Teaching materials: adopting and adapting

participation.
Nevertheless, no matter how useful the 
authentic materials are, they can be 
disadvantageous as well. Richards (2001) 
points out authentic materials often 
contain difficult language, unneeded 
vocabulary items and complex language 
structures, which causes a burden for the 
teachers in lower-level classes. Case 
(2012) argues that authentic materials’ 
vocabulary is not graded and there might 
be language and cultural references that 
even native speakers from other countries, 
areas or age groups would not 
understand. Likewise, Martinez (2002) 
mentions that authentic materials may be 
too culturally biased and too many 
structures are mixed, causing lower levels 

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have a hard time decoding the texts. Since 
most teachers always used authentic 
material unedited, it is important and 
necessary to be careful when selecting 
the materials to be used in class, i.e., to 
consider in accordance with the topic, 
target language area, skills, time and 
students’ needs and interests, more 
importantly, the students’ language 
proficiency level. 
Adapting materials
As discussed earlier that teachers can 
use the assigned textbooks or select the 
most suitable commercial textbook. 
However, they need to consider the 
immediate context including the students’ 
language proficiency level in the assigned 
class and utilize the additional materials 
to achieve the goals of the course. To 
serve different student individual, the 
teachers can simply adapt the materials.
Considerations and evaluation of 
materials 
The teachers’ adaptation of materials 
should reflect the concern of the course’s 
objectives as well as learning atmosphere 
and the student learning achievement.
When teachers think that teaching 
materials do not completely serve the 
objectives of the lesson or they may be a 
barrier to student learning instead of 
enhancing it, the teachers need to adapt 
the materials to get the best of the 
material use. Furthermore, adaptation 
allows students greater access to the 
information to be taught. 
More importantly, teachers should bear 
in mind that the students’ linguistic ability 
is beyond the normal course book 
assigned for the class. Therefore, the 
material adaptation is needed to make 
the task more real and more personal and 
closer to the students’ own experiences. 
Then the students can actually learn the 
most efficiently through the i+1 
assumption (Krashen, 2009). 
Teachers can use the following 
questions to consider when evaluating 
and preparing teaching materials: 
1. What are the purposes of the course? 
2. What is the students’ language 
proficiency? 
3. What are the students’ learning styles? 
4. Will the students know anything 
about the topic? 
5. Will the students be interested in 
the topic? 
6. If not, how can I make it more 
interesting and bring it to life? 
7. How can I introduce the topic? 
8. How can I activate the students’ 
background knowledge? 

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9. What language items in the material 
can be difficulties for students 
10. Is the language difficulty level 
suitable for the particular group of 
students?
11. Is the content of the material very 
abstract, complex, with too much 
information? 
12. Do the activities give students cues 
about how to think about or study the 
information? 
13. What support will the students 
need to tackle the task? 
14. Is the activity appropriate for the 
age group? 
15. If not, how will I bridge the gap? 
16. What’s the point of the activity? 
17. What will students be learning? 
Having assessed and prepared the 
materials to be used, teachers will have a 
clear picture about the teaching method 
and possible techniques.