Material Evaluation And Adaptation In Listening And Speaking Classes For Non-English Majors

Teachers and teaching materials are fundamental elements in language teaching. For many years, language teachers have been using their teaching materials faithfully. However, much effort remains to be done to address the problems with a large quantity of these materials which fail to reflect the classroom reality in terms of the students'wants, needs and levels. Evaluation and adaptation are two essential processes of bridging the gap between what the current teaching materials offer and what the students really need. They are instrumental in motivating the students. Although most language teachers may have sensed the inadequateness with their teaching materials, some tend to overlook the importance of the evaluation and adaptation on them; those having made changes only adapted their materials randomly. Therefore,it is necessary to adapt teaching materials as a scientific and rational process instead of an arbitrary and random practice.This article explores the importance and principles of teaching material evaluation and the adaptation of teaching materials into college English listening and speaking classrooms for Non-English majors.The present study employed both quantitative and qualitative methods. The quantitative data were collected from listening tests and two questionnaires were conducted from 55 non-English majors who had undergone a one-year reform of"teaching listening and speaking course with teaching material adaptation"at Shandong Economic University. Besides, interviews and class observations were recorded as qualitative data in order to gain insights of the research.Based on the experiment, this thesis finally concludes that material evaluation and adaptation facilitate listening and speaking teaching and learning. They could make teaching more engaging and communicative, increase students'involvement in the classroom activities, enhance the students'communicative abilities in English, and engage in spontaneous and creative interactions, and increase students'autonomy and independence. This thesis also points out that it is of great importance to address the shortage of training in curriculum development and help those teachers who still lack the awareness of the importance of teaching material evaluation and adaption.