Maestro y Sociedad e-ISSN 1815-4867

Volumen 21 Número 1 Año 2024

Artículo original

Material Design Incorporating Reflective and Flexible-Communicative Teaching in a group of EFL 1st year nursing course at the Polytechnic Superior Institute of Bié

Diseño de materiales incorporando la enseñanza reflexiva y comunicativa flexible en un grupo de inglés como lengua extranjera del curso de enfermería de 1er año en el Instituto Politécnico Superior de Bié

MSc. Neves Coquilo António*, https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0449-838X

MSc. Ana Angelina Cangombe, https://orcid.org/0009-0006-0844-8565

MSc. Mario Carlos Fátima,https://orcid.org/0009-0001-2064-2524

Instituto Superior Politécnico do Bié, Ángola

E-mail para correspondência – coquilo1976@yahoo.com

Para citar este artículo: Coquilo António, N., Cangombe, A. A. y Fátima, C. M. (2024). Material Design Incorporating Reflective and Flexible- Communicative Teaching in a group of EFL 1st year nursing course at the Polytechnic Superior Institute of Bié. Maestro y Sociedad, 21(1), 199-210. https://maestroysociedad.uo.edu.cu

ABSTRACT

Introduction: This article sets out to develop an EFL Material Design Incorporating Reflective and Flexible Communicative Teaching in a group of EFL 1st year nursing course at the Polytechnic Superior Institute of Bié Province (Angola). “According to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR)” (Council of Europe, 2001), in order to promote real language practice, to collect data, instruments such as: questionnaires, interview and class observation were used. Material and methods: The sample of the study consists of twenty-five purposively chosen university EFL teachers (ten of them teach traditional grammar and fifteen communicative grammars) and five hundred students ranging from beginners to advanced level. The data were analyzed using the SPSS tools, the goal of which is to verify the effectiveness of this approach over the traditional one. Results and Discussions: The findings of the investigation have revealed the following: (i) not many teachers teach communicative grammar in Angola and those who claim they teach it, they still have a hazy idea of what it is supposed to be; (ii) communicative grammar teaching is what is needed to make EFL learning a rewarding experience for students’ effective use of the language; (iii) both approaches are not mutually exclusive for they can become perfect complements; (iv) teachers and students need a textbook as an aid for English classes. Conclusions: The study concluded with the implementation of an academic illustrated book, elaborated by the authores of this article, which is composed by some lessons, activities, games, texts and so on. With the specific purpose of developing the students’ communicative competence, interactional skills, communicative grammar, self-evaluation strategies and language practice.

Keywords: EFL material design, Teaching, communicative competence, Nursing course, Academic illustrated book

RESUMEN

Introducción: Este artículo va a desarrollar un diseño de Material de EFL que incluye la Comunicativa reflexivo y flexible enseñando el 1er curso de enfermería de año en un grupo de EFL en el instituto superior politécnico de provincia de Bié (Angola). "De acuerdo con la base europea común de la referencia para lenguas (CEFR)" (Council of Europe2001), para promover la práctica de idioma legítima, coleccionar los datos, los instrumentos como: cuestionarios, entrevista y observación de clase fueron usadas. Material y métodos: la muestra del estudio consta de veinticinco profesores de EFL de la universidad intencionalmente elegidos (diez de ellos enseña gramática tradicional y quince gramáticas comunicativas) y quinientos estudiantes que se extienden principiantes a nivel avanzado. Los datos fueron analizados usando las herramientas de SPSS, el objetivo de cuál ser verificar la eficacia de este enfoque sobre el tradicional. Resultados y discusión: las conclusiones de la investigación han revelado lo siguiente: (i) profesores no muchos enseñan gramática comunicativa en Angola y aquellos que afirman que lo enseñan, todavía tienen una idea nebulosa de lo que es ser; (ii) al que el enseñar de gramática comunicativo es lo que es necesitado hace EFL aprender una experiencia gratificante para el uso eficaz de la lengua de estudiantes; (iii) por el que ambos enfoques no son mutuamente exclusivos que ellos poder hacer las dotaciones perfectas; los profesores de (IV) y estudiantes necesitan un libro de texto como una ayuda para las clases de inglés. Conclusiones: el estudio concluyó con la puesta en práctica de un libro ilustrado académico, aclarado por los autores de este artículo, cuál ser compuesto por algunas lecciones, las actividades, los partidos, los textos, etcétera. Con el propósito específico de desarrollar la competencia comunicativa de los estudiantes, las destreza de interaccionar la gramática comunicativa, las estrategias de identidad - evaluación y la práctica de lengua.

