Unitatea de învățământ: Liceul Tehnologic Nr.1 Salonta Localitatea: Salonta Județul: Bihor CONTENTS INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………… 3… [305320]

WORKING WITH WORDS

Autor: prof. [anonimizat]: Liceul Tehnologic Nr.1 Salonta

Localitatea: Salonta

Județul: Bihor

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………… 3 Argument…………………………………………………………………….….. 3

The English language in the world of globalization …………………………….. 5 Glossary ………………………………………………………………………… 6

WORD FORMATION ……………………………………………..……… 9

Studying word formation………………………….………………… 11

Inflection and derivation ………………………….……………..… 16

Affixation, Prefixation, Suffixation …………………….…..……… 19

Noun suffixes ………………………………………… 26

Adjective suffixes …………………………………… 28

Adverb suffixes ……………………………………… 30

Verb suffixes ………………………………………… 31

Infixation ……………………………………………………………. 32

Conversion ………………………………….………………..…….. 34

Miscellaneous modes ……………………………………..……….. 36

Back formation ………………………………………. 36

Reduplicatives ………………………………………. 39

Abbreviations ………………………………………… 39

Acronyms ……………………………………………. 42

Clippings …………………………………………….. 43

Blends ……………………………………………….. 44

Noun and adjective compounds …………………………………… 45

Lexis in the classroom ……………………………………………… 49

TEACHING VOCABULARY ……………………………………………. 53

How to teach language ……………………………………………… 54

How can we help students to understand meaning?.… 56

Where do language study activities fit in teaching sequences…………………………………………….. 61

What is vocabulary and what needs to be taught? …………….. 65

Presenting and practicing new vocabulary ………… 68

Educational technology and other learning resources.. 71

Ideas of vocabulary work in the classroom ……………………… 81

Authentic materials ………………………………… 83

The selection of appropriate activation techniques … 88

Teacher designed contexts and the use of dictionary .. 98

Vocabulary in course books ………………………… 110

Games, questionnaires and problem solving ………. 127

Testing vocabulary……………………………….… 132

TEACHER, LEARNER AND COURSE BOOK RELATIONSHIP… 137

[anonimizat]……… 139

Principles in assessing materials ……………………. 144

Guidelines ……………………………………….…. 148

Learner needs ………………………………………. 152

Advantages and disadvantages of using course books ………… 154

Adapting course books …………………………… 159

Traditional course books …………………………. 170

Supplementing the Traditional Books with Listening Materials ………………………………………….. 172

Advantages and disadvantages of using authentic materials176

What can we do when you do not have any course books?………………………………………………………………. 180

Using the best resources …………………..……… 184

Authentic materials ……………………………..….. 186

A possible survey in selecting the most appropriate course book………………………………………………………………….190

The results’ interpretation ……………..………… 193

Conclusions to the survey ………………………… 207

CONCLUSIONS ………………………………………………… 209

BIBLIOGRAPHY ………………………………………………… 211

INTRODUCTION

Argument

English language teaching in Romania is a complex, multifaceted affair involving a range of core areas and competences that students have to learn. [anonimizat]- [anonimizat], what appears to be a [anonimizat].

One of my goals with this thesis is to emphasize the advantages that word formation awareness and knowledge may have for the learners in terms of production, creativity, understanding, autonomy, and proficiency. The concept of a word can be defined in various ways, but three significant aspects teachers need to be aware of and focus on: form, meaning, and use. According to Nation, (2001), the form of a word involves its pronunciation (spoken form), spelling (written form), and any word parts that make up this particular item (such as a prefix, root, and suffix).

Vocabulary is central to English language teaching because without sufficient vocabulary students cannot understand others or express their own ideas. Wilkins, (1972:111-112) wrote that “. . . while without grammar very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed”. Lewis, (1993:89) went further to argue, “lexis is the core or heart of language”.

Particularly as students develop greater fluency and expression in English, it is significant for them to acquire more productive vocabulary knowledge and to develop their own personal vocabulary learning strategies. Students often instinctively recognize the importance of vocabulary to their language learning. As (Schmitt, 2010:4) noted, “learners carry around dictionaries and not grammar books”.

Teaching vocabulary helps students understand and communicate with others in English. Voltaire purportedly said, “Language is very difficult to put into words.” I believe English language students generally would concur, yet learning vocabulary also helps students master English for their purposes.

Research conducted on vocabulary has led to an understanding of its crucial importance in language learning. This is illustrated by the following statements:

‘Vocabulary is the core component of all language skills.’ (Long & Richards, 2007: xii)

‘The lexicon may be the most important language component for learners.’ (Gass & Selinker, 2008: 449)

‘Vocabulary is the key aspect of learning a language.’ (Schmitt & McCarthy, 1997: 106)

The clear message from research is that, in order to become effective language users, learners need to accumulate a substantial mass of words. The existence of words is usually taken for granted by the speakers of a language. To speak and understand a language means – among many other things – knowing the words of that language. The average speaker knows thousands of words, and new words enter our minds and our language on a daily basis. The purpose of this thesis is to enable the students and teachers to engage in (and enjoy!) their own analyses of English complex words from course books or authentic materials.

The English language in the world of globalization

Globalization has changed things worldwide, and it changes the conditions under which English learning takes place because globalization has brought more intimate contact among people from different parts of the world. The international language used by people to communicate in this era of globalization is English; organizations therefore need bilingual experts to help them build up good relationships with other firms, making English more important than ever.

In order to teach students well and meet these new needs, teachers must integrate different English teaching methods and search for the appropriate approaches for teaching English under the framework of knowledge management in the globalization. With the enormous selection of learning technologies available, teachers should enlighten and assist students to develop their competitive abilities. Knowledge learning reflects a concern for managing and developing a well-expressed and logical long-term plan for the intellectual assets of an individual. It is based on the recognition that the knowledge held by individuals is a valuable commodity. People possess various forms of knowledge, and it is creative, dynamic and adaptable. To learn English with the concepts of knowledge management is an inevitable trend of globalization era.

The English language has become an international language. Among nations it serves as a lingua franca. It is spoken, learnt and understood even in those countries where it is not a native’s language. English is playing a major role in many sectors including medicine, engineering, education, advanced studies, business, technology, banking, computing, tourism etc. All our software development today, the communication facilities available to us through internet, our access to a variety of websites, are all being carried out in English. Most of the research works are conducted and compiled in English. Anything written and recorded in this language is read and listened to, in wider circles. As a result, English is being taught and learned around the world as a second language today.

Glossary

With the help of this glossary I try to emphasize the most important terms associated with my thesis “Working with words”, for each entry there is an explanation of what the word means.

Accuracy (noun) = Correctness of the language used

Affix  (noun) = a  new  part  added  to the  beginning  or  end  of a  word  that  changes  its  meaning

affixation  (noun) = the  process  of  adding  a  new  part (a  prefix  or  suffix) to the  beginning  or  ending  of a  word, so that the  word’s  meaning  is  changed

blend  (noun) =  a  word  formed  by  combining  parts  of two other  words, for  example  ‘brunch’ is a  blend  of ‘breakfast’ and ‘lunch’

Compound  (noun) = a combination of two or more words that is used as a single word. The three different types of compound are noun compounds (for example ‘bus stop’), adjective compounds (for example ‘self-centred’), and verb compounds (for example to ‘wind-surf’).

derivative  (noun) =  a  word  that is  formed  from another  word, for  example  an  adverb  that is  formed  from an  adjective  by  adding ‘-ly’

diminutive suffix (noun) = a group of letters that are added to the end of a word to show that something is smaller than things of that type usually are, for example ‘-let’ added to ‘drop’ to make ‘droplet’

Drills (noun) = language practice exercises designed to give the learners many opportunities to use the correct forms and thus to establish correct habits. They are designed to demonstrate the regularity of the rule they exemplify and to fix it through repetition in the learner’s mind.

etymology  (noun) = the origin and development of a particular word

fluency = ability to speak or write as naturally and easily – but not necessarily as accurately – as the native speaker can

gap –fill (ing) = a text with empty spaces (gaps) which must be completed /filled in

interaction = communication between people involving the use of language (e.g. between two people having a conversation, between writer and reader etc.)

Learner centred approaches = approaches to language teaching based on the needs and interests of the learners rather than on a fixed syllabus o course book and the dictates of a teacher.

Lexical item = a word or group of words used in a particular utterance with a specific meaning, for example wonderful and piece of music in: “That is a wonderful piece of music”.

Pair work = independent work carried out simultaneously by groups of two students on a task or tasks.

Peer group = the group of people which occupies the same position in the hierarchy as the person being talked about; in an educational context, usually students of the same age and level

Practice stage = in most language teaching, follows the presentation stage and consists of opportunities for students themselves to master the new item.

Presentation stage = the point (usually at the beginning of the lesson) when new material is introduced by the teacher, followed by practice stage.

Realia = objects form real life used in the language classroom as aids (e.g. a real menu, a table cloth, knives and forks, etc. for a practice activity based on ordering food in a restaurant)

root  (noun) =  the most basic form of a word, or a word that is the base for other words

Simulation = a teacher technique in which students act out language using situations with or without preparation

stem  (noun) = the part of a word that does not change when an ending is added, for example ‘work’ in the word ‘working’

Teacher-centred approaches = approaches to language teaching based on a fixed syllabus or course book and the dictates of a teacher

Verbalize  (verb) = to change a word into a verb

CHAPTER ONE

WORD FORMATION

WORD FORMATION

The study of word-formation seems to be emerging from a fallow period. Suddenly word-formation is of central interest to theoretical linguists of all persuasions because of the light it throws on other aspects of language. Unfortunately, there is little agreement on the methodology or basis theoretical background for the study of word-formation, so that the field is currently a confused one. (Bauer, 2004:1)

According to Collins Cobuild English Dictionary, (1989: 1629), “the vocabulary of a language is the total number of words in it and someone’s vocabulary is the total number of words in a language that he or she knows”. As regards the term “words”, it will be used as an equivalent to lexical item or lexeme (Richards, 1992:210) and, therefore, refers to expressions made up of one or more terms which form units of meaning. Thus, “to put up with” or “to paint the town red” would be considered as words from the point of view of vocabulary teaching in the same way as a single word like ”chair”, for example, would. Therefore, idioms and multi-word verbs such as phrasal and prepositional verbs will be included.

Both grammar and lexicology involve us in an indefinitely large number of different units. In the case of grammar these are phrases, clauses, and sentences; in the case of lexicology the units are words, or more precisely lexical items. In consequence, while the grammar of a language is best handled in chapters devoted to different types of construction, it is normal to deal with the lexicon of a language in an alphabetic dictionary, each entry devoted to a different lexical item.

There is an area in which grammar and lexicology share a common ground: where generalization, as in grammar, is appropriate; but where the idiosyncrasies of individual units are also described. This area is word formation.

Word formation may be defined as a set of processes for the creation of new words on the basis of existing ones. Thus, apart from borrowing from other languages, the vocabulary stock of a language is formed by means of what is usually known as word-formation rules and, particularly, of word-formation mechanisms, such as derivation, compounding, clipping, blending, conversion, abbreviation, etc. (Adams, 1973; Bauer, 1983). In the case of native speakers these processes are naturally acquired or interiorized at an early age. However, non-native speakers do not acquire them as naturally as natives do, for two reasons:

(1) mainly because of the (let’s say) ‘artificial’ nature of the teaching and/or learning environment,

(2) because of the (natural or expected) quantitative difference in exposure to the language.

In other words, L2 learners not only deal with the foreign language in general, and with its grammar and vocabulary in particular, but also even more specifically, (in relation to our study,) with word-parts or word-formation rules that put words and other elements together to form new lexical items in a somehow ‘artificial’ context: usually that of the classroom in which the teaching takes place, and which is radically different from native language acquisition.

All these aspects had already been underlined by (Gairns and Redman, 1986:47-49) and (Nattinger, 1988:64), as follows:

Focus on word-building is likely to pay dividends for the learner both receptively and productively. With the receptive skills, an understanding of all… aspects of word building is essential if the learner is to make informed guesses about the meaning of unknown items. […] In terms of productive skills, knowledge of some basic principles of word-building and specific examples will serve to widen a learner’s range of expression (Gairns and Redman, 1986:47-49).

.. form may be more important than meaning in remembering a vocabulary item. We rely on the form of the word to lead us to its meaning, for we see or hear a particular ‘shape’ and try then to remember what that shape means. Therefore, in teaching comprehension, we need to teach strategies that take form as the principal path to meaning. For production, on the other hand, it is the meaning that guides us to an appropriate form for a particular situation (Hattingen, 1988:64).

All this underlines the importance of the strategies used to teach word-formation mechanisms that would allow the learner’s independence and autonomy. But, apart from strategies, the tools used also play a very important role to achieve those and similar purposes, two main types of material need to be mentioned, textbooks and dictionaries. The former are nowadays well designed to meet the learners’ needs and present varied and enjoyable tasks, sometimes within communicative situations so that the teacher may address or teach them in context, and not in isolation as the old-fashioned word lists did. However, in spite of this, they tend to disregard the importance of knowing the internal structure of words and, therefore, of word-formation mechanisms. As to the latter, dictionaries may be said not to support the acquisition of either L2 word-formation mechanisms or vocabulary (Balteiro, 2008:56).

Studying word formation

Lexicology is a branch of linguistics, the science of language. The term Lexicology is composed of two Greek morphemes: lexis meaning ‘word, phrase’ and logos which denotes ‘learning, a department of knowledge’. Thus, the literal meaning of the term L e x i с o l о g у is ‘the science of the word’. The literal meaning, however, gives only a general notion of the aims and the subject-matter of this branch of linguistic science, since all its other branches also take account of words in one way or another approaching them from different angles.

Phonetics, for instance, investigating the phonetic structure of language, i.e. its system of phonemes and intonation patterns, is concerned with the study of the outer sound form of the word.

Grammar, which is inseparably bound up with Lexicology, is the study of the grammatical structure of language. It is concerned with the various means of expressing grammatical relations between words and with the patterns after which words are combined into word-groups and sentences.

In linguistics morphology refers to the mental system involved in word formation or to the branch of linguistics that deals with words, their internal structure, and how they are formed.

Even if word formation can be approached from different aspects, as I have mentioned previously, I have chosen to approach word formation with the help of morphology, because I belief that word-formation mechanisms and rules appear at least as important and necessary for non-native speakers as for native speakers, mainly because they would highly contribute to the learner’s vocabulary and lexical resources which tend to be quite limited.

In addition, it seems quite impossible to teach and/or learn, and even predict, all the vocabulary or lexical items that a non-native speaker may need at any stage. Therefore, the teaching and acquisition of morphological processes becomes a priority for a number of reasons. Firstly, not only as the mechanisms that allow the L2 learner to create new words or expand their vocabulary on the basis of already learned words. Secondly, and what is more important, they are also needed for the decoding and understanding of lexical items they may encounter as well as for the production and encoding of an idea they have in mind into a lexical item they have never come across before.

In order to make use of word part strategy, learners need to have a basic knowledge of prefixes and suffixes as well as word-formation rules. In the following, some basic concepts, such as morpheme, root, stem, base etc. are introduced.

Morpheme “is the smallest unit of meaning in a word” (Carter, 1998: 9), for example, the word unhappy comprises two morphemes un and happy. In addition, a morpheme can be divided into two classes; one is called free morphemes, which include cat, invent, laugh etc.; the other is called bound morphemes, which include un-, -s, -ing, -ed, and –ous etc. (Carter, 1998:9).

Before discussing word-formation rules, three confusing terms need to be distinguished, i.e. root, stem and base. Root is a form “which is not further analyzable, either in terms of derivational or inflectional morphology” (Bauer, 1983: 20). In the word form unbelievable, for example, the root is believe. Base is a wider concept than root; a base is “any form to which affixes of any kind can be added” (Bauer, 1983: 21). As in the above example, believe, unbelieve and believable are all bases. Therefore, root can refer to “bases that cannot be analyzed further into morphemes” (Plag, 2003:11). The final concept, stem, is only used when dealing with inflectional morphology, and it is the “word-form which remains when all the inflectional affixes have been removed” (Bauer, 1983:20).

Word-formation can be further divided into derivation and compounding. Although this study aims to investigate the efficiency of using word-formation rules, the focus is on derivation and not compounds. Derivation is the “morphological process that results in the formation of new lexemes” (Bauer, 1983: 26-27). Plag lists seven general characteristics of derivation:

As Plag suggests, derivation can be classified into affixation and non-affixation, and both affixation and non-affixation can be further divided into another three categories. Their mutual relationships are shown in the tree derivation below (Plag, 2003: 17):

Word formation is conceived as the process by which words are brought into existence. This suggests that words do not exist in a vacuum; they are usually composed. Essential to this composition are morphemes, which are “the minimal units of grammatical analysis in all languages” (Lyons, 1979:200). In other words, structurally speaking, a word is located within morphemes. As a result, a large number of English words are formed through affixation and other word formation processes such as blending, clipping, compounding, etc.

There are four main types of word-formation, the first two of which can be referred to as ‘affixation’.

In general, an overview of learners’ dictionaries shows a variety of attitudes towards word formation: concentrating on inflection instead of derivation, clustering of related forms, that is, treatment of derived items within an entry, or just the opposite, i.e. treatment of word formation elements as entries. The clustering of derivationally related items seems to favour the encoding process and contribute to the correct production and creation of new items. However, it does entail a number of drawbacks for decoding or comprehension, since it requires that the learner should previously analyze the word and be able to identify its parts in order to find it in the dictionary. In the case of prefixation, unlike suffixation, following an alphabetic order of presentation might be quite helpful.

Dictionaries’ information on word formation tends to be implicit, as prefixed and suffixed words are often included, but quite often the meaning of a prefix or suffix itself is not. It would appear that new electronic dictionaries and databases solve the problem, at least partly, thanks to the fact that they allow the use of wild cards and, therefore, their greater flexibility in retrieval favours learners’ autonomy and acquisition and answers to their particular needs.

However, it remains to be seen whether learners do know how to use such wild cards, or rather just ignore them.

Nevertheless, in order to ensure effective learners’ autonomy and as a previous step to the creation or preparation of more or less successful materials, attention should be paid to learners’ mental processes, that is, to how they acquire vocabulary and word-formation mechanisms, and also how they process it when it comes to both decoding and encoding.

Inflection and derivation

Besides being bound or free, morphemes can also be classified as root, derivational, or inflectional. A root morpheme is the basic form to which other morphemes are attached. It provides the basic meaning of the word. The morpheme {saw} is the root of sawers.

Derivational morphemes are added to forms to create separate words: {-er} is a derivational suffix whose addition turns a verb into a noun, usually meaning the person or thing that performs the action denoted by the verb. For example, {paint} + {-er} creates painter, one of whose meanings is “someone who paints.”

Inflectional morphemes do not create separate words. They merely modify the word in which they occur in order to indicate grammatical properties such as plurality, as the {-s} of magazines does, or past tense, as the {ed} of barbecued does.

We can regard the root of a word as the morpheme left over when all the derivational and inflectional morphemes have been removed. For example, in immovability, {im-}, {-abil}, and {-ity} are all derivational morphemes, and when we remove them we are left with {move}, which cannot be further divided into meaningful pieces, and so must be the word’s root.

We must distinguish between a word’s root and the forms to which affixes are attached. In moveable, {-able} is attached to {move}, which we’ve determined is the word’s root. However, {im-} is attached to moveable, not to {move} (there is no word immove), but moveable is not a root. Expressions to which affixes are attached are called bases. While roots may be bases, bases are not always roots.

Let us have a look at the following data which show further characteristics by which the two classes of morphological processes, inflection vs. word-formation, can be distinguished. The derivational processes are on the left, the inflectional ones on the right.

Let us turn to the next set of properties that unites the words on the left and differentiates them from the words on the right. These properties concern the position of the morphemes: in English derivational morphemes can occur at either end of the base words whereas regular inflection is always expressed by suffixes.

Only irregular inflection makes use of non-affixation means, as for example in mouse – mice or sing – sang. There is no inflectional prefix in English. Furthermore, forms like workers or colonializing indicate that inflectional morphemes always occur outside derivational morphemes, they close the word for further (derivational) affixation (*workers-hood, *colonializing-er). As evidenced by derivatives like un-truthful- ness or the famous textbook example dis-establish-ment-arian-ism, derivational suffixes can and do occur inside other derivational suffixes.

Another interesting difference between the words in (1a) and (1b) concerns the part of speech. The suffixes in (1a) change the part of speech of the base word. For instance, the suffixation of -less makes an adjective out of a noun, the suffix –ity makes a noun out of an adjective, and the suffix -ize turns an adjective into a verb.

The inflectional suffixes don’t change the category of the base word. A plural marker on a noun does not change the category, nor does the past tense marker on the verb. However, not all derivational affixes are category-changing, as is evidenced, for example, by most prefixes (as e.g. in post-war, decolonialize, non-issue), or by the nominal suffix -ism, which can attach to nouns to form nouns (e.g. Terrorism).

The final property of derivation to be discussed here is exemplified by the two derivatives interview and curiosity in (1a), as against all inflectional forms. Both forms in (1a) show a property that is often found in derivation, but hardly ever in inflection, and that is called semantic opacity. If you consider the meaning of interview and the meaning of the ingredient morphemes inter- and view, you can observe that the meaning of interview is not the sum of the meaning of its parts. The meaning of inter- can be paraphrased as ‘between’, that of (the verb) view as ‘look at something’ (definitions according to the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English), whereas the meaning of (the verb) interview is ‘to ask someone questions, especially in a formal meeting’. Thus the meaning of the derived word cannot be inferred on the basis of its constituent morphemes, it is to some extent opaque, or nontransparent.

As a conclusion to our discussion of derivation and inflection, I have summarized the differences between inflection and derivation in the following chart:

Affixation, Prefixation, Suffixation

Affixation consists in adding derivational affixes (i.e., prefixes, infixes and suffixes) to roots and stems to form new words. For example, if the suffix -able is added to the word pass, the word passable is created. Likewise, if to the word passable the prefix in- (or rather its allomorph im-) is attached, another word is formed, namely impassable. Affixation is a very common and productive morphological process in synthetic languages. In English, derivation is the form of affixation that yields new words. (Huddleston and Pullum, 2005: 284)

In affixation a base is expanded by the addition of a prefix at the beginning of the base or a suffix at the end. Very often the effect of affixation is to change the part of- speech category of the base – to form a noun from an adjective or verb, to form a verb from a noun or adjective, and so on. We speak here of category-changing affixes, as opposed to category-preserving affixes:

Befriend and endanger are verbs formed from nouns, while wetness is a noun formed from an adjective, and achievable is an adjective formed from a verb. Most category-changing affixes are suffixes.

Some affixes can be used in EITHER a category-changing OR a category-preserving way. The suffix ·ly, for example, often derives adverbs from adjectives (rapid·ly) and, much less often, derives adjectives from nouns (friend·ly, gentleman·ly, prince·ly), so it can be category-changing.

In a few cases, however, it derives adjectives from more elementary adjectives. These are not that common in the contemporary language, but examples include good·ly "considerable", kind·ly "benevolent", and poor·ly "not in good health". Affixation is commonly accompanied by modification of the base, sometimes just in spelling, and sometimes in pronunciation as well. In achievable, for example, the mute e of achieve is dropped, while in persuasion we have a change in the consonant at the end of persuade.

Affixes differ with respect to whether and, if so, to what extent they affect the syntactic distribution of the base to which they attach. We distinguish three main types:

(a) Affixes which change the primary category

One very important role of affixes, especially suffixes, is to create nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc., from bases of another category. Adding – ness to an adjective, for example, changes it into a noun: we refer to it as a de-adjectival noun and the process is a special case of nominalisation. Similarly, adding -able to a verb creates an adjective, adding -ise to a noun changes it into a verb, and so on:

RESULTANT BASE PROCESS

Wet *adj + ness wetness *noun de- adjectival noun nomnalisation

Read * verb + able readable * adjective adverbal adjective adjectivalisation

Terror * noun + ise terrorise * verb denominal verb verbalization

Affixes can also serve to nominalise or adjectivalise phrasal sequences, as in the old-maidish and fly-by-nighter examples; particularly common here is the use of • ed to form dephrasal adjectives like red-nosed, two-faced, etc. Lexical word-formation processes of nominalisation, adjectivalisation, and verbalization.

(b) Affixes which change the subclass

Less often, the primary category is preserved, but there is a change in the subclass:

i a. He moaned about the lack of funds. b. He bemoaned the lack of funds. ii a. She hadn't yet become a star. b. Her rise to stardom was meteoric.

Moan, as in [i. a], is an intransitive verb (here taking a PP complement): prefixing be makes it transitive, as in [i. b]. In [ii] star is a concrete count noun, whereas stardom is abstract and normally non-count.

(c) Affixes which have no effect on the syntactic distribution

There are also affixes, predominantly prefixes, which leave even the subclass unchanged:

i happy/ unhappy fiend/ archfiend judge/ misjudge read/ re-read

ii tiger/ tigress kitchen/kitchenette green/greenish good/goodly

It should be borne in mind, however, that affixes do not always behave in a uniform way across all the bases to which they attach. Be-, for example, changes the subclass in the above example of bemoan, but it changes the primary category in befriend (a denominal verb) and becalm (de-adjectival). Pre- generally has no syntactic effect, as in the verb pre-heat or the adjective pre-human, but in words like pre-war it derives an adjective from a noun.

In the majority of previous linguistic approaches (Katamba 1993, Matthews 1974, Bauer 1983, Adams 1973) the context of affixation provides the framework for prefixation: prefixes are considered affixes attached before a root (or stem or base). It is necessary then to summarize the most important facets of ‘creative’ prefixations:

The above-mentioned characteristics mark the problematic areas concerning the phenomenon. The following line of reasoning attempts to uncover some factors validating the semantic autonomy of the notion

As (Hamawand, 2011:15) points out: “Prefixes … have meaning of their own, which contribute to the semantic import of the host roots. In word-formation, a prefix is the most important part because it lends its character to the whole derivative. This is so because it adds to the derivative a new shade of meaning.” As Hamawand claims, though two rival prefixes might describe a conceptual content represented by the root, both do so in their characteristic way. Within the theoretical tenets of the cognitive linguistic paradigm, it is meaning which counts as a decisive element in the choice between rival prefixes. Instead of homonymy, prefixes of degree have multiple meanings.

Schmid, (2011:147) also states typical prefixations to be combinations of free lexical morphemes serving as bases, with preceding bound lexical morphemes (the prefixes themselves) in a modifying function. Prefixes therefore form paradigms, that is, they operate on definable types of bases. As a rule, in such typical prefixations the word class of the head determines the word class of the whole derived complex lexeme as well. From a lexicalization point of view, typical prefixations are weakly lexicalized, as both semantic and formal lexicalizations lead quickly to the loss of transparency. Not all prefixations, however, follow this typical prefixational pattern. Schmid, (2011:148) distinguishes between two classes of the so-called untypical prefixations. Synthetic prefixations are termed such complex lexemes which are not immediately analyzable, as their bases are not existing English lexemes. Besides the synthetic prefixations Schmid also distinguishes the subcategory of pseudo-prefixations, post-Freudian serving as an example where we do not face any segmentation problems, the morphological analysis though is to an extent opposed to the semantic analysis (the prefix only refers to a part of the base: Freud, not Freudian).

Contrastively, as a unifying notion concerning prefixation paves the way for several differing cognitive approaches, as summarized in (Ungerer, 2007:658-660). One of these is the so-called profiling contrast, expressing a special type of interpretation of the basic Figure-Ground distinction (also and perhaps even more widely referred to as trajectorlandmark relationship in the literature). The unifying idea of contrast can also be backed by mapping the productive gaps in prefixation. There are verbs which typically do not permit contrast: *unlive or *unsleep, and also most concrete nouns. This is where the first important creative aspect arises: as creative examples we do have to unhave and to defriend. In both these cases we can postulate a certain violation or rules, where defriend, besides exemplifying a category-changing prefix, also displays analogical processing on the basis of befriend. The reason why we cannot form prefixations with stative or nonconclusive durative verbs respectively is that “…they do not have any natural contrast. For the same reason nouns that describe concrete objects are not suitable as bases for prefixations, since they do not have any obvious opposites.” (Schmid, 2011:161).

