Full name: Nguyen Dang Ky Phuong
Student ID: 2157011061
Class: 2321NVA101.1L02
Date: 13th March, 2024
Materials Development for Language Teaching
Individual Assignment 2
Topic: Choose a unit/chapter of the selected coursebook and write an essay of 300-500 words to adapt the
materials in terms of language aspects (grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation).
Continuing with Unit 2, this essay will present some personal viewpoints regarding ways to better adapt
the material to teach the language aspects: grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation.
The grammar items included in unit 2 are past simple and past continuous tenses with features such as
verbs in the past form, and sub-units: affirmative, negative, and question forms (a focus on forms). Meaning and
use of the tenses are also described clearly for learners (p.144), but only after the Engage stage. However, it
would be more advantageous to combine them and teach collectively at once to prevent learners’ feeling
disengaged during the Study stage. The communicative activity “describe your past holiday” would be adopted
to reinforce the use of these tenses. Moreover, the material makes an attempt to teach grammar inductively,
which is demonstrated through teaching past continuous tense by listening activities. In addition, the material
makes an effort to teach grammar inductively by eliciting (in teaching past continuous). To be specific, learners
will spend their first time listening to people using the structure (2B, activity 3, teach grammar through
listening). Afterwards, they have to look into the examples again to find out in what situations people will use
this structure (there is a check box to help learners identify the uses) and the next step is to complete grammar
exercises (Study stage). During this part, teachers can adapt by making use of the given story to ask learners
what kinds of holiday they used to have (terrible or wonderful?) and let them tick the experiences that they had
in common with the examples, or they can add their own experiences here. Overall, learners will develop a
deeper understanding of when and how to use these tenses.
Considering teaching vocabulary, engaging learners in an activity focused on holiday items offers an
opportunity for them to recall their existing knowledge. During this activity, teachers can either take notes of
responses on the whiteboard or make use of an application called “Mentimeter”, which displays all answers on a
screen, facilitating class’s review and enhancing the retrieval process. After this phase, learners can refer to
page 133 for extra items. Recognizing that some learners may be unfamiliar with certain words, teachers can
employ some strategies to teach meaning such as verbal descriptions and visual aids (pictures). In the listening
exercise regarding various holiday items on page 133 (2A), the textbook has already provided learners with
pictures to ensure the understanding of all eight items. However, this approach may be regarded as unengaging
if learners merely focus on finding answers to a controlled practice. The adaptation here would be adding an
interactive activity like guessing games (students need to describe the words verbally to their peers) to
encourage learners’ participation and promote a deeper understanding of new words (after Study stage). Though
new collocations are written in bold with a view to emphasizing, teachers have to teach meanings in this part to
ensure that learners can have sufficient input to complete the activity d on page 133.
Introducing the pronunciation of the -ed ending /ɪd/ initially might be suitable at this level, allowing
teachers to cover the remaining two rules in the next session. However, while activity 5 in 2A introduces the
first rule of pronunciation, following pronunciation activities focus on joining words and stress in past simple,
which would divert learners from the flow of learning -ed endings. To ensure comprehension, it is necessary to
replace the joining word part with the instruction on pronouncing the -ed ending /t/ and continue with other
features as mentioned in the material.
To sum up, detailed as the book is in order to teach different language skills, there are a few parts in the
language aspects that need changes so that learners can find it easier to “engage, study, and activate” what they
have learned.
References:
Cunningsworth, A. (1995). Checklist for Phonology.
Cunningsworth, A. (1995). Choosing Your Coursebook. Heinemann.
Doff, A., Thaine, C., Puchta, H., Lewis-Jones, P., Stranks, J., Godfrey, R., & Davies, G. (2015). Cambridge
English empower pre-intermediate student's book. Cambridge University Press.
P/s: There is a misunderstanding on the assignment 1 as I cited the book as “intermediate” instead of “pre-
intermediate”. I’m sorry for any inconvenience caused :(
