7/8/20

For Friday 7th, August

ACTIVITY A: Watch this 2-minute presentation on textbooks by Jack C. Richards.

Answer these questions:

What is your perception of the role of textbooks?

They are a guide to help us if they are well designed. If not they are a hindrance.

Do you agree with what he says about the teachers’ approach to work with them?
He says that teachers have different perceptions about textbooks:
- some teachers don’t use textbooks, they use their own materials
- some others are over dependent

A textbook is a set of lesson plans, is put together to provide teachers with a resource to
use in the classroom. One should not become over dependent on it since they should
help you by matching your teaching style, and your students’ interests. A resource, not
something that dictates how you teach. Something that you can adapt to teach in any
way you want. If you become over dependent on the book, you are not teaching from
your heart but presenting material in the book. It should be the plan for a lesson but you
should use it a way that suits your teaching style: be prepared to adapt it supplement it
drop things. A textbook can’t never anticipate all the needs we will have in our
classroom. Remember: you are the one who is teaching, the book is not teaching.
Textbooks are a resource to be used creatively in a way that suits you teaching style and
your students’ needs.

What is your experience with textbooks?

As a teacher, I like having a textbook to help me get more organised but it has to be one
that I have chosen. I hate it when I have to use a textbook which I consider bad or
uninteresting.

Take down notes to discuss on Friday.

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0BZJU0WkJQ

ACTIVITY B: Make sure you have a textbook at hand - to teach adolescents, intermediate
level, if possible - to be used in the meeting on Friday.
For Friday 14th, August
Read:
McGrath, I. (2013). Teaching Materials and the Roles of EFL/ESL Teachers. London:
Bloomsbury. “Introduction: Materials, the Roles of Teachers and Learners.”
Tomlinson, B. (2014). “Introduction: Are Materials Developing?” In Tomlinson, B. editor
(2014). Developing Materials for Language Teaching. London: Continuum.

SECONDARY SCHOOL (or ADULTS)

1 reading comprehension adapted
1 text our own writing
1 listening
1 Grammar
1 writing

Try not to be over dependent on textbooks.

At the beginning we are performing a role and we have these objects to do that (posters, props)
As time goes by we don’t find them so useful

Textbooks have been produced to reach a global market. The situation in training teachers
colleges. Being a teacher in one country and in another varies a lot. Textbooks are the only thing
they can use to help them get organise. Some people need this overdependence.

Resources that usually supplement a textbooks

- activity book,
- teacher book
- audio for both
- multimedia or web pages sometimes
- the site of the book with more resources (extra practice)
- posters
- test builder
- puppets, board games (for children)

That is why some of these things take over when we are teaching. What you teach can never be
based only on the book. It comes from the diseñ o curricular. Lista de contenidos mínimos
(minimum contents and objectives).

Two options: material for teaching purposes or authentic material.

We can also bring authentic material.
Three levels: chita - tarzan - jane. Jaja!

A good textbook is one that is flexible. You can adapt it but it also allows supplementation from
outside. Interactive boards. Tablets.
In primary they need things that they have to touch. So no tablet, flashcard.
In primary Realia (shopping bag with fruits, etc. Clothes)

Secondary school. Grammar and vocab but also things about myself as an educator. Including
things that you can teach for them to relate to. ESI law.
You are what you have: a pack of cigarettes if you are a smoker.
Countable and uncountable. The bottle is countable but not the water.

Dogma
The opposite of a way of teaching with a lot of materials. Scott Thornberry. Only teacher and
students. Not possible with children or beginner students. Upper intermediate or above.

Choose one of the units and compare it to our book.

SIMILARITIES DIFFERENCES

Listening with comprehension fill in the gaps Grammar Fill in the Blanks in hers, make
Speaking section sentences in mine
Writing section Speaking More examples in mine of possible
answers.

We need to develop a theme for our unit

First we go for the meaning
Then Form (grammar)

Take down some notes from the bibliography.

Developing Material for Language Teaching

Introduction: Are Materials Developing? (Brian Tomlinson)

What is materials development?

field of study practical undertaking 3rd aspect: for 4th aspect:

professional pedagogical/ content
development of
teachers

it studies the it involves the the use of materials use of materials to

principles and production, development as a actualize new
procedures of the evaluation and means of facilitating pedagogical or
design, adaptation of and deepening the content approaches
implementation and language teaching personal and in ELT.
evaluation of materials, by professional
language teaching teachers for their development of
materials own classrooms and teachers
by materials writers
 for sale or
distribution

What are materials?