Palabras clave: EFL, diseño material, enseñar competencia comunicativa, curso de enfermería, libro ilustrado académico.

Recibido: 19/10/2023 Aprobado: 4/12/2023

INTRODUCTION

This article develops EFL Material Design Incorporating Reflective and Flexible Communicative Teaching in a group of EFL 1st year nursing course at the Polytechnic Superior Institute of Bié Province (Angola).

“The project´s material design proposal follows the guidelines of the Common European Framework of Reference or CEFR” (Council of Europe, 2001).

The material proposes a sequence of didactic activities that respond to the needs of students considering their language levels, ages and interests. The activities are developed under the most highlighted communicative methods and task-based learning approaches.

This article is structured in eight main issues, such as: introduction develops a general overview of the project and its structure. Then, the second issue corresponds to the justification of the project, and it includes both the academic and personal motivations and reasons for the elaboration of the project, considering its impact in the TEFL field. The third announces the project´s main and specific aims, which orientate the project and its results.

The fourth presents a revision of the most relevant theories and concepts that support the project´s material design proposal. It mainly focuses on four aspects:

Additionally, the description of the creative process and the typology of the activities for the unit proposed are presented; highlighting the integration of the skills and the sequencing of the activities starting from lower to higher order thinking skills. Lastly, the issue includes a description of the general learning objectives of the materials.

Next, the overall unit is presented, including a first part with the title, learning objectives, contents, communicative skills, time management, functions, assessment indicators, core and specific competences.

The second part presents the description of the activities with instructions for the teachers divided into sections including the objectives, procedures, suggested time and the resources. Next, the design of the didactic material itself is presented. The proposal is composed of different sections. In addition, homework, review and self-assessment are found within the sections. Moreover, the unit distribution with the tasks covered in each section is also provided for the teachers’ reference.

Finally, the eighth issue presents the conclusions and contributions of the material design proposal and it also envisages future research.

This project has been born from my personal interest in developing a material design addressed to a group of EFL 1st year nursing course at the Polytechnic Superior Institute of Bié Province (Angola.

To understand the reasons of this interest, it is important to establish some key changes that have been undergone in the Angolan higher education system, in recent years. The major change started in 2014 with the implementation of new organic scholar units, for the first time of the so-called New Organic Units for Higher Teaching. These new organic scholar units consisted of the extended government plan, in order to have the higher education system surround all Angolan provinces.

Therefore, the shifts which are impacting the workload or teaching time of the English language that has been taught as subject so far, it is devoting to it now, by two hours per week, in each group. A couple of years ago, there was also a reorganization of the levels' structures where, the first and second year-students were placed under the schedule of having four hours of English lessons per week. Another major adjustment was the inclusion of a curriculum based on competencies (Santana González et al., 2023), where the achievement indicators are the basis to assess those competencies. Thus, this paradigm change resulted in a new concept for planning, developing and accessing students, mainly for those having English for specific purposes such as in courses like: psychology, social communication, nursing, informatics, water resources, accounting and so on. Consequently, it is understandable that these changes would also demand the use of appropriate strategies (Gómez Cano et al., 2023), thus the inclusion of more communicative task-based or project- based activities were fostered among teachers. Moreover, the inclusion of Information and Communication Technologies (ITC) was a necessity to complement the new educational proposal. Hence, to fulfill these needs, the Angolan Ministry of Higher Teaching, Sciences, Technology and Innovation launched the program Internet for everybody since 2017, which aims to provide downloading, training materials, technological equipment to students and teachers.

Nevertheless, the materials are still absent within these changes, thus the lack of them would continue to remain in the same way, especially for the English language classes. Since, the government does not pay special attention to the education so far. As a teacher and a future teacher trainer, the academic and personal interest to focus on those levels under transformation and providing suitable materials that can serve as aids for students and teachers to develop the required competencies needed in higher education. But primarily it is better to start improving the lower levels of education, because it is not conceived to better up the higher teaching without taking into account the base, that is to say, all those levels before university.

