56 DeveloPing mATeriAls for lAnguAge TeAChing

It can be argued that these activities are so open-ended that they may leave the
learner confused about what to do and how to carry out the tasks. However, this
process of awareness development can only be achieved rather slowly and gradually,
getting the learner used to sharing control of the lesson with their teacher, who takes
the roles of co-ordinator and facilitator.
The poem itself is quite open to different interpretations; it offers various points of
discussion and the language used is rather simple and accessible. Learners are also
encouraged to consider their own reading process and their reader response (activities
1, 2, 3). To emphasize their awareness further, the teacher/materials could also choose
to ask the learners to compare the tasks they have just used with more traditional
activities found in a typical example of published materials of their choice.

A model for adapting courses

As can be seen in the above example, the process of adapting courses is inevitably
based on an initial evaluation. Moreover, if, on the one hand, adapting courses becomes
also a responsibility of the learners, on the other hand, this chapter takes the view
that materials developers should produce materials with the specific aim of facilitating
the evaluation and inevitable adaptation process: materials purposely designed to be
adapted later by their users.
In the traditional approach to materials writing, where the whole structure is
prescriptively designed, learners and teachers have to follow activities in a specifically
controlled manner for the unit to achieve its aims and objectives. However, this chapter
promotes an approach to adaptation based on two main points. First, the above mentioned
controlled approach should be broken and replaced by a set of materials much more
flexible and open to different interpretations and adaptations. Second, the element of
critical awareness development should generally be preceded by an aesthetic experience
of the input provided, as further explained later on in this section. Such an alternative
model for adapting courses can be used also as a way to make materials more relevant to
a wider group of learners, reducing the risk of becoming superficial and trivial.

List of key features in materials adaptation

The following is a list of basic key points to take into account when evaluating and
adapting courses. However, these can be used simply as a proposal to be developed
further and adapted to different classroom situations.

learner-centredness and critical awareness development

There is a large amount of literature on learner-centred approaches and principles
(Nunan, 1988). However, there are very few language teaching and learning materials
 ADAPTing Courses 57

which, in my opinion, are truly learner-centred, in the sense that their aims are the
development of learners’ critical awareness, linguistic empowerment and therefore
learner autonomy. The materials should put learners at the centre of the learning
process and make them input providers (hence part of the materials adaption process),
whereas teachers should be facilitators and co-ordinators and should provide a stimulus,
a starting point, for language exposure as well as for different approaches to learning.
Materials adaptation, therefore, should be shared between materials developers,
teachers and learners.

flexibility and choice

Materials should be flexible, in the sense that they should provide learners with the
possibility of choosing different activities, tasks, projects and approaches, thus of
adapting the materials to their own learning needs. At the same time, however, given
the fact that the majority of learners are not used to this type of approach to learning,
they should also be exposed to a variety of different activities and approaches, so
that they themselves become more flexible learners, having experienced different
ways of learning. Materials, then, should, on the one hand, provide choice but, on the
other hand, also enable learners to develop a variety of skills and learning styles by
encouraging them to experience a wide range of tasks and approaches, so that they
may also become more independent learners. Materials can, for example, include a
choice of tasks ranging from analytical ones (such as those based on grammatical
awareness) to more creative ones (such as those based on creative writing). Learners
can be encouraged to experience them all at one point and then also make choices at
a later stage.

open-endedness and aesthetic experience

If materials allow only one possible right answer, they do not leave space for interpretation
and adaptation, whereas if they are open-ended they can become more relevant to
learners. In many ways this is related to the concept of Aesthetic Experience, an idea
which originated from the theory of Aesthetic Response as put forward by Rosenblatt
(1995). Aesthetic Response refers to the process of reacting spontaneously when
reading literary texts, hence it involves interaction between readers, language and texts
(Iser, 1978; Hirvela, 1996). Some of the major elements of such type of experiential
response, such as the voice of the narrator and that of the reader, as well as the role of
the receiver and the one of the producer of the literary input, become overlapping and
interchangeable. Aesthetic Experience, therefore, typically represents the immediate
response to language and literature experienced by the receiver and the producer, as
well as their later interpretations and reactions. Literature and Aesthetic Experience
are inevitably part of a subjective process which is created every time the text is read
or written. Reading and interpretation are always different: we have different reactions
every time we aesthetically experience a poem, a novel, etc. (Saraceni, 2010).
58 DeveloPing mATeriAls for lAnguAge TeAChing

A parallel point should be drawn here between aesthetic experience and materials
adaptation. Aesthetic Experience (Rosenblatt, 1994, 1995; Saraceni, 2010) promotes
the subjectivity of texts and their various interpretations. In a similar way, also materials
for teaching and learning purposes should promote an aesthetic experience, in the
sense that they should, not only be based on right/wrong testing and practice but,
rather, they should also focus on open-ended tasks and texts. For example, in relation
to texts, materials should include also those which are open to many different ideas
and points of view and encourage a variety of interpretations. Therefore, texts and
tasks should be included with the main purpose of promoting a subjective response,
whether this be in relation to a reading text or to a listening one. If materials present
open spaces or gaps (Eco, 1993, 1995), they can allow learners to form their own
interpretations and ideas and, therefore, to take control of the adaptation process. In
this context, the aim of materials moves from comprehension testing, which allows
only a rather superficial intake of the input, to a deeper understanding and awareness
of the language exposure, with the emphasis on individual differences.

relevance
In an attempt to draw a link between the adaptation process and reading, materials left
open-ended, as explained above, have the potential to become relevant to the learners
when they fill those gaps with their ideas, interpretations and discussions. It is only at
this level that materials acquire significance and become potentially beneficial for the
learners. It is, in fact, by virtue of such contributions that materials can be adapted and
developed further. Adaptation is, therefore, essential in making materials relevant and
potentially more effective for learning development.

universality
Materials should be based on universally appealing topics, which are culturally provoking
in the sense that they are culturally specific but, at the same time, they are present in
all cultures. A rich source of this type of topics comes from Literature, which typically
involves themes based on life experiences, feelings, relationships. These are present in
all cultures but they can be looked at from different angles and experienced in different
ways. Universality of topics provides a stimulus for discussion and it enables learners
to focus on and gain a better understanding of cultural differences as well as cultural
commonalities (Jiang, 2000).

