Teachers’ Beliefs And Practice About The Concept Of Supplementary Materials

External factors unquestionably refrain teachers from translating their beliefs into actual practice. Although P9 believed that using supplementary materials in the IELTS classroom was more effective than the textbooks provided by her language center, she admitted spending equal time on the core materials as well as the supplementary ones. According to this teacher, there are two reasons that make her come to such decisions. One concerns the purchase of the main textbooks. As the language center has learners buy the coursebook, if she does not use it regularly, her students may question the role of the core materials. Another reason is related to other teachers’ practice. P9 asserted that when she did not follow the content of her center’s core materials, there would be problems for her successors to teach the student. Other teachers could not continue what P9 has done in her classrooms. Likewise, P12 claimed that the supplementary materials provided by his language center did not in line with his criteria and preference. He, however, managed to apply them in his class. For P9 and P12, under the impact of teaching context, they apparently failed to match their practice with beliefs, and they have chosen to compromise with the main textbooks or the available supplementary materials of the language center.

4.3. Data triangulation

By adopting the convergent mixed methods design, the data collected from both qualitative and quantitative phases were integrated. For the sake of effectively triangulating the data, it is vital to determine a framework for merging data. Drawing upon three dimensions of merging, Moseholm and Fetters (2017) developed a typology for data merging, including Explanatory unidirectional, Exploratory unidirectional, Simultaneous bidirectional, Explanatory bidirectional, and Exploratory bidirectional (p. 7). In order to “augment and explain complex or contradictory survey responses” with the embedded interview (Driscoll et al.,

2007, p. 24), the “Exploratory unidirectional framework” was used. That is, the merged analysis was framed by the strands of quantitative analytics.

In essence, the result yielded in the interview rather resonates that in the survey. It also further elucidates why teachers arrived at such answers in the questionnaire. All the integrated data was depicted as follows.

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4.3.1. Teachers’ beliefs and practice about the concept of supplementary materials

The first set of analyses examined teachers’ beliefs about the concept of supplementary materials. The most striking outcome was that most teachers believe such types of materials are books and other materials used alongside core ones, coursebook add-ons, skill development materials, and exam techniques and practice tests. This is augmented by the interview responses that teachers have a penchant for commercial textbooks professionally published by Cambridge University Press, Collins, Macmillan, or Longman (Teacher P1, P2, P3, and P8). These materials can either focus on IELTS training or general English. The additional materials can also originate from IELTS websites and blogs, namely IELTS Simon, IELTS Minitest, or IELTS Advantage (Teacher P2, P3, P6, and P9). Moreover, teacher P10 claimed “electronic books, online practice and practice tests” accompanying the textbook are useful for supplementing it.

Regarding self-developed worksheets, authentic materials, and language support materials, these items received moderately positive responses from teachers as opposed to previous ones. In the interview phase, some teachers such as P2 and P11 expressed their concern toward the credibility of self-developed materials. P6 and P12 even stated that it ought to be the last resort when there were not any available materials for a particular learners’ need. Only P8 was in favor of creating her own worksheets but restricted its use to only writing skills. Some others were inclined to deploy authentic

materials from news in articles or online videos on such websites as Ted Talk, BBC, or CNN (Teacher P7, P10, and P11). As the focus of the subject matter is IELTS, most teachers assumed supplementary materials must be closely relevant to the test – in this case, the language skills – materials to promote lexical resources and grammatical capacity are not widely used. For example, only teacher P1 mentioned “Vocabulary for IELTS” as the book she adopted in her IELTS classroom. In a similar vein, teacher P5 merely has her students read news in articles as an extensive reading activity to acquire more vocabulary. Furthermore, with the wide array of IELTS materials available, only two teachers reported using skills practice materials from a source other than IELTS, namely “Listening Carefully” or academic writing books (P3 and P9).

