1. TOPIC 23. PRODUCTION OF ENGLISH
LANGUAGE CURRICULAR MATERIALS.
CRITERIA FOR THE SELECTION AND
USE OF TEXTBOOKS. AUTHENTIC AND
ADAPTED MATERIALS: LIMITATIONS OF
USAGE. STUDENT COLLABORATION IN
DESIGNING MATERIAL.

2. INTRODUCTION
Royal Decree 1513/ 2006 states an open
and flexible curriculum, so we, as teachers, can
and must adapt the contents and materials to
our students. The materials are quite important
in the learning process since they help teachers
to develop the contents and, of course,
consequently to achieve the objectives. Our
classroom materials are essential to create
learning scenarios and experiences. They
increase students’ interest and motivation.
Nowadays, there are a great variety of materials
available for teaching English, teachers should
take into account a careful selection and design
in order to attend different learning styles within
the same classroom.

3. MATERIALS FOR ENGLISH LESSONS
The teacher is the most important learning resource a
class can have because has to decide what kind of
materials are better for their students. We know that
each group is not different and learn in different ways,
even within the classroom there is diversity. We can find
visual students who learn with pictures, flashcards,
posters, etc; auditory students require a lot of listening
activities, and kinaesthetic learners who learn through
movement and manipulation of physical materials.
Careful selection of materials for teaching English
plays a fundamental role. The way they are designed,
their colours, their distribution, and their content will give
form to the learning process and keep students
interested and motivated.

4. • To present new language.
• To revise known language.
• As a controlled practice of new language and
known language.
• For creating free communicative scenarios.
MATERIALS FOR ENGLISH LESSONS
As we have seen materials are quite important in the learning
process and facilitate our job. They can serve for a wide range of
purpose:
The teacher should use a great variety of materials in order to reach
every student and provide a rich learning environment in the classroom.

5. Materials
There are a lot of types of materials available for teaching English:
• Printed materials: textbooks, magazines, newspapers,
handouts, dictionaries and other publications.
• Visual materials: posters, murals, flashcards or maps.
• Audio materials are essential for the teaching of listening:
songs, radio, podcats, stories, dialogues, etc.
• Audiovisual materials combine visual and auditory content.
E.g. videos, movies, cartoons, commercials, video clips, TV
programs, etc. These can be reinforced with English subtitles to
develop also reading skills.
• Computer materials nowadays are the most interesting
materials for our students. As ICT Schools 2.0 we can use
computers with a wide range of both online and offline
activities, laptops and the digitalboard in the 3rd cycle.
• Realia are materials that come from the real world. For
example if you are teaching foods bring in an apple, a banana.

6. TEXTBOOKS
Textbook have been the most commonly resources used in
English classroom. Our legal framework highlights the
importance of developing communicative competences.
This involves the command of the four language skills
with special consideration to the oral ones (listening and
speaking). This is the reason why nowadays the majority
of textbooks include additional materials such as CD or
DVD, flashcards, videos and other support with a wide
range of possibilities for our foreign language lessons.
Teachers should add extra materials and skip over the
exercises that they don’t consider important for the
students. Working with TBA, the students can complete a
final task through activities the teacher proposes and
these tasks can coincide with the contents of the units
proposed in the textbook. For example, if the topic is
about clothes, the final task could be a “fashion show”.

7. The selection of textbooks
• They should be attractive for the students.
• They should fulfil the objectives proposed in the
curriculum.
• They should provide content appropriate to the students’
level and interests.
• They should use a variety of activities.
• They should be based on an active methodology.
• They should provide diverse supplementary materials.
• They should have a strong multicultural focus.
• They should illustrate cultural elements of English
speaking countries.
• They should work the basic competences.

8. • Textbooks are designed for a general group of
students of a level without taking into account
their sociocultural differences, their previous
knowledge, interests, etc.
• Textbook contents can be idealistic, giving the
impression of a world were everything is safe,
clean, harmonious and undisturbed.
• Many students find textbooks boring.
• Textbooks give the impression of preparing
students to pass exams.
• Textbooks are quite fixed and general, its
structure is quite repetitive.
Disadvantages of using textbooks

9. Advantages of using textbooks
• The students feel secure.
• The pupils can feel a sense of progress and
achievement.
• They always have the book as a tool for review and
study.
• The textbooks meet the requirements set by the
government.
• The show the material in an organised and coherent
way.
• They often have activity books to reinforce learning and
supplementary material like CD with songs, videos and
computer games.

10. Adapting the textbook
1. To select the unit we want to adapt.
2. To think the reasons why we want to adapt the unit (the
objectives for the adaptation), taking into account the
specific context and the students’ characteristics.
3. To evaluate what and how we are going to change the
unit.
4. To adapt the unit and teach your class with it.
5. To evaluate (during and post) for checking the success
of the adaptation, and if the objectives were achieved.
It’s necessary to create strategies to adapt the materials to the
specific contexts and students. Materials adaptation involves changing
some features from the original materials that we don’t consider
suitable for our specific students and purposes. We should take into
account the context and students’ age, level, learning styles, needs,
attitudes and interests among others. Procedure to adapt materials
(Masuhara, 2004):

11. Authentic materials
Authentic materials have not been edited or designed for
classroom use. They are those produced primarily for
the use of native speakers of the target language. They
enable students to study the country through the eyes of
the people living there and to gain a perspective on the
way they use their language. Authentic materials include
for example: radio or TV programs, pop songs,
commercials, books in their original form, audio books,
newspaper, travel guides, handouts, web pages, chats,
emails, blogs, etc. As they can be difficult to understand
for our students we can adapt them by:
• Converting them into workshop activities.
• Adjusting the length and difficult to our students.
• Simplifying or explaining key language elements.
• Changing authentic materials into a variety of exercise
types, etc.

12. Adapted materials
Adapted materials are designed and
created for language purposes and are
carefully graded. Students love reading
and listening to adapted materials since
they can understand them perfectly and
this fact motivates them to learn. For
example, adapted versions of classic
stories usually have activities at the end to
review vocabulary in context, check
reading comprehension, etc.

13. STUDENTS’ COLLABORATION
IN THE MATERIAL DESIGN
We must encourage students to participate in the selection,
design and even creation of materials. To design our
own materials allows students to feel part of the process.
This motivates them and, consequently, they learn while
doing in a fun way. The process of creating materials
can help the students to:
• Develop strategies of communication, since they have to
work in groups and share information, negotiate, etc.
• Become more autonomous since they have to think
about how to create the material, make it attractive.
• Develop the sense of responsibility necessary to finish
the work on time, to do a good job, etc.

14. MATERIALS TO CREATE
• Create a school news magazine with pictures, etc.
• Make small books in which they have to draw a picture
and write a description.
• Make a picture dictionary related to the unit topic.
• Create posters with the vocabulary or the grammatical
points dealt with in the lesson.
• Create their own flashcard with pictures they have
taken, illustrations they have drawn, etc.
• Record dialogues to be listened to by students of other
classrooms.
• With the teacher’s help, create a wiki or blog where they
can share classroom projects, etc.

15. CONCLUSION
As we have seen in this topic, the
textbook is just a resource more within a
wide range of possibilities at the reach of
teachers. We should consider a careful
design and selection of materials
according to our students’ characteristics.
The creation of material by the
students is a very good option since they
are learning at the same time they are
doing, create learning experiences, build
motivation, develop creativity, etc.