122Academic Research in Educational Sciences VOLUME 2 | ISSUE 10 | 2021
ISSN: 2181-1385
Scientific Journal Impact Factor (SJIF) 2021: 5.723 Directory Indexing of International Research Journals-CiteFactor 2020-21: 0.89
DOI: 10.24412/2181-1385-2021-10-739-744
CRITERIA OF SELECTION AND ADAPTATION OF AUTHENTIC MATERIAL FOR ENGLISH LESSONS
Khilola Shomansurovna Khamidova
Department of "Applied English" senior teacher
Tashkent State Technical University, Under name of Islom Karimov
ABSTRACT
We should mention that criteria of selection authentic materials for teaching reading, speaking, writing, listening in the English language with professional-informational sightseeing for the students at the Universities. In according with the demand of university programs, the aim of teaching English defines set of tasks, skill to read original literature on the specialty and pass the conversation in a professional field.
Keywords: authentic material, adaptation, cognitive, communicative, congruence, criteria, professional field, skill, syllabus.
In our way of thinking, criteria of selection and adaptation of authentic material for English lessons is the main part of teaching foreign language.
In this article we should regard criteria of selection authentic materials for teaching reading, speaking, writing, listening in the English language with professional- informational sightseeing for the students at the Universities. Learning foreign language at the Universities is the main part of professional training for future specialist. Foreign language has a huge educational potential and successful possession which able to work at the level of world standards.
In according with the demand of university programs, the aim of teaching English defines set of tasks, skill to read original literature on the specialty and pass the conversation in a professional field. One of the main problems which we can meet in teaching English is reading. As Jacobson told that selected teaching materials should consider communicative and cognitive interests and requirements on the participants and correspond to the levels of difficulty in speech skills in native and foreign languages and the material should keep interesting information for every student. Of course, teaching foreign language at the Universities is required strong selection of the material. It is signed in psychological and methodic literature that selected material is able to call interest in the strength of content novelty and
Academic Research in Educational Sciences VOLUME 2 | ISSUE 10 | 2021
ISSN: 2181-1385
Scientific Journal Impact Factor (SJIF) 2021: 5.723 Directory Indexing of International Research Journals-CiteFactor 2020-21: 0.89
DOI: 10.24412/2181-1385-2021-10-739-744
professional interest on the students. Selected materials should correspond with teaching English which consist of students' interests and they have to try to get professional important information. In this case we should orientate on the text and pay attention students' interests. Criteria of selected materials must pay attention on the structure of specialty and its connection with future professional activities.
The first criteria is professional activity which directed to special information of English text. This criteria defines future spheres of activity (practical and theoretical), in professional communication. Selected materials are used in the process of conversation on practical and theoretical matter in the field of professional communicative sphere.
The second criteria of selected material in the English language is connected with authentic materials. In this position we understand such text which created by native speakers. These texts will be given without any changing. In the plan of language parts selected texts should correspond with modern lexis (vocabulary) and grammatical norms of English. And of course such texts are "natural" and are not produced for teaching aims. But we can see a great of useful parts of authentic materials. In the process of teaching reading English authentic texts increase the degree of participating students' cognitive process in their speech. Here, the special point is thinking and especially such thinking operations as analysis and synthesis. All such authentic materials give the base of confirm.
Criteria of functional- stylistic and genre demand special literature and oral communication on the specialty in the English language. This given criteria influences significantly on the choosing of special literature for learning reading, listening, writing and speaking.
In addition to our words, we can put different videos in the process of teaching. And such matters interest the students more and more and help the students to get more information, learn English effectively with results.
The most important (in our point of view) thing is a such criteria which gives professional and language preparation of the student. From this criteria we can define successful teaching the English language.
