ELT MATERIALS

SELECTION AND
ADAPTATION
BY : LAILA HAIRANI BT.
ABDULLAH SANGGURA

You can either choose to adopt or to

adapt your materials.
If you choose to adapt, here are 12
procedures which you can use to
suit your needs.

1. Expansion
Text must be lengthened in some way.
 Add one or more sentences/paragraphs
to the beginning and end of the text.

 Turn a prose narrative into a

screenplay
 Add specific items/ sentences within the
text (e.g. adjectives).
 Add comment within the text.

Example- Expansion
Thanks for your letter. I was sorry to hear that a gang
of thieves broke into your house and stole some of
your mothers jewellery. I hope the police catch them
quickly. Its tragic to experience theft. It happened to
us two years ago. They stole a lot of electrical
appliances and some of my mothers jewellery too.
We gave the police lots of information about the stolen
articles and they managed to find most of the
appliances but some of my mothers beautiful sets of
jewellery were lost forever. Such loss was a great
blow to all of us.
Adapted from Jagjeet Singh & Adrian Holden (2003)
New Remedial English Grammar

Task - Expansion
1. Why do you need to expand a text?
2. How would you expand the following text?
The blaze crackled. Fire licked up the walls
and roof of the house. The fire continued to
rage. It showed no mercy to anyone.
The blaze crackled furiously as the fire licked
up the wooden walls and roof of the house at
the edge of the forest. The fire continued to
rage fiercely and showed no mercy to anyone.

2. Reduction
Text must be shortened in some way.
 Remove clauses/specified items
(e.g. adjectives)/sentences.
 Combines sentences.
 Rewrite in a different format.
SAMPLE

Task - Reduction
1. Why do you need to shorten a text?
2. How would you shorten the following text?
It takes about four hours from Kuala Lumpur,
and you get the chance to see little towns
like Bidor, Manjung and Setiawan that are
sprinkled along the journey.
It takes about four hours from Kuala Lumpur,
and you pass little towns along the journey.

3. Media Transfer
Text must be transferred into a diff.
medium or format.
 Transfer into a visual form (e.g. pictures,
graphs, maps, tables)
 Turn prose into a poem (vise versa)
 Turn a letter into a newspaper article
(vise versa)
 Turn headline into proverb (vise versa)
 Turn poem into an advertising slogan
(vise versa)
SAMPLE

4. Matching
A connection must be found between
the text and something else.
 Match text with a visual representation.
 Match text with a title/another text.
 Match text with a voice/music.

MATCHING

5. Selection/ranking
Text must be chosen according to
some given criterion/placed in order
of suitability for a given criterion.
 Choose the best text for a given purpose.
 Choose the most/least (difficult, personal,
complex,etc.) text.
 Choose words from a text to act as an
appropriate title.

ADAPTED REC PE

Package

6. Comparison/contrast
Points of similarity/difference must be
identified between two or more texts.
 Identify words/expressions common to
both texts.
 Identify words/phrases in one text which
are paraphrased in the other.
 Identify ideas which are common to both
texts.
 Identify facts present in one text and not
in the other.
 Compare grammatical/lexical complexity

7. Reconstruction
Coherence/completeness must be
restored to an incomplete/defective text.
 Insert appropriate words/phrases into gapped
texts.
 Reorder jumbled words, lines, sentences,
paragraphs,etc.
 Reconstruct sentences/texts from a word array.
 Reconstitute a written text from an oral
presentation (various types of dictation).
 Remove sentences/lines which do not belong in
the text.

8. Reformulation
Text must be expressed in a form
different from the original without loss
of essential meanings
 Retell a story from memory/notes.
 Use key words to rewrite a text.
 Rewrite in a different format (e.g. prose
as poem)
 Rewrite in a different mood or style.

9. Interpretation
Personal knowledge/experience must
be used to clarify and extend the
meaning(s) of the text.
 What does this remind you?
 What image does this produce?
 What associations does it have?
 What questions do you wish to ask the
author?
 What does the text not say that it might
have said?
 Formulate WH-questions on the text.

10. Creating text

Text is to be used as a springboard
for the creation of the new text.
 Write a parallel text on a different
theme.
 Use the same story outline/model to
write a new text.
 Use the same title but write a new text.
 Combine these texts to create a new
text.

11. Analysis
Text is to be submitted to some form of
language-focused scrutiny.
 Work out the ratio of one-word and two-word
verbs.
 How many different tenses are used? Which are
most/least frequent?
 How many content (or function) words does the
text contain?
 List the different ways in which the word X is
referred to in the text (Anaphoric reference).
 List all the words to do with(the sea, movement,
ecology, etc.) in this text.

12. Project
Text is used as a springboard for some
related practical work with a concrete
outcome.
 Use the text as a centerpiece of an
advertising campaign. First decide on
the product. Then design the campaign
posters, advertising jingles, etc. Finally
present the product as a TV commercial
(which must incorporate the text). If
possible, video it.

 This is about the problem of X. Design a

questionnaire on this problem for other
groups to complete. Tabulate the result
and present them to the rest of the class.
 This text presents a particular point of
view. With a partner, prepare a brief
magazine article which either supports or
disagrees with this point of view. In both
cases, you will need to collect ideas and
examples to support your own point of
view. Display the articles on the class
notice-board.

R din m ts

Task: Group work

1. Using at least one or a combination of
techniques given, select and adapt any
material(s) of your choice for a reading
lesson. Your lesson must show an
integration of skills.
2. Prepare questions/tasks for any two of the
stages: Pre and While reading or
While and Post reading.
3. Present your work to the class.

References:
Cunningsworth, A.(1995). Choosing Your Coursebook.
Oxford: MacMillan Education
Leela Mohd Ali & Thurgood, G. (1991). Materials
Production & Adaptation. An Integrated Approach.
Kuala Lumpur: Federal Publications.
Ministry of Education Malaysia. (1991). Teaching
Compendium Vol. 3. Kuala Lumpur:
Tomlinson,B. (2002). Materials Development in
Language Teaching. UK: Cambridge University Press.