Reflections on Readings

"Thus the work of materials writers is an interdisciplinary mix deeply influenced by cultural standards in the production and use of textbooks in educational settings (p.6)" The two key ideas here are "interdisciplinary mix", which addresses content, and "cultural standards", which addresses the audience.People look at textbooks at materials in different ways, depending on experience and cultural background.

Dubin, Fraida. (1995). The craft of materials writing. In P. Byrd (Ed.), Material writer's guide (pp. 13-22). Boston: Heinle & Heinle.

Textbooks often model native speaker language, which often lacks authenticity.
Textbook content is important! Writers much choose meaningful, engaging texts that stimulate the reader.

"Developing craft knowledge concerning materials development should contribute to creating practitioners who are capable of handling a variety of writing assignments; it should produce people who are more flexible and varied across skill areas."
A materials writer must really be a jack of all trades!

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Jolly, D, and Bolitho, R. A framework for materials writing. In Brian Tomlinson (Ed.), Materials development in language teaching (pp. 90-115). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Instructions must be clearly written
Materials need to be more effectively evaluated

"However, we take an entirely different view, believing that materials writing as as a process is pointless without constant reference to the classroom. In short, a need arises, materials are written, materials are used in the classroom to attempt to meet the need and subsequently they are evaluated."
A good materials writer needs the classroom as a reference point.

McDonough, J., and Shaw, C. (1993). Current approaches to materials design. In Jo McDonough and Christopher Shaw, Materials and methods in ELT: A teacher's guide (pp. 43-62). Oxford: Blackwell.

Must consider learner variables: personality, motivation, attitude, aptitude, learning styles and intelligence
Materials must provide adequate skill practice

"Most importantly, it contains the far-reaching implication that syllabuses cannot be fully worked out in advance but must evolve as learners' problems and developing competence gradually emerge."
Every class is different and requires special attention, which often means plans must change to meet the needs of the students.

Session 2
9/10-9/24

Byrd, P. (1995). Issues in the writing and publication of grammar textbooks. In Patricia Byrd (Ed.), Material writer's guide, pp. 45-63. Boston: Heinle & Heinle.

Pat Byrd

Examples must serve a purpose, like to check for accuracy, practice or understand a rule, help memorize or recall a rule.
Textbooks have two audiences - the teacher and the student.
Decisions about design are too often based merely on tradition
Examples should be presented with explanations
The author ultimately becomes part of the audience for a text

"While we go through the process of thinking, collection of information and revision of drafts, we eventually come to the time when something must be turned in. Thus the process results in a product-and is motivated by the need for that product." (p.56)
It is important to remember that there is a final goal - the product! There is a tangible,finite and achievable result that we are striving for.

"Presenting only examples without explanations is not a realistic strategy because of the fundamental nature of an example: any piece of language could be an example of many different concepts or patterns. The explanation is necessary as a way of focusing attention on the purpose of the example."(p.51)
Examples must be chosen wisely and properly explained in order to be of the most use to the reader.

Conrad, S. (2000). Will corpus linguistics revolutionize grammar teaching in the 21st century? TESOL Quarterly, 34, 548-560.

Susan Conrad

Three changes could change the teaching of grammar:

Teaching of grammar seems unaffected by the evidence uncovered by corpus linguistics
Shouldn't neglect rare grammar features
Teachers need to be willing to deviate from the traditional grammar syllabi

"The implication of corpus research for pedagogy is that grammatical study needs to take place within the context of a register or by comparing registers." (p.552)

The linking adverbial examples show how it is difficult to make generalizations about use when the contexts vary so greatly.

"Thus, decisions about pedagogy should apply corpus linguistics by taking into account functional descriptions and frequency information as well as analyses of students' needs." (p.557)

We shouldn't neglect uncommon grammatical features, but should teach them in a realistic context. Also, grammar points that are more frequent should receive more consideration.

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Jones, S., Byrd, P., Allomong, S., and Tanaka, Y. Heinle & Heinle grammar activity inventory. Retrieved from http://www.gsu.edu/~wwwesl/inventgr1/

Textbooks do not reflect the heightened awareness of learning strategies
Re-ordering words in phrases - great activity type.
Fill-in-the-blank - can be used for inflectional/derivational morphology lessons.
Pictures provide good basis for sentence creation activities
Sentence combining activity- good for writing skills

"One important reason for the separation of grammar and writing is the difference in the approach to both selection and implementation of activities for the two types of textbooks. In grammar texts, items to be taught are chosen (i.e., adverbs of frequency) and then activities to enhance or test their acquisition are chosen (e.g., matching) from those available. In writing texts, on the other hand, there is a different tradition concerning activity types, and organization of units. Writing is almost always contextualized and based on a unit topic."
Perhaps it would be nice to have a book that integrated both!

