Quick and Effective Ways to Adapt Reading and Listening Textbook Activities to Engage Learners

Textbook adaptation is a useful skill for those in second language teaching. However, adapting receptive skill activities can be seen as difficult or time-consuming for teachers. In addition, receptive skill learning can sometimes be tedious for students. This presentation will introduce several different ways that teachers will be able to adapt a textbook for use in the classroom. The presenters will focus on quick and effective ways to adapt reading and listening texts that foster student engagement. Furthermore, these adaptation methods will offer extension into sub-skills (skim reading, scanning etc.) or communicative activities. This session will equip teachers with practical skills, as well as provide them with the rationale for textbook adaptation. As both are directly applicable to classroom practice, they will be useful to any teacher who feels bound by a textbook. Through this presentation participants will gain a clear set of methods to adapt receptive skill textbook activities while keeping classroom engagement up.