Authentic and non-authentic input

Materials should be based on authentic texts, those texts which have been written
for any purpose other than language teaching. At the same time, there should also be
a combination of authentic and non-authentic tasks, based on realistic scenarios, in
 ADAPTing Courses 59

order to expose the learners to realistic input. In my view a significant role is played by
the use of non-authentic tasks with authentic texts. For example, tasks which aim at
drawing the learners’ attention to certain linguistic features of the input with activities
based on texts selected from authentic sources, can be beneficial for language
awareness development.

Provocative topics and tasks

Materials should include topics and activities that can potentially provoke a reaction,
hence an aesthetic experience (whether it be positive or negative) that is personal
and subjective. These can make learning more engaging and perhaps also more
humanistic.
From my point of view, topics are not to be considered intrinsically provocative
but the activities associated with them can potentially make the materials more or
less provocative, thus more or less engaging. In my experience, however, certain
topics related to Personal Life, Family, Parents, Relationships, Emotions, Inner Self can
achieve this aim more effectively, rather than those topics very often associated with
controversy such as Politics, War, Racism, Drugs, etc.
However, although students generally feel engaged when exposed to provocative
topics, at first a few may show some resistance to such personal depths. Students
in general are used to traditional ways of being taught; they are not always ready to
be challenged and to step beyond the usual safer topics. In some cases, they are
so used to teacher-centred teaching, that they find it more reassuring and credible.
This, however, further demonstrates their need to be gradually exposed to different
types of input, to enable them to express their opinions and to further develop their
interpretations and points of view, hence to develop their flexibility as learners.

Conclusions
‘As teachers and methodologists become more aware of SLA research, so teaching
methods can alter to take them into account and cover a wider range of learning.
Much L2 learning is concealed behind such global terms as “communication” or such
two-way oppositions as experiential/analytic [. . .]. To improve teaching, we need to
appreciate learning in all its complexity’ (Cook, 2001, pp. 233–4).
The above statement underlines the multiplicity of views on language teaching
and learning and the same is also reflected on L2 materials development thus more
specifically also on materials adaptation. Nevertheless, more research is needed for
the development of principled, criterion-based materials, as classroom practice and
L2 materials are mostly determined by different trends, which tend to swing from
one extreme to the other. There are, however, examples of research-driven materials
60 DeveloPing mATeriAls for lAnguAge TeAChing

(Tomlinson, 1994) and of research-driven projects and hypotheses related to materials

development (Tomlinson and Masuhara, 2010).
The value of certain alternative and innovative approaches and ideas, such as the
ones proposed in this chapter, is not based so much on empirical evidence, but
on the discussion they can provoke in order to, ultimately, constitute a break from
some of the more widely accepted, teacher-centred practices. Rather than provide
answers, the final purpose of this chapter is to open up possibilities and discussions,
to promote research that would take the process of adaptation beyond a superficial
level.
Moreover, L2 materials can be considered as rather static and can intrinsically
achieve very little, however their value is to be found in the way they are used, hence in
the adaptation process and the potential it can develop in terms of promoting learners’
critical awareness in both language and teacher development courses (Tomlinson,
2003a, 2003b; Tomlinson and Masuhara, 2010). Thus, the importance of adaptation
becomes evident as a key step towards the production of innovative, effective and,
most of all, learner-centred/classroom-centred materials.
This chapter also attempts to put forward the need for materials to promote
learner empowerment, enable learners to express themselves in a foreign language
rather than simply communicate, and ultimately, to enable learners to use the target
language in the same way as they would use their native language. This primarily
involves critical awareness development at different levels.
If, on the one hand, the ideas raised in this chapter may or may not be considered
as the basis for the development of a research-driven model for adapting materials, on
the other hand they certainly represent a different approach to adapting courses, and
to developing materials for language teaching/learning purposes. With such a model,
the adaptation process is considered at two levels:

l adapting materials with the purpose of making them effective and relevant
to a specific classroom;
l adapting materials with the purpose of changing their objectives, in order
to reduce the distance between research and classroom practice.

The former refers to the more traditional way of looking at the adaptation process,
where teachers and learners contribute to adding value to the materials when adapting
them to their specific context. The latter represents one of the most significant points
of this chapter, for it is probably taking the adaptation process a step further towards
raising awareness of materials development and learner empowerment.
This chapter, therefore, advocates a somewhat different role of learners and
teachers within the framework of L2 materials development. The teaching and
learning context should be considered as a whole, whereby we talk about learner
empowerment (Maley, 1998) rather than learner under-involvement (Allwright, 1978,
 ADAPTing Courses 61

1981). Developing critical awareness of learning and teaching is the main aim of
adapting and evaluating courses; learners can become, gradually, the main input
providers, whereas the teacher’s role is simply that of facilitator, co-ordinator and
monitor. In this context, adapting courses aims at gaining a better insight into the
principles of language learning, teacher development and materials design.

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The poem The Enemies is taken from:

Jennings, E. (1979), Selected Poems. Carcanet Press Ltd.