It is indisputable, and the fact that the study of literature is also very important motivation. Students will read with interest the literature and the texts that meet their educational needs. For example, they correspond to their professional interests. However, the university students often begin with a specialization from 3rd year, for instance, at the time when the course of study to the foreign (English) language have
Academic Research in Educational Sciences VOLUME 2 | ISSUE 10 | 2021
ISSN: 2181-1385
Scientific Journal Impact Factor (SJIF) 2021: 5.723 Directory Indexing of International Research Journals-CiteFactor 2020-21: 0.89
DOI: 10.24412/2181-1385-2021-10-739-744
already passed. These discrepancy terms of teaching and the timing of specialization create additional difficulties in the selection of texts on specialties.
Teacher should pay attention that fact that a great of students use English not only for specialty but also for their own purposes. And it is fact that texts should be more difficult for the students. Why? Because, they should work with new vocabulary and learn it. We also know that teacher is not "narrow specialist" in this field. In other words, difficulty of teaching texts for reading in the English language should raise step by step, "from simple to difficult". With such way, students begin learn English more and more in 1st and 2nd courses. It should signed that choice of passed criteria depend on teaching methodology of foreign languages at the faculties. We should also know about the following. Criteria of selection and adaptation of authentic material for English lessons are one of the main issues. Adaptation is a process which involves certain criteria to become effective in learning. Researchers have identified a number of them in this regard. But in this article, it has been tried to list six criteria that are regarded as working enough to follow in adapting authentic materials.
Adaptation should facilitate instruction.
Teachers sometimes find their authentic materials difficult and unsuitable to teach due mostly to lack of harmony in subjects, incongruity of subjects and given teaching methodology, etc. Materials should, thus, be instructionally easy to implement. The pedagogic presentation of materials, as one of the key factors that can underscore the effectiveness of materials in foreign language settings, can enable teachers to adapt the suitable teaching methodologies, models and techniques to them in a variety of learning situations. Teachers can employ them to facilitate the learning process by consciously choosing what is theoretically and practically true and apt to teach. It is in this criterion that teachers reword instructions as to materials in order to make them more accessible or acquirable, manageable, understandable, analyzable, digestible and communicable to learners.
Adaptation should encourage learning.
Sometimes learners complain that they cannot learn what they have studied during the term. Authentic materials seem to be richly-structured, replete with lots of passive and unfamiliar words and complicated discourse. Thus, they should be developed according to the level of students. They should be designed unambiguously so as to boost learners' comprehensibility as well as their self-
Academic Research in Educational Sciences VOLUME 2 | ISSUE 10 | 2021
ISSN: 2181-1385
Scientific Journal Impact Factor (SJIF) 2021: 5.723 Directory Indexing of International Research Journals-CiteFactor 2020-21: 0.89
DOI: 10.24412/2181-1385-2021-10-739-744
confidence. They should enhance the learners' learning awareness. They should also inform learners of how well they have performed and how they have progressed.
Adaptation should focus on learners.
Because authentic materials are not designed according to learners' needs most often, learners give no special care towards what the materials convey, or it is difficult for learners to communicate with the content. Since the notion underlying the currently-favored teaching models and methodologies have stressed the role in the learning process, students' needs, interests and views should be included in designing the materials. Pedagogically, there are two types of materials development. The first is the Negotiated syllabus which is internally generated or the product of the negotiation between teacher and students, and the second is externally imposed syllabus, which is the syllabus imposed by an external body such as the teacher, an institution or any other administrative authority. In authentic materials, everything is infused into the learners. They are imposed by authorities in charge which carry their thoughts, demands and decisions, degrading the active role of the learners. According to the current studies, the development of a language course curriculum should be adapted to the learning preferences and expectations. So the focus is supposed to be on the materials designed as result of a negotiation or a mutual understanding between both parties, i.e., the learners and the teacher. In this case, the materials and learners at the center of the learning process and make them the main input providers. They are:
a) Adaptation should ensure relevance.
Materials should be relevant because they should be worth teaching. They should be aligned and suited with the planned course objectives or with what is expected of.
b) Adaptation should prompt flexibility.