It is important to note that contrastivity should not necessarily be dealt with as a unified cognitive principle, but rather as a complex category, which is rooted in several image schemas. (Ungerer 2007 quoting Mettinger 1994, 1996). Adjectives prefixed with un- may involve two image schemas: the SCALE schema (e.g. unimportant) and the CONTAINER schema for adjectives which are contradictorily negated. Still within this reasoning, the un- predication would be constituted by the relation between the “extra posed” trajectory (the prefix itself) and the landmark. The cognitive linguistic view of prefixation as conceptual reprofiling reflects upon the extra semantic information that cannot be captured by building-block compositionality. It emphasizes the condensed nature of prefixations as well as a potential syntactic simplification. The most important aspect is, however, that a “state of affairs is molded into a concept; an idea is entrenched and can be stored in the mental lexicon.” (Schmid, 2011:162)

The above-mentioned linguistic notions serve as linguistic framework for the positioning of creative prefixations. The cases serve double purpose: on the one hand, they exemplify the shortcomings of strict compositionality (as it has been stated, creative prefixations retain their basic compositional character), on the other, they place the topic of the semantic content of prefixes into a different perspective. Why do we create creative prefixations, what reasons ─be it semantic, cognitive or socio-pragmatic─ motivate their existence? Creative prefixations start out as nonce formations, some of them become neologisms, and ─through the process of entrenchment─ some of them might become fully lexicalized. As is the case with nonce-formations in general, attention seeking is very often a major motivation. Konieczna (2012) examines different types of attentions seeking devices, untypical, rule-breaking prefixations being one of her examples. Her analysis of depolicing and deshopping concludes that as a constituent of these prefixations, the meaning of the two nouns can only be partially privative, as neither complex lexeme stands for the complete lack of something. This sort of rule-breaking element (e.g. deriving privative verbs from abstract nouns instead of the more typical concrete nouns) is certainly one major aspect of creative word-formation. The prefix de- is especially prone to such non-canonical use, as some further examples might show:

de-Scottishify – ‘rebrand a product to remove its Scottish connotations’

de-conflict – ‘to avoid conflict while planning a military strategy’

de-alert – ‘to separate a nuclear weapons warhead from its delivery system’

de-elect – ‘remove an elected official from office’

de-bachelorize – ‘the act of replacing typical bachelor decor in the home with items considered more feminine’

According to (Adams, 2001:86) and (Plag,2003:92), the prefix de- is used to form reversative and privative verbs, but as the above examples show, the rules for forming reversative and privative verbs by means of the prefix de- have been modified or broken. The reason for this modification can be the act of attention-seeking itself. In fact, the complex lexemes created by these creative processes defy categories of reversativity or privativity: they bring into life previously nonexistent concepts, with categorisational terminology of their own. Another reason for the creation of such prefixations might be the so-called Minimaxprinciple (Benczes 2006 quoting Breckle), referring to the process of expressing maximum conceptual content through minimal formal realization. This, however, could be seen as barring understanding as well: the very poignant socio-pragmatic/cultural content can render these phrases undecipherable.

Noun suffixes

According to different kinds of word class, suffixes are divided into four groups, i.e. suffixes used to form nouns (e.g., -ce/-cy, -ant and –ion in this study), verbs (e.g., -ize in this study), adjectives (e.g., -ous in this study) and adverbs. There are three kinds of suffixes that can change words into nouns, namely, noun-to-noun suffixes, verb-to-noun suffixes and adjective-to-noun suffix (Hatch & Brown, 1995:275-276). Noun-to-noun suffixes can be further divided into three major categories, that is, noun-to-noun occupational suffixes which include –ster, -eer, and –er as in gangster, mountaineer and geographer; noun-to-noun diminutives or feminine suffixes which include –let, -ette, -ess and –ie as in piglet, kitchenette, princess and cookie; and noun-to-noun status or domain suffixes which include –hood, -ship, -dom, -ocracy and –(e)ry as in adulthood, membership, kingdom, democracy and machinery.

Noun suffixes

ance/ence: used to make nouns from verbs or adjectives

annoy-annoyance

assist –assistance

obedient-obedience

refer – reference

prefer -preference

tolerant -tolerance

dom: used to make abstract nouns from adjectives or nouns

bore – boredom

king – kingdom

martyr -martyrdom

star – stardom

wise – wisdom

free – freedom

er/-ee: person who does something (-er) or person who receives something (-ee)

employ – employer / employee

send – sender

address – addresser / addressee

*lie – liar (exception)

er/-or: things or people who do a particular job, professions

work – worker

inspect – inspector

act – actor

play – player

garden – gardener

project–projector

hood: used for abstract nouns, especially family terms

child – childhood

mother-motherhood

brother-brotherhood

ian: people who do a particular job, professions

music – musician

politics- politician

electricity-electrician

ist: used for people who play musical instruments

violin – violinist

piano – pianist

cello – cellist

ist/-ism: used for people’s politics, beliefs and ideologies

anarchy- anarchist

physics – physicist

terror – terrorist Marx–marxism

socialist / socialism

ity: used to make nouns from adjectives

flexible – flexibility

hostil – hostility

anonym-anonymity

absurd – absurdity

real – reality Generous- generosity

curious – curiosity

pure-purity

ment: used to make nouns from verbs

enjoy –enjoyment

replace–placement

argue – argument

invest – investment

retire –retirement

achieve- achievement

agree – agreement

excite -excitement

pay – payment

ness: used to make abstract nouns from adjectives

good – goodness

happy – happiness

careful–carefulness weak – weakness

bitter – bitterness

tender –tenderness

ugly – ugliness

sad – sadness

ship: used for abstract nouns, especially status

friend – friendship

author – authorship

member – membership

partner – partnership

fellow – fellowship

relation – relationship

th: used to make abstract nouns from adjectives

long – length

strong – strength

wide – width

deep – depth

broad – breadth

warm – warmth

(t)ion: used to make nouns from verbs

admit – admission combine-combination

act – action

collect – collection imagine- imagination

reduce – reduction

alter – alteration

produce–production

y: used to make nouns from verbs or from adjectives

injure – injury

royal – royalty

honest – honesty fluent – fluency

Adjective suffixes

Suffixes that form adjectives can be classified into three categories. The first one is noun-to adjective suffixes. There are in total six kinds of noun-to-adjective suffixes that have different semantic meanings. The first group of suffixes add the semantic notion of a membership group to the original words which include –ite, -(i)an, -ese, ist, and –ism as in sociolite, Republican, Chinese, dentist and Protestanism (Hatch & Brown, 1995:275). The other five kinds of suffixes are: –ful which gives the meaning of giving or having (e.g., helpful); -less which adds the meaning of without (e.g. endless); -ly and –like which means having the quality of as in friendly and childlike; -ed which means “having X” as in pointed; and the last one, -ish, which has the meaning of belonging to or having the character of (e.g., boyish). The second category includes suffixes which “occur primarily in borrowed and neoclassical words,” i.e. –al in musical, -ic in heroic, -ive in attractive and –ous in curious (Hatch & Brown, 1995:276), and –ous is tested in this study. The last group is verb-to-adjective suffixes, such as -able in agreeable and -ible in flexible.

Adjective suffixes

able/-ible: with verbs, it means “can be done”

drink – drinkable

wash –washable

read – readable

count – countable

eat – edible

al: used to make adjectives from nouns or verbs

practic – practical

option –optional

magic – magical

sphere –spherical

arrive – arrival

refuse – refusal

ful: it makes adjectives from nouns or verbs and means “a great quantity of”

help – helpful

use – useful

cheer – cheerful

hope – hopeful

care – careful

ish: used to make adjectives from nouns and means “with the quality of”

red – reddish

green – greenish

child – childish

ive: used to make adjectives from verbs

pass – passive

destruct -destructive

attract – attractive

act – active

produce- productive

progress- progressive

less: used to make adjectives from nouns or verbs and means “without”

hope – hopeless

use – useless

harm – harmless

help – helpless

care – careless

cloud – cloudless

ous: used to make adjectives from nouns

danger – dangerous

fury – furious

y: used to make adjectives from nouns

luck – lucky trick – tricky

Adverb suffixes

The suffix –wise derives adverbs from nouns, and (Plag, 2003:185) divides these into two subgroups: manner/dimension adverbs and viewpoint adverbs. In manner/dimension adverbs, -wise denotes “in the manner of X, like X”, as in “They moved in a clockwise direction.” Viewpoint adverbs ending in –wise are less productive, and mean “with respect to, in regard to, concerning X”, as in Healthwise, this is not a good choice. Bauer, (1983:123) points out that –ly is also added quite productively to form adverbs from adjectives, as when we derive greedily from greedy. Restrictions on the attachment of adverbial –ly are phonological in nature, and include the attachment to adjectives already ending in –ly. For example, the adjective deadly would not take an allomorph of –ly to create *deadily.

ly

The presence of this exclusively de-adjectival suffix is for the most part syntactically triggered and obligatory, and it can therefore be considered inflectional. However, in some formations there is a difference in meaning between the adjective and the adverb derived by -ly attachment: shortly, hardly and dryly are semantically distinct from their base words and hotly, coldly and darkly can only have metaphorical senses.

Such changes of meaning are unexpected for inflectional suffix, which speaks against the classification of adverbial -ly as inflectional.

wise

This suffix derives adverbs from nouns, with two distinguishable sub-groups: manner/dimension adverbs, and so-called view-point adverbs. The former adverb type has the meaning ‘in the manner of X, like X’ as in the towel wound sarongwise about his middle, or indicates a spatial arrangement or movement, as in The cone can be sliced lengthwise. It is, however, not always possible to distinguish clearly between the ‘manner’ and ‘dimension’ readings (e.g. is ‘cut X crosswise’ an instance of one or the other?). The smaller and much more recent group of viewpoint adverbs is made up of adverbs whose meaning can be rendered as ‘with respect to, in regard to, concerning X’.

Verb suffixes

There are three suffixes that can change nouns or adjectives to verbs with a causative meaning, i.e. –ify, -ize, and –en as in simplify, computerize and widen (Hatch & Brown, 1995: 276). The suffix –ize is investigated in this study. Plag claims that –ize can “express a whole range of related concepts such as locative, ornative, causative/facititive, resultative, inchoative, performative, similative” (Plag, 2003:93). Locative means “put into X” as in computerize. Ornative can be paraphrased as “provide with X” as in fluoridize. Other examples of causative/facititive (“make (more) X”), resultative (“make into X”), inchoative (“become X”), performative (“perform X”), and similative (“act like X”) –ize are randomize, carbonize, aerosolize, anthropologize, and cannibalize (Plag, 2003:93-94).

Verb-to-noun suffixes, of which there are three kinds, are much more numerous than noun-to noun suffixes. The suffix –ant and –ion, which are investigated in this study, belong to verb-to noun suffixes. The first category is the suffixes that form nouns which have the meaning of agent or instrument, for example, -er in singer, -or in actor and -ant in etchant.

There is another suffix having “one who” meaning (Hatch & Brown, 1995: 275), i.e. –ee, but it is different from the former ones. As Plag (2003) claims, it “derives nouns denoting sentient entities that are involved in an event as non-volitional participants” (Plag, 2003:87). For example, employee means someone who is employed by someone else and a biographee is someone who is the protagonist of a biography.

The second category is the suffixes dealing with states or actions, as –ation in organization, – ment in development and –al in approval. The last group of verb-to-noun suffixes concern activity, i.e. –ing in running, -age in drainage. The third category of suffixes to form nouns is adjective-to-noun suffix. It consists of –ness and –ity as in happiness and guilty.

An additional suffix is investigated in this study can also change adjectives to nouns, that is, -ce/-cy, but it is not mentioned in Hatch and Brown’s book. The suffix –ce/-cy “attaches productively to adjectives in –ant/-ent” (e.g. convergence, efficiency) as (Plag, 2003: 88) suggests.

Verbs suffixes

ise (ize): used to make verbs from adjectives

modern – modernise

commercial –commercialise

general – generalize

industrial – industrialise

(i)fy: used to make verbs from adjectives or verbs

note – notify

class – classify

pure – purify

terror – terrify

clear – clarify

specific- specify

Infixation

Morphologists usually agree that English has no infixes. However, there is the possibility of inserting expletives in the middle of words to create new words expressing the strongly negative attitude of the speaker (e.g. kanga-bloody-roo, absoblooming- lutely). Thus we could say that English has a process of infixation of (certain) words, but there are no bound morphemes that qualify for infix status. Such forms raise two questions. The first is what structural properties these infixed derivatives have, and the second is whether we should consider this type of infixation as part of the English word-formation component or not. We will deal with each question in turn.

From a phonological point of view these forms are completely regular. Hammond, (1999:161-164) shows that the expletive is always inserted in the same prosodic position. Consider the following data and try to determine the pertinent generalization before reading on. The expletive is represented by ‘EXPL’, and primary and secondary stresses are marked as usual by acute and grave accents, respectively:

Possible and impossible infixations

fròn-EXPL-tíer *tí-EXPL-ger

sàr-EXPL-díne *se-EXPL-réne

bì-EXPL-chlórìde *Cá-EXPL-nada

bàn-EXPL-dánna *ba-EXPL-nána

ámper-EXPL-sànd *ám-EXPL-persànd

cárni-EXPL-vóre *cár-EXPL-nivòre

The data show that infixation is obviously sensitive to the stress pattern of the base words. There must be a stressed syllable to the left and one to the right of the expletive (hence the impossibility of *tí-EXPL-ger, *Cá-EXPL-nada, or *ba-EXPL-nána). A foot is a metrical unit consisting of either one stressed syllable, or one stressed syllable and one or more unstressed syllables. It is usually assumed that English is a primarily trochaic language, which means that there is a strong tendency to form bisyllabic feet that have their stress on the left (so-called trochees, as in bóttle, héaven, strúcture, wáter). Other languages, such as French, only have feet with stress on the right, so-called iambs, as in París, egále, traváil, travaillér. Each word of English can be assigned a metrical structure in terms of feet, with each stressed syllable heading one foot. A word like misunderstand would then be analyzed as having three feet: (mìs)(ùnder)(stánd), with foot boundaries indicated by parentheses.

Returning to expletive infixation, the foot structure of the words in can be represented as in. Parentheses indicate feet:

possible foot structures

(fròn)-EXPL-(tíer) *(tí-EXPL-ger)

(sár)-EXPL-(dìne) *se-EXPL-(réne) or *(se-EXPL-réne)

(bì)-EXPL-chlórìde *(Cá-EXPL-nada) or *(Cá-EXPL-na)da

(bàn)-EXPL-(dánna) *ba-EXPL-(nána) or *(ba-EXPL-ná)na

(ámper)-EXPL-(sànd) *(ám-EXPL-per)(sànd)

(cárni)-EXPL-(vóre) *(cár-EXPL-ni)(vòre)

We are now in a position to establish the pertinent generalization. The expletive must be inserted between two feet. It is not allowed to interrupt a foot, which rules out our problematic examples *ám-EXPL-persànd and *cár-EXPL-nivòre from above.

In sum, we have seen that infixation in English is determined by the metrical structure of the base, or, more specifically, by its foot structure. Expletive infixation can be regarded as a case of prosodic morphology, i.e. a kind of morphology where prosodic units and prosodic restrictions are chiefly responsible for the shape of complex words.

Conversion

Whereas the verb hospitalise is formed from hospital by adding the suffix ·ise, the verb bottle (as in Where do they bottle Coca-Cola?) is formed from the noun bottle without any change of shape at all. This is called conversion: a base of one category is formed by extending the use of a base of another category. The main types are illustrated in:

Type [v] differs from the others in that it is not the plain form, or lexical base, of the verb that undergoes conversion, but an inflected form. In this example it is a gerund participle, but it can also be a past participle as in It had bored *verb them, which gives, by conversion, They were very bored ADJ. (Huddleston and Pullum, 2005: 285)

There is nothing in the base created by conversion to mark it as such. The direction of conversion reflects the distinction between primary and extended SENSES:

the primary sense of bottle is to denote a narrow-necked container for liquids, and the verb bottle incorporates that sense: it means "put into a bottle";

the primary sense of water is that it denotes the physical substance H20, and the verb water incorporates this sense: it means "provide with water".

Miscellaneous modes

Back formation

A kind of opposite of affixation is found in some cases where the history of a word is that a word with an affix is taken to have a related form without that affix. We get a derived word that is formed by SUBTRACTING an affix from a base rather than adding one.

The verb self-destruct is a clear example. It was formed from the noun self destruction by dropping the `ion` suffix. Notice that the verb related to destruction is destroy, not *destruct. The verb self-destruct came into the language after the noun, not the other way round. This backwards derivation by removing an affix is known as back-formation. (Huddleston and Pullum, 2005: 285-286)

The classic example is the verb edit, which is known to have arisen through back-formation from the noun editor: again, the noun preceded the verb historically.

There is nothing in the forms themselves that enables one to distinguish between affixation and back-formation : it's a matter of historical formation of words rather than of their structure. In fact, we have already listed two compound verbs that are back-formations: baby-sit and sleepwalk in VERBS: baby-sit blow-dry hand wash over-react sleepwalk underachieve. These arose by back-formation from the nouns baby-sitter and sleepwalking. Structurally they are compounds, since they consist of two bases, but they did not arise historically by compounding.

Back-formation is the coining of a new word by taking an existing word and forming from it a morphologically more elementary word. It is usually a matter of deleting an affix. In the following charts, for example, the words with affixes had already been in the language for some time when the ones without affixes were coined:

As far as morphological structure is concerned, back-formation does not yield a distinct type of base. Edit and jog, for example, are simple bases, just like write and run; recycle is a derivative base (analysable into prefix + base), just like rebuild; underachieve is a compound base like underact; and so on. That television was established in the language before televise is a fact of history, not something that is relevant to the structure of the language today, where the morphological relation between televise and television is the same as that between revise and revision.

Nevertheless it is clear that back-formation is one of the processes by which new words are created, and that this process is still productive today: the examples in the above charts range from nineteenth-century ones like edit to quite recent ones like headhunt. Back-formation by deletion of• ingor • er is indeed one of the main avenues for the creation of verb compounds with the structure noun base + verb base: besides baby-sit, headhunt, and lip-read from the list above we have brainwash, day-dream, house-hunt, house-keep, sleep-walk, spring-clean, etc., and more recently break-dance, plea-bargain, skateboard, windsurf.

One respect in which the origin of these compound verbs as back-formations is of relevance to a descriptive, non-historical study, is that irregular preterite and past participle forms are sometimes unacceptable. Compare, for example, He had been day-dreaming all morning (regular gerund-participle) and *He had day-dreamt all morning (irregular past participle).

Back-formation may result in a base that is close in meaning to one that is already established. Self-destruct, for example, was formed from self-destruction by reversing the suffixation process seen in the derivation of words like abduction and construction from abduct and construct, and it yields a base destruct alongside the long-established destroy, but with a more restricted meaning and correspondingly limited distribution. As remarked above, back-formation usually deletes an affix from a derivative base, but other types of reversal are occasionally found. The compound verb spoon-feed, for example, was formed from spoon-fed by reversing the process that applies in forming the simple past participle fed from the lexical base feed.

Like other productive processes, back-formation can be used in a jocular way, as with couth from uncouth.

Reduplicatives

Some compounds have two or more constituents which are either identical or only slightly different, e.g.: goody-goody (chiefly noun, a self-consciously virtuous person, informal). The difference between the two constituents may be in the intial consonants, as in walkie-talkie, or in the medial vowels, e.g.: criss-cross. Most of the reduplicatives are highly informal or familiar, and may belong to the sphere of child-parent talk e.g. din-din (dinner). The most common uses of reduplicatives sometimes called ‘jingles’) are:

to imitate sounds, e.g.tick-tock (of clock), ha ha ( of laughter), Bow-wow (of dog);

to suggest alternating movements, e.g. seesaw, flip-flop, ping-pong;

to disparage by suggesting instability, nonsense, insincerity, vacillation, etc: higgledy-piggledy, hocus-pocus, wishy-washy, dilly-dally, shilly-shally;

to intensify, e.g. teeny-weeny, tip-top.

Abbreviations

Apart from the prosodically determined processes discussed in the previous section, there is one other popular way of forming words, namely abbreviation.

Abbreviations are similar in nature to blends, because both blends and abbreviations are amalgamations of parts of different words. Abbreviation has in common with truncation and blending that it involves loss of material (not addition of material, as with affixation), but differs from truncation and blending in that prosodic categories do not play a prominent role. Rather, orthography is of central importance.

Abbreviations are most commonly formed by taking initial letters of multiword sequences to make up a new word, as shown in the three charts below:

Abbreviations

Abbreviations are pronounced as sequences of letters: /si:aiei/, /i:i:si:/, etc.

They are normally written as here, or else with full stops (periods) after each letter (C.I.A., etc.).

Occasionally, however, they are spelled out as ordinary words, as in deejay, an alternative spelling of DJ. The full form is virtually always available as an alternant in the language system (though individual speakers will not always be aware of it as for example in the case of DNA).

The examples in the three charts above, are proper names – of institutions or places. Some require the definite article when functioning as head in NP structure, while others appear without it: compare: ‘She works at the UN and She works at MIT.’ The use of initialisms for institutions is extremely common, but many of them are very localised or ephemeral.

Most words formed by abbreviation are written with upper-case letters, but some have lower case, as in the charts above (where PC and PS are alternants). Abbreviations of Latin phrases such as e.g. (exempli gratia "for example"), i.e. (id est "that is"), n.b. (nota bene "note") are written in lower case, but there is no reason to say that these abbreviations are single words. The examples in charts above, however, are words: they belong to the category of noun, and behave grammatically like ordinary nouns. MC, MP, VIP, for example, are count nouns and inflect for plural in the regular way. Note particularly the contrast between MCs or MPs and Masters of Ceremonies or Members of Parliament; similarly HQ has a distinct plural HQs whereas the plural of headquarters is identical to the singular. Abbreviations, like other bases, can in principle enter into other word-formation processes, as with ZPG-er ("supporter of the zero population growth movement").

Acronyms

Acronymy is the process whereby a new word is formed from the initial letters of the constituent words of a phrase or sentence. For example, from the initial letters of the words of the phrase North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the word NATO is formed. Similarly, from the initial letters of the constituent words of the phrase unidentified flying object, the word UFO is formed. In a like manner, from the constituent words of the sentence I owe you, the word IOU (notice the adaptation in spelling) is formed. And from the Situation normal, all fouled up, snafu (army slang) is formed. The words created by this process are called acronyms; all of them function as nouns.

According to Quirk et al. (1985), there are two main types of acronyms, namely:

1. Acronyms which are pronounced as a word; e.g., NASA (= National Aeronautics and Space Administration), radar (radio detecting and ranging), laser (= light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation), UNESCO (= United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), BASIC (= Beginners' All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code), COBOL (Common Business Oriented Language), etc.

As can be seen, acronyms of this type often derive from phrasal names. Many of them belong to the jargon (i.e., specialized language) of particular occupations, organizations or fields of study (esp. scientific, administrative, political) and might be completely meaningless to the persons who are not familiarized with them. Notice also that some of these acronyms are of so frequent an occurrence that people often use them without the slightest idea of what the words stand for; e.g., laser, radar.

2. Acronyms which are pronounced as sequences of letters (also called 'alphabetisms'); e.g., C.O.D (cash on delivery), MIT (= Massachusetts Institute of Technology), VIP (= very important person). In writing, the more institutionalized formations have no periods between their component letters. This tendency is especially more common in British English than in American English; e.g., DIY (= do-it-yourself), FBI (= Federal Bureau of Investigations). Note that each constituent letter of these acronyms usually represents a full word or constituent in the compound, or just a part of a word, as in the following examples: TB (= tuberculosis), TV (= television), c/o (= (in) care of). Likewise, notice that some of these acronyms are given a quasi-phonetic written form; e.g., Emcee for M.C. (= Master of Ceremonies), Deejay for DJ (= disc jockey), etc.

Clippings

Clipping is the processes whereby new words are formed by shortening other words; i.e., by eliminating the initial part, the last part, or both parts, of those words. E.g., phone from (tele)phone, plane from (air)plane, ad (advert (BrE)) from ad(vertisement), exam from exam(ination), flu from (in)flu(enza), fridge(esp. BrE) from refrigerator. Notice that the short form or clipping represents the word in its entirety; however, that fragment does not have to be the salient part of the original word, neither prosodically nor semantically. Also, the clipping may not be used in the same contexts as the longer word. For example, the word exam is mostly used to refer to academic examinations or tests, not to medical examinations or check-ups.

Clipped forms generally show a certain tone of informality, which is often reflected in their spellings; e.g., showbiz for showbusiness, 'cause ('cuz or cos) for because, praps for perhaps. Note that in some cases the spelling is adapted to suit the pronunciation of the original word, as in mike for microphone, Mike for Michael, nark for narcotics, bike for bicycle. Also, some clipped forms retain a final – s present in the original longer forms, as in maths (esp. BrE) for mathematics, specs for spectacles. The tone of informality of some clippings is usually lost when they become well established in the language; e.g., plane, stereo (from stereophonic), taxi (from taxicab), cab (from cabriolet), pram (BrE for perambulator) and so on. In many long-established cases, the fuller form is rarely used or is not ordinarily known, as in omnibus for bus and mobile vulgus for mob (Quirk, 1985: 268).

Other common clippings are demo for demonstration, Doc from Doctor, Ed from Education, French fries (AmE) from French fried potatoes, gas from gasoline, gents from gentlemen's room (lavatory), gym from gymnasium, lab from laboratory, lib form liberation as in Women's Liberation Movement, mart from market, nark from narcotics (agent), photo from photograph, prof from professor, pseud (BrE) from pseudo (-intellectual), lit from literature, pub from public house, Stat from Statistics, telly (BrE) from television, hanky from handkerchief, turps (BrE) from turpentine, van from caravan (or vanguard), etc.

Blends

Blending is the process whereby new words are formed by combining parts of two words, usually the beginning of one word and the end of another (Godby, 1982:94). For example, smog (smoke + fog), brunch (breakfast + lunch), heliport (helicopter + airport), motel (motor + hotel), FORTRAN (formula translation), etc. Notice that enough of each word is normally retained so that the complex whole remains fairly readily analyzable.

Blending is the formation of a word from a sequence of two bases with reduction of one or both at the boundary between them, as in brunch from breakfast + lunch or gues(s) timate from guess + estimate.

From a formal point of view we can distinguish the following types:

In (i) the blend consists of the first part of the first base + the whole of the second base.

In [ii] it consists of the whole first base + the final part of the second. In [iii] it consists of the first part of the first base and the final part of the second. And in [IV] the central part is common to the two bases: there is overlap between them. The blends in [I-ii] can be regarded as compounds, whereas the morphological status of the bases in [iii-iv] is somewhat indeterminate. There is some evident resemblance between clippings and blends, but what distinguishes a blend from a clipping is that it always begins with the first part of the first source base and ends with the final part of the second.

Following is a partial list of other common blends: breathalyzer (breath + analyzer), electrocute (electro + execute), Eurovision (European + television), multiversity (multiple + university), newscast (news + broadcast), paratroops (parachute + troops), telecast (television + broadcast), travelogue (travel + catalogue), telex (teleprinter + exchange). According to (Quirk, 1985:159), acronymy, clipping and blending are three highly productive ways in which abbreviation (i.e., the shortening of words) is involved in English word-formation.

Noun and adjective compounds

A compound is a lexical unit consisting of more than one base and functioning both grammatically and semantically as a single word. In principle, any number of bases may be involved, but in English, except for a relatively minor class of items, compounds usually comprise two bases only, however internally complex each may be.

Compounding can take place within any of the word classes, but within the present framework – we shall in fact be dealing only with the productivity of compounds resulting above all in new nouns and, to a lesser extent, adjectives.

Bauer, (2001: 695) gives a concise definition of the phenomenon: “We can now define a compound as a lexical unit made up of two or more elements, each of which can function as a lexeme independent of the other(s) in other contexts, and which shows some phonological and/or grammatical isolation from normal syntactic usage”.

Biber and Clark, (2002:96) observe that the use of compounding has been increasing in recent times, especially in more formal genres such as news and academic writing, and it is among the most common methods in the language for noun modification.

The Dictionary of Grammatical Terms in Linguistics defines the process of compounding as follows (Trask, 1993:145): “The process of forming a word by combining two or more existing words: newspaper, paper-thin, babysit, video game.”

Since the process of compounding constructs new words, these words can in turn combine with other words to form longer compounds, and this process can be repeated indefinitely, e.g., orange juice, orange juice company, orange juice company homepage, orange juice company homepage logo, orange juice company homepage logo update, etc. Compounds of length longer than two are less frequent in general, and are more typical for technical and scientific texts. In English, the process of compounding can combine together words belonging to various parts of speech, e.g., adjective + adjective (e.g., dark-green, light-blue), adjective + adverb (e.g., leftmost), adjective + noun (e.g., hot dog, shortlist, white collar, highlife), adjective + preposition (e.g., forthwith), adjective + verb (e.g., highlight, broadcast, quick-freeze, dry-clean), noun + adjective (e.g., trigger-happy, army strong, bulletproof, dog tired, English-specific, brand-new), noun + noun (e.g., silkworm, honey bee, bee honey, stem cell), noun + preposition (e.g., love-in, timeout, breakup), noun + verb (e.g., finger-point, tape record), preposition + adjective (e.g., overeager, over-ripe), preposition + noun (e.g., underwater, indoor), preposition + preposition (e.g., within, without, into, onto), preposition + verb (e.g., overestimate, withdraw, upgrade, withhold), verb + adverb (e.g., tumbledown), verb + noun (e.g., pickpocket, cutthroat, know-nothing), verb + preposition (e.g., countdown, stand-by, cut-off, castaway), and verb + verb (e.g., freeze-dry). More complex structures are also possible, e.g., state-of-the-art, part-of-speech or over-the-counter eye drop. Note that not all of these compound types are productive in modern English.

Most compounds are clearly lexical in the sense that a new stem is formed out of two other stems. In English it is impossible to tell for most compounds in which the first part is singular whether or not they are stem compounds. The clearest evidence for stem compounds in English are examples like pant leg, pajama party, and scissor cuts, where the singular forms do not occur independently (*pant, *pajama, *scissor ).