It is for subsequent researchers to study the different categories and develop some correlation between particular activity types and improved learning.
It would be interesting to know (if possible) if certain activity types did indeed lead to improved learning.

Larsen-Freeman, D. (2001). Teaching grammar. In Marianne Celce-Murcia (Ed.), Teaching English as a second or foreign language (3rd ed., pp. 251-266).

Diane Larsen-Freeman

Marianne Celce-Murcia

Grammar isn't just a discrete set of structures, but rather a 3-pronged force consisting of from, meaning, and use.
It's important to identify the key challenges before teaching. Basically, teachers should have an idea of where their students will struggle.
Needs to be a balance between grammar and communication
Learning isn't a linear process
Grammar teaching=>skills that require practice
Games provide practice for particular grammar points

"..meaningless mechanical drills, such as repetition drills, commonly associated with behaviorist approaches to learning, do not engage the learner in the target behavior of conveying meaning through language."(p.258)
The types of activities we choose should seek to engage the learner in a meaningful context. However, sometimes the rote activities have a place in equipping the learner with the form skills necessary for using the language in a meaningful, authentic context.

"...grammar teaching can better be thought of as developing 'grammaring', i.e., helping students be able to use grammar skillfully, a goal that requires significant practice."(p.258)
As teachers of language, we are not just imparting knowledge, but actually teaching skills -- and that takes practice. It's almost as if we take on the role of a coach.

Session 3
9/24-10/8

Coxhead, A. (2000). A New Academic Word List. TESOL Quarterly, 34, (2), 213-238.

Averil Coxhead

word family - a stem plus all closely related affixed forms
different criteria for word selection can lead to different results
AWL words chosen based on specialized occurence, range, and frequency
need words from a variety of academic disciplines
sometimes difficult to tell if a word is lexically similar enough to include as a part of a given word family

"This study has identified vocabulary to include in teaching and learning materials, but there remains a need to design tests to diagnose whether learners know this vocabulary and whether attempts to teach it and learn it have been successful."
This is a great list - now we just need to figure out what to do with it!
"By highlighting the words that university students meet in a wide range of academic texts, the AWL shows learners with academic goals which words are most worth studying."
The list can help teachers decide what words to teach, as well as help teachers evaluate students' vocabulary knowledge.

Decarrico, J.S. (2001). Vocabulary learning and teaching. In Marianne Celce-Murcia (Ed.), Teaching English as a second or foreign language (3rd ed., pp. 285-299).

Chomsky rejected behaviourist view of language; promoted idea of universal grammar
Beginners should learn a large chunk of vocabulary early on
incidental vocab. learning takes place when vocab. learning isn't the primary objective
important to include strategies for inferring the meaning of unknown words

"A common view in vocabulary studies is that we have not been explicitly taught the majority of words that we know, and that beyond a certain level of proficiency in a second language, vocabulary learning is more likely to be mainly implicit (incidental)."
I think the key is exposure - for both explicit and implicit acquisition.
"It is, of course, neither possible nor desirable for learners to try to use all strategies all the time, but they may find it useful to vary strategies that seem more appropriate to a given situation..."
Learners need to know how to decide the most appropriate strategy in a situation. We need to equip learners for this decision making process.

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Groot, P. (2000). Computer Assisted Second Language Vocabulary Acquisition. Language Learning & Technology 4, (1), pp. 60-81. Retrieved at http://llt.msu.edu/vol4num1/groot/default.html.

Most L1 vocab learning is incidental and incremental
L2 learners need to learn strategies like how to use context clues to determine meaning
Better to see words in context than in isolation
Grammar centered approach not the best way to achieve communicative competence
need vocab of 7000 words to understand academic text
authentic L2 language is inadequate for incidental acquisition because it contains

"..Intensive processing of new words leads to a more solid embedding and better long term retention which is needed for active use of the words, than does superficial processing of the words out of context with the translation given, as in bilingual lists. "
The study's results indicate that there is a correlation between retention and depth of processing.
"Authentic language material is generally not produced with the intention of illustrating to learners the meaning or usage of certain words but rather to convey information to other native speakers who are already familiar with these words. "
-nice to have a definition of authentic materials!

Nation, P. (2000). Learning vocabulary in lexical sets: Dangers and Guidelines. TESOL Journal 9 (2), 6-10.

many potentially interfering items in most language courses
teachers need to inform learners of the dangers of learning related words together
interference is more likely w/ unfamiliar items
more advanced learners can handle more closely related terms
making differences greater can make words easier to learn by minimizing the potential for interference

"Seeing items in contrast to each other can clarify their differences in meaning and use, but this contrast should not occur until one or both of them are firmly established."
Teachers need to be make sure a word is established before introducing a related word.