Compared to other items in this section, only “collections of communicative games and activities” received much disagreement from teachers. This trend was foreseeable because teachers in the interview have firmly emphasized the pertinence of supplementary materials and the IELTS examination. For instance, teachers P6 and P10 stated: “must be closely relevant to the IELTS test. It is impossible to use materials for TOEIC training in IELTS classrooms.” Another explanation for the opposition to communicative games and activities concerns the washback effect of the test. Most teachers perceive the aim of the IELTS course was to help learners achieve high band scores in the examination. Accordingly, students should be equipped with skills applicable to the IELTS examination. When preparing for speaking lessons, teacher P9 designed her supplementary materials based on the criteria provided by the official band descriptor. The intention was to help learners fulfill these criteria and hence, get good results in the examination. Likewise, teacher P7 synthesized sentence structures or vocabularies pertinent to a topic which her students could apply in the real test. By contrast, not every teacher held such an opinion. Teacher P12 believed that English should be learned purposefully and actively. As a result, he embedded real-world tasks into supplementary materials. For instance, P12 reported asking questions for his

students to reflect and comment on a video about electric cars. From this example, the “task” is obviously directed by the examination format, in which candidates are elicited answered by questions from examiners, rather than that described by Ellis (1997a) since it lacks the “procedures” and “outcomes.” Overall, communicative activities did not enjoy high status in the IELTS classroom for their irrelevance to the examination.

4.3.2. Teachers’ beliefs and practice about the reasons to develop supplementary materials

This section of the questionnaire enquired respondents to give information on their beliefs of the motivation behind supplementary materials development. The overall response to these items was rather positive. The most salient result to emerge from the data was that teachers develop supplementary materials since they “offer students with extra practice” and “contain up-to-date information.” Correspondingly, one-third of the interview participants believed that IELTS supplementary materials are akin to “extra exercises.” They stated that these materials “were similar to extra exercises for learners to do at home or self-study” and “helped teachers provide more exercises but still follow the main textbook in the language center.” (Teachers P3, P7, P8, and P9). The additional exercises involve vocabulary, grammar practice (Teachers P1 and P5), language acquisition (Teachers P5 and P7) or mock tests (Teachers P2, P3, P8, and P9). Teacher P11 even expressed the belief that supplementary materials could help prepare learners for scare topics in the examination. In relation to the concern of updated materials, one interview individual reported that he had never seen a textbook that was constantly revised. Another also commented supplementary materials “updated new trends in society, contemporary news and topics for learners to practice.”

Less conspicuous reasons to develop supplementary materials involve “providing materials missing from the coursebooks,” “meeting students’ needs,” and “being relevant to demands of exams.” This tendency is well supported by the evidence in the

interview phase. As previously mentioned, some teachers believe that coursebooks are rarely up-to-date and thus, may lack contemporary information such as trends, news, and topic. For instance, teacher P11 makes his learners practice with unusual topics through supplementary materials. Teachers P4, P8, and P9 pointed out the weaknesses in main coursebooks with respect to the input knowledge. As teacher P9 stated:

“…when my students learn how to write an introduction for an essay, the main textbook only presents vocabulary, but does not cater for the instruction…” (Teacher P9, 29/07/2020)

In alleviating coursebooks’ deficiency with supplementary materials, teachers attempt to fulfill what their students need. For instance, teachers P1, P2, and P12 claimed that they developed supplementary materials in case students were not competent enough in some aspects such as vocabulary, grammar, or similar in terms of difficulty level. There was also circumstance where the current level of language proficiency of learners was not sufficient to work with the main textbook, and hence, supplementary materials were used alternatively. That was what teacher P6 shared about her experience.

“Some coursebooks are not appropriate for the students’ levels of language proficiency. For example, while students are only at the elementary level, the coursebooks’ content is too difficult. Hence, it is necessary to have easier supplementary materials that match learners’ level.” (P6, 24/08/2020)

Elucidating why supplementary materials are necessary, teacher P3 stated that there were parts of the main coursebook easier than the real test. The demand for the IELTS examination and the input knowledge offered by core materials were regularly mismatched in relation to the level of difficulty. Teacher P8 even felt that coursebooks’ content merely introduced primitive knowledge and some initial insight into the IELTS

examination. Critically, being relevant to the actual examination was the top criterion when selecting supplementary materials of teachers P3, P7, P8, and P10.

