Principles of materials selection and adaptation.

Principles of materials selection and adaptation.

1. Principle in selecting and adapting materials in (learners' roles)

   • Learner commitment
     • Sense of commitment could be created throughout learner's creative involvement in adapted materials that engage learner's interest.
   • As materials writer and collaborator.
     • Cooperation will be developed when they work together as group members and with teacher rather than just being 'language receiver'.
       • In groups.
       • In pairs.
   • As problem solver.
     • Learners have to solve meaningful problem on the adapted materials activity so their focus will be on materials creation.
   • As 'knower' rather than 'assimilators'.
     • To produce a piece of materials, learners have to do research in certain areas of language and become expert in those area for them to transmit the knowledge to others.
   • As evaluator and assessor.
     • The learners can control over materials content by assess the relevance, their interest and own level of achievement, played their part in creating task or activity.

2. Principle in selecting and adapting materials in (teachers' roles)

   • Teacher could promote sense of autonomy, ownership and empowerment in students .
     • Understanding of students-centredness by giving materials that promotes independent learning.
     • Provide real books that are sensitive to students' needs, accordance to their level of development that linked to the level of complexity and rates of progression.
   • Teacher could do some measurement in knowing whether the ownership has achieved.
     • Tests
     • Observation
   • Provide hands-on experience and concrete experience

3. Principle in selecting and adapting materials (for language acquisition)

   • Learners are exposed to a rich, meaningful, and comprehensible input of language in use. (Krashen, 1999, Long, 1985)
     • Variety of text types and genres related to topics, themes, events, locations and etc.
     • Live performances of stories, jokes, extracts from novels and play and etc.
   • Learners have to engaged both affectively and cognitively in the language experience to maximise their exposure to language they used. (Arnold, 1999; Tomlinson, 1998a, 1998c, forthcoming 2010, forthcoming 2011a).
     • Able to transfer high-order thinking skills
       • Predicting
       • Connecting
       • Evaluating
       • Interpreting
     • Having positive and pleasurable emotions in learning.
   • Those who achieve positive affect are more likely to achieve communicative competence than those who do not. (Arnold, 1999; Tomlinson, 1998c)
     • Learners have to achieve positive self-esteem and for them to achieve their worthwhile.
     • Set achievable challenges to raise their self-esteem.
     • The tasks and texts are interesting, relevant, and enjoyable to exert a positive influence in learners' attitudes to their learning of the language.
   • Learners gain benefit from noticing language items or features of the input.
     • Develop language awaremess to achieve readiness for acquisition.
   • Learners have to use the language in order to achieve communicative purposes by providing opportunities for real communication with real people.
     • Discussion groups.
     • Writing a letter.
     • Responses to requests

4. Principle of selecting and adapting materials

   • Age
   • Gender
   • Level
   • Purposes for learning the language
   • Amount of class learning time
   • Learners wants and needs
   • Learning style preferences
   • Attitudes to self-access
   • Previous experience in using self- access materials