"The principle behind interference is something like this: if two or more items share some strongly related common features and they are learned together at the same time, the similar features make them become strongly associated with each other, and the differences interfere with each other."
So the bottom line is that it would be hard to remember which word goes with which different feature.

Stoller, F.L., and Grabe, W. (1995). Implications for L2 vocabulary acquisition and instruction from L1 vocabulary research. In Thomas Huckin, Margot Haynes, and James Coady (Eds.), Second language reading and vocabulary learning, pp. 24-45. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing Corporation.

Seemingly effortless increase in vocab. for L1 learners
possible explanations:

strategies for learning vocab include: explicit definitions, examples, context, morphological analysis
allowing S's to choose their own vocab. words can increase motivation
Narrow reading-S's focus on a particular topic or author

"Generally speaking, the range of skills introduced in an L1 or L2 classroom and corresponding instructional approaches cannot be determined until the following issues are considered: student needs and motivation, instructional objectives, the words which might need to be learned, the extent to which these words need to be learned, and their importance for overrall curricular goals."
And more than one approach is needed - too many variables to consider.
"..the potential overuse of semantic mapping and semantic feature analyses, used to either introduce too many vocabulary items at once or to introduce less useful vocabulary, must be avoided in L2 contexts where students may be easily overloaded."
Even the best ideas must be used in moderation.

IEP #1 0650: Structure and Composition
course materials such as syllabus and IEP documents and
communication with the teacher

course goal: improving accuracy and controlling tone in writing
primary task: writing, editing, and revising academic papers
80% of the student's grade is based on writing essays
grammar topics include sentence variety, transitions, subordination, coordination, passive vs. active, and conditionals
the teacher wants "beautiful papers!"

"In this course, students will learn about academic writing and about the grammar of academic writing. Through the writing, revising, and editing of academic papers, students will practice the features that make for successful writing in university courses."
Activities for the course must aid students in developing the skills necessary to complete the above mentioned tasks.
"To improve the accuracy of your writing, we will practice editing texts for both grammar errors and logical organization."
Some web activities could involve the editing process.

IEP #2 0650: Structure and Composition
textbook and instructor's manual

chapters divided up by different types of writing
each chapter includes several readings, along w/ pre-vocab. exercises
each chapter ends with a final writing assignment
ch.4 deals w/"evaluating"
includes Grammar and Language Reference at the end of the book
uses clear examples of grammar concepts

"It [the final section] takes students through th esteps of producing the final writing assignment from the stage of gathering information for a specific audience and purpose to organizing the piece of writing to self-editing, peer response, and revision."
At the end of each chapter students must synthesize what they have learned through several writing tasks. The organization is important to consider as we design activities.
"It [this book] contains strategies to help you approach a variety of writing tasks-understanding your audience and purpose, discovering what elements are required in each writing task, seeing the grammar and vocabulary that you can use in a given writing task, and applying editing strategies to accurately convey your meaning.
This statement provides a framework for our activities - they should contribute to one or more of these goals.

Session 4
10/8-10/22

Prowse, Philip. (1998). How writers write: testimony from authors. In Brian Tomlinson (Ed.), Materials development in language teaching (pp. 130-115). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

working together - a constant challenge
lots of polishing, revising and finishing
materials writers rely heavily on intuition

" 'Some people just sit down at the table and work. It has never been this way with me. My ideas and intentions boild inside me for a long time, even details take quite a while to mature, then at some point I feel I can start writing. Usually after this moment everything pours out in a gulp.'"
I can relate -- I can't force the writing process, and when I do, the product is terrible. It's only when I least expect it or find myself under immense pressure that I am able to write.

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Reid, J. Developing ESL writing materials for publication OR writing as a learning experience. In Patricia Byrd (Ed.), Material writer's guide (pp. 64-78). Boston: Heinle & Heinle.

first time authors should request class-testing of their materials by experienced teachers
coauthoring extends the possibilities, even though it can take more time
revisions are viable and marketable for 20 years

"Writing, like teaching, is hard work: only those whose commitment to service and the satisfaction of serving need apply."
Writing requires skill and motivation! I need a sudden injection of both!

Session 5
10/22-11/5

Byrd, P. (2001). Textbooks: Evaluation for selection and analysis for implemention. In Marianne Celce-Murcia (Ed.), Teaching English as a second or foreign language (3rd ed., pp. 415-427).