The least likely reasons for developing IELTS supplementary materials consist of improving the classroom mood and replacing unsuitable materials. The proper explanation for this trend is that teachers regard supplementary materials as “extra exercises” (Teachers P3, P7, P8, and P9) whose purposes are more pertinent to compensate for the weaknesses of the main coursebook by complementing rather than replacing parts of it. Moreover, in the interview, only teacher P2 mentioned having occasionally used short video clips in her classroom to attract students’ interest.

4.3.3. Teachers’ beliefs and practice about the criteria for developing supplementary materials

The last section of the questionnaire centered on teachers’ beliefs about the criteria for developing. The key feature to emerge from the data was that the “learners’ levels of language proficiency” and the “course objective” were given the top priority. As for the learners’ competency, it rather corresponded with the tendency to fulfill learners’ needs, whose theme recurred throughout the dataset. One individual stated, “Some coursebooks are not appropriate for the students’ levels of proficiency. For example, while students are only at the elementary level, the coursebooks’ content is too difficult. Hence, it is necessary to have easier supplementary materials that match learners’ level” (P6, 24/08/2020). The students’ level as the principle for supplementary materials was also manifested in the way teachers select materials. According to teachers P8 and P12, the additional material should be a little more difficult than the students’ current level of language proficiency. For instance, the reading materials for IELTS classrooms were selected based on the length and range of vocabulary, which is in accordance with students’ levels of proficiency.

“… the supplementary materials must match students’ levels of proficiency. Regarding their level, I can consider the length of the reading text.” (P3, 08/08/2020)

“… I myself perceive whether students can understand the text… mostly based on the number of vocabularies. If the vocabulary is too difficult, that material cannot be selected… or those complex topics… are not suitable for beginners’ level.” (P6, 24/08/2020)

With respect to the “course objective” item, the analysis of the interview did not reveal a clear endorsement of the learning outcome. Indeed, the interview responses contradicted that of the survey. Only a small number of respondents indicated that supplementary materials should focus on preparing learners for the IELTS examination rather than any other type of examination (Teachers P6 and P10).

“must be closely relevant to the IELTS test. It is impossible to use materials for TOEIC training in IELTS classrooms.”

Other criteria also receiving positive beliefs included the “academic language style,” “practice activities reflecting the requirement of the test.” When the participants were asked about the adequate source of IELTS supplementary materials, there were teachers preferring to use commercial textbooks such as the IELTS Academic Series, Listening Carefully or, academic writing books (P3 and P8). Meanwhile, some others were in favor of authentic materials adopted from news in articles and formal talk shows (P7, P10, and P11). Such choice of supplementary materials manifested an ostensible trend towards academic “language style” and “practice activities reflecting the requirement of the test.” Moreover, a third of interviewed teachers shared the same practice of selecting supplementary materials in relation to the IELTS examination (P3, P7, P8, and P10). Earlier sections also pointed out the preference of IELTS teachers in terms of materials

published by Cambridge University Press since they believed that it was the publisher that designed the well-known examination.

In response to the criterion of “teaching context,” surveyed teachers hold only moderate positive beliefs. Obviously, the availability of equipment and accessibility to the materials were worth attention, but not the top concerns. It has been reported in the interview that the language centers of the participants were not too rigorous on the use of supplementary materials. However, there were cases that teachers had to follow the policy of their workplace. For instance, teacher P11 told his language center requested all the teachers to use materials published by the Cambridge University Press, or in the case of teacher P6, she pointed out the limitation of extra materials which could be used at a class level. On the other hand, teacher P9 said, “in my language center, there is a bookshelf, and I usually read over the books in this library to extract [materials] from these sources.”

Results from the survey also indicated a lack of interest in criteria related to topics, layout, and students’ related issues. Of the twelve interviewed teachers, only two stated that they selected supplementary materials based on the topic or theme of the main coursebook (Teachers P1 and P3). With respect to the layout of supplementary materials, only when did they design their own materials that teachers pay attention to the issue. Generally, it was vital to have a clear font size and spaces for note-taking.

“… it rather has a clear and intelligible layout. There are not any redundant languages. There are not many words, and there must be spaces for students to take notes…” (Teacher P8, 24/08/2020)

“… images must be clear. The font size is neither too small or large… there must be spaces for learners to take notes…having everything on a page causes confusing…” (Teacher P4, 04/08/2020)

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