However, some compounds have parts that look as if they are inflected, i.e. they are not stems but words. These can be found in many languages, including English (sports page).

An important characteristic of compounds is their headedness. For example, in endocentric compounds such as birdcage, one member functions as the head and the other as its modifier, attributing a property to the head. In contrast, exocentric compounds such as birdbrain lack an overtly expressed semantic head, and are thus headless in semantic sense. Finally, copulative compounds such as Bosnia-Herzegovina and gerund-participle, as well as appositional compounds such as coach-player and sofa-bed have two semantic heads. Endocentric noun compounds are predominantly right-headed in English, e.g., the head of birdcage is cage, which is the right noun: a birdcage is a kind of cage. However, some English compounds are left-headed, e.g., vitamin D, which is a kind of vitamin, not a kind of D. Other examples include constructions where the second word is an identifying name or a number, e.g., Cafe Vienna, interferon alpha, exit 15, Route 66, Linguistics 101, borrowings from languages like French, which is mostly left-headed, e.g., beef Julienne, and compounds where the first noun is a classifier, e.g., Mount Whitney, planet Earth, President Obama.

Thus, the order of the words that form a noun compound is very important for its semantics. Take for example birdcage, which is a kind of cage: if we switch the order of cage and bird, we get cage bird, which is a valid noun compound, but its meaning is quite different – it has bird as a head, i.e., a cage bird is a kind of bird. In some cases, switching the order might not even be possible, e.g., healthcare is a valid compound, but care health is harder to interpret.

The two most important types of noun compounds are endocentric and exocentric. The Lexicon of Linguistics defines them as follows: Endocentric compound: a type of compound in which one member functions as the head and the other as its modifier, attributing a property to the head. The relation between the members of an endocentric compound can be schematized as “AB is (a) B”. Example: the English compound steamboat as compared with boat is a modified, expanded version of boat with its range of usage restricted, so that steamboat will be found in basically the same semantic contexts as the noun boat.

Adjectival compounds can have nouns or other adjectives as non-heads. The interpretation of noun-adjective compounds follows basically the same principles as those of noun-noun compounds. The non-head element can serve either as a modifier or, given the appropriate adjectival head, as an argument of the head. Consider the examples in the below chart:

Depending on the semantics of the compound members and on likely semantic relationships between them, the compounds in the left column receive various kinds of interpretations (‘intensive with regard to capital’, ‘deep to the height of one’s knee’, ‘lean as a dog’, ‘red like blood’). The most common type of interpretation is the one involving a comparison (‘lean as a dog’, ‘red like blood’), and very often the first element of such compounds assumes the role of an intensifier, so that dog-lean, dog-tired etc. may be paraphrased as ‘very lean’, ‘very tired’.

The items in the right column of the chart above, can be analyzed in such a way that the first element of the compound satisfies an argument position of the adjective. In syntactic constructions this argument would appear next to a preposition: free of sugar, dependent on structure, crazy for girls, conscious of class (differences).

Lexis in the classroom

Teacher attitudes to vocabulary have changed a lot over recent years. The use of the word lexis (rather than the more familiar vocabulary) reflects a fundamental shift in understanding, attitude and approach. The increasing availability of corpora (large computerized databases of analyzable real conversations and other text), and dictionaries, grammar books and other resources based on them have revealed many surprising features of language that had been previously unrealized. An influential book, The Lexical Approach by Michael Lewis published in 1993, had a significant impact on the profession in raising awareness of the importance of lexis and of the weaknesses of much classroom vocabulary work.

Recently, several linguists have proposed the importance of bringing lexis into the centre of English classrooms in order to help learners develop their ability to use English to exchange messages with people. The importance of putting lexis before grammar is clearly expressed by the words of Lewis, (1993:254-255), “language consists of grammaticalized lexis, not lexicalized grammar” and “grammar as structure is subordinate to lexis. Little, (1994:106) also argues that “words inevitably come before structures”. He considers that there are differences between explicit and implicit grammatical knowledge, and that learners cannot use explicit grammatical rules as a tool to communicate, unless they “know some of the words whose behaviour the rules describe” and “implicit knowledge of grammatical rules can develop only in association with a developing mental lexicon”. Moreover, (Widdowson,1989:135) notes that communicative competence is not a matter of knowing rules, but “a matter of knowing a stock of partially pre-assembled patterns” He argues that “rules are not generative but regulative and subservient” and that they are useless unless they can be used for lexis.

By claiming the importance of focusing on lexis, the linguists do not mean that teachers only need to teach lexis, and should exclude grammar from classrooms. Rather, it is considered that lexis and grammar are inseparable in nature and completely interdependent (Sinclair, 1991; Hunston and Francis, 1998). Willis, (1993:84) clearly notes the fact that grammar and lexis are two ways of picturing the same object, that is, language. The lexis lists words and meanings, and classifies the patterns, and the grammar lists structures and categorizes words to the structures. He considers that “the language learners are involved in the job of discovering the language”, and in the task “they have to work simultaneously with the grammar and the lexicon”.

However, (Willis,1990:269) considers that at present the description of language teachers offer learners is heavily loaded towards grammar, and teachers need to pay more attention to lexical elements in classrooms, since if teachers emphasize grammar too much, the creation of meanings is likely to be put off.

Sinclair and Renouf, (1988:151) point out that focusing on lexis in classrooms has several advantages. First, teachers can highlight the common uses, important meanings and patterns, of the most frequent words, which are things worth learning, since learners are likely to have chances to use what they have learned in authentic situations. Second, it is possible for teachers to encourage a learner to make “full use of the words that the learner already has”, regardless of the learner’s level (Sinclair and Renouf, 1988:155). Willis, (1990:281) also notes that it is easier for learners to start exploration of the language if they start from lexis, which is concrete, rather than grammatical rules, which are abstract.

The theoretical background of language teaching is characterized by the claims that many writers laid more emphasis on lexis than has formally been the case in question. Carter and McCarthy, (1988:111) state that: There have been changing trends – from grammar translation to direct method to the communicative approach – but none of these has emphasized the importance of the learner's lexical competence over structural grammatical competence.

Referring to the importance of lexis over grammar, Lewis, (2002:115) states that "The more one considers the matter, the more reasonable it seems to suppose that lexis is where we need to start from, the syntax to be put to the service of words and not the other way round." In fact, these ideas are basically different from the position usually taken by language learning which involves the control over the structure of language and vocabulary control should be kept to the minimum. Even, at the present time, many textbooks are designed in accordance with this minimal view of vocabulary. Linguists in Britain accepted this point of view that vocabulary mastery should be less emphasized, unlike to (Wilkins, 1972:111), who was the first to stress the importance of the vocabulary role in language teaching, and who stated that "without grammar very little can be conveyed; without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed." In his new role of lexis, (Lewis, 1993:95) proposed the following major points:

CHAPTER TWO

TEACHING VOCABULARY

TEACHING VOCABULARY

The word “vocabulary” typically represents an outline of words or their mixtures during an explicit language. However, we should always bear in mind, as (Ur, 2000:60)  emphasized, that one item of vocabulary  will  accommodates  quite one word, e.g. ‘post-office’ consists of two words and still expresses one plan.

The term vocabulary encompasses a variety of meanings. Some  lecturers use the term to mean sight-word vocabularies, concerning students’ immediate recognition of words in print; other teachers refer to words students understand as their meaning vocabularies. Still different lecturers use the term to mean listening vocabularies, or students’ understanding of words that they hear within the speech communication (Snow, Griffin, & Burns, 2005:168).

One of the problems of vocabulary teaching is how to select what words to teach. Dictionaries for upper intermediate students frequently have 55,000 words or more, and there may have to make sense of this huge list by many meanings for a word, and they represent a small fraction of all the possible words in a language. Somehow we have to make sense of this huge list and reduce it to manageable proportions for our learners. (Harmer, 1991:154)

For many years vocabulary was seen as incidental to the main purpose of language teaching –namely the acquisition of grammatical knowledge about the language.

Recently however, methodologists and linguists have increasingly been turning their attention to vocabulary, stressing its importance in language teaching and reassessing some of the ways in which it is taught and learnt. It is now clear, for example, that the acquisition of vocabulary is just as important as the acquisition of grammar – though the two are obviously interdependent – and teachers should have the same kind of expertise in the teaching of vocabulary as they do in the teaching of structure. (Gairns and Redman, 1992: 65)

How to teach language

Whatever the level of the students and however language Study is organized with ESA teaching sequences, there are four things that students need to do with ‘new’ language: be exposed to it, understand its meaning, understand its form (how it is constructed) and practice it. (Harmer, 1991: 52)

As well as hearing/seeing language – and understanding what it means – students need to know how it is constructed, how the bits fit together. Whether the teacher gives them this information or whether they work it out for themselves, they need to comprehend the constituent sounds, syllables, words and phrases of the new language. (Harmer, 1991: 56)

One of the criteria affecting the teacher’s choice is the frequency in which the particular item is used in common language. In general, “The words which are most commonly used are the ones we should teach first.” (Harmer, 1993: 154) However, most frequent words do not usually convey much information, being so-called ‘empty’ words (i.e. grammar words) and to be able to communicate, learners need considerable amount of words bearing some meaning. (McCarthy, 1992: 82)

Another aspect to consider is coverage. As (Harmer, 1993: 154) stated, the words covering more things are likely to be taught before words with only one specific meaning; e.g. the word ‘book’ will be taught before words ‘notebook or exercise book’.

McCarthy (1992: 84) also speculates on the range of an item. It is generally advisable to avoid the vocabulary with a restricted range, since the wider range an item has, the more useful it is likely to be.

Several authors agree that vocabulary is stored in the mind in a highly organized and complex web-like system, the so-called ‘mental lexicon’. In the mental lexicon, words are stored, categorized and interconnected in many ways, according to their features such as meaning, form, collocation, syntactic properties, cultural background etc. Consequently, a word being retrieved is looked up through several pathways at once, which is extremely economical in terms of time needed. (Thornbury 2004; McCarthy 1992; Gairns and Redman 1992)

One of the important roles of the language teacher is to help their students find the easiest way of conveying new information into the already existing system of the mental lexicon. (Thornbury, 2004: 93) Moreover, students need to acquire the ability to store the information for as long as possible.

Thornbury (2004: 24-26) summarized a research into memory, which suggests principles supporting the process of permanent or long – term remembering. In this summary he listed several techniques to follow to make vocabulary teaching as effective as possible: Firstly repetition, what he means is “repetition of encounters with a word” (Thornbury, 2004:24) e.g. in reading. Furthermore, he stresses the importance of retrieval and use of the new words. While practicing, learners should make decisions about words, e.g. match rhyming words or use new items to complete sentences.

Moreover, personalizing in vocabulary practice has proved to be beneficial for remembering along with spacing, which means that presentation of new vocabulary is divided into more widely, separated sequences followed by repeated revision later on with gradually extending periods between them. For example, the end of the lesson, next lesson, next week and so on. (Thornbury, 2004: 24) Another helpful element is motivation, which is closely linked with attention.

Gairns and Redman, (1992:95) stressed the importance of meaningful activities in the classroom, pointing out that meaningful tasks need to be analyzed in greater detail and therefore information is more likely to be retained in long-term memory. Furthermore, they as well as Thornbury reason the positive impact of personalization, imaging and retrieval mentioned above. They also suggest a good organization of written storage of vocabulary to support retention. Among other possibilities, they mention using ‘word diagrams’, which they claim might be very useful for “storage of lexis”. (Gairns and Redman, 1992: 96)

How can we help students to understand meaning?

An alternative to translation—and an obvious choice if presenting a set of concrete objects such as clothes items—is to somehow illustrate or demonstrate them. This can be done either by using real objects (called realia) or pictures or mime. The use of realia, pictures and demonstration was a defining technique of the Direct Method. The Direct Method, in rejecting the use of translation, developed as a reaction to such highly intellectual approaches to language learning as Grammar-Translation. (Thornbury, 2002: 78)

Here, for example, is advice for teachers from a popular Direct Method

HOW TO TEACH THE NAMES OF OBJECTS

The usual procedure is as follows.

The teacher first selects a number of objects, in batches of say from 10 to 20. […] The objects may be:

(from Palmer, The Teaching of Oral English, Longman)

Such an approach is especially appropriate if teaching beginners, and with mixed nationality classes, where translation is not an option. It is also a technique that has been reclaimed by practitioners of Total Physical Response (TPR), a method that promotes initial immersion in a high quantity of comprehensible input. In making use of the immediate environment of the classroom, and of things that can be brought into the classroom, the intention is to replicate the experience of learning one’s mother tongue. A TPR lesson typically involves the teacher demonstrating actions, using real objects, and then getting the learners to perform the same or similar actions in response to commands. Typical classroom commands might be: (Thornbury, 2002: 79)

(Plastic fruit and vegetables are ideal for this kind of activity.)

Visual aids take many forms: flashcards (published and home-made), wall charts, transparencies projected on to the board or wall using the overhead projector, and board drawings. Many teachers collect their own sets of flashcards from magazines, calendars, etc. Especially useful are pictures of items belonging to the following sets: food and drink, clothing, house interiors and furniture, landscapes/exteriors, forms of transport plus a wide selection of pictures of people, sub-divided into sets such as jobs, nationalities, sports, activities and appearance (tall, strong, sad, healthy, old, etc). Not only can such pictures be used to present new vocabulary items, but they can be used to practise them.

Here, by way of example, are some activities using flashcards:

The teacher shows cards one at a time, and either elicits or says the word it represents. As a rule of thumb, about ten unfamiliar words is probably sufficient. Periodically the teacher backtracks and changes the order (see above). Finally, stick all the cards on to the board, and write the words alongside (or ask learners to come up and write them).

Stick a collection of picture cards (e.g. clothes) on the board and number them. (If you are working round a large table, place the cards face up on the table.) Invite learners to ask you about the words they are unfamiliar with. For example: What is number 6? Check to see if someone else knows before giving the answer. When students are sufficiently familiar go through them all, asking: What is number 8? etc. As a check, turn the cards around, one at a time, so that they can’t be seen, and again ask: What is number 8? Finally, write the words on the board alongside each picture.

Stick a selection of cards on the board and allow learners to use bilingual dictionaries to find the words they represent. They can then write the words adjacent to the pictures.

Give pairs or groups of three a selection of cards each. They can use bilingual dictionaries to find out the word for each picture. Then, representatives from each group can ‘teach’ the rest of the class the words they have discovered, using the visual aids.

Show the class a wall chart or a large picture containing many different items (e.g. a street scene or an airport) for a short period of time, say ten seconds. Individually or in pairs, the learners then have to write down as many words—in English—as they can remember having seen represented in the picture. Allow them to use dictionaries. Show the picture again for another few seconds, to let them extend their lists of words. Reveal the picture for the checking stage: the individual or pair with the most correct words is the winner. (Thornbury, 2002: 80-81)

Reinforcing a situational presentation with pictures, board drawings, or gestures makes it more intelligible, and perhaps more memorable. More memorable still is the situation that comes directly from the experience of the people in the room—whether the teacher or students. In other words, the teacher could tell her own story of when she was embarrassed, and then invite the students to tell their own. Again, the extra ‘free’ speaking and listening practice justifies the relatively long time spent on just one or two items of vocabulary.

An alternative to the situational approach is to provide students with example sentences, each one being a typical instance of the target word in context. From the cumulative effect of the sentences the students should be able to hypothesise the meaning of the target word—using induction: the mental process of hypothesising from examples. Here is a teacher giving sentence examples for the word fancy:

T: Listen to these sentences and see if you can work out what the verb fancy means:

Allow the students as many hearings of the sentences as they think they need before they are confident enough to venture an answer. (For particularly difficult words, it may help if the learners write the sentences down.) Depending on whether the class is monolingual or not, the teacher can then elicit a mother tongue translation of the target word, or, alternatively, a synonym or definition. (Thornbury, 2002: 82)

One advantage of this approach is that the learners hear the word several times, increasing the likelihood of retention in memory. Another advantage is that they hear the word in a variety of typical contexts (rather than just one) so they can start to get a feel for its range of uses as well as its typical collocations (e.g. fancy a drink). Finally, they get information on the word’s form and grammar—whether, for example, it is irregular or transitive (if a verb), or countable (if a noun). It may seem to involve quite a lot of preparation for the teacher, but consulting dictionaries and corpora for examples of the target words in context can help reduce planning time.

A variant of the definition approach is to present a layered definition—that is, one that is segmented into several short statements, each one including the target word. This is similar to the example sentences approach mentioned above, but in this case the sentences are discrete components of a larger definition. For example:

T: If you feel petrified you are very, very frightened. Someone can be petrified by fear. Petrified literally means turned to stone. Petrified wood is wood that has become stone. In some places you can see petrified forests.

In this way, the meaning—and shades of meaning—of a word are built up piece by piece, with the added advantage that the learners hear the target word not only in context, but repeated (in the above example five times).In reality, most teachers draw on a range of techniques—situations, synonyms, example sentences, etc.—in their presentations of word meaning. (Thornbury, 2002: 83-84)

Finally, it’s worth emphasising that learning the meaning of a word—or learning anything, for that matter—is a process of gradual approximation. Even in our first language, it may take a long period of ‘fuzziness’ before we feel comfortable about using certain words. It is probably asking too much of teachers to expect them to clarify every nuance of a word’s meaning at first encounter. Better that they orientate their learners in the general direction of a word’s meaning, while equipping them with the skills and the motivation to continue exploring the further reaches of that word’s ‘semantic space’.

Where do language study activities fit in teaching sequences

'Study' is one element of the 'Engage – Study- Activate trinity. The elements can come in different orders and sequences depending on what is being studied as the following descriptions of our four language topics show. (Harmer, 1998: 64-66)

Example 1: 'It's a pen' (complete beginners)

Example 2: Invitations (elementary)

Example 3. `Protection` (upper intermediate)

Example 4: Comparatives (lower intermediate)

What is vocabulary and what needs to be taught?

Vocabulary can be defined, roughly, as the words we teach in the foreign language. However, a new item of vocabulary may be more than a single word: for example, post office and mother-in-law, which are made up of two or three words but express a single idea. There are also multi-word idioms such as call it a day, where the meaning of the phrase cannot be deduced from an analysis of the component words. A useful convention is to cover all such cases by talking about vocabulary 'items' rather than 'words'. (Ur, 1996: 60)

What needs to be taught?

1. Form: pronunciation and spelling

The learner has to know what a word sounds like (its pronunciation) and what it looks like (its spelling). These are fairly obvious characteristics, and one or the other will be perceived by the learner when encountering the item for the first time. In teaching, we need to make sure that both these aspects are accurately presented and learned.

2. Grammar

The grammar of a new item will need to be taught if this is not obviously covered by general grammatical rules. An item may have an unpredictable change of form in certain grammatical contexts or may have some idiosyncratic!

When teaching a new verb, for example, we might give also its past form, if this is irregular (think, thought), and we might note if it is transitive or intransitive.

Similarly, when teaching a noun, we' may wish to present its plural form, if irregular (mouse, mice], or draw learners' attention to the fact that it has no plural at all (advice, information}. We may present verbs such as want and enjoy together with the verb form that follows them (want to, enjoy -ing), or adjectives or verbs together with their following prepositions (responsible for, remind someone of}. (Ur, 1996: 60)

3. Collocation

The collocations typical of particular items are another factor that makes a particular combination sound 'right' or 'wrong' in a given context. So this is another piece of information about a new item which it may be worth teaching.

When introducing words like decision and conclusion, for example, we may note that you take or make the one, but usually come to the other; similarly, you throw a ball but toss a coin; you may talk about someone being dead tired but it sounds odd to say "'dead fatigued. Collocations are also often noted in dictionaries, either by providing the whole collocation under one of the head-words, or by a note in parenthesis.

4. Aspects of meaning (1): denotation, connotation, appropriateness

The meaning of a word is primarily what it refers to in the real world, its denotation; this is often the sort of definition that is given in a dictionary. For example, dog denotes a kind of animal; more specifically, a common, domestic carnivorous mammal; and both dank and moist mean slightly wet.

A less obvious component of the meaning of an item is its connotation: the associations, or positive or negative feelings it evokes, which may or may not be indicated in a dictionary definition. The word 'dog, for example, as understood by most British people, has positive connotations of friendship and loyalty; whereas the equivalent in Arabic, as understood by most people in Arab countries has negative associations of dirt and inferiority.

A more subtle aspect of meaning that often needs to be taught is whether a particular item is the appropriate one to use in a certain context or not. Thus it is useful for a learner to know that a certain word is very common, or relatively rare, or 'taboo' in polite conversation, or tends to be used in writing but not in speech, or is more suitable for formal than informal discourse, or belongs to a certain dialect. For example, you may know that weep is virtually synonymous in denotation with cry, but it is more formal, tends to be used in writing more than in speech, and is in general much less common. (Ur, 1996: 61)

5. Aspects of meaning (2): meaning relationships

How the meaning of one item relates to the meaning of others can also be useful in teaching. There are various such relationships: here are some of the main ones.

– Synonyms that mean the same, or nearly the same; for example, bright, clever, smart may serve as synonyms of intelligent.

– Antonyms: items that mean the opposite; rich is an antonym of poor.

– Co- hyponms or co-ordinates: other items that are the 'same kind of thing'; red, blue, green and brown are co-ordinates.

– Superordinates; general concepts that 'cover' specific items; animal is the superordinate of dog, lion, mouse.

– Translation: words or expressions in the learners' mother tongue that are (more or less) equivalent in meaning to the item being taught.

Besides these, there are other, perhaps looser, ways of associating meaning that are useful in teaching. You can, for instance, relate parts to a whole (the relationship between arm and body}; or associate items that are part of the same real-world context (tractor, farmer, milking and irrigate are all associated with 'agriculture). (Ur, 1996: 61)

6. Word formation

Vocabulary items, whether one-word or multi-word, can often be broken down into their component 'bits'. Exactly how these bits are put together is another piece of useful information – perhaps mainly for more advanced learners.

For teaching the common prefixes and suffixes: for example, if learners know the meaning of sub-, un- and -able, this will help them guess the meanings of words like substandard, ungrateful and untranslatable. They should, however, be warned that in many common words the affixes no longer have any obvious connection with their root meaning (for example, subject, comfortable). New combinations using prefixes are not unusual, and the reader or hearer would be expected to gather their meaning from an understanding of their components (ultra-modern, super-hero).

Another way vocabulary items are built is by combining two words (two nouns, or a gerund and a noun, or a noun and a verb) to make one item: a single compound word, or two separate, sometimes hyphenated words (bookcase, follow-up, swimming pool). Again, new coinages using this kind of combination are very common. (Ur, 1996: 62)

Presenting and practicing new vocabulary

Learners acquire vocabulary in various ways. Students are exposed to a lot of new vocabulary during lessons: by the teacher, by texts or other materials they work with. A lot of this vocabulary is automatically absorbed. (Harmer, 1993: 159)

Beside this incidental acquisition there are “pre-planned lesson stages in which learners are taught pre-selected vocabulary items” (Thornbury, 2004:75). Various techniques and activities are aimed directly at learning vocabulary, which is usually put into sets of somehow related words, often by topic or meaning.

As McCarty (1992) suggests, before presenting new language, pre-teaching activities might be beneficial “to activate existing knowledge to make the encounter with new words more meaningful.”(McCarthy, 1992:108) Pre-teaching activities often arouse students’ attention and desire to explore a particular topic or subject in greater detail.

Both (McCarthy, 1992:110) and (Thornbury, 2004:76) suggest two general possibilities of arranging vocabulary presentation. The teacher provides the learners with the meaning of the words and then progresses to introduction of their forms or vice versa – the form is introduced first, followed up with illustration of the meaning.

In the latter, forms are often presented in text or another form of context and students are encouraged to discover meanings and other properties of words themselves.

This type of activity is called the discovery technique. (Harmer, 1993: 160) There are many possibilities how to explain or illustrate the meaning of the words. In the first place, it is necessary to mention techniques typical for ‘Direct Method’ as Thornbury 2004) specifies them “using real objects (called realia) or pictures or mime.” (Thornbury, 2004: 78)

The same author continues that these means are especially appropriate for teaching elementary levels, where many concrete objects are taught. These types of presentation are usually supplemented with the use of TPR (Total physical response), which is a technique where the teacher gives commands and students perform the actions. In TPR, “the intention is to replicate the experience of learning one’s mother tongue” (Thornbury, 2004: 79)

As (Harmer, 1993: 161-162) suggests, sense relations, definition and direct translation of words might function as yet another helpful tool for clarifying the meaning.

Furthermore as (Thornbury, 2003: 93) claims, it is necessary to integrate new vocabulary into existing knowledge in the mental lexicon, which is done by types of activities, where students make judgements about words, e.g. matching, comparing etc. This mechanical practice is then followed by more open and communicative activities “where learners are required to incorporate the newly studied words into some kind of speaking or writing activity.” (Thornbury, 2004: 100). This is often provided by various pair-work or group-work activities.

As (Ur, 1999: 24-25) suggests there are different stages of presenting vocabulary.

According to (Ur, 1999:24) the ways of presenting new vocabulary are:

As (Hill, 1990:1) pointed out, “the standard classroom” is usually not a very suitable environment for learning languages. That is why teachers search for various aids and stimuli to improve this situation. Pictures are one of these valuable aids. They bring “images of reality into the unnatural world of the language classroom.” (Hill, 1990: 1) Pictures bring not only images of reality, but can also function as a fun element in the class. Sometimes it is surprising, how pictures may change a lesson, even if only employed in additional exercises or just to create the atmosphere.

Pictures meet with a wide range of use not only in acquiring vocabulary, but also in many other aspects of foreign language teaching. Wright, (1990: 4-6) demonstrated this fact on an example, where he used one compiled picture and illustrated the possibility of use in five very different language areas. His example shows employing pictures in teaching structure, vocabulary, functions, situations and all four skills.

Educational technology and other learning resources

If you walk into some classrooms around the world, you will see fixed data projectors, interactive whiteboards (IWBs), built-in speakers for audio material that is delivered directly from a computer hard disk (rather than from a tape recorder), and computers with round the- clock Internet access. Whenever teachers want their students to find anything out, they can get them to use a search engine like Google and the results can be shown to the whole class on the IWB. In other classes, even in many successful private language schools around the world, there is a whiteboard in the classroom, an overhead projector (OHP) and a tape recorder. Other schools only have a whiteboard – or perhaps a blackboard – often not in very good condition. In such schools there may well not be a photocopier, though hopefully the students will have exercise books. (Harmer, 2007:175)

Finally, there are some classroom situations where neither teacher nor students have anything at all in terms of educational technology or other learning aids. Jill and Charles Hadfield represent these differing realities in a 'reversed pyramid' of resources (see Figure i). In a world in which the pace of technological change is breathtakingly fast, it seems that being at the bottom of the pyramid is likely to be a bar to language learning.

Figure Nr.1 Reversed resources pyramid (Harmer, 2007:175)

However, Jill and Charles Hadfield show us that here is a lot you can do with minimal or even no resources. For example, in one situation they taught in, there was a board and the children had exercise books, but apart from that there were no other educational aids, not even course books.

However, with the help of a washing line and clothes pegs they were able to hang up pictures activities such as telling the story of the pebbles' existence; different words from sentences were written on pieces of paper or card and then put on students' backs – and the rest of the class had to make them stand in order to make a sentence from the word; paper bags with faces drawn on them became puppets; the classroom desks were rearranged to become a street plan so students could practise giving (and responding to) directions. Finally, and most importantly, the students themselves were used as source material, whether as participants in quizzes about the real world, as informants in discussions about families or as imaginers of river scenes based on teacher description. (Harmer, 2007: 176) The internal world of the student is 'the richest, deepest seam of gold that you have' (Hadfield and Hadfield, 2oo3 b: 34). Indeed, (see Figure 2) Jill and Charles Hadfield propose turning the pyramid the other way up.

Figure Nr. 2 'Other way up' resources pyramid (Harmer, 2007:176)

By far the most useful resources in the classroom are the students themselves. Through their thoughts and experiences they bring the outside world into the room, and this is a powerful resource for us to draw on. We can get them to write or talk about things they like or they have experienced. We can ask them what they would do in certain situations or get them to act out scenes from their lives. Over the years, technology has changed the way that teachers and students are able to show each other things (one of the most important functions of classroom equipment).

The board

The most versatile piece of classroom teaching equipment is the board – whether this is of the more traditional chalk-dust variety, a whiteboard written on with marker pens, or an IWB. Boards provide a motivating focal point during whole-class grouping. We can use boards for a variety of different purposes, including:

Note-pad: teachers frequently write things up on the board as these come up during the lesson. They might be words that they want students to remember, phrases which students have not understood or seen before, or topics and phrases which they have elicited from students when trying to build up a composition plan, for example.

When we write up a word on a board, we can show how that word is stressed so that students can see and 'hear' the word at the same time (see Figure 3). We can sketch in intonation tunes or underline features of spelling, too. We can group words according to their meaning or grammatical function. Some teachers use different colours for different aspects of language.

Figure 3. Different ways of recording word stress (Harmer, 2007:184)

Explanation aid: boards can be used for explanation, too. For example, we can show the relationship between an affirmative sentence and a question by drawing connecting arrows (see Figure 4). We can show where words go in a sentence by indicating the best position diagrammatically, or we can write up phonemic symbols (or draw diagrams of the mouth to show how a word or sound is pronounced. The board is ideal for such uses.