In this book ‘materials’ ‘include anything which can be used to facilitate the learning
of a language. They can be:
- linguistic, visual, auditory or kinaesthetic, and
- they can be presented in print, through live performance or display, or on cassette, CD-
ROM, DVD or the internet’ (Tomlinson, 2001, p. 66).

They can be:

- instructional: they can inform learners about the language
- experiential: they can provide experience of the language in use
- elicitative: hey can stimulate language use
- exploratory:they can help learners to make discoveries about the language for
themselves.

What are the issues in materials development?

● What should drive materials?
- the needs and wants of the learners
- teachers have needs and wants to be satisfied too
- administrators, with their concerns for standardization and conformity with, for
example, a syllabus, a theory of language learning, the requirements of
examinations and the language policies of a government.

These needs and wants are not irreconcilable and, in my experience,

they can best be satisfied by localized projects which consult learners, teachers and
administrators before, during and after the materials writing process.

Who should develop the materials?

These days most commercial materials are written by professional materials writers writing to
a brief determined by the publishers from an analysis of market needs.
Teachers throughout the world only need a little training, experience and support to become
materials writers who can produce imaginative materials of relevance and appeal to their
learners.

How should materials be developed?

My own preference is for a large team approach to writing materials, which aims at fast first
draft production by many people followed by refinement by a smaller group of experts.
Example: Namibian coursebook, On Target (1996)
The teachers managed to inspire each other with ideas, to maintain creative energy, to relate
their materials to the actual learners who were going to use them and to suggest useful
improvements to each other’s materials. And all this was achieved because a large group of
enthusiastic teachers were working together for a short time.
How should materials be evaluated?
Materials are often evaluated in an ad hoc, impressionistic way, which tends to favour
materials which have face validity (i.e. which conform to people’s expectations of what
materials should look like) and which are visually appealing. In order to ensure that
materials are devised, revised, selected and adapted in reliable and valid ways, we
need to ensure that materials evaluation establishes procedures which are thorough,
rigorous, systematic and principled

Should texts be authentic?

Authentic text: it is ‘one which is produced in order to communicate rather than to teach’
Authentic task: it is ‘one which involves the learners in communicating to achieve an outcome,
rather than to practice the language’

The author believes that all texts and tasks should be authentic in these ways, otherwise the
learners are not being prepared for the realities of language use.

Type of text (Description) Advantages Disadvantages

Materials aiming at explicit
learning usually contrive
examples of the language
which focus on the feature
being taught.
- Usually these examples are
presented in short, easy,
specially written or
simplified texts or dialogues,
and it is argued that they help
the learners by focusing their
attention on the target
feature.
- Simplification and
contrivance can facilitate
learning
- Texts overprotect learners,
deprive them of the
opportunities for acquisition
provided by rich texts and do
not prepare them for the
reality of language use
-They can lead to faulty
learning and that they deny
the learners opportunities for
informal learning and the
development of self-esteem

Authentic texts - can provide exposure to

(texts not written especially language as it is typically
for language teaching) used
- motivating effect on
learners

Other issues
● Do learners need a coursebook?
● Should materials be learning or acquisition focused?
● Should published materials be censored?
● Should materials be driven by theory or practice?
● Should materials be driven by syllabus needs, learner needs or market needs?
● Should materials cater for learner expectations or try to change them?
● Should materials aim for language development only or should they also aim for
personal and educational development?
● Should materials aim to contribute to teacher development as well as language learning?
What are the current trends in materials development?

