Reflections on Readings

Yuelu Sun
AL 8660 Materials Design, Development, & Publication
Fall Semester, 2002

Byrd, P. (1995). Writing and publishingtextbooks. In Patricia Byrd (Ed.), Material writer's guide (pp. 3-9). Boston: Heinle & Heinle.

The work of materials writer is an interdisciplinary mix deeply influenced by cultural standards in the production and use of textbooks in educational settings.

Materials writers need to work from a solid base of classroom experience and awareness of the realities of the classroom interactions of teachers and students in particular settings who are trying to realize particular goals.

" We must consider our students' cultural histories, their purposes for studying English, and the context in which English is to be used."

It is important to have some knowledge of the students' learning styles, cultural expectations and their needs of learning the target language.

Textbooks need to frequently model the target language and also assign some practice task to the learner.

Textbook writers should select passages that will hold the attention and stimulate the interest of the widest possible audience and create ways to guide learners into understanding the meaning of the text.

"Traditionally, language courses have exposed learners to small segments, one step at a time, until the whole is built up, leaving it up to the learners to put all the pieces together."

The problem of presenting the linguistic elements is that the order of presentation may not comply with the learners' acquisition order and the presented segments do not add up to a whole language.

To keep students engaged and interested, material writers need to provide the audience with something to do. In other words, we have to make the process interactive.

More interactive than pencil-and-paper exercises (and therefore, presumably, more stimulating and interesting)

"To keep students engaged and interested, we need to provide them with something to do. In other words, we have to make the process interactive."

It is important for material writers to bear in mind that learning the target language is to use the language and provide every opportunity for them to do something with the languge.

Each essay received electronically can easily be archived, both in its original and its marked form.

A system like this also has great potential value for those of us working on distance learning courses, which are increasingly taking up residence online. Students can submit their work from anywhere in the world.

"A database of past student essays can be remarkably useful in standardizing marking practices among teachers."

This is a good method to save teachers time to write comments and meanwhile the students can understand what is wrong with their essay.

The most effective materials are those based on a thorough understanding of learners' needs: their language difficulties, their learning objectives, their styles of learning, etc.

Teachers need to be able to write their own materials in order to reduce their dependency on publisher materials and as a means of professional development.

"They (teachers) understand their (students') needs and their learning styles. The more they become sensitive and responsive to these needs, the more they become involved in researching their own classrooms."

This means teachers can also create effective materials, which are suitable to their students' needs and level if they get training and solid knowledge in material design.

Learners' characteristics need to be taken into consideration when material writers and teachers design mateirals.

Different teaching situations hav different requirements and expectations.

"Learners will naturally need to engage in the process of both comprehending and producing language. In doing this they use a range of strategies that are probably shared by all language users, whether learning a foreign language or using their mother togue."

So it is important for material writers and teachers to do research on the learners' strategies in order to create materials which accord with learners' variables.

Distinction between spoken and written English grammar should be taken into account when materials writers are designing their grammar materials.

Materials writers need to provide grammar explanations and information which are not only useful for students, but also for teachers so that they can help students understand the grammar content.

"The difference between an intermediate student and an advanced student does not seem to be in the inventory of grammar items each knows but in the improved accuracy and automaticity of use of those items in communication by the advanced student, along with his or her expanded range of vocabulary."

I agree with this point from my own learning and teaching experience. Most learners have learned most of the grammatical inventories at the intermediatel level. But that does not guarantee their accurate and fluent use of those grammatical items, which is considered as the distinction line between the intermediate and advanced students.

Corpus-based research shows that even within what is considered the standard English there are varieties across registers, mainly decided by their purposes and situations for use. Such register differences will be an essential part of grammar teaching.

Frequency information can provide teachers with information about which lexicogrammatical items needs more emphasis than another in grammar teaching and which are appropriate to teach with regard to students' levels.

"One common frustration for ESL teachers is explaining to students why something that is grammatically acceptable 'just doesn't sound right.'"

This point is especially true to EFL non-native-speaker teachers, who get most of the information and knowledge about grammar from books rather than from real-world language environment. It is harder for them to judge whether "something grammatically acceptable just doesn't sound right".

Movement from the Identification activities--identifying and labeling grammatical features, to the analysis activities--analyzing why the concerned grammatical items are used in a certaincontext, can facilitate students' cognitive process.

Multiple Choice belongs to the larger category of Fill-in-the-Blank, with the choices provided for best selection.