The availability of teaching-learning resources, as stated before is another reason to develop materials. For many years, Angolan English teachers have had to develop their own materials, however, they commonly have not been driven by principled guidelines, and hence they have lack of coherence and clear objectives.

This project aims to provide materials based on principles of language learning and teaching that fulfill specific needs, considering the integration of the four communicative abilities or skills (Listening, Speaking, Writing and Reading), its authenticity, as well as, the enhancement of grammar and vocabulary, considering the context. (Tomlinson, 1998; Howard & Major, 2005; Hall, 1995; Garton & Graves, 2014) Thus, this project will hopefully lead to an appropriate and an improved teaching practice derived in beneficial results for students and teachers, but mainly for Students.

In addition, among the seven core competencies of the curriculum, one is the Communicative Competency. Taking into account that the Angolan Republic program for schools, English subject start from 5th grades of secondary schools, the population has been showing an inappropriate management of this language, especially in the oral ability; it is of academic, personal and social concern to embrace this issue in the design materials as the base topic to develop other competencies in the students such as: The Communicative, Critical Thinking, Ethics, etc.

In summary, the major project´s contribution is offering materials design for teaching English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in a way that it adjusts to the student´s needs and interests, offering engaging, motivating, appealing activities and tasks for developing communicative competence through the integration of the language skills.

Likewise, the expectations with this project are also to provide to the colleagues, a model that hopefully could mark the beginning of materials development for the benefit of the teaching-learning processes of English in general, that pattern in first-year-university students.

Main Objective

To develop an EFL material design incorporating communicative grammar and communicative skills teaching along with self-evaluation strategies for boosting the learning awareness and developing the communicative competence and skills of a group of EFL 1st year nursing students at the Polytechnic Superior Institute of Bié Province (Angola). “According to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR)” (Council of Europe, 2001)

Specific Objectives

To analyze the communicative and task-based materials based on grammar centered EFL knowledge, skills, learning objectives, and contents that create opportunities that boost in the students the development of the communicative skills and competencies promoted in the dominant EFL materials commonly used in Angola.

To analyze the benefit of incorporating communicative as well as self-evaluation and learning awareness strategies to provide teachers with useful meaningful materials adjusted to the students’ cultural and educational context in the EFL materials.

To design an EFL communicative material design incorporating self-evaluation strategies for boosting the reflective and flexible communicative teaching practices awareness in the students through the clear presentation of content and tasks included in the designed materials.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

For instance, the first lesson involves the diagnostic proficiency level of students. Then a teacher should be able to review the basic English contents that students should master in low school levels, suddenly the teacher can share digital English dictionary, visual and audiovisual input in the form of video clips, flashcards to activate schema and establish connections with lexical items, and the material design with its communicative activities. Then in the second lesson, teacher should be able to guide students through the EFL 1st year Nursing program at the Polytechnic Superior Institute of Bié Province (Angola) in order to build up semantic networks in the mind and to prepare students for the communicative interaction, which starts with information gap tasks developing into more complex tasks such as group discussions, as the sequence of the advanced activities from lower-order thinking skills (LOTS) to higher-order thinking skills (HOTS). The sequence from simple to complex is also given by considering the level of the target group, which descriptors define basic criteria in terms of language outcome. Therefore, the tasks that involve grammar are guided. Therefore, a section entitled ‘What should I do?’ can be created in order to set the ground for the grammatical competence by eliciting form from context, first through; listening, speaking, writing and reading tasks.

Need Analysis Data Collection Instruments, according to Ibrahim (2017), “there is a common agreement on the variety of the methods used to collect data in Need Analysis” (p. 3). Scholars such as Basturkmen (2010), Brown (1995, 2009), Long (2005), Hyland (2006), Richards (2001), Graves (1999), Dudley-Evans and St John (1998), and West (1997) concur that “questionnaires, observations, interviews, and analysis of authentic spoken and written texts are instruments which could be adopted to investigate needs.”

