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Important facts or concepts
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Quotations
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| Byrd, P. (1995). Writing and publishing textbooks. In Patricia Byrd (Ed.), Material writer's guide (pp. 3-9). Boston: Heinle & Heinle. | *Material writers have to keep in mind
that there is not just one audience for any textbook. *Material writers have to try to bridge the theory and practical classroom experiences. |
"The most demanding of the differences
between writing for ....is the search for coherence." I think the most difficult part in publishing textbooks is to be coherent over the entire book. |
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| Dubin, Fraida. (1995). The craft of materials writing. In P. Byrd (Ed.), Material writer's guide (pp. 13-22). Boston: Heinle & Heinle. | *It is important to create a character that is similar
to the learners. *It is necessary for writers to select interesting contents. |
"In providing meaningful contexts, writers must
creat characters... ages, traits, backgrounds." As a learner, I remember I learned things that are irrelevent to my experiences, which was not helpful at all. . |
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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. | *Not only contents of a textbook but also a physical
attractiveness is important. *The first step to create a material is to identify a need for materials from experiences in classroom. |
"Part of the materials-writers task must be
to provide clear exercises..." Bearing it in mind that students learn a lot from various language use, it is important to contain as many exercises as possible. |
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| 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. |
*A multi-syllabus is an integral set of syllubus that
depicts all facets of language learning components. *Current coursebook design is deeply concerned with characteristics of learners and their styles. |
"The need for teachers to take a critical view
of any movement...." This quote just made sense to me in that pertaining an old way of teaching is not good, but it is necessary to take a careful look at new approaches. |
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Holmes, Martin. (n.d.) Web language. Retrieved
August 18, 2002, from http://web.uvic.ca/hcmc/rnd/ |
*Language teachers can benefit greatly from creating
or using web based exercises. *Web based activities are beneficial in that they can be interactive. |
"to draw some useful general conclusions about
what computers are good at, and what they are not good at, in the
field of language teaching and learning" Knowing the merits and drawbacks of using computer materials makes things easier. |
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| Biographical statement on Martin Holmes. (n.d.) Retrieved August 18, 2002, from http://web.uvic.ca/hcmc/staff/martin.htm | *Martin used to teach English in many countries. *He is involoved with various teaching English activities on the web. |
"Until 1998 I was an ESL teacher, and in the
last few years I taught in Japan, Indonesia, Greece, Saudi Arabia,
and the UK" It is interesting to notice that the work he is doing right now is also along the lines with what he used to do. |
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| 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 | *Grammar textbooks are the most commonly published among
ESL textbooks. *The same grammar content has to be covered at each level, but the difference lies in its complexity and depth. |
"One danger of this strategy is that it is "verb-centric." The author points out that a popular pattern builds around the verb system. It was striking to me that I am so used to seeing the verb systems as the central concept in understanding English system. |
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| Conrad, S. (2000). Will corpus linguistics revolutionize grammar teaching in the 21st century? TESOL Quarterly, 34, 548-560. | *Grammar instructions will be empowered with grammar-
in- use(register-specific). *Grammar instructions will be integrated with vocabulary instruction. |
"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." It makes sense to me that knowledge of grammar is useless unless it is understood within its real context. |
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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/ | *We can create various activities: mutiple choice, matching,
word orders, changing word forms, and work with illustrations. *Grammar activities can be useful done in context as well. |
"Choose the sentence that reflects the most
logical continuation of the ideas expressed in the first sentence." I like this kind of activity because it gives students a chance to guess meanings in context. |
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| Larson-Freeman, D. (2001). Teaching
grammar. In Marianne Celce-Murcia (Ed.), Teaching English as a second
or foreign language (3rd ed., pp. 251-266). |
*Grammatical form, meaning, and use have to be considered
in grammar teaching. *It is better to think learning grammar is not something to memorize but a skill to helps better understand grmmar. |
"It has become clear that grammatical structures
and lexical items occur in a large number of regularly occuring patterns." I think it is one of features that make grammar learning or teaching easier and interesting. |
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| Coxhead, A. (2000). A New Academic Word List. TESOL Quarterly, 34, (2), 213-238. | *The Academic Word List includes a great
deal of word families that are frequently occurred in academic context
regardless of the subject area, so this list can come handy for students
in academia. *Students in academia need more vocabulary than two thousand vocabulary, and AWL can serve as the foundation for their studies. |
"Courses that involve direct attention
to language features have been found to result in better learning
than courses that rely solely on incidental learning." This quote emphasizes the importance of teaching vocabulary explicitly when needed along with acquiring vocabulary incidentally. |