"The greatest challenge we faced was trying to define our categories and make each one distinct from the others without much overlap."

Sometimes it is hard to make a clear-cut distinction between different activity categories, for example, multiple choice can be considered as a subcategory of fill-in-the-blank activities if the choices are used to fill in the blank,and may also be considered questions -and-answers if they are provided for answering a question (?). (That is what I think).

Grammar teaching needs to take the form/structure, meaning/semantics and use/pragmatics into consideration.Grammar taught in a detextualized form cannot lead to students' appropriate use of the forms in communication, which is the ultimate goal of language teaching, including grammar teaching.

Using the garden path strategy, a way to have students to discover the exceptions to a certain grammatical rule, to raise students' awareness of the complete picture of that specific grammatical item is more effective than giving them a collection of rules.

"...grammar teaching is not so much knowledge transmission as it is skill development...By thinking of grammar as a skill to be mastered, rather than a set of rules to be memorized, we will be helping ESL/EFL students go a long way toward the goal of being able to accurately convey meaning in the manner they deem appropriate."

This reminds of such a case that a lot of Chinese students can recite the grammatical rules and do quite well in multiple-choice exams testing the grammatical rule, but they do not know how and where to use the grammatical rules appropriately in real-world communication.

It is important for direct teaching and direct learning of vocabulary to be accomplished in reading and listening in context, and also in using the vocabulary in speaking and writing.

As over 82% of the words in the Academic word lists are derived from Latin and Greek, teaching students some knowledge of word formation, such as the pprefixes, suffixes and stems may facilitate their vocabulary acquistion.

"Courses that involve direct attention to language features have been found to result in better learning than courses that rely solely on incidental learning".

There has been contraversy on this point. Some researchers think that only incidental learning can result in long-term retention and is the best way to learn vocabulary. But in some contexts, especially in EFL context, students have limited time to learn and limited exposure to a large vocabulary. Therefore, direct learning should also have a position in vocabulary learning.

A well-designed vocabulary program should include both explicit teaching and activities which offer proper contexts for incidental learning.

Good vocabulary learning strategies are those which help learners not only discover the meaning of a new word, but also reinforce the understanding and mastery of the previously-learned words.

"If collocational associations are not learned as part of L2 vocabulary knowledge, the resulting irregulaities will immediately mark the learner's speech or writing as deviant or odd in some way and as decidedly non-native".

This quotation explains why some ESL/EFL learners can be easily detected as foreign and sometimes awkward in their speaking and writing as they lack the knowledge of collocations or which words should go together with which words.

Incidental learning alone is not sufficient for vocabulary learning. Intentional learning is necessary for aquiring larger and less frequently- used words, which should be presented in authentic L2 materials.

Compared with L1 vocabulary aquistion, L2 word learning is an easier cognitive process as L2 learners do not need to learn both the new concepts and their labels at the same time, which , on the scontrary, is required in L1 vocabulary aquistion.

"Presentation in bilingual word lists seems an attractive shortcut because it takes less time than contextual presentation and yields excellent short term results."

I completely agree on this point. I learned GRE vocabulary in such a method, just as most Chinese GRE test-takers do. But I forgot most of the words I memorized very soon after I took the exam.s

It has been proved that learning related words by sets brings learners more difficulty than learning those words separately.

Materials designers and teachers need to provide learners with the targetted vocabulary in various context, where their normal use in normal communication situation is emphasized.

"Learning related words at the same time makes learning them more difficult".

This point sounds new to me as I had such an impression, which I now know is wrong, that learning related words in sets can make vocubulary acquistion easier. Guided by such a misconcept, materials designers and teachers tended to present the related words together. This influence can still be found from some textbooks and classroom activities.

A successful vocabulary curriculum shoud encorage both explicit learning and implicit learning as they have different functions in vocabulary acquistion.

It is important to cultivate learners' independent learning strategies, such as learning how words are formed, how and when to derive the meaning of words with the help of context clues, etc. All of them will help learners to enlarge their vocabulay both in and outside of the classroom.

"Older L2 students, whether we like it or not, devote a great deal of time to dictionary 'consultation'. If unguided, dictionary use can have adverse effects on their language development."

This quotation reminds me how much I used dictionary when I was reading. One harm is that what I focused on is not the meaning of the message, but rather the meaning of the single and separate words. Another harm is that I depend too much on dictionary, while I should have utilized some reading strategies.