Positive trends Negative trends

- There are some materials requiring
investment by the learners in order for them
to make discoveries for themselves from
analysis of samples of language in use (e.
- There are more materials making use of
corpus data reflecting actual language use
- There are more extensive reader series
being produced with fewer linguistic
constraints and more provocative content
- There has been a very noticeable and
welcome increase in attempts to personalize
the learning process by getting learners to
relate topics and texts to their own lives,
views and feelings
- There is an increase in attempts to gain the
affective engagement of learners
- There is an increasing use of the internet as
a source of current, relevant and appealing
texts.
- There is evidence of a movement away from
spoken practice of written grammar and
towards experience of spoken grammar in
use
- There is a considerable increase in the
number of ministries (e.g. in Belarus,
Bulgaria, Columbia; Ethiopia, India, Iran,
Morocco, Namibia, Romania, Russia and
Uzbekistan) and institutions (e.g. Bilkent
University in Ankara; the University of Hue;
Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat) which
have decided to produce their own locally
relevant materials
- There is an even more pronounced return to
the ‘central place of grammar in the language
curriculum’
- There is still a far greater prominence given
in coursebooks to listening and speaking than
to reading and writing
- There is an assumption that most learners
have short attention spans, can only cope
with very short reading and writing texts and
will only engage in activities for a short time
- There seems to be an assumption that
learners do not want and would not gain from
intellectually demanding activities while
engaged in language learning.
- There is a neglect (or sometimes an abuse)
of literature in coursebooks, despite its
potential as a source of stimulating and
engaging texts and
- There is a continuing predominance of
analytical activities and a neglect of activities
which could cater for learners with other
preferred learning styles
- There is still an ‘absence of controversial
issues to stimulate thought, to provide
opportunities for exchanges of views, and to
make topic content meaningful’
- There is a tendency to underestimate
learners linguistically, intellectually and
emotionally
- Despite the increase in publications
reflecting the predominant use of
International English as a lingua franca most
coursebooks still focus on English as used by
native speakers and prepare the learners for
interaction with them

What is the future of materials development?

There is hope is that a decrease in customer satisfaction and an increase in local materials
development projects will help some of the following to develop:
● even greater personalization and localization of materials;
● greater flexibility of materials and creativity in their use;
● more respect for the learners’ intelligence, experience and communicative competence;
● more affectively engaging content;
● a greater emphasis on multicultural perspectives and awareness;
 ● more opportunities for learners with experiential (and especially kinaesthetic) learning
style preferences;
● more attempts made to engage the learner in the language learning process as an
experienced, intelligent and interesting individual;
● more attempts made to use multidimensional approaches to language learning

MATSDA
MATSDA (the Materials Development Association) is an association founded in 1993 by
Brian Tomlinson, which is dedicated to improving the future for materials development.

Teaching Materials and the Roles of EFL/ESL Teachers

Introduction: Materials, the Roles of Teachers and Learners (I. McGrath)

1. Introduction

2. Materials
2.1 What do we mean by ‘materials’?
Completar

2.1 Some distinctions

four categories of material:
1. those that have been specifically designed for language learning and teaching
(e.g. textbooks, worksheets, computer software);
2. authentic materials (e.g. offair recordings, newspaper articles) that have been
specially selected and exploited for teaching purposes by the classroom teacher;
3. teacher-written materials;
4. learner-generated materials.

Also:
- where materials were produced (‘global’ vs ‘local’ textbooks),
- their intended audience (General English – sometimes dubbed Teaching English
for No Obvious Reason (TENOR) – or English for Specific Purposes (ESP))
- their linguistic focus (on a language system such as grammar or phonology, or a
language skill such as listening or speaking).

Other distinctions which are perhaps more important because they concern the roles
that materials play: that between
- non-verbal and verbal materials, for instance,
- materials-as-content and materials-as-language,
- and the four-way distinction made by Tomlinson (2001)
(instructional, experiential, elicitative and exploratory)

Non-verbal materials: such as representations can help to establish direct associations

between words and objects and clarify meanings; they can also be used to stimulate
learners to produce language, spoken and written. Much more limited than verbal.
 XXX Pg 18

2.3 Coursebooks and their advantages

1. They reduce the time needed for lesson preparation.
2. They provide a visible, coherent programme of work.
3. They provide support. For teachers who are untrained or inexperienced,
textbooks (and the Teacher’s Books that normally accompany them) provide
methodological support.
4. They are a convenient resource for learners.
5. They make standardized instruction possible.
6. They are visually appealing, cultural artefacts.
7. Coursebook packages contain ‘a wealth of extra material’

2.4 Doubting voices

Coursebooks do not cater for the whole person; nor do they do take adequate account of
differences in learning preferences. Underlying the humanistic approaches of the 1960s
was the belief that, to be effective, teaching must engage the learner on an affective level
as well as a csss

