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Teachers as textbook evaluators: an Interdisciplinary ChecklistFrancisco Gomes de Matos, fcgm@cashnet.com.br This article, reprinted from IATEFL Associate BrazTESOL, marks the start of a new policy of picking up on articles published by our associates around the world. Editors of Associate newsletters are invited to suggest articles for inclusion. The age and influence of textbooksAccording to Random House Webster’s College Dictionary (1997) the first written occurrences of the word ‘textbook’ in English seem to have been from 1770 to 1780. Universally, that key concept has an older history, as can be illustrated by the fact that in 1658 the great Czech educator Jan Amos Komensky (John Comenius, in English), published his pioneering textbook Orbis Sensualium Pictus (The Visible World) which became universalized, having been translated into 14 languages. Variously defined, as for example, "Textbook — a book used for instructional purposes, especially in schools and colleges" (Harris and Hodges, 1995), books used by students for particular branches of study can be characterized by another important feature: their intrinsically challenging nature. Thus, in the introductory part of her innovative ESL textbook, Price-Machado (1998) acknowledges that "the development of a textbook is a long and complex process, and many individuals contribute along the way". Whether considered as an autonomous creation or as a component, the truth of the matter is that the textbook is still seen as central to teaching-learning by the majority of teachers in most if not all national educational systems. In our EFL universe, this is very much true, as can be easily documented by an examination of ELT Publishers’ Catalogues. Investments on ELT textbook design and sales/adoption/promotion keep increasing at a phenomenal pace as Expositions in EFL Conventions clearly show. If textbooks are to be celebrated for their age — some of them for their longevity — and for their challenge to human minds (of authors and users) — how much attention has been given to helping learners become knowledgeable users of textbooks? A noteworthy attempt at exploring what I would call ‘learners’ rights as textbook users’ is Adams (1989), a textbook designed to help minimal-proficiency-level learners of English become acquainted with the organization, functions and even selected aspects of "textbook discourse". That highly (in)formative textbook on textbooks provides clear guidance on such important activities as how to interpret illustrations, to learn how authors organize and present ideas, how (discourse) markers are used for expressing sequencing, exemplifying, resuming, concluding, and how to recognize integration of information within and across topics. Teachers as textbook evaluatorsSignificant advances have been taking place in Teacher Education/Training Programs, as can be seen in specialized ELT-focused literature on Education, Psychology, Applied Linguistics, Cultural and Visual Studies and Technology, to name but a few of the contributory fields. Such progress notwithstanding, what has been achieved in the preparation/training of teachers as textbook/materials evaluators? Why has such strategic decision-making area been overlooked, even neglected in many — (most ?) - Teacher Education Programs? Possibly because of the highly complex nature of the cognitive operations involved and due to the weight of an Evaluation Tradition centered on what could be labeled as (predominantly) Monodisciplinary Evaluation Models. Such practices led to the formulation of Checklists in which typical key-questions to be answered by a textbook user would include: Who is it for? What is its approach or underlying educational philosophy? What are its components? Does it have an easy-to-use format/layout? What does the methodology of the author(s) emphasize? What innovative activities are there? As teacher Education Programs started emphasizing the need for teachers to diversify their professional knowledge by capitalizing on insights from several fields, explorations were made in Multidisciplinary Textbook Evaluation. Two possibly pioneering examples are Gomes de Matos (1983 and 1992). The former Checklist was commissioned by UNESCO and aimed at helping native language educators assess materials - especially textbooks — produced in developing countries. The latter Checklist, a slightly updated 1983 model, was written for an introductory chapter in a pioneering volume on Evaluation in Language Teaching (Helbo, 1992). Multidisciplinary Evaluation Checklist: Key-questionsIn Gomes de Matos (1992), 12 key-questions (reflecting key-concepts) were used, drawn on such fields as Anthropology, Arts, Cross-cultural Communication, Education, Linguistics, Literature, Native language methodology, Peace Education, Politics, Psychology, and Sociology. Two examples of those key-questions are:
Teachers (in groups, at their schools, in Seminar Workshops, etc) are urged to exercise their right to create multidisciplinary evaluation checklists as preparatory decision-making for taking on another cognitive challenge, namely that of applying key-concepts across ESL/EFL and other curricular subjects/disciplines. A terminological note is in order here: although the terms ‘multidisciplinary’ and ‘interdisciplinary’ may often be found in the literature as if they were synonymous, rigorously speaking the semantic distinction inherent in the prefixes ‘multi-’ and ‘inter-’ should be adhered to, if we are to become interdisciplinarians. It is also well to clarify that a third term, ‘transdisciplinary’ (and its derived form ‘transdisciplinarity’) is being used as interchangeable with ‘interdisciplinary’, but it actually conveys a going well beyond disciplines or exploring human knowledge free from the constraints, restrictions, and limitations of disciplinary boundaries. It is my conviction and hope that our interdisciplinary creativity will lead us to a truly holistic, transdisciplinary and above all, deeply humanizing knowledge, particularly so as evaluators of colleagues’ textbooks. A plea for interdisciplinary evaluationRecently, I was asked to conduct an interdisciplinary Workshop for high school teachers, representing 8 subjects, English and Portuguese included. By sharing exciting challenging experience in how to "interdisciplinarize" key-concepts, I realized that instead of going straight to the design of an interdisciplinary checklist, a logical, preparatory action would be that of the larger group (then groups of teachers from particular school subjects) selecting what they would consider to be key interdisciplinary concepts and justifying their selection. Interestingly, the concepts of "language" and "creation" came up as the two most frequently chosen. Given the limitations of space here, I can but exemplify one type of mini-checklist aimed at probing a concept interdisciplinarily. The key-concept is that of identity, which is inherently interdisciplinary, that is, shared by many fields such as Psychology, Sociology, Geography, Politics, Culture Studies, Linguistics, etc. By including such concept in a Checklist, key-questions to be asked would be: Does the textbook help enhance the learner’s psychological, social, physical, linguistic, (inter) cultural, national, ecological, geographical, spiritual IDENTITY? How? To what extent? How can such interdisciplinary application of a key-concept contribute to humanizing a textbook for ESL/EFL students? Other examples of potentially applicable and relevant interdisciplinary concepts are: peace (and its sadly dehumanizing opposite, violence) interdependence, system, value, variation (cf. its application in so many fields, along with variety), democracy, citizenship, health. For suggestions on other central interdisciplinary concepts see the insightful treatment for "Temas Transversais", in the invaluable, inspiring series of Parâmetros Curriculares Nacionais (MEC-SEF — 1998/1999), especially the volume on Foreign Language Teaching (Celani & Moita Lopes, 1998). In short, may this brief text motivate and challenge you to improve, expand, and deepen your competence as a textbook/materials evaluator. By doing so, you will be doing your important share in helping make our profession’s creations — especially textbooks — interdisciplinarily meaningful and above all, humanizing, so we can be not only humanists but humanizers! References
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