“Interviews are used to ask open-ended questions. They permit collecting private information from individuals” (Ibrahim, 2017, p.3). Brown (1995) suggests that “this leads to correct points of view.” However, interviews have some limitations; Dudley-Evans and St John (1998) state that “interviews need time to be conducted.” This is because they should be employed to complement any other data collection tool such as questionnaires. To conduct an interview and to attain relevant data, researchers need to limit the time and record the interview on a tape. “Analyzing authentic texts is a means of conducting Need Analysis. It involves analyzing written texts, or audio and video recordings of lectures, meetings, or classroom activities. It offers information about the target situation by identifying the linguistic features of the situation.” (Dudley-Evans & St John, 1998) Brown (1995) suggests that “authentic texts may exist inside or outside the program location.” Examining students ‘past evaluation is an example for information found inside program location, while conducting a literature review is an example for information that can be located outside. “Texts analysis assists in identifying what learners should read and write if they use the language mainly for reading and writing.” (Dudley-Evans & St John, 1998)

Previous Several studies have been conducted to assess teaching-learning staff needs. The author of this dissertation analyzed the needs of 56 professors and 1620 students at the Superior Polytechnic Institute of Bié Province. The study adopted a questionnaire method for data collection. The study found a great demand for varies academic insufficiencies. Therefore, the author of this dissertation also concluded that the students had problems in academic English basic abilities (Writing, Speaking, Listening and Reading), among others. At the Angolan public universities mainly to the Superior Polytechnic Institute of Bié Province regarding to the English language. Data were collected through a questionnaire, focus group, and interviews. The study found that English subject wanted to be proficient in the English language to publish their research, and to get full-time teaching jobs. The interviewed professors were interested in developing oral and listening skills and using English when teaching their classes. Then, they were analyzed the needs of first year Students in English students at the Superior Polytechnic Institute of Bié Province. The study used a proficiency test, structured interviews, and a questionnaire of the students for data collection. The study revealed that students considered listening, speaking, and translating texts from English to Portuguese and vice-versa, as the most important skills. Students also wanted to understand lectures in English, read and translate scientific articles, and take part in oral discussion. Moreover, the English subject was not proficient in the English language. Writing, speaking, listening and reading were considered as the most difficult skills for them. The study used in this dissertation has adopted a questionnaire of the students and a semi structured interview with the students, graduates, English language instructors, specialization instructors, and experts in Teaching English as a foreign language. The study revealed that all four skills were considered important and needed to be emphasized for EFL students. Students were unable to communicate in the English language. The recently graduates showed that the previous English taught as a subject in the Institution was not helpful to them. All the interviewers in the teaching learning process confirmed the importance of English in the students’ professional curricula. Participants were invited to participate according to their proficiency levels. They were usually those students who were in first year with the following qualitative marks: Good, Regular, Bad and Worst.

The participants in this study that represents the universe were composed of 1620 students. So, the population is 552 students which constitute the total number of students in first year. And the selected sample comprises the 70 students of the group of EFL 1st year nursing students at the Polytechnic Superior Institute of Bié Province, split in two semigroups (A & B), that is to say 35 students per semigroup. This sample was selected based on the convenience sampling technique. And it was distributed by; 50 worst students, 8 bad students, 7 regular students, 5 good students. In all these students only, the English subject was taken into account, at Superior Polytechnic Institute of Bié Province. And they were invited to take a placement test to determine their level in order to prepare a training program for them, in the English language. So, in the first place were selected from the sample 50 worst students that were the first group to attend the test, and they were represented by 23 from Class A and 27 from Class B. Section A in the questionnaire that showed the worst students in English at Superior Polytechnic Institute of Bié Province. These worst students represent 71, 43% of the total of the group of EFL 1st year nursing students at the Polytechnic Superior Institute of Bié Province, spitted in two semigroups (A & B). Representing the selected students and their ages ranged from 19-48 years of age. Among the selected sample, that is to say the 70 students. There were 48 males (68, 57%) and 22 females (31,43%). It is to emphasize that the 58 students of total (82, 86%) had only marks below the average of 7 over ten, exactly from (-7/10) up to (4/10), representing worst and bad levels. 7 students of the total (10%) had the marks from (6,5/10) up to (7/10), representing the regular level. 5 students of the total (7,14%) had the marks from (7/10) up to (8/10), representing the good level.

The author of this article had also a chance to interview some teachers of other subjects in order to know their English Knowledge levels, then here are the results; in a universe of 56 Teachers of different subjects, 45 (80,4%) were registered for English beginner’s level, and 11 (19,6%) were registered for English Intermediate levels. The instruments used to collect data were; a questionnaire and a proficiency test. The questionnaire was like the one adapted from Gillet (2015). It contained four sections: Section A deals with background information about teachers such as; sex, age, English level held, institution of graduation, and post-graduation year of study. Section B focuses on the reasons for the students needing in the English language. The participants were given a five-point Likert scale survey ranging from strongly agree to not sure. Section C covers the importance of the four skills in addition to other areas such as general vocabulary, scientific vocabulary, and grammar.