2.5 Teaching without a coursebook

Not all teachers use a coursebook. Confident, experienced teachers working in
environments which give them freedom to use whatever materials they like may
prefer to draw on materials from a wide variety of commercial and authentic
sources, and create their own.
Community Language Learning (CLL – also known as Counseling Learning) is
based on the language produced by learners, recorded by the teacher, and then
written up for analysis. The early stages of both Total Physical Response (TPR)
and Silent Way are purely oral: in TPR learners follow oral instructions; and
Silent Way makes use of Cuisenaire rods (the small coloured wooden sticks
originally designed for mathematics) and other materials specifically designed for
this method, such as sound/colour charts, which contain blocks of colour
representing phonemes.
Pg 30

3. Teachers and learners

3.1 Teachers’ relationships with materials and learners
There are four ways of representing symbolically the relationship between teachers, learners
and materials:
(i) The most common representation, Bolitho notes, is of a line from materials through
teacher to learner.

the teacher has a mediating role between

materials and learners but also that learners cannot access the materials directly –
they can do so only through the mediation of the teacher. What the diagram also
implies, of course, is that materials are a form of external provision, given to the
teacher rather than selected by the teacher.

(ii) In Figure 1.2, the relationship between teacher and materials has changed.
The teacher now has equal status with materials:

‘the teacher and the materials are seen as superordinate, conspiring (as one teacher put
it only half-jokingly) to make the learner’s life difficult’ (p.23). Notice that there is no
arrow between learner and materials.

(iii) The third representation (Figure 1.3), with arrows going in both directions
between the three points on the circle, differs from the first two most obviously, as
Bolitho observes, in that it recognizes the importance of learners being able to access
materials directly as well as through the teacher’s mediation.

Complete pag 32
(iv) On the face of it, the triangle depicted below (Figure 1.4) says exactly the
same as the circle in (iii).
At the heart of this discussion, of course, are the attitudes of teacher and
learners to materials.
 3.2 New roles for learners

3.3 Teacher roles

3.3.1 Choice: Teachers therefore need to be able to make or contribute to
informed selection decisions.pag 35

3.3.2 Control: the perfect coursebook for a particular teacher and group of
learners not only does not but cannot exist, and that a coursebook should be
seen primarily as a resource book, then it follows that the responsibility for
deciding what to use from the coursebook and how to use it lies with the
teacher. In short, it is the teacher and not the coursebook who should control or
manage what happens, and one of the ways in which that control can manifest
itself is through creative use (or ‘manipulation’, in Acklam’s terms) of the
coursebook. P36

3.3.3 Creativity: 3). A good provider, for the students, needs to have the ability
to:
a. select appropriately from what is available
b. be creative with what is available
c. modify activities to suit learners’ needs
d. supplement by providing extra activities (and extra input)

4. Teacher education in materials evaluation and design

4.1 The need
4.2 Provision

The need

14/8/20
Text:
written, oral, pictures
Instructional material: prepared for lag teaching and learning
Authentic material:
Authenticity: from the moment you take a text and change its contents (also their original
function) the original content/ is lost, the authenticity can be questioned. The … would be new.

Context and purpose of reading changes completely. She used an add written for a woman
looking for a job with teaching purposes. And she made some changes. Adapted from...
Now some authors say that this is no longer an authentic text.

Sometimes authentic text offer a context that is richer and sdfsf (purposeful??) for students.
What should drive our selection of material when we use texts from here and there. Behind all
this, we have to work with a communicative language approach. Lg is communication.
We can write texts that show real lg use. So the sstds will encounter lg that is in use in contexts
which are the real ones. That is the important thing.

Idioms: it’s raining cats and dogs. It’s ridiculous for our age.
In textbooks the selection of content, lg is related to learning the language
I wish I was there.

Evaluate sociolinguistic characteristics of the people.

The lg in textboks is sometimes restrictive to context. What will they use the lg and what for?

McGrath: He introduces the difference between materials

- as content: childrens' stories the content is more important that the language
- as language: readers

On the other side of the pendulum. The result is ben designed that recording….
So much so taht in the end the literary value disappears.
Readers kill hte idea of reading for pleasure that readers might have. This is lost for the sake of
lg.

Materials as content: more opportunities for communication, to reaction, opinions, buildgin up

of values, more connected to give the person the tools so as they developed????

Consider the starting point of the course to teach/

That will help tp determine what book/ stories might be useful/
There are courses connected only with reading comprehension

In the last 15 years, the activity of developing materials was in charge of the ministry of
education (according to age group). Several examples.
CABA and ministry of bs as.