Figure 4 Using the board to show sentence/question relationships (elementary) (Harmer, 2007:184)

Picture frame: boards can be used for drawing pictures, of course, the only limitation being our artistic ability. But even those who are not artistically gifted can usually draw a sad face and a happy face. They can produce stick men sitting down and running, or make an attempt at a bus or a car. What's more, this can be done whenever it is required because the board is always there, helping students to understand concepts and words. (Harmer, 2007:183-184)

The overhead projector (OHP)

Despite modern computer-based presentation equipment and programs, the OHP still retains a unique versatility and, except for problems with electricity or a bulb, is much more likely to be problem-free than other more sophisticated pieces of equipment.

Just about anything can go on overhead transparencies (OHTs). We can show whole texts or grammar exercises, pictures, diagrams or students' writing. Because transparencies can be put through a photocopier or printed from any computer, they can be of very high quality. Especially where teachers have handwriting that tends to be unclear, the overhead transparency offers the possibility of attractive well-printed script.

One of the major advantages of the overhead projector is that we don't have to show everything on an OHT all at once. By covering some of the transparency with a piece of card or paper, we can blank out what we don't want the students to see. So, for example, we might show the first two lines of a story and ask students what is going to happen next, before revealing the next two lines and then the next, gradually moving the paper or card downwards. We might have questions on one side of the transparency and answers on the other. We start the teaching sequence with the answers covered, and use the same gradual revelation technique to maintain interest.

Sometimes we can put a text with blanks on the OHP and then lay a blank transparency on top of it so that students, using OHP pens, can come up and write in what they think should go there. Alternatively, students working in groups can list the points they want to make after they have discussed a topic (e.g. whether or not children under twelve should have a curfew from ten o'clock every evening) and show their transparency to the class while they make their presentation.

The flip chart

Flip charts are very useful for making notes, recording the main points in a group discussion, amending and changing points, and for the fact that individual sheets of paper can be torn off and kept for future reference. Many of these qualities (and more) are, of course, shared by computer-based technology, but flip charts are portable, relatively cheap and demand no technical expertise.

Flip charts work best in two particular situations. In the first, a teacher, group leader or group scribe stands at the flip chart and records the points that are being made. The participants, because they can see what is being written up, can then ask for changes to be made.

When possible, it is ideal if groups can each have flip charts of their own. When an activity is finished, students can walk round the room seeing what the different groups have written (or what points they have noted down). Flip charts can also be posted at different points in the room, each flip chart standing for a topic or a point of view. Students can walk around, adding to what is on each of the flip charts, writing up their opinions, disagreeing or merely getting an idea of what the other students are thinking, based on what is already written there. (Harmer, 2007:185-186)

Computer-based presentation technology

Computers have changed the world of classroom presentation forever – that is for those fortunate enough to have the money and resources for both hardware and software.

The two crucial pieces of hardware are a computer and a data projector. Anything that is on our computer screen can be shown to the whole class using a data projector to put up an enlarged version of it on a screen or a white wall. This means that all the class can see a word processed task at the same time, or we can project a picture, diagram or map, for example.

Presentation software, such as PowerPoint, increases our capacity to present visual material (words, graphics and pictures) in a dynamic and interesting way. However, the most commonly used PowerPoint template (a heading with bullet points) has suffered from overuse and may not be the most effective use of the medium. In fact, the software offers a more interesting option where we can mix text and visuals with audio/video tracks so that pictures can dissolve or fly onto and off the screen, and music, speech and film can be integrated into the presentation. Some people, of course, may find this kind of animated presentation irksome in its own way, but there is no doubt that it allows teachers to mix different kinds of display much more effectively than before such software came along. (Harmer, 2007:185-186)

One of the major technological developments in the last few years has been the interactive whiteboard, the IWB. This has the same properties as a computer hooked up to a data projector (i.e. you can present visual material, Internet pages, etc. in a magnified way for everyone to see), but it has three major extra advantages, too. In the first place, teachers and students can write on the board which the images are being projected onto, and they can manipulate images on the board with the use of special pens or even with nothing but their fingers. The pen or finger thus acts as a kind of computer mouse. Secondly, what appears on the board (just like the screen of a computer) can be saved or printed so that anything written up or being shown there can be looked at again. (Harmer, 2007:187)

Ways of listening

Students get exposure to spoken language from a variety of sources. Much of it comes from the teacher, whose voice represents the single most important source of language input. Students also get language input from listening to each other and from any visiting teachers, lecturers or classroom guests.

It is still extremely common for teachers and students to listen to recorded audio material on cassette recorders. Tape recorders are versatile, cheap and convenient and, when they have efficient rewind and fast forward buttons and tape counters, they are extremely easy to use many teachers also use CD players, which have some of the same advantages as tape recorders though they are often bulkier and have counter systems that are sometimes more difficult to use efficiently than those of older tape recorder models.

However, recorded material is now available (as is video material) in digital formats such; as WAV and MP3. What this means in practical terms is that we can play material directly from computers and MP3 players. This has revolutionised access to listening, especially for individual listeners. The availability of podcasts (that is, downloadable files which the user can load onto their own personal MP3 players such as iPods – or, increasingly, mobile phones), means that students (and teachers) can listen to a range of material whenever they want to on devices that are so small that they are not difficult to carry around. Teachers and students can go, for example, to Podcast.net and search the site for ESL material. A search engine like Google will also enable us to find a huge variety of ESL and general podcast material. (Harmer, 2007:187-188)

Ways of finding out

It has never been as easy to find things out as it is in the twenty-first century. The wide range of reference material both online and offline (in the form of CDs) is almost infinite. This is especially useful for language learners.

Dictionaries

Students can access dictionaries in book form, on CD-ROMS, using small electronic handsets and on the web. We will look at these in turn.

Paper dictionaries: dictionaries printed in book form have changed dramatically in the last few years. Whereas in the past, they were monochrome, with forbidding-looking entries which used various codes to denote different aspects of meaning, now they are colourful and laid out in a way that makes issues such as frequency, collocation, different meanings pronunciation, etc. extremely clear.

Dictionaries can be either bilingual or monolingual. In the past, teachers tended to be dismissive of the former since they frequently failed to give users sufficient information about what words meant and how they were used. Modern learners' bilingual dictionaries however, are considerably more sophisticated. Monolingual learners' dictionaries (MLDs), which are designed for students who can generally manage without bilingual dictionaries, use a special defining vocabulary (i.e. for the words used in the definitions) which explains meanings in clear and simple terms. (Harmer, 2007:187-188)

CD-ROMs: paper dictionaries are limited by the size of book that users are prepared to carry around with them. The same is not true of CD-ROMs, which can include a significantly greater amount of information (including audio material). Not only that, but CD-ROMs have one huge advantage, which is that users no longer have to search alphabetically (a skill that some people find difficult in both L1 and L2). They can type in a word or phrase and it will appear on the screen, together with features such as collocation information, more corpus examples, a phrase-store, and even thesaurus-type word stores. Students can also hear the words being spoken and, perhaps, record themselves to compare with the spoken original.

Electronic pocket dictionaries: many students like to carry around small electronic dictionaries which fit snugly into their pockets. Teachers sometimes find these problematic since students tend to refer to them frequently in lessons at times when we would prefer them not to be accessing such little machines. However, a more problematical issue has, in the past, been the size of the display screen and the information that is included in the dictionaries. Small screens mean that users are never going to get any of the incidental or insightful (and frequently unexpected) detail that we get when we look at a dictionary page or a computer screen. Furthermore, students have to scroll up and down continuously to find what they are looking for.

Recently, however, electronic dictionaries have improved somewhat. In the first place, the screens are bigger, and in the second place, more than one dictionary is often included. (Harmer, 2007:188-189)

Searching the Internet

The greatest source of information not in book form is, of course, the Internet. However its sheer size and range make it potentially awkward for users, who often find it difficult to locate the exact information they are looking for. This is partly because searching is a skill in itself which students and teachers need to acquire.

For example, suppose students were doing a project on the theatre where Shakespeare's plays were first performed and they wanted to know its location, it would be unwise of them just to type the word Shakespeare into the popular search engine Google, because they would be offered more than 51 million sites and the vast majority of them would be irrelevant. (Harmer, 2007:191)

However, if they typed in what they were really looking for in more detail (e.g. Shakespeare Elizabethan theatre location), they would only be offered around 420,000 sites (at the time of writing), and the first few would be of immediate relevance. Many of the others would include the words theatre and location, but would have nothing to do with Shakespeare. A way of searching precisely, however, is to type what we are looking for between inverted commas, e.g. 'Shakespeare in Love' (the name of a fictional film about Shakespeare's life). We will then get references to that film, whereas if we type in the phrase without the inverted commas, we will get many hits about Shakespeare and many unconnected hits on the subject of love. It is important if we want student searches to be successful, therefore, that the students know how to search effectively.

Both teachers and students can, as we have said, find almost anything they want on the Internet. They can go to online newspapers or broadcasting associations such as the BBC or CNN; they can find song lyrics or access history sites; they can find film guides and jokes sites.

Two particular kinds of site are worth talking about in more detail, however. (Harmer, 2007:191)

Ideas of vocabulary work in the classroom

This subchapter deals with procedures that involve interaction with a whole set of items, in order both to consolidate learning of ones the learners have previously encountered, and to provide a context for the introduction of new ones.

Ideas for vocabulary activities

1. Brainstorming round an idea

Write a single word in the centre of the board, and ask students to brainstorm all the words they can think of that are connected with it. Every item that is suggested is written up on the board with a line connecting it to the original word, so that the end result is a 'sun-ray' effect. For example, the word tree might produce something like the sketch below.

This activity is mainly for revising words the class already knows, but new ones may be introduced, by the teacher or by students. Although there are no sentences or paragraphs, the circle of associated items is in itself a meaningful context for the learning of new vocabulary. The focus is on the meaning of isolated items. (Ur, 1999:68)

This kind of association exercise is useful when introducing a poem or other literature: a key concept can be placed in the centre, and the brainstorm used as a 'warm-up' to the theme, as well as a framework for the introduction of some of the new vocabulary.

You may, of course, use other sorts of stimulus-words or connections: put a prefix (say sub-) in the centre and invite the class to think of words that begin with it; or a transitive verb (like push) and think of objects to go with it; or any verb, and think of possible adverbs; or a noun, and think of adjectives; or vice versa. You can probably think of further possibilities: the basic technique is very versatile.

2. Identifying words we know

As an introduction to the vocabulary of a new reading passage: the students are given the new text, and asked to underline, or mark with fluorescent pens, all the words they know. They then get together in pairs or threes to compare: a student who knows something not known to their friend(s) teaches it to them, so that they can mark it in on their texts. They then try to guess the meaning of the remaining unmarked items.

Finally the teacher brings the class together to hear results, checking guesses and teaching new items where necessary. (Ur, 1999:69)

This activity tends to be morale-boosting, in that it stresses what the students know rather than what they do not; it encourages student cooperation and peer teaching; it also entails repeated exposure to the text and vocabulary items, through individual, group and teacher-led stages.

Authentic materials

The term authentic material has been defined in different ways throughout the literature. What are the common definitions is the exposure to real language and its usage in its own community. The usage of the authentic materials in the second language learning in different skills has become common practice during the last two decades.

Authentic materials demonstrate situations that learners are likely to encounter through their day to-day socio-cultural interaction with native speakers of English. McGrath argued that" Authenticity is felt to be significant because it offers learners a sense of the real world, a chance to ‘rehearse’ in a protected situation, hence the less authentic the materials we use, the less preparation learners will make for that real world".

Therefore, students exposed to authentic materials in the foreign language classroom are better able to process foreign language input in real-life situations and have a more positive attitude towards learning the foreign culture.

Nunan provides the conventional definition of authentic texts: "Authentic materials are usually defined as those which have been produced for purposes other than to teach language". Such example includes print materials like newspapers and timetables, or spoken materials like public announcements. He also supports that "the use of authentic sources leads to greater interest and variety in the materials that learners deal with in the classroom. This authentic material helps bring the contact to life, and ultimately makes learning and using language more meaningful and easier for students." (Nunan, 1991:121)

Authentic materials keep students informed about what is happening in the world, so they have an intrinsic educational value. Authentic materials are an effective way to language acquisition. It is also useful to vocabulary acquisition.

Written texts are often one of the major sources through which language learners meet new vocabulary, so it is only logical that they should be used extensively in classroom teaching. They have the great advantage of contextualising new language items for the learner, and an interesting text also serves to make that language more memorable.

Nevertheless texts are not always the ideal vehicle for vocabulary development in the classroom. One practical problem is length: interesting texts are often far too long for intensive study and can lead to considerable vocabulary overloading. The new lexis in a text will also be a very random selection, frequently defying any clear systematic organization on the teacher's part, and containing many new items of marginal value to the students. (Gairns and Redman, 1992: 115)

CONTEXTUAL GUESSWORK

Level: Lower-intermediate.

Suggested procedure: Follow the instructions on the student handout.

This just leaves you with one important decision: when do you supply the missing words? You could write them on the blackboard (in no particular order) before you give the text to the students; this should enable the students to look up unknown items and complete the exercise successfully. With a monolingual group, though, it might be more interesting to see if the students can use the context to deduce the answer in their mother tongue, and then use a bilingual dictionary to find the English equivalent. If the results are unsatisfactory you will need to decide if the fault lies in the contextual guesswork or in the students' dictionaries.

Students can work on this activity individually or in pairs, and on completion you can conduct a group feedback in which you clarify any problems that might have arisen e.g. 'playing' would fit for number 8, but the instructions do state that each number represents a different item. So, if the answer to number 3 is 'play', the answer to number 8 cannot be 'playing'. The answer in fact is 'rehearsing'. (Gairns and Redman, 1992: 117-118)

Practice: Incorporating all of the items into a single activity is not easy, but the following ideas should enable you to concentrate on those that you consider to be most important for your particular group.

Students can answer the questions in groups, using their shared knowledge of the television programmes. Afterwards they can use the magazine to check their answers and find out the answers to any questions they didn't know. You can extend the activity further by getting the students to set their own questions.

Comment: Using two parallel texts gives students an opportunity to see the lexical items contextualised in a slightly different way; this enables them to test and consolidate their understanding of the target vocabulary. (Gairns and Redman, 1992: 119)

Student activity

Read the text below and see if you can supply the missing words. Altogether there are eight different items but some of them are repeated: each number represents a different item. (Gairns and Redman, 1992: 118)

PREDICTING AND ACTIVATING VOCABULARY

Level: Intermediate.

Suggested procedure: Pre-teach 'fringe benefits' and then write the following fringe benefits on the blackboard. As you do so, you can ask members of the class to explain/guess what they are; you can explain any new items.

1. Staff canteen.

2. Cash incentives e.g. bonus payments, overtime opportunities.

3. Pension scheme.

4. Longer holidays.

5. Flexible working hours.

Practice: Put the students into small groups and ask them to decide on their order of priority for these benefits. When they have reached a consensus they can read the text and answer the questions.

Comment: Many course books use texts to present vocabulary but then fail to provide practice activities for the new vocabulary. This activity reverses the process. The teacher presents the new items and provides initial practice; the text is used for consolidation purposes and to provide a framework for further practice.

STUDENT ACTIVITY

Is your order of priority for the five fringe benefits different from the text? If yes, what is the difference?

How many other fringe benefits does the text actually name? Underline them.

What do you think 'perks' are?

The text talks about thirteen fringe benefits. Not all of these are mentioned by name in the text. What do you think the missing fringe benefits might be?

(Gairns and Redman, 1992: 119-120)

The selection of appropriate activation techniques

Materials can help students in two broad areas: first, they need to present and practice in natural contexts the vocabulary that is frequent, current, and appropriate to learners’ needs, second, materials should help students become better learners of vocabulary by teaching different techniques and strategies they can use to continue learning outside the classroom. There is a vast amount of research into how learners learn best and how teachers might best teach. The next section presents some key principles that we can follow to help students learn vocabulary more effectively. (McCarten, 2007: 19-20)

There are two groups of vocabulary learning strategies that are used for understanding the meaning of a new word, namely determination strategies and social strategies (Schmitt, 1997: 208-211). Social strategies are the ways of asking other people to work out the meaning of words. While determination strategies involve four options that can facilitate vocabulary learning, namely guessing from the structural knowledge of the language, from L1 cognate, from context and using reference materials. The strategies of guessing from structural knowledge consist of analyzing part of speech and analyzing affixes and roots. The strategies of using reference materials include using bilingual or monolingual dictionary and using word lists or flash cards.

Nation, (2001:263) also agrees with Schmitt’s category of determination strategies, and he discusses three word study strategies in detail together, i.e. using word parts, dictionaries and word cards because these three strategies “are all intentional approaches to vocabulary learning and fit within the strand of language focused learning”.

Nation and Waring, (1997:11) claim that there are three vocabulary learning strategies that need to be spent time on, i.e. guessing words from context, using word parts and mnemonic techniques to remember words, and using word cards. Researchers also distinguish three main ways that can increase learners’ vocabulary: through focusing on the word meaning itself, through learning new words in context, and through using word formation rules or other word building devices (Nation, 2001: 263). In addition, using word part strategy is one of the three major strategies that can facilitate vocabulary acquisition as well as help students become independent vocabulary learners; the other two are guessing from context and using memory techniques (Schmitt, 2000: 65).

Therefore, word part strategy is an important vocabulary learning strategy that can help increase learners’ vocabulary as well as enable learners to become independent. Hence, word part strategy deserves the attention of both teachers and learners.

The Vocabulary Self-Collection strategy (VSS) is an interactive-learning instructional strategy that promotes word consciousness, as students are actively engaged in identifying important words from their reading to share with members of their class. The strategy was first introduced by Haggard (1982, 1986) and since then has been adapted for various grade levels and instructional contexts. Students select words from their readings that are new and interesting, use the context and other resources to determine the meaning of the words, and nominate the words to be learned by others in the group or class. Teachers using the VSS (1) model the process of collecting words, (2) provide guided practice within reading groups and other instructional contexts, and (3) offer consistent encouragement to students to use VSS during independent reading. A review of the research on vocabulary instruction conducted by (Harmon and Hedrick, 2005:275) led them to claim that struggling readers learn vocabulary when teachers “encourage independent learning by allowing students to self-select terms to be studied”.

Implementing the Vocabulary Self-Collection Strategy: Step by Step

1. Teachers introduce the purpose of VSS to students. They tell students that they will be expected to find new and interesting words from their readings that they will learn through a group nomination process.

2. Teachers model how to select and nominate important words from the readings. Teachers show why the word they selected is important by providing a strong rationale. For example, they may show students that without knowing the word, they may not understand the sentence or surrounding sentences. They may also nominate the selected word because it is interesting and would be useful in their own writing.

3. Teachers demonstrate how to use context and other resources to learn the meaning of the word. For example, they may use the context or they may refer to the glossary, dictionary, diagrams, or illustrations to unlock the meaning of the word.

4. Teachers write the word, the context in which it was used, its meaning, and the reason for selecting the word on chart paper. Using a chart similar to the one shown in Figure 1, teachers write the word, the sentence or phrase in which the word was used, the meaning, and the reason for selecting the word.

5. Teachers engage students in the process of vocabulary self-selection. Students work in small groups of three to five, and they read a short passage from the book with the teacher. They are guided by the teacher to identify a word they wish to select. The teacher demonstrates how to use context and other resources to figure out the meaning of the word. Together, the students and the teacher engage in a discussion on developing a reason for nominating their word, and each small group moves to nominate one word for learning. Students use their own charts to write the word, the sentence from the text in which the word was found, the meaning, and the reason for selecting the word.

6. After students are familiar with the strategy, teachers provide guided practice to support the use of VSS during reading. Teachers organize students in small groups for reading. They introduce the book and provide a brief overview of the strategy.

7. Students in small groups discuss the words they wish to nominate. Within their small groups, they talk about each word and why they think the class should learn the word. Through consensus, they nominate two words.

8. Students write the two words on a chart similar to the one shown in Figure 1. Each group presents its two words to the class. On a class chart, one member of the group writes the word, the sentence in which the word was used, its meaning, and the reason for selecting the word.

Figure 1 provides the nomination chart from one literature group that was reading A Corner of the Universe by Ann M. Martin (2002).

Figure 1. Vocabulary Self-Collection Strategy Graphic

THE WORD IN THE SENTENCE THE WORD IN THE SENTENCE

THE MEANING OF THE WORD THE MEANING OF THE WORD

REASON FOR CHOOSING THIS WORD REASON FOR CHOOSING THIS WORD

A Corner of the Universe by Ann M. Martin (2002).

The purpose of the Word Mapping strategy is to promote the students’ deeper understanding of words through depicting varying relationships between and among words. Word maps are visual displays of word meanings organized to depict relationships with other words. Research reveals that to develop students’ vocabularies, teachers need to promote in-depth word knowledge (Beck, McKeown, & Kucan, 2002:156).

The Word Mapping strategy is referred to by different names, such as semantic mapping, concept mapping, and word clusters. The strategy may be adapted to the nature of vocabulary instruction, the learning outcomes, and students’ grade levels. For example, for learning some words, it may be more appropriate to have students explore the synonyms, antonyms, and origin of the words; whereas for other words, it may be more helpful to find examples and non examples of the words.

Implementing the Word Mapping Strategy: Step by Step

1. Select words for vocabulary instruction. Prepare for vocabulary instruction by carefully selecting the words to be taught. Choose words by considering the readings and the words that are key to understanding the text.

2. Project a blank word map on the screen. Model how to construct a word map and demonstrate to students how to use the word map for building and exploring word relationships.

3. Write the key words on the word map. In each blank, write and say the key word that will be taught.

4. Use a think-aloud to model how to explore relationships between words. Use the think-aloud strategy to:

(a) demonstrate how to explore word relationships;

(b) think about the meaning of the key word or related words;

(c) model how to further the meaning of the word by examples and non examples, or synonyms and antonyms, of the word;

(d) find the definition of the word in a glossary or dictionary and find its use in context or a discussion with another student about the word’s meaning; and

(e) draw a picture of the word to illustrate its meaning in context.

5. Record ideas that have been used to explore the word meanings and relationships. During the think-aloud, record information about the word in the appropriate space on the word map.

6. Students are directed to use the word maps during and after reading to add information about the key words. Students use the word maps for recording new information while they are reading. After reading, they may further develop their word meanings by looking for dictionary definitions, drawing pictures of words, and adding new words from their readings.

7. Students share their maps with others. Have students share their maps with the class. During this sharing period, students use the information on their word maps to develop and expand the class map. Students write new information on the group map and are encouraged to revise their own word maps to incorporate these new ideas.

Students were then directed to:

(1) use their word maps during and after reading by elaborating or building on word meanings from their readings and discussions within the literature circles and

(2) find new words and meanings to add to their word maps, along with pictures and diagrams that illustrate the words’ meanings.

Figure 2 depicts he word map that was used by the teacher before reading and the word map that students created during and after reading. Students then shared their word maps with members of their literature groups and later with the class during discussions of their readings. (http://www.sagepub.com/upm-data/40627_4.pdf)

Figure 2. Word Maps for Vocabulary in Thomas Jefferson by Cheryl Harness

WORD MAP BEFORE READING

Thomas Jefferson

WORD MAP DURING AND AFTER READING

Thomas Jefferson

Vocabulary Journals are valuable in helping students explore the meanings of words that they encounter while reading. These journals are a specific type of learning log where students record “their ideas and information from content areas in a notebook and responses” (Popp, 1997: 1) about new words that they have learned from reading literature or textbooks. Journals are not notebooks used to record notes. Rather, Vocabulary Journals are used by students to respond and transact with words, concepts, and ideas through the use of their own language. Students select words from their readings that are difficult, novel, or used in different contexts. They use their journals to explore the words’ meanings, make connections between the new words and their own experiences and ideas they already know, and produce rich definitions.

Vocabulary Journals may be used before, during, or after reading depending on how the teacher will use the journals. For example, oftentimes the teacher will use direct instruction for teaching the key words before reading the text. Students will then record the words and their initial ideas in their journals, but they will return to the words during and after reading to personalize the meanings of the words. During independent reading, students will use their journals during and after reading. (http://www.sagepub.com/upm-data/40627_4.pdf)

Implementing the Vocabulary Journal Strategy: Step by Step

1. Introduce Vocabulary Journals to students. Talk about the purpose of the journal and how to identify words from their readings to explore a word’s meaning and use.

2. Demonstrate how to select words from a reading. Conduct a read-aloud to show the students which words might be selected for their Vocabulary Journals.

3. Use a think-aloud to model how to construct meanings from words. Engage in a think-aloud on how to interact with text to construct and build word meaning.

Demonstrate to students how to:

a. consult other resources such as glossaries and dictionaries to show meanings of words or search illustrations, diagrams, and subtitles;

b. use the context of the sentence or sentences around the word to explore the meaning of the word;

c. show word relationships such as synonyms, antonyms, homonyms, etc.; and

d. explore meaning through making connections to the word, such as what they know that is similar to the meaning of the word or other readings in which the word might have been used.

4. Record ideas that have been used to explore the meaning of the word. Display different techniques that were used to represent word meanings and relationships. For example, discuss the use of word or concept maps and other graphic organizers to show word and concept relationships and the use of pictures to depict meanings.

5. Encourage students’ systematic use and sharing of Vocabulary Journals. Develop students’ interest in words by encouraging their use of Vocabulary Journals and providing a range of contexts where students use their journals. They may be used most effectively in literature circles, guided reading, independent reading, shared reading, read-aloud, and reading across the curriculum. Teachers encourage the students’ use of journals during discussions where they may share their words, ideas, and questions.

6. Encourage students to use their Vocabulary Journals as a resource. Provide authentic ways to help students use their Vocabulary Journals as a tool for learning. Since journals are a storehouse for new and interesting words and their meanings, spellings of words, concepts, and ideas, students should be encouraged to use their Vocabulary Journals during writing. (http://www.sagepub.com/upm-data/40627_4.pdf)

Figure 4. Student’s Entry in Vocabulary Journal for Tornadoes! by Gail Gibbons

Teacher designed contexts and the use of dictionary

One of the problems of vocabulary teaching is how to select what words to teach. Dictionaries for upper intermediate students frequently have 55,000 words or more, and there may have to make sense of this huge list be many meanings for a word, and they represent a small fraction of all the possible words in a language. Somehow we have to make sense of this huge list and reduce it to manageable proportions for our learners.

A general principle in the past has been to teach more concrete words at lower levels and gradually become more abstract. Words like `table`, chalk`, etc., have figured in beginners` syllabuses because the things which the words represent are there in front of the students and thus easily explained. Words like `charity`, however are not physically represented in the classroom and are far more difficult to explain.

Obviously the dictionary provides one of the best resources for students who wish to increase the number of words they understand, or at least for students who wish o understand what a word means when they come across it in the text or in a conversation. Most students in such circumstances consult a bilingual dictionary to find an equivalent in their own language. (Harmer, 1991:154)

There is nothing wrong with bilingual dictionaries except that they do not usually provide sufficient information for the students to be able to use. We frequently find that on e word in the L2 (English) has five or six equivalents listed in the L1. But the students cannot tell which one of these meanings is referred to. There is often no information either about the level of formality of the word, its grammatical behavior, or its appearance in idioms, etc. Such a lack of information could lead to serious errors of translation. One response to the limited nature of information available in many bilingual dictionaries is to say that they should not be used.

Designing your own vocabulary activities has the great advantage that you can exercise complete control over the input. The other side of the coin is that it can be very time-consuming. For this reason, we have tried to include types of activity that can easily be reproduced for different lexical areas.

Despite being a valuable source of information, dictionaries are not perfect, and it is very unwise to make prior assumptions about the type of information included or the manner in which it is expressed.

So, if you want to avoid setting your students a fruitless task which could undermine their confidence in you and the dictionary, we would ' recommend that you check all the dictionary entries relevant to the particular task before going into the classroom. (Gairns and Redman, 1992: 125)

DEFINITIONS AND PICTURES (OALDCE)

Level: Advanced, although this type of activity can be adapted for most levels above elementary.

Suggested procedure: Select ten lexical items from the dictionary that are all accompanied by a picture. The items should all be new to the students. Divide your class into paired A and B groups of six (if you have twenty-four students, for example, you will have two A groups and two B groups). Next, copy out the words with their dictionary definitions on a separate sheet of paper, giving six examples to each A group and six to each B group.

Group A Group B

(Gairns and Redman, 1992: 125-126)

Each group discusses their words and definitions in an attempt to reach agreement on their understanding of the items. It may seem strange to talk about discussing a 'definition', but dictionary definitions are not always very straightforward.

With a monolingual group this will probably involve agreeing upon a suitable mother-tongue equivalent. At this stage you should monitor the groups without confirming or rejecting any of their answers. When the students have finished, each member of group A tries to explain the meaning of his words to a member of group B, and vice versa. After each explanation both students look up the word with accompanying picture to see if they have arrived at the correct answer.

