Evaluating and adapting materials for young learners Paul Dickinson

 
Demands 
on 
learners 
To recall or to re-learn lexis. 
To understand the concept of 
wants and language used to 
express this. 
To recall lexis and sentence 
forms from preparation stage. 
Speaking in English. 
To understand the responses 
given by partner. 
Writing and speaking in 
English. 
Remembering words and 
forms from core activity. 
Finding words for own 
sentences. 
 
Support 
for 
learning 
Flashcards of food and drink 
items. 
Teacher prompting and 
modelling 
of 
lexis 
and 
forms. 
Pair work. 
Student book activity graphic, 
flashcards and toy food and 
drink items. 
Preparation stage practice 
of forms. 
Teacher modelling.
Pair work. 
Teacher modelling. 
Teacher provides new words 
for learners’ own sentences 
and writes words on board. 
Teacher 
feedback 
while 
writing. 
Pair work. 
 

---

19
What this example attempts to show is how consideration of demands, support and 
language learning goals can help teachers plan tasks that scaffold their students’ 
language use towards successful language learning. Adapting activities allows 
learners to have very different experiences to the ones they would have if the teacher
merely followed the instructions in the teacher’s book. Even small changes, such as 
using toy food that learners can hold and use in the context of play rather than just 
pointing to a picture in their coursebook, can result in a large changes in how learners 
interact with a task. As Cameron (2001: 35) points out, this is a very powerful tool, as 
teachers who have repertoires of such small changes can use them to adapt activities 
from coursebooks to suit their particular learners.