Compare in terms of
- motivating in adolescents
- lg level
- skills practiced
- design (visual aspect.)

In-class Activity

Pcia CABA
(comes with a teacher’s book)

Motivation in More appealing to older More appealing to younger

adolescents adolescents (4,5 y 6) adolescents (1, 2)

Lg Level Pre-intermediate// Elementary

Intermediate (4, 5 y 6)
 Escuelas secundarias Superiores
ramificadas por especialidades

Skills Practiced Reading, Listening, Reading, Speaking, Listening

Comprehension
Speaking, Writing Project
Resourceful (literature, sonnets,
links to movies, the topic

Design More text than images. Colourful. Too many illustrations

Proportion text vs Images No index
Index

None of them are the typical western book with the typical saxon traditions?
Silvia Barboni (egresada de la Univ. de La Plata)

For next time:

- Read McCay Teaching English as an International Lg Chapter 4 (pgs 88 to 96)

Cultural content in Language Teaching Materials (McKay)

Cortazzi and Jin (1999) distinguish three types of cultural information that can be used in
language textbooks and materials:
1. 'source culture materials' that draw on the learners' own culture as content
2. 'target culture materials' that use the culture of a country where English is spoken as a
first language
3. 'international target culture materials' that use a great variety of cultures in English- and
non-English-speaking countries around the world

In order to develop these uses of ElL, students need to be encouraged to reflect on their own
culture in relation to others as a way of establishing a sphere of interculturality.

Target culture materials

There are two possible contexts in which information about a target culture can be introduced
in the teaching of ElL.

The teacher and students come from the The students are from the source culture and
same cultural background, but the materials the teacher is from the target culture
used in the classroom present cultural
information from a target culture.
Example: a classroom in Thailand with a Thai Example: an expatriate teacher working in
teacher using materials dealing with China
American culture

- this may be largely irrelevant or - If the teacher uses the opportunity

uninteresting to some of the students, or
even presents cultural conflicts.
- problematic in a culture where the
teacher is considered to be the main
provider of information
primarily to give students more
information about the target culture,
little is gained in establishing a sphere of
interculturality.

Problem: the book asked questions about
Northamerican history.
Solution: seize the opportunity to help
students learn more about their own culture,
an important component of establishing a
sphere of interculturality.
A more effective approach to establish a
sphere of interculturality would be for the
teacher to encourage students to reflect on
their own culture in relation to the target
culture and to provide additional information
on the target culture when students request
such information

Source culture materials

Contexts in which the source culture may be used in an EIL classroom

The students, teacher, and text all share the The students come from the source culture
source culture but the teacher is from another culture

Example: a textbook published and used in

Japan with Japanese students and teacher
might ask the students to describe
annual Japanese events (the Children’s Day
Festival and the MoonViewing Festival and
traditional arts like Haiku, Noh comedy, and
Bunraku puppet shows)
 Can this contribute to establishing a sphere of
interculturality in which they consider their
own culture in relation to another?
- The teacher could exploit the material by
asking individual students to describe
what specific aspects of their culture mean
to them as a way of demonstrating the
variance that exists within one culture and
promoting a view of culture as difference.
- The teacher could also use material
relating to the source culture in ways that
encourage students to consider how they
would explain elements of their own
culture to others.
International target culture materials
Two contexts in which international target culture materials representing many English and
non-English speaking countries might be used.
Both the students and the teacher come from a culture not represented in the text
an expatriate teacher
- In such a situation, the teacher, if not
familiar with some of the cultural topics,
can become an interested listener, creating
an ideal context for establishing a sphere
of interculturality.
- The teacher might pose questions to the
students, asking them to explain what
meaning a particular cultural element has
for them, and share with students his or
her personal reaction to the cultural
information and behavior presented in the
text.
a teacher from the source culture
 Negative aspect:
- Students may be uninterested or puzzled by the information in the text, and teachers
may not have access to additional information needed to explain some of the cultural
references
- This may result in no one in the class being able to comment on the culture presented;
hence the degree of understanding both teacher and students can gain about the culture
presented in the text will be limited

Positive aspect:
- it can illustrate the diverse contexts in which English is used as an international
language.
- they could exemplify the manner in which English can be used internationally,
- they could include examples of lexical, grammatical, and phonological variation in
context.
- they could also illustrate cross-cultural pragmatics in which bilingual users of English
draw on their own rules of appropriateness.
- They could then provide a basis for students to gain a fuller understanding of how
English today serves a great variety of international purposes in a broad range of
contexts, thus encouraging students to reflect on their own local and global uses of EIL

A reflective approach to cultural content

One of the first steps that needs to be taken in approaching the cultural content used in an EIL
class is to examine in what ways it might appear unusual to members of another culture.
Falta pag 13 a 16

21/8/20
Literature: try to include it at the end
Poems: in the middle.

