包邮语言教材的开发.利用与评价

bsp;丛书总序
    自上个世纪80年代以来，我国的教育经历了数次重大的
变革，就中小学英语教育而言，三次重大的课程改革推动着英
语教育的发展，教学质量迅速提高。在这些改革的浪潮中，首
当其冲的是一线教师。他们必须提高专业基础，掌握先进理
论，更新教育观念，优化教学方法。
    实践证明，高素质的教师队伍不仅来自于各个层次的教师
职前培训和职前教育，更来自于教师终身的职业专业化发展过
程。在这个发展过程中．教师首先要忠于教育事业，关爱学生，
以立德树人为本，努力做到“学为人师．行为世范”。同时，为
了在教学中能够帮助学生学会具有积极的学习态度和学习方
法．教师自身不仅要有精湛的英语专业知识和能力，还要有教
育学科方面的知识和教学行动研究的能力。更为重要的是，教
师的教育教学观念和业务水平必须与时俱进。
    由此可知，中小学英语教师的职业综合性很强，创造性要
求很高，而且要在不断的变革中承受很大的压力。然而，教师
的工作辛苦，在身心负荷很重的情况下，要把英语教育与自己
的理想联系起来，当作自己终身奋斗的事业，而不仅仅是一种
谋生的手段，这的确不易。令人欣喜的是，过去30年，在改
革的潮流中涌现出了一批又一批高素质的英语教师和教研人
员，他们成了骨干、带头人。他们忠于本职，潜心钻研，学习
理论，勇于实践，积累经验，获得了成绩，成为研究型的英语
教师。他们真正具有了可持续性发展的能力，展现了“教师发
展”的美好人生，为我们树立了榜样。
    《 中小学英语教师发展丛书)》的出版目的就是为了帮助更
  多的中小学英语教师成为上述那样的高素质教师、研究者和课
  程与教材的开发者。全套丛书共有1 2个选题，涉及英语教育
  的五个研究课题：教学技能、教学方法、教学资源开发、教学
  评价和教学研究等。
    这1 2本小册子不同于许多深奥难懂的理论丛书．其特
点是：
    一、理论阐述深入浅出，文章短小精悍，所用的英语语言
文字通俗易懂，又有旁注，不同水平的英语教师都能轻松地看
懂。读者既能从中汲取外语／二语教育和教学的理论，而且可
以从中学到英语，提高自己的英语水平。数十页一本的小书用
不了多时就能读完．这可以使读者产生成功感，激发他们持续
不断阅读的兴趣。
    二、丛书的作者都长期从事英语教育和教学工作，具有丰
富的英语作为外语或二语的教学理论和实践经验。每册书围绕
一个专题，理论紧密联系实际．既有理论依据，又有方法和案
例，因此对实际教学有很强的针对性。例如有关词汇、语音、
阅读和听力教学技能的介绍，教师读后便可实践，可取得立竿
见影的效果。
    三、这套丛书以教师的发展为出发点和归宿，特别注意采
用启发式和互动式的方法呈现新的语言学理论观点，而不是生
硬地灌输某些观点。每个专题的讨论几乎都由提问的形式开
始，设置不同形式的任务，引导教师在完成任务的过程中预测
并思考作者的观点。这样一来，教师必然要参与专题的讨论，
动脑思考、动手实践、“读”“练”结合，把理论与实践联系起
来。作为读者的教师，此时已不是“客体”．被动地接受书中
的观点，而是“主体”，可以分析、实验、验证、批判，甚至
可以补充或发表不同的见解。充分利用这套书的长处，教师可
以取得较大的收获。
    我希望，越来越多的英语教师能够克服困难，挤时间充分
利用此类书籍，研读理论，联系实际，思考问题，立题研究，
提升自己。要知道，教师的魅力来源于勤奋而又有创造性的工
作，来源于广泛的阅读和深入的思考。只有这样，才能成为高
素质、高水平的英语教师，提高教学质量，进行教学研究。我
也希望，出版界的同行们努力为中小学教师开拓更多的选题．
把理论书籍编得通俗易懂，使其真正成为教师们的“益友”，让
教师感到它们亲切友好，容易接受，好懂、适用。
    刘道义
    2007年9月于北京
WHAT IS MATERIALS ADAPTATION?
Materials adaptation involves changing existing materials so that
they become more suitable for specific learners, teachers or
situations. In preparation for a particular lesson, teachers may,
for example:
  Decide to use only part of a unit
  Add or delete texts or activities
  Replace or supplement texts or activities with ones from other
   sources
   When they teach this lesson, they may make further on-the-
spot changes in response to the learners' reactions. They may,
for instance:
~ Shorten or lengthen an activity
~ Skip an activity and go on to the next one
~ Change the order of activities
   What teachers are doing here is in fact materials adaptation.
Interestingly, materials adaptation seems to be something
teachers do a lot but which is rarely researched or included on
training courses. Consequently, teachers may not have any help
but their own personal beliefs, experience and intuition in
adapting materials. This chapter aims to help teachers reflect
upon their own practice and identify principles and systematic
procedures for materials adaptation.
REASONS FOR ADAPTING MATERIALS
Why do teachers adapt materials? It all starts with the teacher
intuitively feeling, "Mmm. Something is not quite right." Teachers
may feel uncomfortable because of a mismatch with:
~  Their teaching environment (national, regional, institutional,
   cultural, etc), e.g., the materials have not been designed for
   the cultural and ethnic diversity of your class.
~  Their learners (age, language level, prior learning experience,
   learning styles, etc), e.g., the materials favour analytical
   learning styles.
~  Their own preferences (personality; teaching styles; beliefs
   about language leaming and teaching), e.g., the materials offer
   a lot of communicative activities but a teacher fears she will
   lose control of the class by doing them.
~ The course objectives (syllabus, institutional targets, etc), e.
   g., the materials focus on teaching grammar but the course
   objectives focus on helping leamers to develop communication
    strategies.
~ Materials (texts, tasks, activities), e.g., the text is interesting
   but the activities are boring and do not seem to fully exploit
   the text.
MATERIALS EVALUATION AND ADAPTATION
In Chapter 1 we emphasised the importance of articulating a set
of principles before doing an evaluation in order to make it more
systematic, principled and rigorous. The principles included the
teachers' own theories as well as learning theories based on
research findings. Trying to write evaluation criteria helps
teachers to articulate their sub-conscious beliefs.
   When teachers feel the need for materials adaptation, they
are sensing the mismatch between the materials and their theories.
Including the evaluation stage in materials development helps
teachers to identify what may be causing the mismatch.
   The evaluation process does not always have to be a thorough
one for adaptation. What teachers need to do is to identify reasons
why they think materials adaptation is necessary. Then they can
list the most relevant and important evaluation criteria and
evaluate the materials before they start the process of adaptation.
TaSk2。2
     A Systematic Approach to Materials Adaptation
1. Select another unit of materials.
2. List reasons for adapting the unit.
3. Based on your reasons, list three universal evaluation
   criteria and three local evaluation criteria.
4. Do an evaluation of the chosen unit.
5. From the evaluation results, list three objectives for your
   adaptation.
6. Adapt the unit in the way you want to use it with your
   class.
7. Teach your class with the adapted unit.
8. Do a post-evaluation to see if your three adaptation
   objectives in 5 above have been achieved.