The fourth section that is D asks about the importance of some subskills related to writing, reading, speaking, and listening. As for the test, it was aimed at determining the teachers´ proficiency level and to decide on the problems they faced in the English language. The test contained five question sections. The first one was reading comprehension made up of a reading text followed by some multiple-choice questions (MCQs), the second section focused on grammar. The third question section was listening, the fourth and the fifth question were writing. Reliability According to Dörnyei (2003), “data collection tools should score not less than 0.060 to be considered reliable.”

Table 1 shows the instruments reliability.

Instrument

Cronbach’s alpha

No. of items Reliability

(Sqrt. of Cronbach’s alpha)

Students’ Questionnaire

70

40

0.571

Students’ Proficiency test

70

5

0.071

Source: Own elaborations.

Taking into consideration that the acceptable reliability for an instrument is at least (0.060), the study showed two instruments that were reliable as shown in Table 1

Accordingly, reading, writing, speaking and listening activities; consisting of several tasks that are designed to guide the students in achieving the targeted competencies are developed. For the listening tasks, the main input comes from authentic sources such as; YouTube videos that connect the students with the cultural aspects of the language and present an up-to-date information in an innovatively and visually attractive way. In turn, the listening input gives way to the speaking activities eliciting reflective thoughts around the linguistic issues through discussions. For instance, speaking activities types include: group discussions based on schema building, information gap, surveys, role-play interactions and “Talking Stations” to express more reflective opinions, as well.

Some of the activities are thought to be developed using technologies applied to education. Currently, the Ministry of Higher Teaching, Science, Technology and Innovation of Angolan Republic is not embarked in this project, because it does not seek to equip schools with tablets and computers for both students and teachers and to reduce the digital and knowledge gap. In addition to this objective and the project do not seek to outline, implement and promote inclusive strategies that integrate Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in the Angolan Educational system.

The philosophy of the project relies on: "Greater learning with greater resources for teaching, in a pleasant, rewarding and personalized environment" focused on the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) serving as a catalyst to improve the teaching/learning process, also developing great advances in an inclusive education, both for those students who are lagging behind in traditional education systems, as well as those who have special conditions or a disability, since they will have devices and software adapted to their needs.

It is clear that the use of ICT would match with the framework of task-based materials since it provides opportunities for the learners’ autonomy. On this behalf, the types of activities to fulfill this goal are accomplished when the students are:

Exposed to videos, required to create a bulletin board using Padlet by posting pictures of a linguistic issue to emphasize learning, suggesting a solution and replying to other students’ suggestions. Required to write a paragraph using Cambridge’s Write and Improve tool. Required to create a story using the Toontastic app, and others.

Furthermore, the social character of the topic chosen for the unit makes almost inevitable to resort to social work activity. In this sense, the design comprises a final task where the students will put into practice the theory. This is done by taking part in a cleaning day near the school with the appealing complement of being also a social media viral challenge closely related to students’ interest. The task comprises as well, a set of communicative activities collected to a social cause and others. Thus, the above tasks not only create linguistic awareness but also social awareness while they are part of the digital world trends.

Additionally, the overall assessment is expected to be during all the teaching process. Hence, the assessment practice aims to engage learners in demonstrating their skills in communicative and authentic tasks and that use specific criteria tied to the learning objectives to record and interpret students’ performances. Thus, the assessment for learning is based on a formative purpose through scaffolding learning, providing ongoing feedback during instruction or students’ performances, engaging students in self-assessment. “The final evidence of this performance-based assessment will be obtained from the story (product-focused), role-play (performance-focused) tasks developed and the self-assessments reflections (process-focused) included every two lessons which are based on types of assessment” (McTighe & Ferrara, 1998).

Last but not least, the activities are intended to be flexible, so teachers are welcome to adapt them as much as they consider necessary.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

The presentation of the material design has been born from my personal interest in developing a material design addressed to a group of EFL 1st year nursing students at the Polytechnic Superior Institute of Bié Province (Angola). To understand the reasons of this interest, it is important to establish some key changes that have been undergone in the Angolan higher education system, in recent years. The major change started in 2014 with the implementation of new organic scholar units, for the first time of the so-called New Organic Units for Higher Teaching. These new organic scholar units consisted of the extended government plan, in order to have the higher education system surround all Angolan provinces.