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| 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). | *Approaching both explicitly and implicitly to learning
vocabulary is crucial. *Learning collocations, idioms, lexical phrases, and word families can help expand vocabulary efficiently. |
"Learners should be given explicit instruction
and practice in the first two or three thousand high-frequency words,
while beyond this level, most low-frequency words will be learned
incidentally while reading or listening." I think my experience as a learner proves that this quote is realistic and true to learners. I think if I had not mastered enough basic vocabulary knowledge, I would not have been able to expand my vocabulary power through incidental exposures. |
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| Groot, P. (2000). Computer Assisted Second Language Vocabulary Acquisition. Language Learning & Technology 4, (1), pp. 60-81. | *The reasons why it is impossible to learn vocabulary
incidentally in L2 settings are as follows: low frequently occurring
words make learning or retaining it impossible through incidental
learning; authentic contexts contain too many unknown vocabulary to
learners, which makes guessing in contexts hard; in L2 learning situations,
full contexts are not provided for better understanding of unknown
words. *CAVOCA (Computer Assisted Vocabulary Acquisition) is a computer program for vocabulary acquisition in a foreign language. The steps described in this program are as follows: deduction; usage; examples, and lexical retrieval. |
"It is therefore necessary that a large number
of words be learned in a short period of time at the intermediate
and advanced stages of language acquisition. Incidental acquisition
of these words is only possible to a point, because they do not occur
often enough in the foreign language learning material. Learning new
words from authentic L2 reading texts by means of strategies such
as contextual deduction is not the answer either" I think the reason why intentional vocabulary teaching has widely been administered in EFL setting is because of the reason mentioned above. It is very true that L2 vocabulary learners are not as exposed to incidental vocabulary learning as much. |
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| Nation, P. (2000). Learning vocabulary in lexical sets: Dangers and Guidelines. TESOL Journal 9 (2), 6-10. | *Introducing and learning words of closely related meaning
is not an efficient way of learning: This approach will confuse students
more, so it is better to separate similar words in a lesson. *To minimize interference and to boost the efficiency of enhancing vocabulary, course designers, teachers, and learners themselves can do their best: present or learn the items at different times and try to avoid interference. |
"In addition to the criteria of frequency and
avoidance of interference, course designers need to apply a criterion
of normal use, meaning that words should occur in normal communication
situations, not in contrived, language focused activities." I believe this approach will get students more motivated to learn vocabulary since vocabulary they learn might somehow related to their every day lives. |
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| 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. |
*The growth of vocabulary can be explained within theoretical
hypotheses, such as aptitude, knowledge, instrumentalist, and access
hypotheses. *The growth of vocabulary can also be explained within more concrete learning approaches, such as explicit reference, example, context, and morphological analysis. |
"Vocabulary learning is a complex process and
an integral part of students' reading abilities." I like this quote because this seems that it explains that the nature of vocabulary acquisition that vocabulary learning takes time and it also demonstrates that vocabulary mainly are acquired by reading extensively. |
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| 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). | *When deciding a textbook, we need multi-dimensional
consideration in regard to the relationship between curriculum, students,
teachers and texts. *It is crucial for a teacher to understand and get a whole idea about what the text is about and how it is organized in order to implement the book well. |
"Influencing the selection process
in these situations is not just a matter of pedagogical knowledge
but also of political skill." This quote is important in a sense that teachers are not just instructors who can't do anything about given situation, but active members who can change situations by getting involved in decision making processes in institutes where they teach. |
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| Kessler, G., and Plakans, L. (2001). Incorporating ESOL learners' feedback and usability testing in instructor-developed CALL materials. TESOL Journal 10 (1), 15-20 | *CALL (computer-assisted language learning) can be developed
by language teachers, who are interested in incorporating their teaching
into using computers. *It is always crucial to have students involved in getting feedback on materials created by teachers because they are the ones who use them and get benefits from them. |
"We encourage all ESOL instructor-developers
to consider incorporating usability testing into the materials development
process." After reading this article, I was able to clearly picture myself creating a web-based material and using the usability testing to enhance the material by getting feedback from students in the future. |
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| Reid, J. (2002). Dealing with reviews. | *It is important to have some time before starting reading reviews and makes notes that are thought to be worthwhile. | "And I reward myself with ice cream." When I read this sentence, I laughed. As a teacher or as a student, rewarding myself or complimenting myself is one of the things that help me keep good working. Don't forget that. |
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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. |