Comment: Many dictionaries include pictures to reinforce meaning but often they are grouped within semantic fields and do not appear on the same page as the dictionary entry. In such cases there will be a reference to the picture at the end of the definition. This activity should help students become more aware of the use of visuals in the dictionary and also give them practice in defining and paraphrasing. Students may also find in this activity that they are unable to understand some of the items from the dictionary definition alone. This may be the fault of the dictionary in not providing a very clear definition or explanation, but it is more likely to reveal the immense difficulty of the task that a dictionary undertakes. For many items it is just not possible to convey the meaning very satisfactorily by a handful of words and a single sentence example. Students should be made aware of these limitations and should recognise that dictionaries are not infallible. (Gairns and Redman, 1992: 126)

WORDS EASILY CONFUSED: ' FALSE FRIENDS' (LASDE)

Level: Upper-intermediate, particularly for speakers of cognate languages e.g. Romance and Germanic languages.

Suggested procedure: Begin by explaining what a false cognate is, and illustrate the problem with one or two amusing examples that are relevant to your learners. Then produce a worksheet on the same lines, containing appropriate lexis. Follow the procedure given on the student worksheet. Before asking students to do the final exercise, you may wish to conduct a feedback session to clarify any misunderstandings.

Comment: This particular exercise was designed for a mixed nationality class which was composed primarily of speakers of Romance languages.

Clearly, you will need to select the items which cause most difficulty for your students. This type of activity is a useful way of highlighting the problem and bringing together items where student error is potentially very high. (Gairns and Redman, 1992: 127)

Be very careful with the words below. They may have different meanings from words which look the same in your own language. Look at the sentences below.

For each sentence there are two different definitions of the words underlined. Only one definition is correct. Firstly, tick the answer you think is correct.

1 He's a sympathetic person.

a) He's nice, fun to be with.

b) He's very understanding e.g. you can tell him your problems.

2 She's very sensible.

a) She's practical and doesn't do silly things.

b) She's easily affected or upset by things people say to her.

3 He's a sensitive person.

a) He's practical and doesn't do silly things.

b) He's easily affected or upset by things people say to him.

4 She's a confident girl.

a) She can keep secrets if you tell her them.

b) She's sure of herself.

5 He's a terrific uncle.

a) All the children love him.

b) All the children are afraid of him.

6 He's a famous actor.

a) Everybody knows who he is.

b) He's great, a fantastic actor.

Now use your dictionary to check whether your answers are correct.

Fill the gaps using the words underlined above.

1 We saw a…………….. film yesterday – it had everything – love, excitement, adventure – we enjoyed every minute of it!

2 Don't mention her big ears, she's terribly …………………………about them.

3 It isn't very ………………… to go on holiday in England without an umbrella.

4 I wouldn't like to be ………………………………; it must be boring to sign autographs and be nice to everyone all the time.

5 The doctor wasn't very ………………………… when I showed him the cut on my leg; in fact, he said I was wasting his time!

6 Jenny won't pass her exam because she isn't ……………………….. in herself.

© Cambridge University Press

(Gairns and Redman, 1992: 127-128)

WORD BUILDING (LASDE)

Level: Intermediate.

Suggested procedure: Distribute the handout and tell the students to complete the table with the help of their dictionaries. The LASDE is particularly good for this lexical set as it provides simple but clear distinctions between a number of the items under the entry for 'thief.

You will probably need to clarify the difference between 'theft' and 'robbery', and 'steal' and 'rob'; in the case of the latter there are also the grammatical differences.

Practice: On completion of the first activity the students can work on the two texts with accompanying questions. These are designed to test the students' knowledge of the items as well as providing scope for free practice and lively discussion.

Comment: Course books often include word building tables of this kind, and sometimes include gap filling exercises to test the items. If there is a weakness in course book material it is usually the absence of relevant practice activities for the new vocabulary.

(Gairns and Redman, 1992: 129)

Use your dictionary to complete the table below.

Now read the following case histories and discuss the questions below. (Gairns and Redman 1992:130)

1 Name the crimes committed by both men.

2 List the crimes in order of seriousness.

3 What do you think will or should happen to each man?

4 What do you think each man would do if he were not sent to prison?

© Cambridge University Press

JUMBLED SENTENCES: PARTIAL SYNONYMS

Level: Intermediate.

Suggested procedure: Using the first exercise from the handout ask the students to match sentences from the left hand column with their logical counterpart in the right hand column; they can do this individually or in pairs. We are assuming that 'employ' and 'dismiss' will already be known to some of the students, which leaves them with the relatively simple task of finding the remaining two answers; their dictionaries will confirm whether they are right or not. The students will probably be able to deduce the difference between 'dismiss' and 'make somebody redundant' but this needs to be clarified before moving on. (Gairns and Redman, 1992:135)

The second exercise is almost identical so the students should realize that the italicised items are synonyms of the items contained in the first section; shared knowledge, dictionaries, and a process of elimination should enable them to complete the task. When the students have finished you will need to clarify the possible syntactic variations with 'take on' and 'lay off', and the stylistic variation with some of the items. You may also wish to add the noun 'resignation' plus the use of 'sack' as a noun i.e. to give somebody the sack.

Practice: Put the students into small groups and ask them to discuss the situations listed at the end of the handout. Encourage them to use the vocabulary from the activity before. At the end, conduct a feedback session to compare group answers; this could possibly be done on the blackboard.

Comment: This is an area of vocabulary where there are a number of partially synonymous items. We are exploiting this fact by using known items to direct students towards the meaning of unknown items. The lexis included in this activity clearly makes it more suitable for adult groups.

Using the grid below, match the numbers on the left with the letters on the right to form four logical sentences. (Gairns and Redman, 1992:136)

Now do the same for the grid below: (Gairns and Redman, 1992: 136)

Now discuss the following questions in small groups:

1 Can you think of three reasons why you would resign from your present job?

2 If you had to make redundancies, how would you decide which workers to make redundant? (e.g. those employed the shortest time in the company; the laziest workers; workers near the age of retirement?)

3 You are the boss of a company that sells breakfast cereals to supermarkets.

You discover that one of your salesmen has been giving part of his commission to one of the supermarket managers; in return the manager displays your product in a favourable position in the shop. What action would you take?

© Cambridge University Press

WORD B U I L D I N G

Level: Upper-intermediate upwards.

Suggested procedure: Distribute copies of the worksheet (which is self explanatory) and ask the students to fill in the grid. Remind them that adjectives relating to nationalities must start with capital letters.

They may wish to use dictionaries to check their answers and it would be useful to conduct a feedback session to clarify any difficulties before the students move onto the gap fill exercise. Point out to the students that in the last column there is a restricted number of generative examples and these are generally common descriptive adjectives.

This activity could lead to oral practice and allow the students to generate their own examples if you give them pictures of people (also famous people) to describe e.g. Paul Newman is shortish, sixtyish and with greyish hair. (Gairns and Redman, 1992:141)

STUDENT ACTIVITY

The suffix '+ish' has several different meanings.

Now look at the list below and divide the adjectives into the four categories, according to the meaning of '+ish' in each case.

Spanish childish snobbish Irish tallish Flemish boyish devilish Finnish six-thirtyish youngish latish sixtyish blackish roundish

Complete the sentences using a word from the list above.

He's just retired from work so he must be ………………………………

How would I describe her? Well, she's got a ……………………….face, and she's ……………………..- can't be more than 20 years old.

You wouldn't think he was an adult – his behaviour is so ………………….

She lives in Belgium so perhaps she speaks …………………………….

I'll see you in front of the theatre – shall we say …………………………?

He's so………… that he won't even talk to anyone he thinks is inferior.

© Cambridge University Press

(Gairns and Redman, 1992:141-142)

Vocabulary in course books

In many teaching situations, teachers have little or no control over the choice of course books or materials prescribed for their students. Inevitably some teachers will be satisfied with the course book they are using while others will find it a hindrance.

Although historically the importance of vocabulary has been minimised, some of the more recently published EFL course books have adopted a systematic approach to vocabulary learning and have become increasingly aware of the importance of developing vocabulary learning strategies. One distinct advantage that course book writers and materials designers have over practising classroom teachers is that they have easy access to word frequency counts and other checklists and the time to ensure that high priority items are introduced at appropriate stages of the syllabus and recycled where possible. Clearly this reduces the workload on teachers tremendously provided, of course, that the selection and integration is appropriate and effective.

Inevitably there will be occasions when teachers do not agree with the selection and organisation of lexis in their course book. For assessing the vocabulary component of a course book systematically, I have included the following checklist, which should help to determine the amount of work which has been done and how much to adapt and supplement the lexical items and materials. (Gairns and Redman, 1992:171)

Checklist

SELECTION

Is there a lexical syllabus?

Begin by looking at the introduction to the teachers' book to see whether it has a section on vocabulary; this section should mention how vocabulary items have been selected (based on word frequency counts, subjective selection or simply as a vehicle for structural or notional/functional practice). Examine the list of items selected for a few units to see whether they are useful and relevant to your students; you may need to pay particular attention here to the cultural appropriacy of items. Notice whether the students' book or the teachers' book contains an index of new lexical items either at the end of each unit or at the back of the book.

LINGUISTIC CONSIDERATIONS

To what extent does the course book assist both learner and teacher in clarifying meaning, dealing with style and connotation, or contrasting items which cause difficulty? Does it provide phonemic transcriptions and indicate the part of speech of new items? How thoroughly does it deal with the use of items? (This will radically affect the amount of preparation and teacher intervention required, and the extent to which the course may be used as self-access material.)

METHODOLOGY

What learning approaches are selected?

Does the course book aim both to develop vocabulary learning strategies and provide learners with a useful selection of items for productive use?

Notice whether there is systematic attention to contextual guesswork and dictionary training, or whether the systems of vocabulary such as word building are sufficiently covered.

Does the teachers' book suggest teaching procedures?

Some teachers' books provide useful guidelines on presenting and clarifying the meaning of lexical items or groups of items.

Are practice and testing activities provided?

Check to see whether the book contains a variety of practice activities, and if the vocabulary is used in realistic communication wherever possible.

Where testing occurs, are students required simply to recognize the meaning of the items or to use them? (Practice and testing are common areas where teachers need to supplement many course books, so it is worth looking at this very closely.)

Is the vocabulary recycled?

Notice whether new language items are recycled through different skills activities and whether they occur in a variety of contexts. It is unreasonable to expect that every new language item should be consistently recycled throughout a course book, but one can expect that in consolidation units key items should be revised, and in a set of course books that topic areas and lexical sets are progressively revised and expanded. (Gairns and Redman, 1992:172-173)

How are learners encouraged to consolidate and widen their vocabulary outside the classroom?

Look carefully at suggested homework activities and workbooks. Some provide exercises to consolidate vocabulary presented in the course book, and/or provide scope for self-access work. This is particularly important where no 'street learning' is taking place. Does the course book contain useful visual material? Visuals can be used to illustrate meaning; check whether the visuals selected do this effectively.

Does the course book anticipate vocabulary needed for skills activities?

Begin by looking at listening and reading materials, and notice whether the teachers' book or the students' book anticipate difficulties with key vocabulary items. Similarly, for speaking and writing activities, see if essential productive vocabulary is suggested. If not, it may be necessary to 'rehearse' the activity (perhaps with teaching colleagues) to identify which items would be useful to pre-teach.

Extracts from course books

I have chosen to look at extracts from three popular and widely-used course books; each one illustrates different problems facing the teacher with regard to vocabulary teaching. The amount of preparation required by the teacher varies from example to example.

A variety of presentation and practice techniques is used in Going for Gold Upper- Intermediate, FCE PLUS and Upstream Upper intermediate. The vocabulary work puts words into a context, and often links them to lexical sets which give the students key topic vocabulary. There is also work on word formation. The practice activities provide students with techniques for organising vocabulary in different ways as well as giving them the chance to use the words they have learned in speaking or writing.

These materials are clearly very exploitable. There are, however, certain pitfalls for learners, and teachers will need to intervene to clarify certain points and/or to direct learners to their dictionaries.

EXTRACT FROM Going for Gold Upper –intermediate

EXTRACT FROM Going for Gold Upper –intermediate

EXTRACT FROM FCE GOLD

EXTRACT FROM FCE GOLD

EXTRACT FROM Upstream Upper –intermediate

EXTRACT FROM Upstream Upper –intermediate

Four disasters

Hi! I'm Bill Daniels. Hive in Chicago. I

was working in my office on the 28th

floor of a skyscraper. I was dictating

some letters to my secretary when the

fire-bell rang. I rushed out to the lift but

it wasn't working. The stairs were full of

thick smoke. We couldn't go down, so

we had to go up to the roof. When we got

there some people were waiting calmly.

Others were shouting and screaming

wildly. A helicopter managed to land on

the roof and rescued six of us before the

building collapsed.

My name's Martha Muggins. I was on

holiday in the South Pacific and I was

staying on Pogohiti, a small island. I was

having a rest when the volcano erupted.

The noise woke me up. I looked through

the window. Everybody was running

towards the harbour. I just put on a coat,

and ran to the harbour too. I managed to

get on a ship. It was leaving when the

lava hit the town.

Hello, I'm George Green. I'm a farmer. I

was working in the field behind my

house when I saw the plane. It was on

fire. Smoke was coming from the

engines, and it was coming down fast. I

was running towards my house when it

crashed into the trees behind me. I heard

a terrible explosion . . . when I woke up, 1

was lying in a hospital bed. (Gairns and Redman, 1992:176)

As the unit is designed to revise and consolidate previously taught structures rather than introduce any new ones, this would seem to be the ideal opportunity to complement the grammar revision with the presentation and practice of new lexis. The teachers' book makes reference to the vocabulary in the unit in the following way:

Key Vocabulary

ceiling

coat

damage

disaster

earthquake

engine

explosion

farmer

field

fire

fire-bell

floor

food

harbour

helicopter

hospital

island

lava

lift

plate

programme

rest

roof

skyscraper

smoke

volcano

cause

collapse

dictate

erupt

go down

manage to (do it)

move

pickup

rescue

rush

scream

shake

survive

thick

usual

calmly

towards

on fire

full of

We feel that this type of list is not very helpful for the teacher. By including so many items from the texts, the authors give no indication of what is really essential to an understanding of the texts, or what they consider to be the most useful items for the students to learn. As the students by this time will have heard and repeated the line: 'We were picking everything up when the ceiling fell onto us', it is possible that some students will have retained the items in their short term memory and so be capable of answering the question. This does not, however, indicate that the students have any clear understanding of either 'ceiling' or 'pick up'.

The following suggestions indicate a few ways in which the vocabulary contained in the above unit could be tackled more thoroughly. (Gairns and Redman, 1992:177-178)

Suggestions

PRE-READING OR PRE-LISTENING ACTIVITIES

Consider first of all which items the students will need in order to grasp the gist of the news stories, and decide which of these would be useful as part of the students' productive vocabulary. Our suggestions are as follows: a disaster, a skyscraper, to be on fire, a volcano (to erupt), to crash into something/ a plane crash, an earthquake.

One approach would be to ask the students to cover the texts and look at the pictures. Explain that the pictures represent four disasters which people have lived through. Ask them to discuss in pairs/groups which key vocabulary items are important to each picture. (If you restrict them to two items per picture, you should avoid a vocabulary 'swamp'.)

It is quite possible that some of the key items will be unknown; monolingual classes may wish to ask their teacher for a translation of the target item or use the picture to ask, 'How do you say this in English?'

The vocabulary can then be highlighted and practised in a relatively controlled way. (Incidentally, the last picture is rather ambiguous and will need clarifying.)

A further pre-reading or pre-listening activity would be to ask the students to predict in which news story certain vocabulary items might occur, or to take out certain sentences from the stories and ask the students (through shared knowledge and the use of dictionaries) to decide which picture they refer to:

e.g. … I rushed out to the lift but it wasn't working…

… it was leaving when the lava hit the town…

… smoke was coming from the engines…

… the ceiling fell on us . . . (Gairns and Redman, 1992:178)

POST-READING ACTIVITIES

Deducing meaning

Certain items in these news stories can be deduced because of syntactic or general knowledge clues: e.g. roof,'… we couldn't go down, so we had to go up on the roof.'

Having shown students how to deduce one or two items, it should be possible for them to deduce others e.g. to land, to collapse, to erupt, to shake, harbour, ceiling.

2. Cause and effect

This activity not only tests gist understanding but requires the students to use certain items of vocabulary productively.

STUDENT ACTIVITY

Complete the sentences the same way as in the example, using the vocabulary in the list below: to be on fire smoke earthquake to crash

e.g. The building was full of smoke because

(The building was full of smoke because it was on fire.)

1 The people went on the roof because

2 The building collapsed because

3 The plane exploded because

4 The farmer ran to his house because

5 The plates fell on the floor because

6 The plane crashed because

3. General knowledge quiz

e.g. 1. What type of building is the Empire State Building?

2. What is Etna?

3. What happened at Mount St Helens?

4. What disaster is common in both Japan and Southern Italy?

5. What happened in Brighton in October 1984?

Other questions can be devised which will elicit the target vocabulary in a similar way, and can be written in accordance with the cultural knowledge of the class. (Gairns and Redman, 1992:179-180)

Word building

This is a simple transformation exercise:

e.g. There was an explosion.

The plane…………………………………………………

(The plane exploded.)

The plane crashed. There was……………………………..

The skyscraper was on fire. There was……………………………….. .

The helicopter rescued the people on the roof. There was a dramatic … .

They waited three hours before help arrived. Someone………….…..them.

The eruption of the volcano was sudden. The volcano suddenly ………. .

Discussion

Begin by clarifying the meaning and form of the items on the left-hand side of the table below.

Having organised the students into pairs or groups, ask them to rate each disaster in terms of the criteria given on the left. This will provide them with scope for creativity and meaningful practice of the target items. (Gairns and Redman, 1992:180-181)

Creative writing

Divide your class into pairs or small groups and give each a piece of paper with a set of four to six vocabulary items. These can be items from the news stories and items from previous lessons which will give an opportunity for revision:

e.g. 1. 2.

Ask each pair or group to incorporate the vocabulary into a brief newsflash.

Explain that each pair/group will then read out their newsflash and the rest of the class will then have to spot which items they were asked to incorporate. (Cunning groups will work hard to use many items from the lesson to make the listed items seem less obvious.)

EXTRACT FROM MEANINGS INTO WORDS INTERMEDIATE

So far we have looked at course book examples which require additional activities or guidance to help with the teaching of vocabulary contained in the respective units. Quite often, though, students find their greatest need is to vocabulary that is not directly encountered in the course book but arises as a consequence of the suggested practice activities. For the teacher this poses the problem of anticipating where this need will arise and also anticipating precisely what items should be taught to satisfy these needs. (Gairns and Redman, 1992:181)

Consider the following extract from Meanings into Words Intermediate:

HEADLINE NEWS

Look at the newspaper headlines below, and explain what they mean.

Example

An express train was derailed while it was travelling at 90 miles per hour.

Boeing 747 hijacked over Atlantic

150 arrested in anti-nuclear demonstration

Ambassador's son kidnapped on way to school

Tomatoes thrown at Minister during speech

Man with bomb arrested at Heathrow

GOLFER STRUCK BY LIGHTNING

Writing

Choose one of the headlines and develop it into a paragraph. Add any details you like, and add at least one more event.

The six headlines may present certain lexical difficulties e.g. hijacked/ kidnapped/struck by lightning, but it is the extended writing activity that is likely to pose the greatest problems as students try to elaborate on the headline stories, if the lexical difficulties become too acute the intended structural practice is in danger of being either forgotten or neglected, and the activity may not fulfill its original purpose. To prevent this from happening we can try to anticipate the essential items and teach them prior to the structural presentation or perhaps in a preceding lesson. Four of the headlines i.e. the hijacking, the kidnapping, the demonstration, and the airport arrest, are all quite closely linked so it may be advisable to concentrate on the lexis relevant to these events, and ignore the remaining two headline stories. (Gairns and Redman, 1992:182)

To begin with, write the four events on the blackboard in four separate columns:

Any unknown items can be explained at this point with the addition of the relevant derivatives i.e. hijacker/to hijack, kidnapper/to kidnap, demonstrator / to demonstrate. Then write the following list of words on the board below the four columns:

The students must decide which words are likely to occur in the context of the four events, and put the words in the appropriate column: you should explain that some of the items may be relevant to more than one event. This activity will require dictionaries and is best done in pairs or groups so that the students can share their knowledge and discuss the meaning of the different items. You will have to monitor this activity carefully and help with explanations or clarification where necessary; this may be with individual pairs/groups or in some cases the whole class.

When you are satisfied that the students have a reasonable grasp of the new items, each pair/group can be assigned a particular event and told to use the new words in example sentences related to their event. Afterwards the students can look at all the different sentences compiled while you check that the items have been used correctly. (Gairns and Redman, 1992:183-184)

Games, questionnaires and problem solving

Many of the activities described would be useful as warmers or end-of-class activities. Most of these would be particularly useful for revision and further practice rather than presentation, and on the whole, they require very little preparation time. (Gairns and Redman, 1992:163)

PYRAMID GAME

Level: Intermediate upwards.

Suggested procedure: Choose about twelve lexical items you have taught

in the previous few days and write them on a piece of paper in two columns. Thus:

This vocabulary forms a clear lexical set but you may decide to make a more random selection. Make as many copies of the columns as you need for your class and cut them in half. Put the students in pairs, facing each other, and give six of the items to one student in each pair. To this student explain that he has to define the words as quickly and clearly as possible so that student B can say what the word is. Student A can then go on to define the next word. He mustn't use any of the words on the card. It is usually clearer if you demonstrate to the group as a whole first: e.g. Teacher: It's a long, yellow fruit with a skin you can't eat.

Students: Banana.

When student A has defined all his words and student B has guessed them, give student B his group of words to define for student A. It is useful at the end to discuss as a group how the students described their items; this can provide an ideal opportunity to introduce and develop different ways of paraphrasing and defining.

Comment: This activity is an enjoyable way of revising and, if done on a regular basis, can give students valuable practice in paraphrase, circumlocution, etc.

NOUGHTS AND CROSSES

Level: All levels.

Suggested procedure: Draw two grids on the blackboard, filling in the squares on one grid with various headings and leaving the other one blank. The choice of headings depends entirely on the type of group and the items you wish to revise; here are two examples: (Gairns and Redman, 1992:165)

Before the lesson you should have prepared three or four questions on each of your chosen headings. Divide the class into two teams and explain that the object of the game is for each team to try and secure a straight line of noughts (or crosses) on the grid; the line may be vertical, horizontal, or diagonal.

In order to get a nought (or cross) in one of the squares the team must answer a question asked by the teacher based on the heading of their selected square. So, if team A want a nought in the top left hand corner they must answer a question on prepositions e.g. complete the sentence 'I'm not very keen … tennis'. If the team cannot answer the question they do not get their nought in the square, but the question is not passed to the other team. As the teams answer questions correctly you put the noughts and crosses onto the empty grid on the blackboard.

Comment: We first encountered this game (as applied to the EFL classroom) in the Teacher's Book to Contact English 1 (Colin Granger and Tony Hicks, 1977). We have used it very successfully with a wide range of classes and found it to be a very enjoyable way of revising vocabulary items from previous lessons. (Gairns and Redman, 1992:166)

P E L M A N I SM

Level: Intermediate upwards (although the vocabulary examples given here would be upper-intermediate or advanced).

Suggested procedure: Write a list of partial synonyms which you wish to revise with your class (about eight to twelve pairs of words will be sufficient) e.g. man/guy, child/kid, a pound/a quid, mad/round the bend.

Write each of these items on small pieces of card: duplicating your sets according to the size of your class.

Divide the students into groups of four to five and give them a set of cards which they place face down on a level surface in front of them. The first student turns up any two cards to see if they are partial synonyms; if they are, he keeps them, and if not, he turns them face down again, and the next player takes his turn. If the player turns up two partial synonyms (e.g. man/guy) he has to state the difference between them (i.e. 'guy' is more colloquial) to the satisfaction of his group. The winner is the student who accumulates most sets of cards. The game can be played several times in a row.

Comment: Although any vocabulary items can be recycled in this way, this is a particularly useful activity for revising items which students need to know for receptive purposes. With this particular example, the slang words may sound rather incongruous when spoken by students, but they may be useful items to recognise and understand in an English-speaking community. (Gairns and Redman, 1992:166-167)

Q U E S T I O N N A I R E – M A K E VERSUS DO

Level: Intermediate.

Suggested procedure: Pre-teach the collocations of 'make' and 'do' listed in the questionnaire. You could display a set of visuals illustrating the vocabulary and ask the students to decide which verb ('do' or 'make') is used in each case; they could use dictionaries or shared knowledge to do this.

Practice: Give the students a copy of the questionnaire and ask them to carry out a class survey to find out whether these activities are predominantly carried out by men or women. Point out that they must use the appropriate verb in their question:

e.g. In your house, who does the shopping?

who makes the most money?

At the end of the group work, it may be fun to compile the results.

Comment: This is a controlled practice activity with a communicative aim. It also revises the 'household activity' vocabulary. (Gairns and Redman, 1992:167-168)

'MAKE'AND 'DO'-a questionnaire

In your house, who does or makes things?

Ask the other people in your group and fill in the information about them.

Who does or makes these?

Testing vocabulary

Vocabulary-testing techniques

Example 1

Choose the letter of the item which is the nearest in meaning to the word in italics:

He was reluctant to answer.

a) unprepared b) unwilling c) refusing d) slow

Example 2

Choose the letter of the definition which comes closest in meaning to the word elated

a) ready and willing

b) tense and excited –

c) tending to talk a lot

d) in high spirits

Example 3

Draw lines connecting the pairs of opposites.

A

brave

female

cheap

asleep

fail

B

awake

expensive

succeed

cowardly

male

Example 4

Which of the prefixes in Column A can combine with which of the words in Column B? Write out the complete words.

A

over-

trans-

super –

dis-

inter-

B

human

national

flow

form

infect

Example 5

Underline the odd one out: goat, horse, cow, spider, sheep, dog, cat.

Example 6

For each of the following words, write a sentence that makes its meaning clear.

1. wealth 2. laughter 3. decision 4. brilliant

Example 7

(The teacher dictates the words from Example 6, the students write them down.)

Example 8

(The teacher dictates the mother-tongue equivalents of the words in Example 6, the students write down the target-language versions.)

Example 9

Fill in the gaps:

In the seventeenth ––––––––––Spanish ships sailed –––––––––––––to Central and ––––––––––––––-. America to fetch gold for the Spanish –––––––––––––––- . The ships were often attacked by –––––––––––– who infested the 'Spanish Main' (the sea ––––––––––––– north-east of Central and South America).

(Adapted from The Cambridge English Course 2 Student's Book Michael Swan and Catherine Walter, 1985)

Example 10

Complete the passage using the words from the list: area, century, pirates, government, regularly, South

In the seventeenth –––––––––– Spanish ships sailed –––––––––––––to Central and ––––––––––––––-. America to fetch gold for the Spanish –––––––––––––––-. The ships were often attacked by –––––––––––– who infested the 'Spanish Main' (the sea ––––––––––––– north-east of Central and South America).

Example 11

(Students are given sentences in the mother tongue to translate into the target language; or vice versa.)

Example 12

Finish the following sentences:

1.1 feel depressed when…

2. I never have an appetite when…

3. It was a great relief when…

© Cambridge University Press 1996 (Ur, 1996:70-71)

Comments

Examples 1 and 2: Multiple-choice

Note that only denotative meaning is tested, the testee does not need to know the words' connotations, spelling, pronunciation, grammar, or how they would be used in context. .Multiple-choice questions are tricky and time-consuming to compose, bur, if the answers are clear, very quick and easy to mark. Note that a testee who does not know the answer has a 25 per cent chance of being right by guessing!

The second example allows for more careful and subtle distinctions in meaning.

Example 3: Matching

As in the previous examples, only meaning is tested; and is knowledge of an opposite a proof that the testee knows the meaning of the original word?

Matching items are quicker and easier to compose than multiple-choice; but note that the last option – if the learner has all the others right – becomes obvious. This problem can be corrected by the provision of more items in Column B than in A.

Example 4: Matching

Here the only thing that is being tested is whether the testee is aware of the existence of the (combined) word! This probably means they also know its meaning, but this fact is not actually being tested. See also the last comment on matching exercises above.

Example 5: Odd one out

Again, only meaning is being tested, and you have no way of being sure that all the items are known. But this is at least more interesting to do, and usually easy to mark.

Example 6: Writing sentences

Spelling and pronunciation of the items are not tested, but most other aspects are. This is a bit boring to do, and difficult to mark objectively, but does check the testee's knowledge fairly well.

Example 7: Dictation

Dictation tests aural recognition and spelling only. However, if learners can recognize and spell an item correctly they probably also know what it means: it is extremely difficult to perceive, let alone spell, words you do not know. A relatively easy test to administer and check.

Example 8: Dictation-translation

This checks if students know meaning and spelling only. There is the problem that the mother-tongue translation may be inexact or misleading; but if it is a reasonable equivalent, then this is a very quick, easy and convenient test to administer and check.

Example 9: Gap-filling

This tests meaning, spelling, to some extent grammar and collocation. But testees may write down possibly acceptable items that are not in fact the originals, or what you intended; will you accept them?

Example 10: Gap-filling with a 'pool' of answers

Meaning is tested here, also to some extent grammar and collocation. This version is easier to do and mark than Example 9.

