saving tools. A textbook provides 
ready-made teaching texts and learning 
tasks. A textbook can be a framework that 
regulates and times the particular course. 
A textbook is an economic way of 

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วารสารวิชาการ สถาบันเทคโนโลยีแห่งสุวรรณภูมิ 
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providing learning materials. With a 
textbook, a learner has focus and can be 
independent. For novice teachers a 
textbook means security, guidance, and 
support. They feel secured as they are 
ascertained that their teaching is on the 
right track and is likely to be successful.
However, textbooks have some 
disadvantages. A textbook has its own 
themes and framework; it doesn't take 
students' background knowledge into 
account and they may not concern 
student’s interest. Textbook questions 
tend to be low level or fact-based and it 
has all the answers to all the questions 
(Harwood, 2010). Thus, the students’ 
critical thinking skill is not well-enhanced.
Moreover, Reading level of the textbook is 
usually too difficult. 
As textbooks can have disadvantages, 
when selecting one, textbook evaluation 
needs to be taken into account. There 
are several ways to evaluate a textbook; 
however, one popular checklist is 
Miekley’s (2005). He suggests what to 
consider in his textbook evaluation 
checklist. Teachers have to evaluate the 
selected one by examining it and answer 
the following questions. It is not necessary 
that all the questions have to be 
answered and that all the answers have to 
be definitely accurate. These questions
are merely a guidedance.
For content aspect: Is the subject
matter presented either topically or 
functionally in a logical, organized 
manner? Does the content serve as a 
window into learning about the target 
language culture (American, British, etc.)? 
Are the reading selections authentic 
pieces of language? Compared to texts for 
native speakers, does the content contain 
real-life issues that challenge the reader 
to think critically about his/her worldview? 
Are the text selections representative of 
the variety of literary genres, and do they 
contain multiple sentence structures?
For Vocabulary and Grammar: Are the 
grammar rules presented in a logical 
manner and in increasing order of 
difficulty? Are the new vocabulary words 
presented in a variety of ways? Are the 
new vocabulary words presented at an 
appropriate rate so that the text is 
understandable and so that students are 
able to retain new vocabulary? Are the 
new vocabulary words repeated in 
subsequent lessons to reinforce their 
meaning and use?
Miekly (2005) further suggests 
consideration regarding exercises and 
activities. Are there interactive and task-
based activities that require students to 
use new vocabulary to communicate? Do 

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instructions in the textbook tell students 
to read for comprehension? Are top-
down and bottom-up reading strategies 
used? Are students given sufficient 
examples to learn top-down techniques 
for reading comprehension? Do the 
activities facilitate students' use of 
grammar rules by creating situations in 
which these rules are needed? Does the 
text make comprehension easier by 
addressing one new concept at a time 
instead of multiple new concepts? Do the 
exercises promote critical thinking of the text?
Lastly, for attractiveness of the text 
and physical Make-up, the questions to 
consider are: Is the cover of the book 
appealing? Is the visual imagery of high 
aesthetic quality? Are the illustrations 
simple enough and close enough to the 
text that they add to its meaning rather 
than detracting from it? Is the text 
interesting enough that students will enjoy? 
Teachers can go through a particular 
textbook that interests them, then think 
and try to answer the suggested questions 
for the lessons’ focus points. Then the 
decision on whether to use the particular 
book can be made. This evaluation 
checklist can also be adapted to evaluate 
other materials whenever teachers have 
to prepare new materials for classroom 
use.