MATERIALS WRITING

Editing in-house
materials
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Peter Clements describes his first taste of editing and offers some useful tips.

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Pa

myClass is a very interesting product.

It was devised around three years ago
in response to market trends in our
region. Many of our adult learners are
university students and professionals,
who require flexibility to fit their English
studies around other commitments.
Also, many wished to develop listening
and speaking skills along with acquiring
functional (often work-based) language.

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Fluency and confidence were desired

outcomes for many, career progression
hinged on the ability to be a competent
oral communicator in English.

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ast term I gained some valuable

experience of materials writing. I
cant say I asked for it more like it was
thrust upon me. I was down on hours
due to some class cancellations, so I was
reassigned to edit some of our in-house
adult product called myClass. This was a
daunting prospect. The product is used
in over 30 British Council centres across
3 regions, including all our schools in
Southeast Asia. I didnt want to shirk
responsibility, its just I didnt expect my
first real writing assignment to be judged
by half our workforce!

lis

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personalise and adapt the materials.

An online feedback system allows any
myClass teacher to suggest amendments
to certain lessons, and experienced
teachers are then tasked with making
such changes to ensure the quality of the
resources is maintained.

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The myClass product is non-linear in

structure. Students can choose from a
range of real-life topics and study in the
order which best suits their needs. There
are over 70 lessons per level (1.5 hours),
and these are grouped by theme. From a
methodological standpoint myClass is a
functional, task-led syllabus. Input during
each lesson (normally presented through
a listening activity) leads to a practical
final task which, along with focused
feedback and repetition, normally takes
around a third of the lesson time.
The product has been a great success,
and has been expanded in recent terms
to include writing lessons and further
materials for each level. A majority of
the resources are sound, and require
only small tweaks from teachers to help

www.modernenglishteacher.com

Editing existing materials is tough in

fact I found it tougher than creating my
own materials from scratch. The format
of our existing lessons is standardised,
so the lesson stages are almost always
the same. The original materials writer
has gone to a lot of effort to ensure that
all stages clearly lead to the final task.
There are a lot of steps needed to ensure
this including the following:
nn Ensure that the requirements of the
final task match the overall lesson aims.
nn Ensure that target language from the
input stage is actually required in
order to complete the final task.
nn Ensure that phonology-focused tasks
(which must appear in every lesson)
are both varied and clearly modelled
in the listening text.
To an experienced materials
writer, these points may seem quite
straightforward. However, when editing
the lesson, its important to consider
that the writer created each stage
as a building block towards the end
outcome. This is part of the writers
brief, and the lesson has been trialled
and accepted as cohesive and wellstructured. When tasked with editing
such a lesson based on feedback from
teachers, I had to ask myself some
important questions:

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MATERIALS WRITING

Pa

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The latter point (question 3) is a

big consideration when using a
standardised product across a whole
region. Despite teaching the same
lesson, teachers in each country must be
careful to adapt material so it is suited
to their own learners, paying particular
attention to cultural backgrounds.
In order to address this issue I approached
the problems through visualisation.
This helped me consider how reliable a
teachers feedback might be, and if the
problem may be that the lesson needs
clearer guidance notes rather than a
complete overhaul. I took myself off into
a classroom, did a mock run through of
the lesson and tried to anticipate where
the lesson may be problematic. Mostly,

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editing existing materials at your school
or institution, Id offer the following tips:

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When teaching a myClass lesson, we do

have the freedom to select and reject
at the planning stage. If we feel a certain
stage could be adapted, then we can do
so, as long as what we alter is still in line
with the overall lesson aims. For example,
I found with one lesson that the final task
wasnt designed in a way to fully exploit
the target language. The listening text
itself couldnt be altered, so that meant
the target language coming from the text
would stay the same. I couldnt think
of a way to fine tune the main task, so I
decided to write a whole new role play.
I created various different scenarios for
the task which learners could try, each
explicitly requiring different parts of the
target language. This meant that the aims
stayed the same, the language input
stayed the same, but the task stage had
been refined and hopefully optimised.

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I only edited a small set of lessons, but

the hardest ones involved changes to
whole lesson stages. When teachers
suggest major faults with certain parts of
the lesson, especially when they address
either the language input or the nature of
the final task, you know you have your
work cut out. It is rare that this happens,
and three years of responding to
feedback has already refined the product
a lot. However, there is always the
chance that somebody comes across a
lesson which is like a runner with cramp.

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However, when
editing the lesson,
its important to
consider that the
writer created
each stage as
a building block
towards the
end outcome.

I found that my anticipated problems

tallied with the teacher feedback.

lis

1. Does the feedback relate to minor

inconsistencies or major changes?
2. When feedback suggests that a lesson
stage needs altering, would this have
a domino effect on proceeding stages?
Do we need to simply remove and
reshape a building block, or do I need
to redo everything?
3. Can I be sure that the lesson doesnt
work based on feedback from only
one teacher? Is the lesson unsuitable
for a teachers style, or perhaps
unsuitable for particular learners?
A couple of lessons I edited involved
very minor changes proof reading a
transcript, checking stress patterns on
teachers notes, and so on. Small
tweaks basically.

The role play took a good few hours to

devise you shouldnt underestimate
the time it takes to make such resources
from scratch. However, constraints
made the editing stage somewhat easier.
If Id chosen to alter the target language
(but still keep the same lesson aims) this
might have lead to rewriting everything
language input, controlled practice,
main task, etc. Thankfully, the listening
text couldnt be altered and theres
only so much relevant language you can
gain from it, so certain choices
were already made.
Ive really gained a lot from this recent
experience. It was really something
to get my teeth stuck into and its
nice to contribute to such a reputable
organisation. If you are thinking of

www.modernenglishteacher.com

nn What exactly is your writing brief?

If it is to edit what materials already
exist, then dont approach them too
critically. The management obviously
recognise that there is some good in
what is already there, perhaps it just
needs to be refined or optimised.
nn Think carefully about the feedback
on materials from teachers. How
reliable is it? Can you envisage the
problems they mention?

nn Editing materials can be just as timeconsuming as making them from

scratch. If you do think something
needs a big change, dont shy away
from it but consider the time restraints
nn If you feel a lesson stage needs
changing, always consider how this
affects the lesson as a whole. Make
sure you keep things cohesive, and
that no part of the puzzle will be
missing if you make the change.

Pete Clements works for the British

Council in Bangkok. He has previously
taught in Spain, South Korea, Hungary,
Vietnam and the UK. He has a CELTA,
DipTESOL and an MSc in Reading,
Language and Cognition. His interests
include supporting newly-qualified teachers
and blogging for professional development.
He blogs at www.eltplanning.com.

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