Textbook Adaptation Paper

7/30/2019 Textbook Adaptation Paper

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Textbook Adaptation:

All-Star 3, Unit 4: Money and Consumer Issues

Lita Brusick JohnsonLING 583 - Materials and Curriculum Development

April 21, 2013



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This paper describes an adaptation of All-Star 3, Unit 4, and is based on the

following assumptions about context and constraints:

Class and Students . The students are parents of elementary students who

have limited English language proficiency and attend ESL classes during regular school

hours (9:15-11:45 a.m., Tuesday/Thursday). The 15 mothers are 18-40 years old; the

majority speak Spanish as their L1.

Program. This outreach program of a local elementary school is coordinated

by the school’s ESL coordinator. While it receives minimal financial support and is

volunteer-taught, the two courses (this intermediate course and one for beginners) are

strongly supported by the administration. Classrooms are equipped with whiteboards

and overhead projectors.

Goals. The program’s overarching goal is to increase parents’ communicative

competence in English so that they can engage more confidently in community life and

provide a positive learning environment for their children. The instruction focuses on

English for life skills.

Approach. An integrated four-language-skills approach is buttressed by

learning and critical thinking skills elements; particular attention is given to enhancing

voc abulary acquis i t ion . The All-Star scope and sequence forms the “backbone” of

both classes, within the context of a learner-centered approach that takes seriously

students’ needs and interests. Teachers are generally expected to follow All-Star ’s

sequencing of skill development (listening/speaking, reading/writing, critical thinking,

and grammar skills). However, teachers have substantial latitude to adapt, replace, and

supplement textbook activities, particularly at the unit and the activity level (Graves



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2000, p. 188 ff.), in order to meet learning goals and respond to parents’

interests/needs.

The following are unit-specific goals and objectives.

Unit 4 (Money & Consumer Issues): Goals and Objectives

Listening & Speaking Reading & Writing Vocabulary Grammar LearningStrategies

CriticalThinking

Engage in increasinglyfluent and meaningfulconversation. Focus:

buying/selling

discussing purchases

warranties/ consumer rights

avoiding scams/ identitytheft

children and finances

disagreeingpolitely

Improve readingcomprehension.Focus:

Warranties

Bankingdocuments

Improve writingskills.

Focus: Writing questions

Writing advice onchildren and finance

Learn words relatedto everyday finances

Major purchases

Warranties

Banking

Moneymanagement

Word Family

vocabulary building:form shifts (suffixes)

Recycling to enhancefluency

New focus:Gerunds

Recycling:

Presentprogressive

Simple past

Enhanceabilities to:

Use contextto discover meaning

Focus on:main idea/details

Take notes

Advancedplanning:outlining(with cluster diagram)

MakeInferences

Analyze/Synthesize

Evaluate

Providereasons for opinions

Solveproblems

The unit is taught over a 2.5 weeks period (five 2.5 hour lessons). Within the

thematic syllabus, the unit plan features elements of both cycle and matrix organization.

Some activities/processes are “recycled” (pair, group work; task work with specific

outcomes; competitions); some are new. A balance is sought between meaningful

reception and production; functional use of language and attention to language forms

(explicit and implicit, inductive and deductive); and “skill-getting” and “skill-using”

exercises, activities, and tasks (Nunan 1989, p. 61). By this fourth unit, students have

experienced unit cycles (theme introduction, vocabulary and grammar input,

progressively more complex speaking, reading, and writing activities/tasks) as well as

week and lesson cycles, enhanced by “threads” (described below). These “routines”

have clear pedagogical purposes (e.g. lessening students’ cognitive load, enabling them

to marshal attention to new elements).



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The thematic content and graphics provided by All-Star are fully exploited, and

some learning activities are embedded in the unit plan or are expanded. Others are

“rejected” and replaced by more contextually appropriate elements; changed (content or

procedures); or supplemented by activities and materials from authentic sources

(McGrath, 2002, pp. 60 ff.). This adaptation seeks to fills cognitive and affective gaps in

order to meet unit learning goals and respond to the needs and interests of the students

though the following key elements:

New Threads. Several “threads” (Woodward 2001, p. 55) linked to specific

learning objectives run through the unit in predictable and systematic ways; they build

skills and integrate form and meaning, supplementing the textbook. They provide

additional opportunities for meaningful student-centered input/output, skill-building and

f luency enhancement (while also providing informal opportunities for addressing

accuracy issues that can undermine intelligibility). These threads enable the

adaptation to more closely approximate Paul Nation’s (2007) “four strands” approach to

language learning, a balance among meaning-focused input, meaning-focused output,

language-focused learning, and fluency development. Vocabulary learning is

intentionally integrated into this frame, as Norbert Schmitt advocates, providing “both an

explicit, intentional learning component” and maximum vocabulary exposure and use