Authentic materials are not as flexible as expected as the learner styles, needs and learning environments are sure to change. Materials should be flexible so that teachers will be able to easily adapt what they teach to agree with a particular setting and a particular group of learners. In other words, teachers should provide learners with "the possibility of choosing different activities, tasks, projects and approaches, and therefore of adapting the materials to their own preferred learning needs" .
c) Adaptation in terms of motivationally.
The issue of whether the materials are motivating is not easy to decide on by itself. The materials can motivate learners when all of the aforementioned criteria are
Academic Research in Educational Sciences VOLUME 2 | ISSUE 10 | 2021
ISSN: 2181-1385
Scientific Journal Impact Factor (SJIF) 2021: 5.723 Directory Indexing of International Research Journals-CiteFactor 2020-21: 0.89
DOI: 10.24412/2181-1385-2021-10-739-744
taken into account. The lack of any one of the above will result in learners' demotivation, not necessarily in the lack of motivation but in a state in which learners gradually feel that they are losing their motivation because any one of the given criteria fills in part of the learners' needs. So, we suggest to know about drawbacks of materials adaption in the English lessons. Many findings have stressed the ineffectiveness of authentic materials in especially foreign language contexts and identified a number of shortcomings they have and this trend prompted the researchers to take into account the issue of adapting the published materials to the learners' local context.
This process has offered some great advantages, but the researchers and educators haven't identified its limitations and drawbacks and left behind the consequences it may bring about. In the following article, we have introduced certain limitations of materials adaptation.
1. Adaptation is a time-consuming process. It calls for in-advance and afterward case studies, action research, surveys, etc. It is not claimed to be a day's task. Such contextual variables as age, social status, gender, ethnicity, race, as well as students' background knowledge, learning needs, learning styles, course objectives, and students' levels are to be put into careful and adequate consideration and study in relation to a specific learning context.
2. Adaptation needs professionalism. Evaluation in order to adapt the materials to the students' learning context is not an undertaking to be carried out by anyone with any expertise. The people must be skilled in developing materials and have a diagnostic and analytic view of the local learning contexts. Even the teachers must be experienced, knowledgeable and qualified.
3. Adaptation cannot be universally and equally appealing.
Adaptation is a process which needs to be of local interest. Because of such factors as cultural differences, ethnicity, educational systems, peculiar environments of learning, etc., materials appealing to one learning context may not be similarly attractive to another.
4. Adaptation may be affected by the flexibility.
Sometimes the people in charge of adapting materials go to extremes due mostly to lack of enough knowledge of the given materials, unfamiliarity with learning contexts, psychological concerns, fatigue, lack of enough time, personal, political, religious, bias, gender favoritism, etc.
Academic Research in Educational Sciences VOLUME 2 | ISSUE 10 | 2021
ISSN: 2181-1385
Scientific Journal Impact Factor (SJIF) 2021: 5.723 Directory Indexing of International Research Journals-CiteFactor 2020-21: 0.89
DOI: 10.24412/2181-1385-2021-10-739-744
5. Adaptation fails to take into account all learners' needs equally.
There is no denying that learners differ in needs. Therefore, these needs must be analyzed in making pedagogical decisions especially materials development. Although needs analysis is an indispensable part of curriculum/materials development, can we adapt the materials by considering all the individual needs of EFL learners in all the learning contexts? Can adaptation take into account all the given learners' psychological, social, affective and learning variables in different learning contexts equally? Of course, no.
6. Adaptation cannot establish congruence between learners, teachers, methodologies, administrators, publishers' expectations, as well as those of course objectives at the same time.
Adaptation seems to have different meanings. For learners, it means facilitation of language learning. For teachers, it is the facilitation of teaching process. Based on the teaching methodologies, it should correspond to pedagogical principles. For administrators, it often means "ease of standardization". For publishers, it is a matter of making profits. And the course objectives require that adaptation fulfill what has been planned for the given course. Therefore, it seems to be almost impossible to match all these attitudes in order to make an effective process of materials adaptation
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5. Rogers, C., & Medley, F. Language with a purpose: Using authentic materials in the foreign language classroom. Foreign Language Annals, 21, (1988). p.467-478.
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