Example 11: Translation

Translation can test all aspects of an item, but there is the usual difficulty of finding exact equivalents across languages, and it may be tricky to mark.

Example 12: Sentence completion

This tests (denotative) meaning only; but is 'personalized' and interesting to do and read!

(Ur, 1996:71-73)

CHAPTER THREE

TEACHER, LEARNER AND COURSE BOOK RELATIONSHIP

TEACHER, LEARNER AND COURSE BOOK RELATIONSHIP

It is widely accepted that the course book lies at the heart of any English language teaching situation (Hutchinson and Torres, 1994:156). They offer advantages for teachers and language students alike, and they constitute a useful resource for both teachers and learners (Richards, 1993:58). Course books usually serve multiple roles, such as (Cunningsworth, 1995:7):

Harmer argues that “where a textbook is involved there are obvious advantages for both teacher and students. Good textbooks often contain lively and interesting material; they provide a sensible progression of language items, clearly showing what has to be learnt and in some cases summarizing what has been studied so that students can revise grammatical and functional points that they have been concentrating on. Textbooks can be systematic about the amount of vocabulary presented to the student and allow students to study on their own outside the class. Good textbooks also relieve the teacher from the pressure of “having to think of original material for every class” (Harmer, 1991: 257).

With a good course book, there is a strong possibility that the language, content and sequencing in the book will be appropriate, and that the topics and treatment of the different language skills will be attractive. As a result, the teacher will want to go ahead and use what is in the book. (Harmer, 2007:146)

Therefore, good exploitation of the textbooks or materials is very necessary because “exploitation is the creative use of what is already there (e.g. text, visual, activity) to serve a purpose which is additional to that foreseen by the textbook writer” (McGrath, 2002:65). “Teachers need strategies for working with the book open and closed.” “Teachers also need specific strategies for handling course book presentation material, practice material, and skills development material”. (Davies and Pearse, 2000:150).

In contrast, if the course book is not appropriate for a particular group of students, the teachers have four alternatives to consider. They are omitting lessons from course book, replacing the course book lesson, adding activities and exercises to the course book, or adapting what is in the book (Harmer, 2007:146-147).

Also, Ur, (1996:189) suggested that “most commercially produced materials can be adapted to fit a range of needs and goals not originally envisaged by the materials writers”. According to Tomlinson (1998:196), material adaptation is “making changes to materials in order to improve them or to make them more suitable for a particular type of learners.”

When using a textbook, a relationship between teacher, learner and textbook is inevitably build. This relationship can be shown in different ways:

Points of view on using course books, authentic materials

The books seem to appeal both to the teacher and learners. They provide the teacher with colourful illustrations for topic introduction and discussion, task-based activities, step-by-step instructions for novice teachers as well as insight into activities for experienced teachers, suggestions for authentic material, additional exercises and readings supplements, and testing and assessment material.

“One of the major concerns is that any given course book will be incapable of catering to the diversity of the needs which exists in most language classrooms.” (Nunan, 1991: 209)

Therefore, according to (Stern, 1992: 260),

“There is a need for the teacher to consider the learner as a person, but equally a need for the learner to come to terms with himself, and try to understand his own strengths and weaknesses.”

The books also appear to increase and enhance, “the amount of initiative and control which learners are allowed to exercise and the extent to which they are active participants in the learning process.” (Nunan, 1991: 210) Since “for most learners it is important to recreate their own identity in the second language,” (Stern, 1992: 190) the course books’ choice of topics may, therefore, capitalize on learner’s prior knowledge and motivate them to communicate in the target language. Breen, (1989: 198) supports this idea pointing out that “Interest, relevance, or helpfulness of content seem to be very important to learners in making the learning process meaningful and manageable.”

Hence the books appear to “be so designed and organized that a great deal of improvisation and adaptation by both teacher and class is possible.” (O’Neill, 1982: 152)

McDonough and Shaw, (1993: 71) contend “some textbooks… are very well researched and written but are so cluttered with information on every page that teachers/learners find them practically unusable.” However, these course books appear to be clearly presented and formatted for teachers and learners. Each speaking dialogue is clearly highlighted in yellow with a response/expression/vocabulary alternative column next to it. Listening activities are generally highlighted in purple if they contain written text or present clear representative photos if they require selection or sequencing. Moreover, the books are also neatly bound and have good quality glossy paper, which “means they are easy to carry and to look at where and when the learner wants to.” (O’Neill, 1982: 152)

Nunan, (1991: 210) points out that, “The way materials are organised and presented, as well as the types of content and activities, will help to shape the learner’s view of language.” The books offer a variety of topics such as considerations for learning, stress and solutions, values, and challenges. This is “one of the most obvious ways in which materials may offer opportunities for additional learning,” (Littlejohn and Windeatt, 1989: 157) because it may enable learners to ponder additional aspects of learning than those expected from the materials. In addition, “for most learners it is important to recreate their own identity in the second language” (Stern, 1992:190) so the course book topics may enable learners to more comfortably discuss and learn about situations or interests, because they involve the learners’ teaching backgrounds and/or personalities.

As maintained by (Littlejohn and Windeatt, 1989: 162),

“In that most FLT materials are normally organised into ‘units’ or ‘lessons’ with a repetitive pattern of sub-sections labelled according to the content or type of activity involved, learners may see learning a foreign language as involving the development of abilities in the specified content areas or activity types.”

According to Stubbs in (Littlejohn and Windeatt, 1989: 165), in some teaching situations the teacher has control over classroom discourse and learners take a passive role in the learning process. Stubbs then claims that in these situations, “education consists of listening to an adult talking and answering his or her questions”.

McDonough and Shaw, (1993:69) point out that course books over the last decade claim to include large amounts of learner involvement in the learning process. Moreover, according to (Low, 1989: 142),

“If the designer is justifying the material explicitly on the grounds that it relates to what people do and think when they use language, as is commonly the case with ‘communicative’ courses, then there is likely to be an attempt to make the unit task-based in some way.”

Discussing what a good course book is, (Harmer, 2007:144) wrote, with a good course book, there is a strong possibility that the language, content and sequencing in the book will be appropriate, and that the topics and treatment of the different language skills will be attractive. As a result, the teacher will want to go ahead and use what is in the book. (Harmer, 2007:146)

Therefore, good exploitation of the textbooks or materials is very necessary because “exploitation is the creative use of what is already there (e.g. text, visual, activity) to serve a purpose which is additional to that foreseen by the textbook writer” (McGrath, 2002:65). “Teachers need strategies for working with the book open and closed.” “Teachers also need specific strategies for handling course book presentation material, practice material, and skills development material”. (Davies and Pearse, 2000: 150).

In contrast, if the course book is not appropriate for a particular group of students, the teachers have four alternatives to consider. They are omitting lessons from course book, replacing the course book lesson, adding activities and exercises to the course book, or adapting what is in the book (Harmer, 2007:146-147).

Also, (Ur, 1996:189) suggested that “most commercially produced materials can be adapted to fit a range of needs and goals not originally envisaged by the materials writers”. According to Tomlinson, (1998), material adaptation is “making changes to materials in order to improve them or to make them more suitable for a particular type of learners.”

Maley, (1998: 281-283) advised that teachers can “use some or all of the following strategies to make the published course bearable, or more effective:”

“Give it a rest”: Teachers introduce additional material to restore interest or supply light relief such as songs, rhymes, games, cartoons, off-air recordings, video clips, etc.

“Change it”: Teachers can adapt materials by using several options such as omission, addition, reduction, extension, rewriting/ modification, replacement, re-ordering, branching.

“Do it yourself”: Teachers can use “Scissors and Paste” and “the process option”.

Concisely, there is no book perfect in itself or for a particular learning situation. The teachers have to know how to make a textbook work by exploiting, adapting and supplementing it in some way to meet their own specific learners and teaching situation (Davies and Pearse, 2000:150).

When bringing authentic materials into the classroom, it should always be done with a purpose, as highlighted by Senior “…we need to have a clear pedagogic goal in mind: what precisely we want our students to learn from these materials.” (Senior, 2005:71). Students feel more confident, more secure when handling authentic materials as long as the teacher gives them with pedagogical support. Authentic materials should be used in accordance with students' ability, with suitable tasks being given in which total understanding is not important. In order to overcome the problems created by difficult authentic texts, one solution is to simplify them according to the level of the learner. This can be done by removing any difficult words or structures but this can also remove basic discourse qualities, making the text “less” authentic.

The basic parameters to consider when simplifying a text are:

Another possible solution is to give text related tasks. They are three basic types:

The materials selected for classroom use can be defined in a number of ways.

Here are some opinions on ELT materials.

“Materials are, in fact, an essential element within the curriculum, and do more than simply lubricate the wheels of learning. At their best they provide concrete models of desirable classroom practice, they act as curriculum models, and at their very best they fulfill a teacher development role. Good materials also provide models for teachers to follow in developing their own materials. “(Nunan, 1988:249)

"…One cannot deny the usefulness of course books and the materials they contain. They have usually entailed an enormous amount of expertise, time and effort to produce, and the material is extensively researched and trialled before being published. “(Wild, 1991:108)

"…It is possible to provide effective and accountable language teaching without using a course book…, the objectives and content of each course being negotiated amongst the participants." (Fitzpatrick, 1995:225)

"The textbook will continue to play an important role, but it will not be a tyrant." (Williams, 1988:89)

"External or imposed materials can be made internal to the learners by creative involvement in the adaptation process.”(Clarke, 1989:59)

"By selecting a text with a content which can be personalized to the students' interests, the teacher can more readily provide opportunities for real language practice.” (Chastain, 1976:78)

Principles in assessing materials

In assessing materials we have to bear in mind some general principles. Here is a list of such principles: (Bălan, 2003:270)

There are different and varied reasons for materials assessment. Here are some of them:

to select a new course book to use, which is a major and frequent reason for evaluation;

to identify particular strengths and weakness in course books already in use, so that teachers could make most of the strong points and/or could strengthen the weaker parts of the course book by adapting, adding or substituting materials from other sources. This type of evaluation is done by comparison with other course books, therefore a standard procedure and a common set of criteria should be applied;

to enhance teacher development by giving teachers useful insights into the nature of different materials ;

to promote a range of published materials.

Tomlinson, (1998:7-21) suggested a set of 16 principles and each of which was discussed in detail. These principles are very valuable when they are explained and demonstrated with the examples to indicate how they could be applied. Among above principles, some principles relate to language learning and the others are about the general beliefs in learning and satisfy the need of learner differences and facilitation.

According to (McGrath, 2002:154), (Nunan, 1988b:1) showed how the principles were realised in a particular set of material”, but his remarkable principles attaches special importance to the curriculum and the latter pays attention to developing learners’ ability in their learning strategies and learning autonomy.

Next, (Nunan, 1988a:99) reported that in a learner-centred approach, experienced teacher found the more useful materials with the following characteristics:

The materials can be exploited in a variety of ways;

The materials should reflect the outside world (authenticity of text and task);

The materials should foster independent learning by making the learners “more aware of the learning process” (e.g. building self-evaluation and assessment into the tasks);

The materials should be suitable for mixed groups of learners with different proficiency levels and preferred learning styles;

The materials should act as a model for teachers to develop their own variations.

The materials should also reflect the sociocultural context within which they be used.

Rossner, (1988:143), discussing teacher’s expectations of materials, sees the impact of communicative principles as being most clearly visible in the following. Material will:

provide ‘comprehensive input’ for generalised rehearsal of skills and ‘activation’ of learners’ interlanguage repertoire;

raise learners’ awareness about language, communication, learning, etc.;

provide experiences of communication in the new language similar or parallel to those likely to be encountered beyond the learning situation. (McGrath, 2002: 155)

Hutchinson and Walters’, (1987:107) approach to the formulation of principles, like that of Rossner, is to start from intended effect of the materials, or as they put it, ‘what materials are supposed to do. Their principles are paraphrased below. Material should:

act as a stimulus to learning (e.g. texts are interesting; there are opportunities for learners to use their existing knowledge and skills; both teacher and learners can cope with the context);

help to organise the teaching-learning process (e.g. there should be a clear and coherence structure which help the teacher to plan lessons and learners to feel a sense of progress and achievement, but the structure should not be so rigid that monotony results);

embody a view of the nature of teaching and learning (i.e. reflect the beliefs of the writer);

reflect the nature of the learning task – in this case, language learning (i.e. represent the complexity of language learning but also its manageability);

provide models of correct and appropriate language use. (McGrath, 2002:155)

Bell and Gower, (1998:122-125) “decided on a set of key principles in details when they wrote a coursebook”. Here are the headings of the principles: Flexibility, From text to language, Engaging content, Natural language, Analytic approaches, Emphasis on review, Personalised practice, Integrated skills, Balance of approaches, Learner development, and Professional respect.

In addition, according to (Crawford, 2002:84-87), effective teaching materials included the following characteristics:

Language is functional and must be contextualised

Language development requires learner engagement in purposeful use of language

The language used should be realistic and authentic

Classroom materials will usually seek to include an audio visual component

In our modern, technologically complex world, second language learners need to develop the ability to deal with written as well as spoken genres

Effective teaching materials foster learner autonomy

Materials need to be flexible enough to cater to individual and contextual differences

Learning needs to engage learners both affectively and cognitively

Fenner and Newby, (2000:78) also raised the relationship between autonomy and textbooks. For instance, “by adhering to certain principles in the texts and tasks provided, the book can assist and promote an approach to self-directed learning”.

Tomlinson, (2010:90) incorporate the above views into three principles of materials development:

Make sure the texts and tasks are as interesting, relevant, and enjoyable as possible so as to exert a positive influence on the learners’ attitudes to the language and to the process of learning it.

Set achievable challenges, which help to raise the learners’ self-esteem when success is accomplished.

Stimulate emotive responses through the use of music, song, literature, art, and so on, through making use of controversial and provocative texts, through personalization, and through inviting learners to articulate their feelings about a text before asking them to analyze it.

In a nutshell, although different theorists state many principles of course books design and materials development, most of them have the some common principles. Firstly, the materials should meet the learners’ differences and facilitate the learners’ learning. Moreover, materials ought to be authentic and make learner feel at ease or feel interested. In addition, the materials have to develop language skills to the outside world beyond classroom. Besides, the materials should encourage learner autonomy. However, not many theorists discussed about course books design and materials development related to curriculum and syllabus.

Guidelines

In the context of a very large and varied offer of course books publishers do their best in promoting their products by pointing out very attractive features, which may make teachers' choice even more difficult in absence of any guidelines. In addition to the general principles here are some guidelines we think may be useful to you when evaluating a course book. (Bălan, 2003:271)

Course books should reflect the uses which learners will make of the language for their own purposes. Consequently, teachers should look beyond what is going on in class and anticipate the use which learners will make in real life of what they have learned in class.

Course books should facilitate the learning process without imposing a rigid method, they should take into account the diversity of individual learning styles and develop effective individual strategies. The approach adopted by a course book towards learning strategies may not be always explicit but certain learning styles and strategies will be promoted in the book explicitly or implicitly and it is important that these are identified by the teacher.

Alan Cunningworth, (1995) in his book entitled Choosing your Course book mentions two ways of approaching the matter of selecting a course book, the impressionistic overview, and the in-depth evaluation.

The impressionistic overview gives you a general impression of a course book, when looking quickly through it, noting significant features. "This is what most of us would do when sample copies of a new course book land on our desk (…). This kind of impressionistic overview gives us a general introduction to the material." It cannot give us enough details or very reliable information to ensure the right course book in terms of suitability of the content and methodology of the course book to the concrete teaching situation.

The in-depth evaluation gives more detailed information on the course book as a result of a close examination of specific features and of how particular items are dealt with "particularly those which relate to students' learning needs, syllabus requirements and how different aspects of language are dealt with".

The in-depth approach is characterized by "its active nature". As Cunningworth says, "we actively seek out information about the material in line with an agenda that we have already decided on. The impressionistic approach is more receptive in that we look for anything that is noteworthy and interesting".

Alan Cunningworth invites teachers to combine the two approaches and by doing this to form a "sound basis for evaluation and for ensuing choice of the most suitable course book".

Teacher designed materials may range from one-off, single use items to extensive programmes of work where the tasks and activities build on each other to create a coherent progression of skills, concepts and language items. The guidelines that follow may act as a useful framework for teachers as they navigate the range of factors and variables to develop materials for their own teaching situations. The guidelines are offered as just that – guidelines – not rules to be rigidly applied or adhered to. While not all the guidelines will be relevant or applicable in all materials design scenarios, overall they provide for coherent design and materials which enhance the learning experience.

Guideline 1: English language teaching materials should be contextualised

Firstly, the materials should be contextualised to the curriculum they are intended to address (Nunan, 1988:1–2). It is essential during the design stages that the objectives of the curriculum, syllabus or scheme within the designer’s institution are kept to the fore. This is not to suggest that materials design should be solely determined by a list of course specifications or by large inventories of vocabulary that need to be imparted, but these are certainly among the initial considerations.

Materials should also be contextualised to the experiences, realities and first languages of the learners. An important part of this involves an awareness on the part of the teacher-designer of the “socio-cultural appropriacy” (Jolly & Bolitho, 1998:111) of things such as the designer’s own style of presenting material, of arranging groups, and so on. It is essential the materials designer is informed about the culture-specific learning processes of the intended learners, and for many groups this may mean adjusting the intended balance of what teachers may regard as more enjoyable activities and those of a more serious nature. Materials should link explicitly to what the learners already know, to their first languages and cultures, and very importantly, should alert learners to any areas of significant cultural difference.

In addition, materials should be contextualised to topics and themes that provide meaningful, purposeful uses for the target language. Wherever possible, these should be chosen on the basis of their relevance and appropriateness for the intended learners, to ensure personal engagement and to provide motivation for dipping further into the materials. For some ages and stages the topics may well be ‘old faithfuls’, such as money, family and holidays. Part of the mission for the materials designer is “to find new angles on those topics” (Bell & Gower, 1998:123) and having done that, to develop activities which will ensure purposeful production of the target language or skills. When producing materials for one-off use with smaller groups, additional student engagement can be achieved by allowing students to ‘star’ in the passages and texts that have been designed specifically for them.

Guideline 2: Materials should stimulate interaction and be generative in terms of language

Hall, (1995:9) states that “most people who learn to communicate fluently in a language which is not their L1 do so by spending a lot of time in situations where they have to use the language for some real communicative purpose”. Ideally, language-teaching materials should provide situations that demand the same; situations where learners need to interact with each other regularly in a manner that reflects the type of interactions they will engage in outside of the classroom. Hall outlines three conditions he believes are necessary to stimulate real communication: these are the need to “have something we want to communicate”, “someone to communicate with”, and, perhaps most importantly, “some interest in the outcome of the communication”. Nunan, (1988:8) refers to this as the “learning by doing philosophy”, and suggests procedures such as information gap and information transfer activities, which can be used to ensure that interaction is necessary.

Language learning will be maximally enhanced if materials designers are able to acknowledge the communication challenges inherent in an interactive teaching approach and address the different norms of interaction, such as preferred personal space, for example, directly within their teaching materials.

Effective learning frequently involves learners in explorations of new linguistic terrain, and interaction can often be the medium for providing the ‘stretch’ that is necessary for ongoing language development. Materials designers should ensure their materials allow sufficient scope for their learners to be ‘stretched’ at least some of the time, to build on from what is provided to generate new language, and to progress beyond surface fluency to proficiency and confidence.

Guideline 3: English language teaching materials should encourage learners to develop learning skills and strategies

It is impossible for teachers to teach their learners all the language they need to know in the short time that they are in the classroom. In addition to teaching valuable new language skills, it is essential that language teaching materials also teach their target learners how to learn, and that they help them to take advantage of language learning opportunities outside the classroom. Hall, (1995:12) stresses the importance of providing learners with the confidence to persist in their attempts to find solutions when they have initial difficulties in communicating. To this end, strategies such as rewording and using facial expressions and body language effectively can be fine-tuned with well designed materials. (http://educendika.blogspot.ro/2011/12/guidelines-for-designing-effective.)

In addition, materials can provide valuable opportunities for self-evaluation by providing the necessary metalanguage and incorporating activities which encourage learners to assess their own learning and language development. This can utilise the learners’ first language as well as English. Some EFL course books, such as (Ellis & Sinclair, 1989:52), also build in exercises for students to explore their own learning styles and strategies.

Learners’ needs

Course books should correspond to learners' needs. They should match the aims and objectives of the approved syllabus or of the language-learning programme in terms of language content, skills and communicative strategies. It is very important that course books should facilitate learners' progress and take them forward as effectively as possible towards achieving the objectives. (Bălan, 2003:271)

Learner-generated materials are a rich source for any teacher. They closely reflect students' needs and interests. They turn students into direct partners of the teacher and, appropriately used, they may enhance their motivation and progress.

Alternative stories mentioned above are such learner-generated materials. Other examples of learner-generated materials are:

transcripts of conversations on different topics, which can be done either by teacher or by a class scribe on large chart or on the board. In the first case they can be used in a sequence of classes for developing language awareness, for error correction sessions, or language clinics, for designing remedial tasks, or for teaching functions, expanding vocabulary, etc.;

homework, which may also be turned into teaching material;

skits, or short sketches/improvisations on different topics/situations, can be successfully exploited in class to improve both writing and speaking. The teacher may check the accuracy of such productions beforehand or may ask the rest of the students, the audience, to identify possible errors (lexical choice, structures, appropiacy of register, pronunciation, etc).

There has been and still is a lot of indication nowadays that students’ influence is rather limited when it comes to the choice of material and method of working in the English classroom. And this is the case despite the fact that according to the Swedish syllabus concerning English as a subject every student has a responsibility for his or her language acquisition (Eriksson & Jacobsson 2001:8).

The most important thing teachers can do in (Woodward’s, 2001:16) view is to get to know their students. The reason for this is obvious; the more teachers can find out about their learners, the more information they have to help them to make choices in topics and material. Students can be involved in the decisions as well; they can be asked about what topics and materials they are interested in (Woodward’s, 2001:16).

Eriksson and Jacobsson, (2001:9) claim that students experience increased motivation and more efficient acquisition if teachers give them more influence on what method and material to use. Tornberg, (2001:46) points out that there are good reasons to believe that if students for example are allowed to decide the topic of a conversation themselves and they are in control of the course of it, their motivation and engagement in the conversation can be influenced in a positive way. Furthermore, it makes sense that students experience their acquisition as more meaningful if they participate in the planning process and consider for themselves what goals to achieve. In addition, if students are included in the decision making, the teach-ing stands a better chance of being individualised because who knows better what level to work at than the students themselves (Eriksson and Jacobsson, 2001:9)? However, as many teachers have experienced, it is not always possible to observe every single student’s needs.

Most teachers agree that it is sensible to include students in the planning process, mainly because of the reasons mentioned above. However, adding students in the process does not always work out satisfactorily. Teachers might meet resistance from their students because some of them are frustrated and anxious when they have to make their own decisions, where as others have difficulties in getting started and planning what, how and when to do it. Consequently, some students could be very reluctant to taking responsibility for their acquisition. In addition, there are always students who seize the opportunity of making as little effort as possible. Even students who have positive attitudes towards making their own decisions about what and how to learn, might feel lost if they do not know what is expected of them. Moreover, it makes it even more difficult for a teacher if the colleagues do not believe in including students in the process; therefore support from fellow teachers could be very important (Eriksson and Jacobsson, 2001:9).

Advantages and disadvantages of using course books

First and foremost, textbooks provide a readily available source of English Learning Teaching materials for teachers to focus on doing the real work of teaching, and not having their energy dispersed by preparation of teaching material (Edge & Wharton, 1998:59). The way textbook chapters are designed and structured can provide a blueprint of how lessons shall be conducted (Hutchinson&Torres, 1994:58).

Textbooks can also serve as a tool to motivate and stimulate language learning. In a learning environment in which learners are motivated and positive about their learning environment, the speed of language acquisition can be greatly enhanced, making language learning more effective (Tomlinson, 2008:5). Secondly, textbooks can serve as a reference point for teachers managing their teaching progress, and also help to provide a focus for teaching.

One of the major motivations in using textbooks in the ELT environment is that textbooks can serve as a good monitor for measuring progress of teaching and learning. Textbooks can have similar function of a map, showing the teaching progress (McGrath, 2002, O’Neil, 1982, Ur, 1996) and can provide for direction and ideas in how lessons can be delivered. They are effective tools in terms of allowing for carefully planned and systematic presentation of the syllabus of an ELT program (Ur, 1996:125) and can facilitate curriculum change (McGrath, 2002:96). Thirdly, textbooks are particularly useful in providing support and security for new inexperienced teachers, who have relatively low confidence to deliver ELT lessons in a communicative way (Edge &Wharton, 1998, Mares, 2003, Tomlinson, 2008, Ur, 1996). A good textbook can be an extremely valuable ELT device, especially in situations where interesting and motivating authentic materials are difficult to compile in an organized manner (McDonough & Shaw, 1993:48).

Students can also benefit from using textbooks in many different ways. Similar to the case of teachers, textbooks can act as a reference point for their learning process and keep track of their development. Students can use the textbook as a tool for revision of previously taught items, and at the same time, familiarize themselves with the new items that will be taught soon. Textbooks are also one of the more economic and convenient forms of access to carefully structured packaged learning materials (Ur, 1996:126). According to (Cunningsworth, 1995:125), textbooks provide additional benefits to students as they are an efficient collection of materials for self-accessed learning and for knowledge consolidation. Textbooks can also potentially save learners from teacher’s incompetency and deficiencies (Litz, 2005:88).

One of the advantages as suggested by (Hutchinson, 1994:95) was that textbooks can provide a basic framework on how a lesson can be delivered. In reality, many teachers would, therefore, develop reliance on the textbook and become uncreative in teaching (Tomlinson 2008, Ur 1996) and uncritical of content and values portrayed any textbook (McGrath, 2002:45). Although textbooks can function as a framework for the learning and teaching process for both students and teachers, no textbook can effectively address individual learning styles, differences of learners, and the requirements of every classroom setting (Tomlinson 2003, Ur 1996). At its worst, the teacher may become totally reliant on the textbook (Ur 1996), and not spend time preparing their lessons (Tomlinson, 2008:56). This would ultimately lead to an adverse situation which the teacher “teaches the book” rather than teaching the language itself (McGrath, 2002:76).

Some teachers have a very poor opinion of course books. They say they are boring, stifling (for both teacher and students) and often inappropriate for the class in front of them. Such people would prefer to rely on their own ideas, snippets from reference books, pages from magazines, ideas from the students themselves and a variety of other sources.

Other teachers feel much more positive about course books. For them, course books provide good teaching material which is often attractively presented. The course book has been carefully researched and has a consistent grammar syllabus as well as providing appropriate vocabulary exposure and practice, together with pronunciation work and writing tasks. Good course books have a range of reading and listening material and workbooks, for example, to back them up (to say nothing of Internet tie-ins and other extras). It takes less time to prepare a good course book lesson than to start from the beginning each time and prepare brand new material; however ideal such freshness might be, many teachers simply do not have the time to prepare and plan as much as they would like to. (Harmer, 2007:152)

A growing body of research examines the advantages of using a course book. In the relevant literature the following positive outcomes of the effective exploitation of course books in the English classroom are mentioned:

Apart from the above benefits, course books provide structure and a syllabus for a program, they help standardize instruction, maintain quality, provide a variety of learning resources, are efficient because they save teachers' time, can provide effective language models and input, and are usually visually appealing and attractive for students. Furthermore, they can provide the initial framework which can be adapted by teachers to suit the needs and learning style of students. Empirical research in ELT settings has provided strong evidence that course books can provide practice activities, a structured language program for teachers to follow, present language models, and information about the language (Richards, Tung, and Ng, 1992).

Despite the above undeniable benefits of course books, however, course books have also been criticized for the following reasons.

Among the main negative effects of the use of course books is that they may contain inauthentic language, may distort content, they may not satisfy students' needs and they may be expensive to buy.

The advantages and disadvantages of using course books can be summarized as follows:

Summarising the above research findings, it should be noted that both the benefits and limitations of the use of course books need to be considered in the critical process of course book selection for the teaching of English as a second or foreign language. If the course books that are being used in a program are judged to have some negative consequences (e.g. they do not stimulate the students; interest, and/or they contain a few authentic reading texts), remedial action should be taken, e.g. by adapting or supplementing books or by providing appropriate guidance and support for teachers in how to use them appropriately.

Adapting course books

It is a generally accepted truth that there is no perfect course book which could suit any learning/teaching context. Every learning/teaching situation is unique and depends on a series of factors such as the learners' personalities and the group dynamics, the constraints imposed by the syllabus, the type of programme, number of hours, the motivation of learners, their expectations and experience, the availabilities of resources and the teacher's experience. (Bălan, 2003: 275)

When you decide to adapt Course books for any of the possible reasons, you need to be aware of your students' needs, interests, learning styles and motivation.

You also need to be aware of what they find easy or difficult so as to keep a balance between challenging and doable. Given these requirements, materials adaptation can turn into a worthwhile activity, able to give a personal note to a course book, to raise and maintain students' motivation for learning or to provide them with some kind of support for their learning.