(Schmitt, 2008, p. 329). These important threads include:

o Introd uctory act iv i t ies . These alternate-day threads focus on f luency , recycle

forms learned earlier, and bui ld communi ty : (1) Since Last Time (recycling in

meaningful speech the past tense form, providing opportunities for “natural”



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pron unciat ion feedback on final consonants). (2) What’s New with the Children?

(recycling in meaningful speech the present progressive).

o Focus on Form: Teaching about Word Fami l ies (as advocated by Schmitt,

2008b, p.3). This thread provides students with immediately applicable

metalinguistic vocabulary-building “hints”. Elements present in All-Star are extended

in the adaptation (Lessons 1.11, Handout #3).

o Unit Learning Lo g . All-Star provides a “learning log” for unit-end student sel f -

assessment ( AS, p. 71). However, this checklist is repurposed, and is used briefly

at the end of each day to help students chart their learning progress.

o Langu age Journ al . Students are asked to “not ice ” interesting, difficult, funny,

or perplexing elements of English. At the end of every Thursday class, students

hand in a paragraph describing an element and then share what they observed in

“cocktail hour” exchanges (meaningful output about language awareness/fluency

building). This sequence creates a natural “pre-planning” (writing) phase that

undergirds informal oral production.

Activities and tasks that engage interest, respect experience, and provide

choice. Adaptation decisions reflect a commitment to the principle of providing as

much student input and choice as possible. The adaptation is structured to enable

replacement of sections, should students identify more relevant sub-unit thematic

content. (Lesson 1.4 provides an intentional opportunity for students to identify such

areas.) Included in the current adaptation are replacements/supplements/adjustments

that embody the underlying principle:



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o Lesson 5.5: The AS final reading text (a business “success story” about a wealthy

immigrant) might not “connect” with financially strapped mothers who attend class. So

the class will read instead authent ic (or min imal ly adapted) texts that in th e areas of

interest they identi f ied (in Lesson 1.4).

o Lessons 2.8, 2.9. 3.7: Content on scams (including identity theft) with authentic

listening (video) resource is added.

o Lessons 4.4.a, 5.4: The major summative writing task in the All-Star unit (focus:

major purchase; diagramming/outlining strategies in preparation for paragraph writing)

is enhanced by new scaffolding that begins in a previous section (teaching children

about money). The “arc of instruction” begins with aff i rmat ion o f student exper ience

in a new Learning from Experience task. Students’ financial experiences (“smart things”

and “not so smart things” they did) are shared and categorized before students read

and evaluate the advice of an “outside expert”. Prior to the Dear Abby writing task,

students are exposed to the first level of writing strategies (diagramming). Then the

advice letters, typed overnight, provide written, class-generated financial advice – which

provides input into the final writing task about how to go about making a major purpose.

Elements of this expanded “arc” are carefully sequenced and scaffolded, moving from

schemata activation to simple activities to more complex tasks. Students have a choice

on what issues to address. And throughout, student views are valued as (or mo re)

highly than “outsider input”.

Task and Project Work. All-Star generally does not include tasks, so additional

tasks are added in five of the six lessons, offering increased opportunities for

meaningful speaking and listening with an outcome that often becomes the scaffold for



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References

Graves, K. (2000). Designing Language Courses: A Guide for Teachers. Boston, MA:Heinle Press.

McGrath, I. (2002). Chapter 4 – Coursebook-based Teaching: Adaptation. MaterialsEvaluation and Design for Language Teaching. Edinburgh , Edinburgh:Edinburgh University Press.

Nation, P. (2007) The Four Strands. Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching.1(1):1-12.

Nunan, D. (1989). Chapter 3 – Task Components. Designing Tasks for the

Communicative Classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Schmitt, N. (2008). Review Article: Instructed Second Language Vocabulary Learning.Language Teaching Research. 12(3):329-363.

Schmitt, N. (2008). Teaching Vocabulary. Pearson Education, Inc. Accessed online,April 2013.

Woodward, T. (2001). Chapter 1 – How Long is the Lesson? in Planning Lessons and Courses. Cambridge, UK, Cambridge University Press.

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