Therefore, the shifts which are impacting the workload or teaching time of the English language that has been taught as subject so far, it is devoting to it now, by two hours per week, in each group. A couple of years ago, there was also a reorganization of the levels' structures where, the first and second year-students were placed under the schedule of having four hours of English lessons per week. Another major adjustment was the inclusion of a curriculum based on competencies, where the achievement indicators are the basis to assess those competencies. Thus, this paradigm change resulted in a new concept for planning, developing and accessing students, mainly for those having English for specific purposes such as in courses like: psychology, social communication, nursing, informatics, water resources, accounting and so on. Consequently, it is understandable that these changes would also demand the use of appropriate strategies, thus the inclusion of more communicative task-based or project- based activities were fostered among teachers.

In this section the material design named Speak to me in English is presented, with the following instructions/guide for students and teachers: Both students and teachers might have this material, the teacher is the one who is going to guide the whole process but the student is always going to be the center of the teaching-learning process. The characteristics of the students’ levels in which this material is oriented are in almost of all the cases beginners representing the EFL 1st year nursing students at the Polytechnic Superior Institute of Bié Province (Angola). They are aged from 18 till 48 years. Due to the extreme importance the student represents in the teaching-leaning process of English as a foreign language the context and the learning objectives are described below, that is to say that English language is taught in an Angolan context twice a week, it means that each class or group might have four turns split in two by two. They are distributed in different days of the week. The learning objectives of this material design are:

The evaluation criteria used for this material were the ones adapted from Cunnings worth’s teacher textbook evaluation checklist that covers: aims and approach (8 items); language content, design and organization (20 items); language skills (4 items); topics (19 items). All of these criteria were distributed basically into 40 items and were evaluated by twenty-four expertise from different subject areas, among them those related to the

It is important to emphasize that; all evaluators agreed that the subject and the content of the textbook are generally realistic. The subject and the content are real and contextual with the Angolan political situation; connecting with the context of the students’ personal, social and cultural circumstances. It is also useful to say that almost of all the evaluators also assumed that the subject and the content of this textbook is interesting, challenging and motivating. But some evaluators disagreed with it, and they thought that this book is uninteresting, the subject and the content are unchallenging. This textbook is lack of a section of short video clips and audio-tapes which has native speakers as the model of pronunciation, intonation and accents. So, it forces the teacher to be creative; finding out other suitable input sources as the supplementary materials. It takes extra time and extra money to make the students have copies of them. And finally, it is to say that, all evaluators agreed that these textbooks are not culturally biased and they do not portray any negative stereotypes.

This section also presents the results which are organized to answer the following research question. In addition, the results are also discussed, and their implications are shown. Why do the Students at the Polytechnic Superior Institute of Bié Need the English Language? In this section the questionnaire sought to answer this research question. It asked the participants about the purposes for which they need English. It attempted to identify the purposes behind the students’ need for the English language. The results are shown in Table 2.

Table 2. Students’ Purposes for Needing the English Language

No.

Purpose

Strongly agree

Strongly disagree

Not sure

Did not answer

No.

%

No.

%

No.

%

No.

%

1

Academic study

45

64.3

25

35.7

0

0

0

0

2

Social life

67

95.7

0

0

0

0

3

4.3

3

Communication with the outside world

45

64.3

11

15.7

8

11.4

6

8.6

4

Teaching my students at low levels

43

61.4

12

17.1

0

0

15

21.4

5

Getting a new job

49

70

18

25.7

2

2.9

1

1.4

Source: Own elaborations.

As shown in Table 2, (67, 95.7%) of the participants who responded to this question strongly agreed that they needed English for social life. This purpose is followed by getting a new job (49, 70%) with strongly agree. Suddenly appears the academic study and communication with the outside world since (45, 64.3%) of the students strongly agreed on both. Teaching my students comes in the fourth place as (43, 61.4%) of the subjects who answered the question strongly agreed on that. It seems that participants are aware of their need for English language for various purposes. However, the need of English for social life is extraordinary. This is because English is not used in everyday life in Angola. This represents students’ “wants” rather than needs. Related to this, Hutchinson and Waters (1987) suggest that “wants may vary from needs and contradict with them.”