In his book, Making the Most of Your Textbook, the author Grant (1991) suggests four alternatives when the teacher reaches the conclusion that the textbook is not appropriate:

omitting some parts of the material, which happens quite often when teachers adopt a "pick and choose" approach to the materials they use. This alternative may solve the problem of inappropriacy or irrelevance of the materials for a certain group of students. Sometimes it may be a way for the teacher to cope when the materials are too complex. Omitting should be done with full responsibility on the part of the teacher and following a careful analysis of the consequences. There are course books in which there are materials marked as optional and in this case the teacher's task is much easier when omitting is dictated by the degree of difficulty or by the amount of the material;

replacing materials with something more suitable. This may be done at the level of both content and/or method. If the course book is lacking in a particular area or deals with the area in a manner which is not suitable to the particular teaching context, the alternative is to replace parts of the course book with materials from other sources or with materials made by the teacher himself/herself. This way the course book keeps being the main support for learners;

adding is an alternative meant to improve teaching materials, to extend learners engagement with the language or topic and not to overload them. It is done to give learners more opportunities to develop their language and communicative skills and keep them motivated for learning. The advantage of this alternative is that it makes use of the strengths of the course book but it combines them with the teacher's own creativity and sense of his/her class.

adapting / changing either the content or the method or both. In this case the basic material in the textbook is kept (for example a text) but it is used creatively by the teacher so as to make it possible' to achieve the objectives stated in the syllabus. This alternative is mainly adopted by teachers who use traditional books in the absence of communicative ones.

An essential skill for teachers is to be able to adapt the course books they use in their classrooms so as to cater for their students’ level of language development, and to address weaknesses of the course books. Through the process of adaptation the teacher a) personalizes the text making it a better teaching resource, and b) individualizes it for a particular group of foreign language learners. Normally this process takes place gradually as the teacher becomes more familiar with the book since the dimensions of the text which need adaptation may not be apparent until the book is tried out in the classroom.

It is therefore virtually impossible for a given course book to be used without some form of adaptation. Adapting the course book is almost inevitable in the English classroom because a course book is not designed and written with a particular classroom of students in mind, and as a result, it may contain materials and tasks that the teacher feels are not suitable for his/her teaching situation.

As a result, teachers will almost certainly need to adapt the course book, after taking into account:

a) the specific needs and experiences of their students,

b) the general context in which the course book will be used, and

c) material constraints (e.g. they may not be able to choose expensive course books).

This adaptation may take a variety of forms. For example, teachers may choose the following types of adaptations to the course book they use:

The text may omit items that the teacher feels are important. For example a teacher may add vocabulary activities or grammar activities to a unit.

In the following three examples, we are going to show how course book material can be used differently by teachers. However, it is not being suggested that any of these course book extracts have anything wrong with them. Our examples are designed only to show that there are always other ways of doing things even when the original material is perfectly good. (Harmer, 2007: 147-148)

Example 1: adapting and adding (elementary)

In the following example, students are working with a course book called New Cutting Edge Elementary by Sarah Cunningham and Peter Moor. They have just read a text called 'Amazing facts about the natural world' which includes such statistics as the fact that we share our birthdays with about 18 million other people in the world, we eat about 8 kilos of dirt in our lifetimes, donkeys kill more people than plane crashes do, elephants can't jump, the Arctic Tern does a 22,000-mile trip to the Antarctic every year, etc. After discussing the text they make sentences with 'can' and 'can't' about these facts, e.g. 'Elephants can't jump', 'Pigs can't look at the sky', 'Kangaroos can't walk backwards', etc.

They now look at the following page (see page 161) which shifts the focus towards various question words (how long, how fast, etc), and not only includes a grammar description and a practice activity where students have to choose the right question word or phrase, but also a short quiz referring back to the 'amazing facts' text they have read (the unit continues with more question practice designed for pair work).

There is absolutely nothing wrong with the page we are illustrating. On the contrary, it is bright and well conceived. But for whatever reason, we may decide to adapt what the authors have suggested, even adding more material of our own. We could, for example, adapt the quiz by having individual students each choose an animal (perhaps after looking up information in an encyclopedia or on the Internet). They don't tell their classmates which animal they have chosen. The class then tries to find out which animals different individuals have chosen by asking questions such as 'How fast can you run?', 'How big are you?', 'Which countries do you live in?', 'How far do you travel?', 'Is there anything you can't do?'

(source: Harmer, 2007:148)

Alternatively, we might decide to get the students to look back at the text and write their own questions, and then divide the class into two teams. They fire their questions at the opposing team who have to give as many correct answers as possible within a time limit.

Another adaptation, which will appeal to those students who respond well to kinaesthetic stimuli, is to write questions and answers on different pieces of paper. Students take a question card or an answer card and have to 'mill around' finding the student who has the answer to their question, or vice versa.

We could also adapt the quiz by turning it into the kind of interview' which can be found in many magazines. In this case, however, students are not interviewing a celebrity, but one of the animals from the text (elephants, kangaroos, ants, etc).

Students write interview questions and send them to other students, who answer as if they were the animal they have chosen; they can answer as seriously, comically or facetiously as they want. They can write their questions on a piece of paper, leaving space for the answers, and then 'send' them to the student (animal) they wish to interview, they can use photocopies of blank 'email windows' to simulate a typical email exchange, or they can, of course, send their questions via email if this is available.

None of the activities suggested here are better than the ones in the course book; they are simply different. Indeed, these activities may not appeal to some teachers at all, which is exactly the point. It is up to individual teachers and their students to decide how and when to use different sections of a course book. (Harmer, 2007: 149)

Example 2: adding (intermediate)

Most course books have word lists, sometimes at the back of the book, sometimes at the end of a unit or a section. These are usually ignored, except by some students who often write inaccurate translations of the words. Teachers seldom touch them. Yet here is a chance to add to what the course book provides in enjoyable and useful ways.

The following word list occurs after three lessons of intermediate material.

There are a number of things that we can do with such an apparently static piece of text. They fall into three categories: personal engagement, word formation and word games.

Personal engagement: the teacher can ask students to discuss questions like 'Which words have a positive meaning for you?' and 'Which words have a negative meaning for you?' (Notice that we are asking them about their own personal reaction to these words.) (Harmer, 2007: 150)

The teacher can ask students to list their five favourite words from the list – words that appeal to them because of their meaning, sound, spelling, etc. They then have to explain to the class why they have chosen those particular words. We can go further and ask students which five words they would most like to take to a desert island, and why. This demands that they think a bit laterally, but they might decide to take 'protection', for example, because of the sun or 'beautiful' because beautiful islands are better than ugly ones! We can ask students to predict which words will be most useful for them in the future. We can even hold a word auction where students have to bid for the words they most want to buy.

The teacher can ask whether any of the words look or sound like words in their language and whether they mean the same. This is especially useful for Romance languages.

We can ask students which words they find easy to pronounce and which they find difficult. The moment we ask them questions like this, we are, in a sense, saying that these words belong not to the teacher or the book, but to the students themselves.

Word formation: we can ask a number of questions about how the words (in any list) are constructed. Students can be asked to make a list of words which are stressed on the first, second or third syllables. They can be asked how many of the adjectives can be changed into verbs and/or what endings the verbs would need if they were changed into adjectives. They can be asked to identify compound words (made up from two words – e.g. 'dark-skinned', 'skin cancer', 'suntanned') and say how they are formed. There are many other possible activities here: students can make contrary meanings by adding 'un-' or 'in-', for example, give adjectives a comparative form, decide which of the verbs are 'regular' and what sound their past tense endings make, etc. In each case, using a word list reminds students of some of the rules governing words and their grammar. (Harmer, 2007: 150)

Word games: there is almost no limit to the games we can play with a collection of words from the wordlist. We can ask students to make tabloid headlines from the list (e.g. 'Attractive doctor in dramatic motorway experience!'). The word list can be used for 'expansion', too, by giving the students a sentence like 'The man kissed the woman' and asking them to expand it using as many words from the list as they can (together with any necessary grammar words). Can anyone make a longer sentence than 'The attractive fair-haired man with dramatic but elegant suntanned freckles kissed the fascinating pretty flight attendant in front of the dangerous woman on the motorway'?

The words can be written on cards which are then put into a hat. When a student pulls one of the cards out of the hat, they have to make up a good sentence on the spot with the word on the card. Students can write correct and incorrect definitions for the different words. Opposing teams then have to guess which the correct definitions are and which are false. We can ask students to design word bingo cards with some of the words. They then read out sentences, omitting a word and other students have to cross off the word on their cards which they think will go in the gap. Some modern course books include activities like this, but many do not. In such circumstances, there is almost no limit to the kinds of activity we can add to the list to make it dynamic and engaging. As a result, students have a good chance of remembering more of the words than they otherwise might have done.

Example 3: replacing (pre-intermediate)

In the following example (from a course book for teenagers), a reading text is part of a longer unit which concentrates on the past simple and includes biographical information, a functional dialogue about apologies (Tin sorry I'm late') and listening and activity pages. Students are asked to complete a chart with information about the dates 1870, 1883, 1892 and 1950 by reading the following text:

(Source: Harmer, 2007: 151)

The course book then encourages the students to ask as many questions about Burton Holmes as possible.

There are a number of options for using this text. We could try to make it more engaging by having students work in pairs where one of them plays the role of Burton Holmes and the other is an interviewer. We could blank out words in the text, or cut the text up into paragraphs which students have to rearrange. Students could search the Internet for further information about Burton Holmes (although at their level this might prove difficult), or we could do a search ourselves and come up with more facts about the man.

But it is equally possible that we do not want to use this text because we do not think it has sufficient potential for interesting our students. We will need to replace it, then, with an appropriate text (or activities) that fit in with the course book unit. We could, for example, bring in some of our own photographs and then show students a text (photocopied, or on an OHT) which describes one of them. The students have to decide which one it is. We can ask students to bring in a photo of their own, for which they will have prepared a narrative (where it was taken, what happened, etc). We could show a student famous 'event' pictures and ask them to say what they think is happening before giving them an oral or written description. Perhaps we could ask them to judge a competition for the best photograph from a set of four or five though this will be fairly demanding at this level. (Harmer, 2007: 152)

Of course, it may be that we don't want to deal with the topic of photography. We could instead look for any biographical text or information that we think students will be interested in – a singer or other celebrity, or someone famous from the students' own culture – and offer material about that person.

There is almost no limit to the ways in which we can replace course book excerpts. However, as we have said above, we will need to decide how much and how often we wish to replace in this way.

Gabrielatos, (2000:69) argues that the adaptation of the course book can take the following forms: a) teachers may omit materials and tasks included in a course book, b) teachers may re-order/combine materials and tasks included in a course book, c) teachers may replace materials and tasks included in a course book, and d) teachers may add materials and tasks. For instance, he argues that teachers may choose to omit or modify materials and/or tasks for the following reasons:

Traditional course books

The textbook is a teaching tool in which “the teaching material is given scientifically and accessible according to the curriculum of each subject”. (Johnsen, 1993:24) The textbook is one of the most important sources of knowledge. It contains the most important skills that students should acquire by the prescribed curriculum. The lessons in it are logically systematized, that is distributed on the basis of cause-and-effect relationship. Lecture by teachers and text books complement each other.

The concept of textbook can be most completely defined as “each teaching tool or a combination of teaching aids) that contains systematized knowledge in some areas which are didactically configured for a certain level of education and a certain age of students, to have developmental and formative role and participate in the construction of students ‘knowledge’ ”. (Johnsen, 1993:58) Regarding language, the textbooks should be written in a concise, easily accessible and picturesque language. The methodological side of textbooks must be systematically arranged, logically structured into chapters and sections, accompanied by pictorial texts and drawings, and so that the illustrated and textual materials there are organic unity.

McDonough and Shaw, (1993: 69) point out that course books over the last decade claim to include large amounts of learner involvement in the learning process. Moreover, according to (Low, 1989: 142), “If the designer is justifying the material explicitly on the grounds that it relates to what people do and think when they use language, as is commonly the case with ‘communicative’ courses, then there is likely to be an attempt to make the unit task-based in some way.”

Low, (1989: 139-140) describes unmodified traditional course design as beginning with a reading or listening passage followed by “a set of comprehension questions and/or repetitions of the text, plus short grammatical drills.” This design may not give learners variety and interest in the course. In addition, traditional structures of text passages at the beginning of a unit may not enable learners to be “trained in the language and in ‘text attack’ strategies, [instead learners] are simply tested on how far they already understand the passage and on whether they can use a dictionary.” (Low, 1989: 141)

Traditional textbooks have all or most of these characteristics:

The main problem with these books is that they do not provide students with opportunities to communicate in class and to assume risks, in other words, they do not get them trained for communication in the real world. It is the teacher who has the duty of reducing the disadvantage of using traditional textbooks. (Bălan, 2003:277)

A high standard of education can also be achieved without compulsory textbooks, but in order for this to happen the following conditions have to be met: first, an abundance of learning resources such as school and other institutional libraries, with diverse literature, encyclopaedias, popular science books, dictionaries, thesauri, children’s books, etc.; second, there needs to be well equipped media libraries, laboratories with excellent facilities, computers and internet access, opportunities for educational expeditions and excursions; third, there is a need for highly educated teachers with opportunities for continuous training and development and specialised teaching assistants and other learning support staff. Without such resources, the process of learning largely depends on textbooks. There are a few fundamental reasons for this. (Purves, 1993:13)

Supplementing the Traditional Books with Listening Materials

When supplementing the traditional course books with listening materials you need to make sure that the principle of integration is observed: choose an activity in a piece of supplementary material that seems to fit in with and reinforce the other materials in the lesson. You may build tasks asking for filling in messages forms while listening to phone calls, writing down train or plane times, shopping lists, etc. You may also turn reading texts in a traditional book into tape scripts. In addition, there is a great deal of potential listening material around us. You simply need to look around and make use of it. Of course, it takes time and energy to make your own bank of tapes and build adequate tasks, but it is worth it. (Bălan, 2003:284-285)

According to (Miller, 2003:2), one of the major advancements to come out of research into listening strategies was the understanding that listening exercises could be divided into three main parts: pre-listening, while-listening and post listening activities. This division has proved very fruitful for the learners as well as teachers. For example, in the pre-listening stage a teacher can start a short discussion with the learners with the aim to know about their views about the topic which s/he is going to start. In this way s/he will be activating their world/personal knowledge about the topic. Then the learners can be asked to share whatever information they got from the text in an extended discussion in the post-listening stage. In between these two stages the learners can be given help to remain focused on their listening by careful selection of tasks that are meaningful and that cater to developing specific listening skills.

Miller, (2003:5) gives some practical suggestions as how these divisions can be used with authentic materials delivered through technological media like radio, television, and internet/CD-ROM. About the use of radio Miller contends that using real time radio is one of the more easily accessible forms of authentic listening practice in a class room that a teacher can give to his/her learners. Being cheaper in price, all the teachers can afford it. Secondly, it can be easily taken to the class room. Airwaves are filled with programs twenty four hours per day and radio stations like BBC and Voice of America are constantly on air. In order to use radio in a class room a teacher can select a suitable program on some global listening tasks for his/her learners. Similarly about the use of TV/Videos in a classroom Miller argues that activities with television/videos can also be divided into three main parts: pre-listening, while-listening and post listening. The use of TV/Videos in a classroom can also give learners a good practice of listening. They have an upper hand over the radio as here they can also see what is happening, in addition to listening to the text. Students often watch movies for entertainment.

A teacher, in a language classroom, can sensitize the learners to how they can make use of movies to help them develop their second language listening skill. Miller further says that a rapid increase is noticed in the development of internet facilities and CD-ROMs. This has enabled the teachers to direct the learners to sites on the internet where they can practice their listening. Youngsters are very much interested in the use of computers. So this interest can be utilized in improving their listening skill. Strategy can be planned by suggesting to the learners a creative discussion about the news.

One of the reasons why listening is not given proper attention by the teachers seems to be the fact that listening skill is considered as passive skill. Morley, (2002:29) argues that listening has been labeled as a passive skill though it is not so. Anderson and Lynch, (1988:103) also hold the same view and reject the concept of listening as a passive act by terming listener as a ‘tape recorder’. Morley stresses that students must also be realized the fact that listening is not a passive skill. Hence it is the duty of the teachers to guide the learners to realize that achieving skill in listening requires as much hard work as required to become skilled in reading, speaking and writing.

According to (Morley, 2002:32), considering the role played by us in listening, the three specific communicative listening modes can be identified as: bidirectional, unidirectional and auto directional. In bidirectional mode two or more participants take their turns and play the role of speaker and listener. In unidirectional listening mode auditory input comes from variety of sources and, more often, we show reaction to that input by talking to ourselves and analyze whatever we hear. In auto directional listening mode, we attend to our own internal language while we plan something in our mind and make decision. These modes constitute an important language behavior and should be discussed with the students.

While discussing the development of listening comprehension activities and materials, Morley stresses three principles to be followed by the teachers. These principles are the principles of: relevance, transferability/applicability and task orientation.

By the principle of relevance it is meant that the listening lesson content and its outcome should be as relevant to the learner as possible. This factor will motivate the students and they will remain very much attentive while listening to the information. The lesson will appeal to students very much if the lesson focuses on things from real life. In the self-created class room listening activities, it is very much easy to control relevance. However with published materials, it is necessary for the teacher to select those lessons which are relevant to the students.

By transferability/applicability it is meant that the content and outcome of the lesson used for the activity should be such that it can be used by the students in other classes as well as in out of school situations. For example the activity with radio or TV broadcasts serves the purpose not only for listening comprehension but its content can be used for discussion outside the school.

In the task orientation, tasks are assigned to the students after the listening activity and the success of the listening activity is judged from the performance of the tasks by the students. So for as listening instructional activities are concerned Morley recommends Listen-and-Do format for listening instructional activities in the ESL or EFL curriculum. It implies an outcome objective. “Outcome”, according to Sinclair, is a realistic task that people can envision themselves doing and accomplishing something. Morley discusses six broad categories of outcome. (Morley , 2002:32)

These outcome categories are:

Advantages and disadvantages of using authentic materials

Discussions about the advantages and disadvantages of teacher-designed materials usually centre on a comparison with using text or course books. Rather than focusing on course books, we have turned our focus to teacher-produced materials and consider that the disadvantages of course books can become advantages for teacher-produced materials. The key reasons why teachers may wish to produce their own teaching materials can be linked to four themes distilled from recent literature on this topic (e.g., Altan, 1995; Block, 1991; Harmer, 2001; Podromou, 2002; Thornbury & Meddings, 2001, 2002).

An important advantage of teacher-produced materials is contextualisation (Block, 1991). A key criticism of commercial materials, particularly those produced for the world-wide EFL market is that they are necessarily generic and not aimed at any specific group of learners or any particular cultural or educational context. The possible lack of ‘fit’ between teaching context and course book has been expressed thus: “Our modern course books are full of speech acts and functions based on situations which most foreign-language students will never encounter… ‘Globally’ designed course books have continued to be stubbornly Anglo-centric. Appealing to the world market as they do, they cannot by definition draw on local varieties of English and have not gone very far in recognising English as an international language, either.” (Altan, 1995: 59) For many teachers, designing or adapting their own teaching materials, enables them to take into account their particular learning environment and to overcome the lack of ‘fit’ of the course book. (http://educendika.blogspot.ro/2011/12/guidelines-for-designing-effective.html)

Another aspect of context is the resources available. Some teaching contexts will be rich in resources such as course books, supplementary texts, readers, computers, audio-visual equipment and consumables such as paper, pens and so on. Other contexts may be extremely impoverished, with little more than an old blackboard and a few pieces of chalk. A lack of commercial materials forces teachers to fall back on their own resources and designing their own teaching materials can enable them to make best use of the resources available in their teaching context. A further aspect that is not often mentioned in the literature is the cost of commercially produced resources. For many schools, teacher-produced materials can be the best option in terms of both school and student budget.

A second area in which teacher-designed materials are an advantage is that of individual needs. Modern teaching methodology increasingly emphasises the importance of identifying and teaching to the individual needs of learners. English language classrooms are diverse places not only in terms of where they are situated, but also in terms of the individual learners within each context. Teacher-designed materials can be responsive to the heterogeneity inherent in the classroom. This approach encompasses the learners’ first languages and cultures, their learning needs and their experiences. Few course books deliberately incorporate opportunities for learners to build on the first language skills already acquired, despite research suggesting that bilingual approaches are most successful in developing second language competence (Thomas & Collier, 1997:205).

A teacher can develop materials that incorporate elements of the learners’ first language and culture, or at least provide opportunities for acknowledgement and use alongside English. In addition, teacher-prepared materials provide the opportunity to select texts and activities at exactly the right level for particular learners, to ensure appropriate challenge and levels of success. (http://educendika.blogspot.ro/2011/12/guidelines-for-designing-effective.html)

In designing their own materials teachers can also make decisions about the most appropriate organising principle or focus for the materials and activities. Most course books remain organised around grammar elements and the PPP (presentation, practice, production) model of teaching, often with an “unrelenting format” which can be “deeply unengaging” (Harmer, 2001:6). By taking more control over materials production, teachers can choose from the range of possibilities, including topics, situations, notions, functions, skills etc, or a combination of these principles, as starting points to develop a variety of materials that focus on the developing needs of their particular group of learners.

Personalisation is another advantage of teacher-designed materials. In his 1991 article, Block argues in favour of ‘home-made’ materials saying that they add a personal touch to teaching that students appreciate. Tapping into the interests and taking account of the learning styles of students is likely to increase motivation and engagement in learning. Podromou, (2002:85) further suggests that there is also greater choice, freedom and scope for spontaneity when teachers develop their own materials.

A further advantage of teacher-designed materials is timeliness (Block, 1991:56). Teachers designing their own materials can respond to local and international events with up-to- date, relevant and high interest topics and tasks. The teachable moment can be more readily seized.

In conclusion, the advantages of teacher-designed materials can be summed up in the idea that they avoid the ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach of most commercial materials.

Disadvantages

There are a number of potential pitfalls for teachers who would be materials designers. These can be considered under three headings, the first of which is organisation. Course books are usually organised around an identifiable principle and follow a discernible pattern throughout. While this can be rather dull and boring (or ‘unrelenting’) it does provide both teachers and students with some security and a “coherent body of work to remember and revise from” (Harmer, 2001:7). In contrast, teacher-designed materials may lack overall coherence and a clear progression. Without some overall organising principle, materials may be piecemeal and can result in poorly focused activities lacking clear direction. This is frustrating and confusing for learners who may not be able to see how their English is developing. (http://educendika.blogspot.ro/2011/12/guidelines-for-designing-effective.html)

A further aspect of organisation relates to the physical organisation and storage of materials. Without a clearly thought through and well-organised system, teacher-produced materials may be difficult to locate for ongoing use, or may end up damaged or with parts missing.

Possibly the most common criticism levelled against teacher-made materials is to do with their quality. At the surface level, teacher-made materials may “seem ragged and unprofessional next to those produced by professionals.” (Block, 1991: 212). They may contain errors, be poorly constructed, lack clarity in layout and print and lack durability. Harmer, (2001:7) probably speaks for many when he says, “If the alternative is a collection of scruffy photocopies, give me a well-produced course book any time”.

In addition, a lack of experience and understanding on the part of the teacher may result in important elements being left out or inadequately covered. Teacher-made materials may be produced to take advantage of authentic text. However, if not guided by clear criteria and some experience, teachers may make inconsistent or poor choices of texts. A further problem may be a lack of clear instructions about how to make effective use of the materials – particularly instructions designed for students.

Yet another disadvantage of teacher-made materials, and perhaps the key factor inhibiting many teachers from producing their own teaching materials, is time. However passionately one may believe in the advantages of teacher-designed materials, the reality is that for many teachers, it is simply not viable – at least not all the time.

What can we do when you do not have any course books?

You should always remember that you are your best resource. Your creativity simply needs to be put to work and your students will enjoy the diversity of your classes and will happily give you a helpful hand in the preparation of your lessons. Here are some suggestions on how to use different materials and situations which can be easily provided. (Bălan, 2003:286)

A good idea is to keep a picture file. Any picture can turn into a valuable piece of a teaching material. To collect pictures you simply have to read newspapers and magazines with a pair of scissors at hand. Whenever a picture strikes your fancy, cut it out and throw it into a box nearby. You may ask your students to help you sort and file them under different categories, such as people, landscapes, food, clothing, animals, houses and interiors, furniture, jobs, interesting or funny situations, travelling, shopping, human faces, etc. You should not ignore the small-size pictures when they tell you a story. They may be used in pair work or group work or individually.

Newspapers and magazines are a good source of funny cartoons and interesting advertisements which can become useful teaching materials in class. A picture is worth a hundred of words if you have it at hand as it can generate a lot of language.

Postcards can be used either to describe places, weather but also to express likes, dislikes, preferences, wishes, hypothesis (I'd like to be in the mountains now or If I were at the seaside I'd walk on the beach). You may ask your students to bring postcards to school and describe them or speak about the people they have received the postcard from, or the event, or to give their reason why they have brought that postcard to school. They may also use postcards as context for writing (e.g. holiday messages). (Bălan, 2003:287)

Very simple figures can be turned into characters in a story by putting them into relationship, providing a setting, introducing emotions. You don't need very much detail to convey expression. You can get long way by scribbling or by getting your students to do that for you. Pictures can be part of a continuum.

You can prepare cards with pictures and individual words or halves or parts of sentences or questions and answers to be used in different ways: matching exercises, as word cues in substitution drills, or for review purposes, or as prompts in speaking activities.

Newspapers articles may become a very useful teaching material. You may ask your students to bring to school interesting articles from Romanian newspapers and to formulate the main ideas of the article or the summary in English. This type of activity can be successfully done in pairs or in groups.

Articles and news items in English can be used to write your own materials. One way is to cut the article in several parts and to ask your students to sequence the pieces correctly. You may cut out several headlines and articles and ask students to match them. You may cut several photographs and their captions separately and ask students to match them. Newspapers articles can be used to also teach and practise vocabulary or, with more advanced students, to raise their language and stylistic awareness.

Publicity materials of any type can become teaching materials in a language class. They can be exploited as any visual or situational prompt in class but, in addition, they give students the opportunity to observe the features that make the language of advertising special: conciseness, high frequency of adjectives and adverbs, mostly in the superlative, special emphasis on advantages, comfort, and good value in order to persuade people to invest/spend money. Advertisements can be used with all levels.

Poems may be used as any other text. In addition to the language elements they bring cultural elements into the class and help students develop a sense of appreciation and enjoyment. Poems may be a source of language patterns but they may also generate discussions of ideas and feelings. They may be used for pronunciation practice, too.

The language games help give practice in language and keep the class lively and interesting at the same time. They have to be selected so as to correspond to the age of your students, their interests and learning level. Nevertheless, all students, no matter their age, enjoy playing. Sometimes they may contribute with original adaptations of well-known games. Students may be also challenged to make their own games (e.g. board games containing either lexical items or different structures). (Bălan, 2003:288)

The games may be used as warmers or fillers or as a follow up to some activity. They are fruitful when there is a link between the game and what the students have learnt or are about to learn.

Here are some suggestions:

Magic squares

Each magic square consists of six or eight different words that can be read left to right, or top to bottom. The magic squares may be used in different ways:

Students find all the words ending in "s" and say whether they are plurals or the third person singular of a present tense verb;

Students are given the words and are asked to create the square for themselves;

Students list the words according to which part of speech they belong to.

Some words can appear in more than one column;

Students make up sentences using all the words in the square. (Bălan, 2003:288-289)

Famous Five

Each student writes five questions they would like to ask someone famous. Everyone then swaps papers and answers the five questions they received in no more than five words. The teacher or a game leader collects the papers, chooses five of the most interesting answers and writes them on the board. As a follow up students are asked to write a story in which to incorporate all the answers.

The human clock

The room can be the rim of a clock. Students go to the hour of the day they like best. When they get there, they ask one of their neighbours whether they are X: 'clock a.m. or p.m. and find out why they like that time and what they do then.

Gates

It is a visualisation game and gates are good objects of visualisation. Ask students to close their eyes and imagine a gate. Ask them to consider the size of the gate, its colour, and what it is made of. Give them time to shape their visualisation. Then ask them to see themselves opening the gate and walking through to the other side. Ask them to picture what they see on the other side, who they meet. Give them time to build the image and retain the details. Then ask them to open their eyes and share with their partner the picture of the gate and of what they have seen and felt on the other side of the gate. (Bălan, 2003:289)

Using the best resources

Harmer, (2001:151) suggests a five-stage procedure when teachers make their own teaching material. Focus is put on the making of the material rather than the actual use of it. The first stage is planning and to begin with all the material obviously needs to be comprehensible and attractive to the students. In order for the material to achieve these criteria one can have Krashen’s Input Hypothesis (Brown, 2000:278) in mind when deciding how challenging the material should be for the students. This hypothesis argues that:

“[an] important condition for language acquisition to occur is that the acquirer

understand (via hearing or reading) input language that contains structure ‘a

bit beyond’ his or her current level of competence… If an acquirer is at stage

or level i, the input he or she understands should contain i + 1.”

It is therefore important for the teacher who creates the material that he or she makes sure to present a language that the students can understand and that simultaneously challenges the students to make progress (Harmer, 2001:151).

