Adapting Materials for ELL Students

CESA 7 ELL Center

Adapting Materials for ELL Students

From: The U.S. Department of Education's Office of English Language Acquisition, Language Enhancement & Academic Achievement for Limited English Proficient Students (OELA)

Adapting material is largely a matter of simplifying the language of a text without distorting or diluting its meaning. Since all second language learners have developed cognitively, and many have been educated to grade level in one language or another, there is no need to simplify the text's content. Rather, the aim is to make the material more accessible by eliminating a few linguistic features that impede comprehension. In some cases, you will also want to add language that clarifies the passage, and in some you will have to reformulate the sentences to make them clearer. The material that results has two purposes: it reinforces what the students have already encountered in an oral presentation, and it provides a bridge for their reading of linguistically more complex material in the area.

While few teachers have enough time to adapt a lot of material for their students, most can spare the time needed to adapt s hort passages that encapsulate a lesson's main ideas or some aspect of those ideas that requires careful understanding. These guidelines are intended for those teachers who want to create a file of such passages over the course of a year--in other words, to adapt and recycle passages from time to time to strengthen their students' grasp of the course's content. Though the process of material adaptation may seem complicated at first, it is relatively easy once you become fluent in following the strategy outlined below.

SELECTING THE PASSAGE

1. Make it relevant. Be sure to select a passage that bears some relevance to material you have already covered in class. Material that is only tangentially related may confuse and turn off students.

2. Keep it short. Don't try to take on a whole chapter or even necessarily a large chunk of a single chapter. Usually 1-3 paragraphs are enough to give students the help they need.

3. Locate visual support. In many cases, there are illustrations, graphs, or graphic organizers in the source text that can be copied and incorporated in the adapted version. In some cases, you will have to find visual support in other sources. They will aid general comprehension by giving the passage a context and reminding readers of the content they have already encountered. In many cases, the whole adaptation can be organized around graphic organizers like semantic webs or flow charts.

ANALYZING THE PASSAGE

1. Analyze the content. Quickly jot down the main ideas in the passage. In some cases, it is helpful to outline or summarize the text before you adapt it. In any case, you need to extract its essence so that the overall shape of what you will produce is clear. You also need to be clear about its logical structure and the cohesive devices used to hold the passage together.

2. Underline difficult words. Quickly identify those words that your students will find difficult. Bear in mind that some technical words are cognate with words in the students' native languages--that is, they will have the same origin, appear similar, and overlap in meaning. Therefore, you don't need to find substitutes for such words because the students will quickly grasp their meanings. Since, however, not all languages are cognate with English, many such words will still have to be adapted.

ADAPTING THE PASSAGE

1. Write shorter sentences. Make the sentences shorter. Once you are satisfied that they are as short as you can possibly get them, try to make them a little shorter.

For example:

It is commonly assumed that stars result from the astronomical condensation of massive clouds of cosmic dust and hydrogen gas, which is the lightest and most abundant element in the universe.

This can be broken down into two shorter sentences:

It is commonly assumed that stars result from the astronomical condensation of massive clouds of cosmic dust and hydrogen gas. Hydrogen is the lightest and most abundant element in the universe.

How can you break these sentences down further?

2. Simplify the vocabulary. Whenever possible, incorporate words that the students have already used in their classes. New technical words are especially important.

3. Simplify the grammar. For example, use the active voice (The doctor set the patient's leg) instead of the passive voice (The patient's leg was set by the doctor). Also, use simple tenses whenever possible and avoid adverbs like hardly and phrases like whenever possible or regardless of the answer.

4. Rework the sentence entirely, if necessary. In many cases, changing the source sentence in a superficial way is not enough. In that case, write a new sentence, but be sure to preserve the meaning of the original version. In some cases, extraneous material can be eliminated. The passage can also be broken down into more paragraphs.

5. Add additional language for clarification. For example, a simple example or a rephrasing makes the meaning clearer than it would otherwise be. You may also want to incorporate background information that will help the students grasp the overall meaning.

6. Don't be afraid to repeat words. Though we tend to avoid repetitions in formal prose, students can often benefit more from repetition than from the introduction of new, unknowable words.

7. Use cohesive devices (e.g., then, such, first, however, it, also). Words like these give the reader clues as to the structure of the text as a whole. They help students understand the logical relationships among elements. Therefore, they are critical to the students' general comprehension.

Following is a sample passage from a science text. As you can see right off, it would be much too difficult for most students who are still acquiring English as a second language. Following the steps outlined above, see if you can adapt this passage for use with such students. A possible adaptation follows the sample passage.

SAMPLE PASSAGE

The Life of a StarIt is commonly assumed that stars result from the astronomical condensation of massive clouds of cosmic dust and hydrogen gas, which is the lightest and most abundant element in the universe. Since there are many such clouds around, and there is no lack of hydrogen, the process of star formation out of interstellar matter is as natural in space as snow is on earth. Its catalyst is gravity, which according to Isaac Newton's theory of universal gravitation, causes all bodies to attract each other in proportion to their mass and distance from each other. Thus, the hydrogen and dust particles in these enormous clouds are drawn together and gradually consolidate. Eventually, that is, this agglutinative tendency results in a mass that is held together by gravitation: as the cloud implodes, it separates itself from the residual hydrogen and dust in the area. Over time, the cloud will then shrink in size as its core increases in temperature. If the nascent star's mass is sufficiently dense, the core will become so hot as to cause a nuclear reaction, in which case the body achieves stardom.

All stars are classified with reference to their brightness and temperature, but their longevity depends on their mass at birth. Once all the hydrogen has been consumed, for example, the core collapses, hydrogen fusion begins to feed on the star's outer mass, radiant energy is released, and a red giant is born. Once all nuclear energy has been exhausted, the star itself collapses, and a densely packed star called a white dwarf results. As the process continues, the star collapses to the neutron stage, the star's electrons are absorbed into its atomic nucleus, and surface explosions occur. The result is the ephemeral brilliance of a supernova.

POSSIBLE ADAPTATION

There is a lot of hydrogen in space, and there is a lot of dust. Sometimes, hydrogen and dust come together to form stars. What pulls them together? Astronomers think that gravity does. As you know, gravity acts like a magnet. For example, if you throw a ball into the air, gravity will pull it back to earth. In the same way, gravity pulls hydrogen and dust together. If there is a lot of dust, gravity is more powerful. If there is a lot of hydrogen nearby, gravity is even more powerful. In those conditions, stars are born. Little by little, some of the dust and some of the hydrogen form a large ball. Then, the ball shrinks, its core gets hotter, and gravity holds it all together. A star is forming. As it becomes denser, the core gets hotter. When it gets very hot, a nuclear reaction occurs. Now you have a star.

There are many types of stars: red giants, white dwarfs, and supernovae are examples. All live a long time, but some live longer than others. The densest ones last longest because they take longer to burn up. When the core burns up and disappears, hydrogen starts to burn up the star's shell. This makes the shell glow with a helium fire, and the star is called a red giant. When all the nuclear energy burns up, the star is called a white dwarf. White dwarfs are very, very dense. Then, the star's particles turn atomic, and the star explodes. The exploding star is called a supernova. It shines very brightly, and then it disappears. The life of a star is over.

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