Table 3. Skills.

No.

Purpose

Strongly agree

Strongly disagree

Not sure

Did not answer

No.

%

No.

%

No.

%

No.

%

1

Reading

53

94.64

3

5.36

0

0

0

0

2

Writing

55

98.21

1

1.79

0

0

0

0

3

Speaking

54

96.43

2

3.57

0

0

0

0

4

Listening

51

91.07

5

8.93

0

0

0

0

5

General Vocabulary

52

92.86

4

7.14

0

0

0

0

6

Scientific Vocabulary

45

80.36

11

19.64

0

0

0

0

7

Grammar

45

80.36

11

19.64

0

0

0

0

Source: Own elaborations.

Table 3 shows that the most important skills are writing (55, 98.21%), speaking (54, 96.43%), reading (53, 94.64%) and general vocabulary (52, 92.86%), respectively. These are followed by listening (51, 91.07%), scientific vocabulary and Grammar (45, 80.36%). These results suggest that the Teachers, postgraduates, and students, they are fully conscious of the importance of writing for their studies, since most masters and doctorates´ programs surround the world require writing a partial thesis. Therefore, the results call for academic writing courses. Unfortunately, these courses are not offered.

The importance of speaking represents the Teaching Abilities’ wants since it is not urgently needed. As put by Ibrahim (2017) “it is normal to find difficulty in discovering students’ needs when, theoretically, students need to read, but they may be interested in other skills” (p. 15), that is, “delayed needs rather than immediate needs” (Dudley-Evans & St John, 1998, p. 40). Moreover, Robinson (1991) proposes that “speaking skills are considered as criteria for measuring language proficiency.” As for reading, it is considered important for academic purposes since it is needed because of its connection to writing theses. Generally, it can be stated that all the four skills are considered important in addition to general vocabulary, grammar, and scientific vocabulary.

These results can note to that of, Moattarian and Tahririan (2014) who revealed that “all the four skills were important to their participants.” The results contradict Bedoya et al. (2017) and Bouabdallah (2015), who concluded that “only listening and speaking were important to their subjects.”

“As to the creative process of materials creation, it will be mostly driven by principles of teaching and theories of learning” as suggested by Tomlinson (1998, pp. 5-22). His framework for materials development includes a list of principles in which he advises that the materials should:

Consequently, the design of the materials includes authentic input for listening and reading activities coming from authentic sources, such as YouTube videos and websites articles, being the internet the main source for up-to-date and easy access to these authentic pieces. This exposure helps learners to pay attention to features of authentic input. At the same time, this exposure promotes cultural and social awareness especially as regards the issue of the environment. “The access to cultural information is direct, which in turn helps students to use the target language authentically” (Rogers & Medley, 1988). Further, Stagich (1998) claims that, “understanding cultural context is the most effective way to learn the real meaning of the language”.

On the other hand, “to face possible students’ discouragement by lacking enough lexical tems and structures necessary for dealing with authentic materials according to their level” as described by Guariento and Morley (2001), “it has been considered suitability of content, exploitability, and readability as important criteria to select the authentic texts” (Berardo, 2006).

The purpose of this set of resources is to offer helpful material that serve as an aid for the EFL 1st year accounting students at the Polytechnic Superior Institute of Bié Province (Angola). The main structure of the material design includes guidelines on how to use the resources and instructions for students as well.

The materials include didactic unit intended to implement the curriculum in the classroom, using a communicative and interactive approach to language learning that will prepare students to develop and accomplish a set of learning objectives in which they will integrate grammatical, lexical, notion-functional and sociocultural contents, as well as listening, reading, speaking, writing skills, with emphasis on the development of environmental, human and communicative awareness, in the academic context of the Angolan public universities.

CONCLUSIONS

Over the centuries, in the English Language Teaching (ELT) field, many different approaches and methods for the target language instruction have been proposed and developed. These new approaches and methods are often developed in response to perceived problems arisen in prevalent approaches or methods at that time.

Nevertheless, the recent English Language Teaching (ELT) literature has been favoring communicative methods and approaches as opposed to traditional pedagogy focused mostly on grammar and vocabulary rather than communicative competence. All this due to the importance of the English language in today's world where it seeks to meet various communication needs in the lives of learners to meet the requirements of learning English in the era of integration, communication and globalization.