*To enhance learner's autonomy, learners' issues, such as degree of self-motivation, preference for an independent style and content issues, such as the concrete presentation of the goals needs to be taken into consideration. *The issue of offering feedback is highly discussed in supporting independent learning; that is, learner autonomy certainly helps learners to be more independent, but learners might opportunities to get feedback directly from teachers. Assessing students' work regularly can lessen this kind of problems. |
"Another type of barrier set up by technology
can be psychological." Using computers or the Internet in class can definitely help students become independent learners. However, I have often noticed some old students frustration because they can't just keep up with other young students who are good at dealing with computers and the Internet. I think, we as teachers can help these students by allotting separate time with them after class. |
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| 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. |
*Collaborating writing can be much help for writers in that co writers can share ideas and exchange feedback for better improvement, but it can be frustrating because individual writers might have different writing styles and preferences in terms of writing a ESL textbook together. *Writers should know how to work with publishers, designers, and illustrators for the best piece of work. |
"Writing brings joy, when inspiration comes,
when your hand cannot keep up with the speed of your thoughts." When I am highly motivated and when I am full of good ideas, I can feel this similar excitement. I can imagine how an author would feel when a lot of quality ideas are sprung into paper. Nothing can beat the speed of your thoughts! |
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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. |
*A seasoned ESL textbook writer comes from an experienced ESL teacher in the field. *While experienced writers tend to take feedback from others as fruitful value and reflect on their work, less experienced writers are not likely to take feedback as useful sources for correction of their work. |
"The revisions of ESL texts are viable and marketable
for 20 years. …….Therefore, it is beneficial for all published
authors to immediately begin thinking about how their textbooks could
be improved." I like this feature of a good ESL text that it can be used over a long period of time with revised versions available. I think writers' keeping in mind that their creation can be used for a long time and can be revised for better use would motivate them more |
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| Chapelle, C. (1998). Multimedia CALL: Lessons to be learned from instructed SLA. Language Learning & Technology 2 (1), pp. 22-34 |
*Having materials backed up by some SLA theories not only gives CALL materials power and legitimacy, but it also makes developing materials much easier.
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"It may be important that learners have an audience
for the linguistic output they produce so that they attempt to use
the language to construct meanings for communication rather than solely
for practice" This quote struck me because it is so true that there are a lot of activities or language drills to offer students opportunities to produce the target language, but almost all of them tend to fail to help students achieve the communication ability rather than practice. |
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| 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. |
*By the careful planning of teachers, web-based activities can be interactive.
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"Electronic journals not only give teachers
valuable insights into learners' progress and problems but are also
a wonderful way to integrate email into the classroom" This quote gives me an idea about how we teachers can start putting interaction in computer based classroom by having students keep email journal. I think students, especially, in EFL settings, would find keeping electronic journals helpful in learning writing in English and getting feedback. |
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| Kol, S., and Schcolnik, M. (2000). Enhancing screen reading strategies. CALICO Journal 18 (1), 67-80. | *Because of its ease of access, storage, and cross-referencing,
reading materials on the web or on the screen is getting popular.
Many subsequent studies show that even using web materials or CALL
enables students to make reading much easier with the assists of various
functions available on the screen, not like paper materials.
*Highlighted keywords and meaningful subheading on the screen facilitates
students' reading. |
"Although more and more reading is taking place
on screen, certain problems are still associated with reading in this
mode" It is true that I'm used to read basically every material on the web or on the screen, but I would have to say that if possible, I would try to download the text from the web and make the material available in a paper form, which I found comfortable handling with. |
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| 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. |
*Hypermedia based CALL systems can be improved by approaching
it as user-centered methodology, that is design subset of activities
or materials and try them out by users directly, and in the process
of getting feedback from users, materials can get improved.
*When CALL designers and writers write materials, it is important to take into consideration that learners tend to prefer high learner control prototype and some teachers would prefer low learner control prototype. It is all about balancing between the two. |
"The essence of constructivism is to motivate
learning by leading students to experience the individual and subjective
satisfaction inherent in solving a problem that is seen and chosen
as one's own" Drilling as one would solve math problems doesn't lead learners to achieve native like sense about the target language, in other words, simply solving problems doesn't help students to acquire the language. In this sense, a sense of constructivism would assist students in becoming independent learners. |
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