Authors and books

English next
Translanguaging
Reification???
Selection of materials Tomlinson Chapter 2 By Rubdy

28/8/20
Watch
Seligson Latino pedagogy

Paladino Translanguaging Quinterno

Sonnet my mistress's eyes are darker than the sun…

HW: Go over the list for process and content, psychological and pedagogical
select no more than 30 questions.
Next week, we will round off
Conseguir un textbook for adolescents.

September 11th!! Holiday

Adaptation, Chapter 5. And Critical thinking.
3, 4 more lessons and we start working on our own.

Process and 1. Is there an explicit and conscious focus on rules and explanations or
Content are there opportunities for the learners to discover the patterns in the
Validity first place?
2. Do the materials provide a rich, varied and comprehensible input in
order to facilitate informal acquisition as well as conscious attention
to linguistic and pragmatic features of the texts?
3. Are the topics/texts current and cognitively challenging and do they
help enrich the learners’ personal knowledge and experience and
foster a positive personality?
4. Are there varied activities at different levels of task difficulty?
5. Do the materials call for a sufficiently good mix of closed and open-
ended responses?
6. Is the material interesting, varied and topical enough to hold the
attention of learners?
7. Do the materials provide extensive exposure to authentic English
through purposeful reading and/or listening activities?
8. Do the texts generate ‘real-life’ communication processes?
9. Do the materials reflect awareness of and sensitivity to sociocultural
variation?
10. Does the book show parallels and contrasts between the learners’
culture and others?
 11. Is the material clearly organized and easy to access?
12. Are the units and exercises well linked in terms of theme, situation,
topic, pattern of skill development or grammatical/lexical
‘progression’?
13. Is allowance made for revision, testing and ongoing evaluation? Are
self-checks provided?
14. Do the materials allow for flexible use of tasks/texts/activities,
permitting them to be exploited or modified as required by local
circumstances? Or is it too rigid in format, structure and approach?

Pedagogical 15. Are teachers encouraged to present the lessons in different ways?
Validity 16. Do the materials offer the teacher scope for adaptation and
localization?
17. Is the teacher encouraged to evaluate each lesson?
18. Do the materials cater for different teaching styles and personalities?

Psychological 19. What are the aims and objectives of the materials?
Validity 20. Do the materials make a positive contribution to heightening and
sustaining learner motivation?
21. Do the materials encourage learners to guess, predict, discover, take
risks, tryout several alternatives?
22. Do the materials help individual learners discover their learning
styles and preferences, study habits and learning strategies?
23. Do the materials allow self-monitoring and feedback?
24. Do they also involve the learner’s emotions in the learning process?
25. Do the materials allow for the development of creative and critical
thinking skills?
26. Do the materials help build personality and learner voice and give
learners an understanding about themselves?
27. Do the materials exploit the learners’ prior knowledge and experience
and provide opportunities for further development?
28. Do the materials provide additional challenging activities for highly
motivated learners?
29. Do the materials offer opportunities for cooperative learning, through
pair and group work activities and information exchange tasks?
30. Are students encouraged to learn from and help one another and,
more importantly, able to work in a less stressful atmosphere in the
classroom?
31. Do they encourage positive interdependence by giving each
individual a specific role to play in the activity allowing him/her to
contribute actively to the group interaction?
4/9/20
Psychological Validity
1- Do the materials make a positive contribution to heightening and sustaining learner
motivation?
Do the materials encourage learners to guess, predict, discover, take risks, tryout
several alternatives?
2-
1st years:
- a) Do the materials help individual learners discover their learning styles and
preferences, study habits and learning strategies?
- Do the materials allow self-monitoring and feedback?

5th years:
- b) Do they give learners plenty of opportunities to make choices which suit their
linguistic level, their preferred learning styles, their level of involvement in the text and
the time available to them?