Furthermore, topics must be chosen and also what activities are required from the students (reading, speaking, writing, etc). Aims ought to be considered as well and are very important. Trialling is the next stage and refers to trying out the material before it is used in the classroom. In order to do this, colleagues, a friend or a student can be asked for their opinions about the newly produced material. In this way spelling mistakes or vague instructions can be discovered in time. The third stage is evaluating which contributes to improving the material for future use and also provides ideas about the production of other materials. The following stage is classifying, (e.g. to categorise the material alphabetically) a useful process in order to access the material easily for future use. There could be as many ways of classifying as there are teachers. Lastly, there is record-keeping which reminds of classifying. It is very useful for long-term planning to have documentation of material and evaluations, especially if it is to be used in different classes (Harmer, 2001:151).

In his book Making the Most of Your Textbook, the author (Neville Grant, 1996:203-205) suggests four alternatives when the teacher decides the textbook is not appropriate. Firstly, he or she might simply decide to omit the lesson. That solves the problem of inappropriacy and allows him or her to get on with something else.

There’s nothing wrong with omitting lessons from textbooks. Teachers do it all the time, developing a kind of ‘pick and choose approach to what’s in front of them. However, if they omit too many pages, the students may begin to wonder why they are using the book in the first place, especially if they have bought it themselves.’

Grant’s second opinion is to replace the textbook lesson with one of the teacher’s own. This has obvious advantages: the teacher’s own material probably interests him or her more than the textbook and it may well be more appropriate for the students. If the teacher is dealing with the same language or topic, the students can still use the book to revise that particular language/vocabulary. But the same comments apply here as for omission. If too much of the textbook is replaces, both students and teacher my wonder if it is worth bothering wit it all.

The third opinion is to add to what is in the book. If the lesson is rather boring, too controlled, or if it gives no chance for students to use what they are learning in a personal kind of way, the teacher may want to add activities and exercises which extend the students engagement with the language or topic.

Addition is a good alternative since it uses the textbook’s strengths but marries them with the teacher’s own skills and perceptions of the class in front of him or her.

The final option is for the teacher to adapt what is in the book. If the reading text from the textbook is dealt with in a boring or uncreative way or if the teacher simply wants to deal with the material his or her way, he or she can adapt the lesson, using the same basic material, but doing it in his or her own style.

Using textbooks creatively is one of the premier teaching skills. However good the material is, most experienced teachers do not go through it word for word. Instead, they use the best bits, add to some exercises and add others. Sometimes, they replace textbook material with their own ideas, ideas from other teacher’s books, and occasionally they may omit the textbook lesson completely.

Authentic materials

The purpose of learning a foreign language is to be able to benefit from using it in the real world, in real situations. Therefore, most of the language teachers think whether it is enough to teach the language using the course book tasks, which are regarded artificial because they are designed for teaching purposes only, or if they should adopt using authentic materials to scaffold learners' learning process in general and develop reading skills in particular.

Therefore, when teachers are concerned with helping their students to develop reading skills, they should think about the methods of teaching being used and materials being taught to students. Reading tasks should provide learners with a high level of independence when reading in a foreign language in a real life context, which in turn means, using actual authentic materials. Larsen-Freeman, (2000:129) states that one of the characteristics of communicative language teaching is using authentic materials.

Bacon and Finnemann, (1990: 459), state that teachers need to "find ways and means of exploiting authentic materials in classroom instructions." Many researchers state that if students are willing to use English language sufficiently, they must be exposed to the language, exactly as it is used in real life situations by native speakers. Nuttall (1996:74) argues that "authentic texts can be motivating because they are proof that the language is used for real-life purpose by real people."

Widdowson, (1990) and Harmer, (2001) use the terms ―authentic and ―non-authentic to distinguish between the two, but the point is not in the language materials themselves but rather on their outcomes and their effectiveness. These can be measured only by the learners’ observable and measurable performances.

Nunan, (1997) mentioned in Widdowson, (1990), believes that exposing learners to authentic materials is indispensable, because of the rich language input they provide. Exposing students to such language forms will enable them to cope with genuine interaction, whether it is inside or outside the classroom. Researchers claim that when authentic materials are used with the purpose of students’ learning, students will have a sense that the real language for communication is being learnt, as opposed to classroom language itself.

Alternative teaching material can be any material used in the English classroom excluding course books. Usually the concept of course book includes not only textbook and workbook but also recordings and other material offered in a package from a publisher (Woodward, 2001: 145). Course books can also be placed in a category called ready-made material.

Alternative material is mainly referred to as ‘authentic’ or ‘real-life material’. Mitchell, (1995:39) describes authentic material as material that was originally produced for native speakers. According to this criterion authentic teaching material can for example consist of magazines, newspapers or recordings of real-life conversations. Little, (1995:45) define authentic texts as follows:

An authentic text is a text that was created to fulfill some social purpose in the language community in which it was produced. Thus novels, poems, newspaper a magazine articles, handbooks and manuals, recipes and telephone directories are all examples of authentic texts; and so too are radio and television broadcasts and computer programmes.

Obviously there is a wide range of texts to choose from when searching for alternative teach-ing material.

In (Kramsch’s, 2000:177) view “the term ‘authentic’ has been used as a reaction against the prefabricated artificial language of textbooks and instructional dialogues; it refers to the way language is used in non-pedagogic, natural communication”. Moreover, (Harmer, 2001: 151) contributes with an additional term for alternative teaching material: ‘homegrown materials’. Primarily this is material made by teachers themselves, for example overhead transparencies, pictures, worksheets with exercises (grammar, vocabulary etc). This ‘home-made’ material is often designed with the help of authentic texts such as articles from news-papers or magazines, books or the Internet.

Furthermore there is even an expression for teachers who prefer to create their own material to using course books: “do-it-yourself” teachers, who of course have their own “do-it-yourself” approach (Harmer, 2001: 304). In conclusion, alternative teaching material is authentic, often self-made by teachers, originally created for native speakers and mainly does not include the kind of artificial language that often occurs in course books.

According to (Kramsch, 2000:185) communicative approaches to language teaching emphasize exposing second language learners to spoken or written texts that are authentic, that is to say containing no artificial language that is produced for pedagogic purposes. The intention of authentic communication is to make learners better understand both “speaking customs and ways of life of the target country” in order to behave more native-like. This approach is especially useful for teaching immigrants in English-speaking countries (Kramsch, 2000:185).

Mitchell, (1995:39) also emphasizes the importance of authenticity in the communicative approach and claims that it is a ‘key concern’ for this approach. Authentic material help language learners to appreciate it as a link to the real world outside the English classroom. This accustoms learners to becoming familiar with the target language and prepares them for real situations. Lightbown and Spada, (1999:168) too observe students’ need to deal with authentic material so they can prepare themselves for language situations outside the classroom.

Tornberg, (2000:17) further points to the significance of meaningful and authentic teaching material and observes a problem in schools where students are expected to acquire knowledge that has been established outside the classroom. This knowledge is then supposed to be mediated in a way that makes students capable of seeing a connection between the classroom and the real world.

If this connection is absent and school reality consists of a worn down classroom and course books that are out of date, there exists a risk that students only associate language with what happens in the English classroom and what is tested in exams. Their language acquisition then ends up in a ‘no-man’s-land’ where there is a great distance to native-speakers and their world. Nevertheless, if authentic material is used, this distance can be reduced.

Among resources that are known as authentic are those mentioned by (Bălan, 2003:290-292) in her book: “In service distance training course for teachers of English”:

Newspapers Articles

Newspapers articles may become a very useful teaching material. You may ask your students to bring to school interesting articles from Romanian newspapers and to formulate the main ideas of the article or the summary in English. This type of activity can be successfully done in pairs or in groups.

You may use articles and news items in English to write your own materials. One way is to cut the article in several parts and to ask your students to sequence the pieces correctly. You may cut out several headlines and articles and ask students to match them. You may cut several photographs and their captions separately and ask students to match them. Newspapers articles can be used to also teach and practise vocabulary or, with more advanced students, to raise their language and stylistic awareness.

Advertisements

Publicity materials of any type can become teaching materials in a language class. They can be exploited as any visual or situational prompt in class but. in addition, they give students the opportunity to observe the features that make the language of advertising special: conciseness, high frequency of adjectives and adverbs, mostly in the superlative, special emphasis on advantages, comfort, and good value in order to persuade people to invest/spend money. Advertisements can be used with all levels.

Poems

Poems may be used as any other text. In addition to the language elements they bring cultural elements into the class and help students develop a sense of appreciation and enjoyment. Poems may be a source of language patterns but they may also generate discussions of ideas and feelings. They may be used for pronunciation practice, too. Nursery rhymes are a good example in this case.

Stories

Of course, there are different ways of using stories in class. A very productive way of using stories in class is to ask students to create their alternative versions of the classical fairy tales. Individually or in groups they will come with their imagination and humour and you may have a very rich material for teaching language items.

3.4. A possible survey in selecting the most appropriate course book

QUESTIONNAIRE

TEACHERS’ NAME:

COURSE BOOK:

Every teacher knows the students need a course book. Every teacher also knows it should be the best course book possible for his/her students. But what exactly is the best course book?

As in most decision-making situations, the solution lies in asking the most appropriate questions and then evaluating the answers resulting from the process. For practical purposes you need a manageable list of the most important criteria. Here is a basic quick- reference checklist adapted after (Bălan, 2003:273-274).

Thank you!

The results’ interpretation

Textbooks play a prominent role in the teaching /learning process as they are the primary agents of conveying knowledge to learners. Besides, one of the basic functions of textbooks is to make the existed knowledge available and apparent to the learners in a selected, easy and organized way. Hutchinson and Torres, (1994:106) argue that any textbook has a very important and positive part to play in teaching and learning of English. They state that textbooks provide the necessary input into classroom lessons through different activities, readings and explanations.

Thus, textbooks will always survive on the grounds that they meet certain needs. Richards, (2001:95) states any learning program may have no impact if it does not have textbooks as they provide structure and a syllabus. Besides, the use of a textbook can guarantee that students in different classes will receive a similar content and therefore, can be evaluated in the same way. In other words, textbooks provide the standards in instruction. Moreover, they include a variety of learning resources such as workbooks, CDs, cassettes, and videos, etc., which make the learning environment interesting and enjoyable for learners. They do not only provide a framework for teachers in achieving the aims and objectives of the course, but also serve as a guide to the teacher when conducting lessons. The content of English language textbooks influences what teachers teach and learners learn.

First, this study sought to develop an ELT textbook evaluative checklist based on current trends in ELT, curriculum design, and materials development. The use of the proposed checklist may have greater significance since it can reveal the strengths and weaknesses in the textbook, and determine whether or not the textbook is justified, or needs supplementation and/or modification. The study attempted to identify the linguistic errors or the factual mistakes, if any. It is also hoped that the study results would help in making some appropriate recommendations for the curriculum planners, educators and experts at educational institutes for further improving the quality of the English language textbook in general. This study may also provide guidance for any retrospective textbook evaluation or future revision of any English language textbook.

In order to examine the importance of course books for teachers and students of a foreign language, a qualitative method was used in this study. The participants in the research were five teachers from Technological Nr 1 High School, Salonta city, Bihor County. The target textbooks under evaluation were “Going for Gold: Intermediate, Upper –Intermediate and FCE Gold Plus” published by Pearson Longman. The textbooks are also effective in satisfying the curriculum requirement of helping learners to become autonomous by providing self-assessment activities towards the end of each of the textbook chapters.

The checklist has thirty questions, organized in six distinctive criteria: aims and approaches, design and organization, content, skills, activities and methodology.

Aims and Approaches

With its flexible format and course components, “Going for Gold: Intermediate, Upper –Intermediate and FCE Gold Plus” are applicable to a variety of course needs. Each unit can be easily expanded by using activities from Teacher’s Guide Book and supplementary reading assignments in the Workbook.

Practicing every unit from the textbooks, learners had been motivated through stimulating contents and achievable learning goals. Motivation has been called the “neglected heart” of the language teaching (Rost, 2005:69) and is among the major factors affecting learners’ success in ESL situations. Anchoring language production with strong, focused language presentations and personalizing learning through engaging and communicative speaking activities are a few from the good qualities from the textbooks which are analyzed.

“Language input” is referred by the teachers as the necessary language knowledge and guidance needed to be provided to students in order to achieve the intended learning objectives. An insufficient amount of language input during the pre, while and post teaching and learning may deem detrimental to the students capability of reaching the intended learning goals.

Concerning the relationship between the curriculum and the textbooks, most teachers agreed that it was important to teach in line with the syllabus and help students achieve the objectives stated there. About half of them thought that it was more effective to use the textbooks than read the syllabus for suggestions in teaching. The significance of the textbooks in making curriculum changes possible was recognised by half of the teachers). Most of the teachers were of the opinion that the lack of good textbooks was the major difficulty which hindered effective implementation of the syllabus. However, the majority of them agreed that textbooks were written in line with the syllabus and they helped teachers to implement the syllabus effectively.

When asked whether textbooks could help teachers to understand new teaching theories/approaches, teachers' response was positive, almost all of them supporting this idea. A larger number of them thought that they could apply new teaching theories/approaches more effectively with the help of textbooks. The function of textbooks in this respect was confirmed.

The majority of the participants support the statement about whether or not the book is appealing and useful to the students. One third of the participants strongly agree and almost all agreed that the book is appealing and useful to students. Concerning the issue of whether the book provides opportunity for teachers and students to localize activities, the results show that a large percentage of the participants, support the statement sustaining the fact that the textbooks offers continuity from the previous ones.

In order to satisfy the curriculum initiatives of catering to individual learning differences, the teachers have noted that the textbook could have provided more coverage on helping teachers deal with the problem. The teachers feel that adequate guidance have been provided for Reading tasks. For example, as suggested by one subject, for comprehension questions, there are two sets of questions. One is for stronger students and the other one is for weaker students. Guidance on the other 3-skills, however, is generally lacking. The subjects have also noted that while it is good that the textbook has provided a lot of open-ended questions to encourage the creative use of language, one subject is unsure whether it can satisfy the curriculum initiative of encouraging the creative use of language mainly because weaker students do not possess such levels of language proficiency. The teachers have also advocated that the tasks tend to introduce new items and concepts too often.

Design and Organisation

The layout and design of a course textbook is related to its organization and presentation of language contents and activities. As discussed in the course components section the total course package (e.g. students‟ books, teachers‟ book, workbooks, CD) are excellent. The course components are effectively and distinctly organized around specific topics such as meeting people, interesting places, celebrations, travelling.

Almost all teachers agreed that the content is organised in terms of: topics; structures and/or functions and skills. When asked “Is the organisation clear and right (is there a "map" of the book)?” half of the teachers were satisfied in what concerns the organization of the book, the other half being convinced that this area can be improved. They agreed when were asked that the grading and progression is suitable for the students, but on the other hand were disappointed in what concerned that there is not enough material for revision and recycling at an appropriate pace. Half of them were also disappointed concerning the layout and the fact that activities were not easy to be followed by the students.

It seems that the overall layout and design of “Going for Gold: Intermediate, Upper –Intermediate and FCE Gold Plus” differs for each skill and sub skills, for instance the organization and sequence of the structure and pronunciation are on the basis of complexity which means the less complex structure and pronunciation come first, while it seems that those of vocabulary, listening, and reading, speaking, and writing are on the basis of usefulness, since the topics like Greetings, names, numbers come at the beginning of the syllabus.

The other useful part of the Student Book, in compression to other textbooks, is the reference section for the grammar, which, is an advantage for it. Through it the learner can learn the grammar both implicitly and explicitly. Furthermore this point makes it easy for individual study.

On the other hand, one glaring weakness of the book is to find your way around the course book. For instance, although the instruction in the listening section has been given in the listening section of each unit, the same instruction has not been included in the related audio. Moreover, this makes students and sometimes teachers miss some part of the listening section.

The layout and design of the materials reflect a very structured approach. There is a clear structure and consistency in appearance throughout the student book with each unit following the same basic pattern of presenting a grammatical structure in a conversational context followed by controlled practice activities. This is good for learners who like the familiarity of such a structured approach, but not so good for those who prefer more variety. The design is relatively uncluttered and it is usually easy for learners to see what they have to do.

Content

However, when evaluating the textbook content in relation to training other skills, the language input to students is generally insufficient for the reading, writing and speaking tasks. The teachers as a result have to spend a large amount of their time identifying such possible learning difficulties and subsequently prepare a large number of tailor made materials to supplement their teaching. The teachers suggested that a list or glossary of the relevant “language input” can be provided in the student’s book. More guidance and examples should also be given to students so that the textbook can better serve as an effective learning aid.

Teachers consider that the activities are more motivating than task based, the vocabulary is appreciated as being useful in terms of students' needs. On the other hand, the pronunciation activities are considered insufficiently, the structures and functions are considered as being contextualized. The topics from the textbooks were evaluated as being relevant to the students' interests and age and in the same place there being enough variety and range of topics.

One of the subjects has also highlighted that while teachers have the full control on how a task is to be performed; a majority of the textbook activities are individually based. One teacher thinks that it would be better to have more pair work activities. Based on her observation, female students tend to be passive in task activities. Pair work tasks are especially effective addressing such a problem as they can provide good opportunities for students to first practice and develop confidence before using the language in a group setting of more than two persons.

For writing tasks, the teachers generally think that they are effective in teaching planning and content development in process writing skills. One of the subjects suggested that the overall quality of the writing tasks can be improved greatly, if activities, that can cultivate the student’s ability to begin and end a passage interestingly and conclusively, are included. The teachers have also suggested that the wide-selection of reading texts of the textbook has helped to familiarize students with the different linguistic features of texts of different genres. There should be relevant writing activities for students to test that knowledge has been acquired.

The materials provide adequate opportunities for developing the four language skills of reading, writing, listening and speaking. Many activities require some reading skills which obviously creates a problem for learners who cannot read. While it is possible to adapt the materials in class for such learners, the reading-based activities in the workbook and skills book which learners do individually are beyond the present abilities of most of the learners in question. Overall, the materials provide sufficient opportunities to develop speaking and listening skills. However, as discussed, the grammatical/structural approach tends to restrict what learners are able to say, especially if implemented using the PPP-based lesson plans in the teacher’s book.

Skills

The teachers suggested while the integrated skills tasks are well designed, there is a general feeling that there should be more language inputs provided in the student’s book. The teachers have suggested that listening tasks, to a certain extent, is least affected by this problem as they are designed to test the student’s listening comprehension ability, but not the ability to interpret or to produce written texts.

The results above show an extremely high percentage of the participants supporting that the four skills are adequately covered.

One teacher has advised that although the task design is generally good as most of the different writing processes are covered, for writing tasks it would be better to include guidance to show students how to arrive at a sensible and logical argument. Although what is considered sensible and logical can be highly debatable, the teacher suggested that it would be especially helpful to provide guidelines to help students to think about what is generally feasible, and what is not, when building their argument.

For speaking tasks, the teachers feel that there should be more guidance, and examples to show how students can speak more real life English. The teachers proposed that it may be useful, for example, to provide a table explaining how discourse markers can be used in spoken English. One teacher suggested that the video demonstrations featured in the current accompanying CD-ROM is very useful in teaching the use of eye contact and accurate pronunciation.

However, there should be more guidance provided in the textbook helping students to develop group interaction skills. The teachers suggested that it is understandable that it is very difficult to teach how students can improve oral English fluency merely by referring to the textbook. It is still useful to provide more exercises and “language input”. A good example would be to include a list of commonly used vocabularies in daily spoken language, so that students can have a quick source of reference for the appropriate use of language in different real-life contexts. The teachers suggested that the publisher can consider providing the additional language materials in the form of an accompanying CD-ROM.

The materials provide adequate opportunities for developing the four language skills of reading, writing, listening and speaking. Many activities require some reading skills which obviously creates a problem for learners who cannot read. While it is possible to adapt the materials in class for such learners, the reading-based activities in the workbook and skills book which learners do individually are beyond the present abilities of most of the learners in question. Overall, the materials provide sufficient opportunities to develop speaking and listening skills.

Activities

Suggestive answers, skills and progress checklists are provided in those sections, in order that students can monitor their own learning progress. The task activities can also encourage creative language use by providing plenty of opportunities for students to give their own ideas, by including a large number of open-ended questions, and can effectively arouse interest in learning. The teachers suggest that the tasks and exercises can help to stimulate learner’s creativity as there are no standard answers. While concerns have been voiced regarding language abilities of the weaker students, the coverage and progression of the task activities are still considered appropriate.

The results show that half of the teachers consider that there exists a balance between controlled activities and less controlled and free activities at the same time the student’s being stimulated by the activities from the textbooks.

A well-designed course book which allows for adaptation and a certain degree of learner spontaneity is generally regarded as the most visible tool in the balanced teacher/learner relationship. At best they should provide only a framework for which this interaction and improvisation occurs).

As the aims of the course book should correspond as closely as possible to the teacher’s own methodology, it is of great importance that teachers evaluate course books in terms of their ability to realize these aims. Due to the recent growth of materials in the ESL publishing industry, guidelines are necessary to raise teachers’ awareness to various course book designs. Rather than criticizing instructors who are handcuffed to a certain text, relevant evaluation criteria should instruct teachers how to best select course books that fit their certain needs. (Garinger, 2001:59).

Methodology

Integral to the evaluation of the textbook in question is the determination of the extent to which the teaching methods upon which it is founded are student -centered. In fact, there is a discernible movement away from teacher-centered methodologies to student-centered ones, with the rationale being that the latter has established itself as a more effective approach to teaching and learning. The fact is, however, that not all teachers and educators recognize this and, accordingly, adhere to the teacher-centered methodology of teaching. In acknowledgement of the aforementioned, the questionnaire sought the evaluation of the textbook under study from the perspective of whether or not it embraced contemporary student-centered models of learning and, indeed, whether it gave teachers the option of utilizing a student-centered model by allowing students to talk more than teachers and allowing various class activities. The research findings as pertaining to this particular aspect of investigation are contained in the graphic below:

With regards to the teaching methods used in the book, the results show that an extremely high percentage of the participants agree that the teaching methods used in the book are the latest in the field.

Almost all teachers agreed that the approach to language learning appropriate to the teaching/learning situation, being able to focus their attention on the guidelines provided from the teacher’s guide. At the end of each unit there are tests which examine and illustrate the language and vocabulary learned during that particular unit. In what concerns the items in assessing learners' progress, almost all the teachers agreed that the tests are too difficult for our students, these having to be modified taking concern of student’s abilities and performances.

The core teaching methodology in the Going for Gold series teacher’s book is called the Model Action Talk (MAT) method, which is basically a Presentation-Practice-Production (PPP) approach incorporating a Total Physical Response (TPR) component. This approach is reflected in the layout and design of the textbook, the types of activities it includes, as well as the suggested lesson plans in the teacher’s book. These lesson plans follow a conventional PPP approach, with the teacher or audio CD first presenting models of the target language before learners practise it under tightly controlled conditions. However, although the methodology behind Going for Gold series obviously informs the materials, it is possible to adapt them to suit alternative approaches.

When looking at the author’s view on language and methodology, it is important to consider the relationship between the language, the learning process and the learner. As stated in the course book’s Introduction, the Impact series is designed to help develop “skill in using English for communication.” Priority thus given to the process of developing second language competence would follow what White (1988) has termed ‘the Type B syllabus”, a learner-based course of action in which “both the content and the processes of learning become part of the language learning experience.” (White, 1988:101). This is opposed to a ‘Type A Syllabus,’ in which functions and content are predetermined and learner involvement is non-interactive.

Conclusions to the survey

The survey has examined course books as being the commonest kind of ELT material adopted, and their widespread use makes them objects of great interest among professionals and scholars within the pedagogic field.

In this study the findings were consisting with the fact that teachers expect a course book to have texts, written and oral activities and cultural references to the target and the source language. Above all, it appears that a course book should be a resource of ready materials that helps teachers in the time-consuming task of preparing lessons.

However, when evaluating the textbook content in relation to training other skills, the language input to students is generally insufficient for the reading, writing and speaking tasks. The teachers as a result have to spend a large amount of their time identifying such possible learning difficulties and subsequently prepare a large number of tailor made materials to supplement their teaching. The teachers suggested that a list or glossary of the relevant “language input” can be provided in the student’s book. More guidance and examples should also be given to students so that the textbook can better serve as an effective learning aid. Below is a detailed discussion of the problem.

Finally, based on the knowledge I have concerning what teachers mostly expect from course books, I understand that textbooks should not be static, or rejected. Instead, such useful materials – because they can be really useful – should be alterable to suit the learners’ and teachers’ needs and choices.

Based on the results obtained from this study, the following points are recommended:

1. Adding an appropriate glossary at the end of the textbook for the benefit of both teachers and students.

2. Including a variety of attractive illustrations that can stimulate creativity.

3. Adding topics that can provoke students' critical thinking encourage them to generate their ideas and leave room for making judgments on others' opinions.

4. Including information about the inner lives of the characters used in the book as this can allow students to discuss the characters' personalities, behaviours, problems, attitudes and ways of thinking. In addition, these characters can be examples for the students in their real lives.

5. Inserting context that can express positive views of ethnic origins, occupations, age groups, social groups and disability.

6. Replacing the listening material with a better one that is well recorded, more authentic, and accompanied with background information, questions, and activities.

7. Allowing some flexibility by providing opportunity to practice language formally and informally so that students can practice various degrees of language such as simple greetings, short telephone exchanges, polite requests and formal invitations.

8. Students vary in their preferred learning styles. The textbook emphasises analytical learning that depends mainly on practice and memorization and does not take account of the fact that some students may prefer experiential or kinaesthetic learning, for example.

9. It was clear from the research results that the textbook fails to satisfy the teachers' and supervisors' expectations regarding its teaching methods. So, it is necessary to update these methods and make use of freer, student-centered approaches that can engage students affectively through excitement, fun and emotion. Communicative approaches that can allow various activities are highly recommended. Only then, student can be encouraged to talk and actually use the language. The attention should be on the performance and meaning rather than competence and accuracy.

10. Adding communicative exercises and activities such as group and pair work, games, puzzles and role play as these can help students carry out their communicative tasks in real life.

CONCLUSIONS

My thesis seems to implicitly provide some insights on how second language learners acquire an L2 and the mental processes they use. For example, valuable information may be gathered from the analogies, the transferences from the L1 and the translation equivalences they make.

By claiming the importance of focusing on lexis, the linguists do not mean that teachers only need to teach lexis, and should exclude grammar from classrooms. Rather, it is considered that lexis and grammar are inseparable in nature and completely interdependent (Sinclair, 1991; Hunston and Francis, 1998). Willis, (1993:84) clearly notes the fact that grammar and lexis are two ways of picturing the same object, that is, language. The lexis lists words and meanings, and classifies the patterns, and the grammar lists structures and categorizes words to the structures. He considers that “the language learners are involved in the job of discovering the language”, and in the task “they have to work simultaneously with the grammar and the lexicon”.

In other words, L2 learners not only deal with the foreign language in general, and with its grammar and vocabulary in particular, but also even more specifically, (in relation to our study,) with word-parts or word-formation rules that put words and other elements together to form new lexical items in a somehow ‘artificial’ context: usually that of the classroom in which the teaching takes place, and which is radically different from native language acquisition.

Moreover, personalizing in vocabulary practice has proved to be beneficial for remembering along with spacing, which means that presentation of new vocabulary is divided into more widely, separated sequences followed by repeated revision later on with gradually extending periods between them. For example, the end of the lesson, next lesson, next week and so on. (Thornbury, 2004:24) Another helpful element is motivation, which is closely linked with attention.

Gairns and Redman, (1992:94) stressed the importance of meaningful activities in the classroom, pointing out that meaningful tasks need to be analyzed in greater detail and therefore information is more likely to be retained in long-term memory. Furthermore, they as well as Thornbury reason the positive impact of personalization, imaging and retrieval mentioned above. They also suggest a good organization of written storage of vocabulary to support retention. Among other possibilities, they mention using ‘word diagrams’, which they claim might be very useful for “storage of lexis”. (Gairns and Redman, 1992: 96)

Although historically the importance of vocabulary has been minimised, some of the more recently published EFL course books have adopted a systematic approach to vocabulary learning and have become increasingly aware of the importance of developing vocabulary learning strategies. One distinct advantage that course book writers and materials designers have over practising classroom teachers is that they have easy access to word frequency counts and other checklists and the time to ensure that high priority items are introduced at appropriate stages of the syllabus and recycled where possible. Clearly this reduces the workload on teachers tremendously provided, of course, that the selection and integration is appropriate and effective.

As a result of all this, we still firmly hold that, even within communicative approaches, textbooks and dictionaries should not disregard interlanguage or rather, second language learners’ productions or corpora in order to identify problematic areas. This will make it possible to adapt contents most effectively to the learners’ needs and favour the building up and interiorizing of lexical resources. All this will make learners not only independent and autonomous in their production but also more accurate and proficient in their realisations, which will indeed favour autonomous learning as they become aware that they are actually making progresses once outside the classroom.

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( 02.06.2015)

Textbook Evaluated:

Richard Acklam  Araminta Crace , Sally Burgess  (2000), “Going for Gold Intermediate Coursebook”, Pearson Longman

Richard Acklam  Araminta Crace , Sally Burgess  (2003), “Going for Gold Upper Intermediate Coursebook”, Pearson Longman

Judith Wilson, Richard Acklam, Jacky Newbrook, (2008), “Fce Gold Plus”, Pearson Longman