All the foregoing brings up the need to include in the application of these communicative approaches in the classroom, the materials that provide opportunities for communicative purposes in L2, thereby fostering language use. The teaching material is usually used as a link or element of union between the teacher and / or teacher and reality. Ideally, all teaching and learning should be carried out in contact with real life, but it is not always possible or advisable and that is why we resort to a series of means, resources or materials that serve as a bridge between what is taught and learned and the real world. Therefore, the teaching material replaces reality and tries to represent it in the best possible way, facilitating its objectification (Nerici, 1973). Among these materials are textbooks, which constitute the first option as a traditional resource for teaching English. It can be inferred that behind this predilection it is the fact that textbooks own a sense of structure, offering security to both teachers and students. At the same time, textbooks are also usually visually attractive.

Despite this assumed importance of the coursebook, in some teaching contexts, including mine; textbooks do not fulfill moderately or in many cases completely the needs of the students. This mainly due to its; decontextualization, irrelevance and inauthenticity; thus, preventing it from fulfilling its function of connecting with reality. Thus, ideally English language teachers develop materials that work best in their particular contexts.

Consequently, this project has developed a material design proposal to incorporate reflective and flexible communicative teaching about self-evaluation strategies for the improvement of communicative competence in a group of EFL 1st year nursing students at the Polytechnic Superior Institute of Bié Province (Angola). Based on set of lessons and some communicative activities that can be used in Angolan Republic Universities. This material design emphasizes the development of communicative competence integrating the four language skills through a task-based approach. Moreover, this material design follows the guidelines of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) and it is aligned with the Angolan National Curriculum following the achievement indicators and competencies required.

It is also important to highlight that this project constitutes a contribution to the field of materials design for Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) because unlike as it usually happens, some teachers design their own materials relying only in their classroom experience and setting aside the theories and principles underlying the process of materials design.

To achieve the objectives of this Project, these principles have been followed, while adapting, replacing and evaluating, thus linking theories and experience.

In this way, this material design proposal provides to my colleagues from the Universities and mainly those from the Polytechnic Superior Institute of Bié Province (Angola), with a meaningful and contextualized material for their students. As a future teacher trainer, this project also represents a model in which teachers can take advantage of, and inspire to initiate or improve the development of much-needed materials in our educational context. This objective can be easily accomplished by storing the project in the cloud and sharing the access link to it. In this way, the reception of feedback from my colleagues regarding materials in development is possible, too. Furthermore, teachers are encouraged to adapt and experiment with the lessons and report the outcomes of their modifications.

Hence, the development of this Project and its future implementation for evaluation are part of my reflective practice as a teacher since it demands to devote plenty of time constructing, deconstructing, and reconstructing my daily pedagogical practice. It is not less true that teaching materials by themselves are not sufficient to shape effective teaching and learning environments for languages, since an enjoyable EFL class depends widely on good materials used in creative and resourceful ways.

This, in turn, involves innovation, decision making, improvement of my teaching performance, and therefore, professional development. The outcomes of reflective teaching linked-to materials development (Based on Tomlinson, 1998) clearly establish it: Raises awareness of teaching and learning process; Foster teacher's development and; Allows teachers to act as agents of innovation.

In future research projects, this Project could be taken further by making modifications to it after its implementation and evaluation. Future versions of the design could include successful modifications that might replace the original activities or might provide optional activities, which teachers could use to reach the same objectives. In this vein, a further observation for the process of teacher materials creation is that teachers should consider collaborating closely during the process with their colleagues as possible. By doing so, it is guaranteed the enrichment of the creative process, especially if they are dealing with a general materials development project for the whole school.

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Conflicto de intereses

Los autores declaran no tener ningún conflicto de intereses.

Declaración de responsabilidad de autoría

Los autores del manuscrito señalado, DECLARAMOS que hemos contribuido directamente a su contenido intelectual, así como a la génesis y análisis de sus datos; por lo cual, estamos en condiciones de hacernos públicamente responsable de él y aceptamos que sus nombres figuren en la lista de autores en el orden indicado. Además, hemos cumplido los requisitos éticos de la publicación mencionada, habiendo consultado la Declaración de Ética y mala praxis en la publicación.

Neves Coquilo António, Ana Angelina Cangombe y Mario Carlos Fátima: Proceso de revisión de literatura y redacción del artículo.