3- Do the materials/texts engage the learners both cognitively and affectively?

Do they also involve the learner’s emotions in the learning process?
Do the materials allow for the development of creative and critical thinking skills?

4- Do the materials exploit the learners’ prior knowledge and experience and provide
opportunities for further development?

5- Do the materials provide additional challenging activities for highly motivated learners?

6- Do they encourage positive interdependence by giving each individual a specific role to play
in the activity allowing him/her to contribute actively to the group interaction?

HW:
1. Prepare a grid with 25 questions.
2. Read Adaptation
Islam and maris? Also in Tomlinson.

Instalife
The limits of private life. World of anime
How relationships are seen in anime?
Years and years.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/
1nD2A0QUMBbGCMyLh2aYDV22DaWM044u_jJGY6As61GA/edit#

11/9/20
No hubo clases. Teacher's day!
18/9/20
Racial issues. Human race.

Human family // Equality // White comedy (Racism). Series.

Languages around the world

ADAPTATION
1. ADDING: extending (longer; quantity) and expanding (longer; quality)
2. DELETING: substracting (shorter; quantity) and abridging (shorter; quality)
3. REORDERING (+simplification)
4. SIMPLIFICATION

GENRE
A. LEXICAL: umbrella term; transparent words;
B. GRAMMATICAL: avoid Passive Voice; avoid Reported Speech (because of the changes in
the time reference, etc). Use instead Direct Speech. Follow the chronological events (in
that way we avoid using the past perfect for example)
C. SENTENCES
D. PARAGRAPHS We should follow the typical order of the information in a paragraph/ full
article. Each genre has specific characteristics. The structure of texts varies according to
the different types of texts:
● Typical order: main ideas and subordinated sentences.
● In newspaper articles: all of the information is condensed in the first paragraph.
All the details in the body. Last paragraph always tells you when to expect
further news about this.
E. ALL THE TEXT We need to use connectors. We need to have cohesion and coherence.
(Introduction, First, second, finally, to sum up, in conclusionFirstly, secondly, To sum up,
In conclusion)
We should use all these devices that operate in the paragraph to give unity to the whole
text.

Take into account time references. “Yesterday…” When is “yesterday” when my students
read this?

Homework: adapt this text https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/oct/07/travelnews.travel

It should have 190 words.
- read it
- pay attention to the topic: an accident related to abseiling/ climbing or the weather
conditions. This could be either in a unit related to extreme sports or the weather
(according to the unit we choose to use this text we would keep more words related to
climbing or the weather)
- write down the words related to the topic. (there are a lot of words related to weather
conditions).
- aimed at pre intermediate or the beginning of an intermediate level.
- we can decide if we want to keep it as a newspaper article or a narrative.
- we can decide also the topic (weather conditions/ extreme sports)
25/9/20

Libra-librero: valor de referencia de los libros.

From 00 to 00 this book is a good option for you and your students.

Al final poner qué valor sería el que es suficiente para comprarlo

100-75 or 60
59 to 50 Buy it but consider that you need to supplement the material
less than 49 do not buy it.

Critical thinking skills. Higher order skills.

Bloom's Taxonomy.

Remember, understand and apply: lower order thinking skills

Analyze, evaluate, create: higher order thinking skills

OUR UNIT SHOULD HAVE:

- two written texts: one original and one adapted
- one listening/ watching: oral text
- cover vocabulary (3er activity after the reading)
- grammar (teaching and practicing) one may be enough
- speaking activity
- a writing activity
- listening and reading comprehension activities
MY TOPIC: Racism. A struggle that still continues
ONE LISTENING/ WATCHING:

Option 1: Jane Elliot experiment

a) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NHeFgaVWs8
From minute 3 to minute 4:34

b) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X97JTH7UCq4

c) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2z-ahJ4uws&t=331s

Option 2: Maya Angelou

a) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5F_aHt34a-g

WRITTEN TEXTS:

To adapt:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/04/us/jane-elliott-anti-racism-blue-eyes-brown-
eyes.html

To write about (original):

Racismo en Argentina

https://www.filo.news/actualidad/De-que-hablamos-cuando-hablamos-de-racismo-en-
Argentina-20200721-0024.html

16/10/20
LAST CLASS - NO CLASS

The book should be ready for Monday,15th. (15/11)

Zephaniah
White Comedy
I waz whitemailed
By a white witch,
Wid white magic
An white lies,
Branded by a white sheep
I slaved as a whitesmith
Near a white spot
Where I suffered whitewater fever.
Whitelisted as a whiteleg
I waz in de white book
As a master of white art,
It waz like white death.