Pat Byrd

must consider the fit between the materials and the curriculum
three key components: content, examples and tasks
teachers need to read the whole book before teaching it!
teaching: overlapping cycle of presentation, practice, and evaluation
teachers have formal and informal resources
teachers - constantly making decisions

"Once a textbook has been selected, teachers need to analyze the resources in the textbook to create a plan for daily lessons and for the whole course that helps them both implement and supplement what is already given in the most efficient and effective way."
It's important to see the big picture - to have an overview of the course before you ever even enter the classroom.
"..teachers have to be aware not just of their lives inside their classrooms, but they must also be knowledgeable about the larger system in which they work and about possible ways that the system might allow for teacher participation in its administrative processes."
It seems as though teachers definitely have more say in the US, and in particular within private institutions in the States. However, it is important for teachers to me informed no matter where they happen to be.

Kessler, G., and Plakans, L. (2001). Incorporating ESOL learners' feedback
and usability testing in instructor-developed CALL materials. TESOL Journal
10 (1), 15-20

Learner input is important for materials designers
Usability testing: data collected on interaction between user and product
Developers need to consider who will be using the final product
think aloud - most common means of data collection in usability testing
quality of materials - direct result of feedback from usability testing
Learners are individuals and are affected by the environment
Usability testing helps identify major problem areas

"The overall process is to get users to perform tasks on the materials being developed and to observe what occurs as they do so. During observation, the developer collects data on the actions, particularly the problematic actions, of the user. There are many possibilities for proceeding with usability testing. Each developer should consider the materials, the users, and the environment.."
Even though this is an effective means of collecting data, the researcher must consider a variety of variables.
"As more instructors attempt to develop computer-based materials, it becomes increasingly important to assure the appropriateness and usability of the materials."
Obviously, although instructors may know their students best, they may not create the best materials. We need to test the appropriateness and usability of what we create.

Chapelle, C. (1998). Multimedia CALL: Lessons to be learned from instructed SLA. Language Learning & Technology 2 (1), pp. 22-34 Retrieved at http://llt.msu.edu/vol2num1/article1/index.html

learners need a lot of comprehensible input
learners need to correct their linguistic output
target language interaction is crucial
input needs salient linguistic characteristics

"When learners have focused their attentions on their errors, they need to have the opportunity to correct themselves."
Feedback is important and useful only when learners can try to put the new information into practice. This is where encouragement and direction from the teacher is vital, as learners strive to produce correct language forms as a result of the new information received after making mistakes.

Egbert, J. (1999). Classroom practice: Creating interactive CALL activities. In Joy Egbert and Elizabeth Hanson-Smith (Eds.), CALL environments: Research, practice, and critical issues (pp. 27-51). Alexandria, VA: TESOL.

computer technology can be used in creative ways to enhance social interaction
computer-enhanced classrooms are superior to labs.
teachers need to be equipped to best integrate tech. into the classroom

"School is often an isolating environment in which one classroom rarely communicates with others."
This is so true! I sometmes go days without interacting with my colleagues, a sad fact considering the goal of a community of learners.

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Healey, D. (1999). Theory and research: Autonomy in language learning. In Joy Egbert and Elizabeth Hanson-Smith (Eds.), CALL environments: Research, practice, and critical issues (pp. 391-402). Alexandria, VA: TESOL.

autonomy: how much control the learner has over the structure of the learning environment
4 learner issues: degree of self-motivation, preference for indenendent style, knowledge of how one learns best and knowledge of what one needs to learn
content affects degree of autonomy
If a student is aware of best learning style he can structure his learning accordingly

"A commonly noted problem with autonomous learning is that students sometimes have trouble seeing the progress they have made and become discouraged when they think about how much farther they need to go."
This is where the teacher's encouragement and feedback is crucial, especially with sensitive learners.

Kol, S., and Schcolnik, M. (2000). Enhancing screen reading strategies. CALICO Journal 18 (1), 67-80.

problems are associated with reading on screen
text comprehension: complex, dynamic task
aim of the study: improve students' abilities to read on-screen
the purpose of skimming is to quickly locate pieces of information
screen skimming is different from paper skimming

"However, the results of the current study seem to indicate that students can probably read as well on screen as they do on paper, provided students who read on screen are taught the necessary strategies."
As teachers we must remember that if if we are going to require our students to read on screen then we must equip them with strategies to make the medium more effective.

Shin, J., and Wastell, D. (2001). A user-centered methodological framework for the design of hypermedia-based call systems. CALICO Journal 18 (3), 517-537.

increasing interest in CALL over the last several years
a rigorous framework is necessary for adequately developing CALL systems
constructivist viewpoint - learning requires self-regulation and the building of conceptual structures through reflection and abstraction
the study adopts a user-centered approach
principles: resolved questions; issues - open and in need of investigation
degree of user control is a major design issue

"Although learners wanted more control during the learning process, they were more satisfied at the after-learning stage with the low control system. This result implies that the learners felt greater achievement after learning with restricted navigation. "
It's interesting to note the learner input as we design our activities and address issues of learner autonomy in the classroom.

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