The English language or the communicative skill alone is not sufficient for a curriculum, students' needs should be met.

Adaptation and implementation of the textbook and its activities, together with the supplementation of additional materials and activities can better serve the needs of a particular group of learners in a particular academic setting and for a particular period of time.

"Are the illustrations and other graphical and design elements appropriate for their (students') age and educational level?"

Illustrations and other visual elements should be designed to help learners better understand the materials. It is not uncommon for us to find those elements which are beyond students' comprehension ability, especially those needing a deep understanding of the culture of the target language.

Students should be included in the materials evaluation as they can provide valuable feedbacks, such as the appropriateness of language, usability and accessiblity of the design, etc.

In the usability testing of the materials, designers need to take into consideration studnets' expectations and other factors in order to the materials more efficacious and student friendly.

"The layout of each screen makes good use of space."

From my observation, I found that the materials are better not to take the full screen as it may be inconvenient for users to scroll right and left if they have a small monitor. I also got the same suggestion from my friends. What should we do? Leave more space or make better use of space?

Pay attention to the good points first and then divide the negative feedback into different categories, which need different weight to be dealt with and most of which require consideration and decisions.

Leave enough time to think again what needs to be revised and how to do that.

"I read it quickly and put it away for a couple of days. I don't brood (at least not usually), and I rethink whatever seemed to stand out most--the negatives, mostly, and how I might deal with them."

It is true that when people are in an emotion, they cannot be objective in dealing with the not-so-positive feedbacks, especially the criticisms.

Technology made autonomy learning more accessible.

When choosing what resources to use, materials writers need to consider such factors as the subcategory of language students wishes to work on, their level of language, their degree of motivation and independence, their learning styles and their background knowledge.

"...learners are not necessarily good judge of their own skill level, at least in certain areas of language, and may assume they know more than they actually do as a result."

So teachers may need to be careful when letting learners have too much freedom in making decisions.

The advantage of team work on materials writing outweighs its drawback as writers can get variety of ideas, wider range of informtion and methodological sources, etc.

Materials writing is a process of cooperation with coauthers, publishers, editors.

"It does necesitate openness (the willingness to be frank and the willingness to accept constructive criticism)...the benefits are enormous"

It reminds me of the constructive feedback I got from my friends and classmates, which did give me insights and help me improve my materials.

Among the four rules of writing, writing about what the writer knows is important as he/she knows what works and what does not, what objective studetns need to achieve and what skills and tasks should be included.

The process of writing is also a process of learning for the writer. It is a process of learning from his/her past experience, learning from the reviewers, his/her colleagues, coauthors and even his/her students.

"I reviewed the reviews carefully: that process is described by one editor as 'look, analyze, decide'."

This quotation also echoes how Dr. Murphy, Linda and Cheryl read, analyzed and decided how to deal with different feedback they got.

Apperception concerns about the noticing aspects of the input, which can arouse learners' awareness of the important items of the target language.

It is important to expose learners to comprehensible input, allow opportunities for them to produce comprehensible output and to provide interactive activities to facilitate the process from input to output.

"...contains indications of problems...making new hypothesis and producing more output."

From learners' problems teachers can get information about what to target at in the new cycle of the model of SLA.

Every member in a group need to contribute to the goal of the team. To achieve it negotiation and interaction is necessary, which is a feature of collaborative learning.

The software used not only provide authentic content, but also enhance interaction, as in information-gap activities, and critical thinking.

"For teachers, learning about their students...is crucial.

If teachers know the weaknesses of their students, the can better design activities which have students notice the items they need to master, that is, teachers can have a specific purpose in their materials designing.

Due to their easiness of access, storage and cross-referencing, electronic media will take the place of paper books and become the main academic resources.

From the comparison of the effectiveness of skimming and scanning in reading from paper and reading from screen, no significant differences were found.

"ways of enhancing scannability ...among othfers, the use of highlighted keywords and meaningful subheadings

It is true that the highlight can make the important points more striking and easier to locate.

Constructivism emphasizes motivating learning by having learners solve problems regarded and chosen as their own. In this way, learners can derive individual and subjective satisfaction.

Scenarios benefit learners as they compensate the unrealized software system by visualizing the requirements in a understandable way to both developers and learners.

"...it would seem desirable to use many different voices on the video/audio clips."

This reminds me of what Dr. Byrd suggested in class that not only NNS, but also NS with different dialects can be used as the input in the material design.