People called me white jack

Some hailed me as a white wog,
So I joined de white watch
Trained as a white guard
Lived off the white economy.
Caught and beaten by de whiteshirts
I waz condemned to a white mass,
Don't worry,
I shall be writing to de Black House.

Human Family
I note the obvious differences
In the human family.
Some of us are serious,
Some thrive on comedy.

Some declare their lives are lived

As true profundity,
And others claim they really live
The real reality.

The variety of our skin tones

Can confuse, bemuse, delight,
Brown and pink and beige and purple,
Tan and blue and white.

I've sailed upon the seven seas

And stopped in every land,
I've seen the wonders of the world
Not yet one common man.

I know ten thousand women

Called Jane and Mary Jane,
But I've not seen any two
Who really were the same.

Mirror twins are different

Although their features jibe,
And lovers think quite different thoughts
While lying side by side.

We love and lose in China,

We weep on England's moors,
And laugh and moan in Guinea,
And thrive on…
CULTURE IN TEACHING ENGLISH AS AN INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE
The role of culture in language teaching
Culture in language teaching has traditionally involved providing cultural information. Such
information typically includes at least one of the following dimensions of culture discussed by
Adaskou, Britten, and Fahsi (1990):
- 'the aesthetic sense' (in which literature, film, and music of a TL country are discussed)
- 'the sociological sense' (in which customs and institutions of this country are explained)
- 'the semantic sense' (in which how a culture's conceptual system is embodied in a
language is investigated)
- 'the pragmatic sense' (in which how cultural norms influence what language is
appropriate for which contexts is examined)

Two major problems exist with this approach to culture:

1. it cannot be assumed that the culture of any one particular country, especially an Inner
Circle country, should provide the basis for cultural content when teaching EIL
2. if one of the goals of using culture in EIL teaching is to help individuals interact in cross-
cultural encounters, then merely knowing about a culture will not be sufficient to gain
insight into how to interact in these encounters

Spradley (1980) maintains that culture involves three fundamental aspects of human
experience:
a. what people do (cultural behavior),
b. what people know (cultural knowledge),
c. what things people make and use (cultural artifacts)
He says that individuals acquire knowledge about these various aspects of culture by interacting
with one another. Culture then is 'the knowledge that people have learned as members of a
group'

How can a classroom become an extension of this process and students be encouraged to
reflect on and perhaps modify the meaning they have for things they encounter?
Kramsch (1993) discusses two goals:
1. Establishing a 'sphere of interculturality': the process of learning about another culture
entails a reflection on one's own culture as well as the target culture.
This requires two essential steps:
a) Learners need to acquire knowledge about another culture
b) Learners need to reflect on how their own culture contrasts with it
It is important not to assume that the meaning particular cultural behavior has for the
members of one group is the same as it has for others

2. Teaching culture as difference: national identities are not monolithic. Within each
culture there exists a variety of national characteristics that are related to age, gender,
regional origin, ethnic background, and social class.

Teaching culture as difference is important because of the common use of ElL in cross-
cultural encounters. Frequently, the introduction of cultural content in language
teaching encourages what Atkinson terms a 'received view of culture.'
 Students need to be encouraged not to adopt this view but rather to recognize the
diversity that exists within all cultures, particularly in the modern era of travel and
migration when cultures are in constant contact: no two people can be said to share
exactly the same culture.

Kramsch (1993), for example, argues that knowing about a culture (gaining cultural
competence) does not mean that one has an obligation to behave in accordance with its
conventions. The goal of EIL teaching be to recognize how particular pragmatic differences
might affect their own cross-cultural encounters.

Byram (1998) makes a similar distinction between knowing about another culture and
accepting another culture:
- Biculturalism assumes that an individual identifies with and accepts the beliefs, values,
and practices of a particular culture. Example: to acquire a culture's pragmatic rules
- Interculturalism assumes a knowledge of rather than acceptance of another culture.
Example: to gain knowledge of these rules

Rationales for culture learning

Cultural content in language teaching materials
Target culture materials
International target culture materials
A reflective approach to cultural content
The role of culture in discourse communities
Summary