CHAPTER 5
SUPPLEMENTATION: DESIGNING WORKSHEET
1. Introduction
Teachers need some supplementations for the coursebook.
Before teachers start
designing worksheet, they need to be clear about what they want the students to learn and how
their worksheets will support this. It is important to have a clear view of the reasons why
teachers are designing the worksheet Remember to consider the age, ability and motivation of
the students to ensure teacher are pitching it at the right level. And be clear about what
supporting information teachers need to provide to help the students complete the worksheets.
2. The argument for supplementation
Most modern coursebooks offer everything their target users need. Supplementation
which means no more than ‘adding something new. The publisher may have thoughtfully
produced a number of add-ons (cassettes, workbook, reader and so on), and if these are available
and affordable, the gap between learner and material may be much smalller than would
otherwise have been the case. However, many teachers feel impelled to provide additional
material beacause they feel that their students need exposure to a greater range of textual
material. Both types of supplementation- the cognitively motivated and the affectively
motivated-need to be fully integrated into course plans and lesson plans if they are to be
maximally effective.
3. Identifying gaps in a coursebook
Using checklist (Acklam; 1994) can help teachers identify gaps in the coursebooks they
are using. The checklist emphasises sufficiency, variety and relavance.
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Checklist
Is there enough grammar? Is it what your students needs? Is it clearly
presented?
Is there enough pronunciation work? Is it what your students need?
Is there enough vocabulary work? Is it what your students need?
Is there enough (authentic) reading material and variety?
Etc.
4. Forms of supplementation
We can supplement coursebook in one of two ways:
a. By utilising published materials: the use of material from another books or another
published material.such as a supplemantary skills book and practice execises books.
b. By devising one’s own material: the teachers may make their own material based on their
own view and relevant to their students’ need and interest.
5. The process of supplementary materials design: syllabus driven or concept driven?
Syllabus is an official document on your own teaching plan (scheme of work) based on
an analysis of learner needs. Syllabus can influence teacher on approach to the creation of
supplementary material.so syllabus-driven materials design, concept driven (or ideas-driven)
process of material design.
Steps in material design:
a. Identification: Examining teacher’s or learner’s need to fulfil or a problem to solve by the
creation of material.
b. Exploration: Exploring the area of need/problem.
c. Contextual realisation: Proposing new material by finding suitable ideas, contexts or texts
with which to work.
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d. Pedagogical realisation: finding of appropriate exercises and activities, and writing
appropriate instruction for use.
e. Physical production: considering layout, type size, visuals, reproduction, tape length etc.
6. Designing worksheet
Worksheet is a particular category of handout. It is designed to facilitate learning through
activity. Although teacher-produced worksheet worksheets frequently focus on specific points of
grammar, they can be used for a broader range of purposes, such as; handwriting, spelling,
punctuation and pronunciation.
There are some general issues in worksheet design:
a. Awarness raising or practice?: the distinction point between practice and awareness raising
corresponds to that sometimes made in refernce to two approaches to grammar writing (
deductive approach,learners are given a rule and examples and required to aplly the rule, and
inductive approach, they are given samples of language and expected to discover the rule for
themselves).
b. Accuracy or fluency? : these relates to the relationship between the format of the exercises
and the purposes they are intended to serve. It is designed for developing accuracy or
fluency.
c. Practice or testing?: In practice situations, we provide support, typically in the form of
example, while in testing situations, we remove that support.
d. Differentiation and motivation?: a worksheet will normally used by learners working
individually or in group without teacher help. It is the way how to cope differences problem
in proficiency level. Teachers must prepare different worksheet for different levels of learner
or design a worksheet in which exercises are graded from easy to more difficult.
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e. Layout and other general considerations, issues such as objectives, format of exercises and
organisations apart, a number of more practical questions also need to be considered.
f. Evaluation: how you will be able to evaluate the effectiveness of the worksheet.
Another way to design worksheet is computerised. The increasing availability of computers
for student use in classrooms and self-access centres has made possible the provision of
computerised worksheets.
7. Designing your own worksheet exercises
These are some advices on preparation of worksheet exercise speacially grammar
exercises and vocabulary exercises.
a. Designing grammar exercises:

The objective of grammar teaching: two objectives in grammar: to transmit knowledge
and to facilitate skill development. The grammatical component of efficient
communication requires the integration of different forms of knowledge and skill.

Contextualising grammar practice: in grammar practice should be real-world language
use. The learners are exposed to and expected to produce should be realistic, that is
potentially usable and useful.

Knowledge vs skill: konowledge can be ‘presented’ or ‘discovered’, skill can be only
acquired through practice and once acquired is relatively easily maintained. We can
teach ‘knowledge’, but we can not teach ‘skill’.
b. Designing vocabulary exercises: having a good vocabulary means knowing a lot of words.
Word-building exercises are an ideal focus for worksheets to be used out of class, but can
also be exploited for cooperative work in class. The exercises are to know a word such as
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form (pronunciation, spelling, affixes, etc), meaning(denotation and semantic area) and
distribution(word collocates, formal or slang).
8. Summary
The supplementation of coursebook through the provision of additional exercises can be
borrowed from other published materials or specially written. Designing worksheets need to
take account of a number of general considerations such as relationship objectives and format,
learner differentation, layout and the need to evaluate the worksheet. Teacher-made worksheest
tend to deal with the grammatical and vocabulary feature.
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