Image: Melanie Cook
I was recently checking out the Twitter transcript for the International House DoS Conference, and following with great interest some of the observations being made by Lindsay Clandfield about what appears to be "hot or not" in contemporary ELT coursebook design and content. At some stage during his talk, Lindsay appears to have asked the question: "Do ELLs really need reading skills?" (or perhaps, by extension, the pondering was more about whether reading skills need overt attention in the coursebooks ELLs use?).
This was one of those triggers that returned me to a previous thread of thought I've been having for a while now. A couple of times last year I wrote posts that (somewhat gleefully?) claimed, at least to some extent, that my own endeavours in coursebook writing had made me exempt from Thornbury's Bane: the so-called "Grammar McNuggets."
Well, I may have (mostly) avoided the "grammar", but now I'm not so sure I avoided the nuggets. And Lindsay's question about reading skills in particular brought that home and really got me thinking. Having written a successful coursebook series that (among other skills in other strands) specifically targets reading skills, I'm now beginning to ask myself two questions:
1. Are strand-based skills formulated as the organising target learning priority for specific coursebook units really all that different from using Grammar McNuggets? (As in, are "Skill McNuggets" actually valid and useful from a teaching/learning perspective?)
2. For reading in particular, do ELLs really need a battery of explicit (micro) skills taught to them?
At this point, I think it's worth taking a quick glance at the reading skills featured (in order) in my Boost! Reading strand. These are not the only organising feature, of course (creating an even balance of cross-curricular content/CLIL-like passages and real world texts representing a range of different text types was also a major priority, as was ongoing vocabulary development in every unit), but it would be fair to say they are the explicit backbone of the course.
1. Finding the main idea (at a glance)
2. Understanding vocabulary in context
3. Finding details (1)
4. Finding details (2)
5. Identifying true and false
6. Identifying the writer’s opinion
7. Taking notes
8. Understanding diagrams and labels
9. Comparing information
10. Making inferences
11. Sequencing events
12. Recognising formal and informal language
13. Finding main ideas and details
14. Skimming and scanning
15. Understanding difficult vocabulary
16. Identifying purpose
17. Organising information
18. Understanding directions
19. Making inferences
20. Understanding fables
21. Using previous knowledge
22. Understanding guides
23. Understanding cause and effect
24. Understanding online forums
25. Finding stated main ideas
26. Identifying moods
27. Cross-scanning for details
28. Finding information from tables
29. Understanding settings
30. Understanding brochures
31. Understanding summaries
32. Identifying character
33. Understanding paragraph development
34. Understanding signs
35. Finding information from graphs
36. Understanding menus
37. Finding unstated main ideas
38. Identifying cause/effect chains
39. Comparing and contrasting information
40. Identifying plot
41. Solving word problems
42. Identifying the writer’s opinions
43. Classifying information
44. Understanding advertisements
45. Critical thinking
46. Understanding point of view
47. Making generalisations
48. Understanding forms
Looking back at how these coursebooks were made, and despite some welcome innovations (like beginning units with discovery activities to demonstrate a skill or comprehension priority in action), there is (now) no doubt that the unit texts feature some of those characteristics criticised in a Grammar McNuggets approach. Namely, input flooding and contrived content. That is, the units' texts were deliberately edited and reworked so as to facilitate the noticing and application of particular micro-skills.
I can't begin to tell you how hard this is to do from a writing perspective. Writing texts that address all of (a) CALP or BICS, from one unit to the next, (b) cross-curricular themes and then specific topics, (c) a range of text types, (d) specific reading micro-skills according to a pre-determined "order of learning", (e) maintaining relevance and interest for t(w)eenage learners in a variety of contexts worldwide, and (f) appearing "natural"... it is a huge ask of a writer (and especially a first-time one!).
The fact that the topics and texts got so much welcome feedback from students and teachers (with the overwhelming tone being that the content was really appropriate and genuinely interesting to t(w)eens) was a welcome relief, but I've never really been able to shake a feeling of having "got away with it"...
I still maintain a somewhat hybrid view on the issue.
Undoubtedly for younger teens, reading skills are still developing in the L1/approach to L1 texts, and are crucial from an exam preparation perspective (for my series I had to prepare students for texts and question types that would appear in exams such as the Cambridge ESOL suite, TOEIC, TOEFL and IELTS). While we might like to just abandon highly analytic approaches to reading skillwork in favour of more "natural" reading, the sad fact is that -- at the "end of the day" (read here: towards the end of a year or the end of secondary schooling) -- learners are going to face particular tests that can play a massive role in the opportunities available beyond school.
On the other hand, surely a reading series for this age group could have made the most of more genuine texts, and more of them (as once all the skill descriptors and careful patterning of questions are removed, there would be more room for more texts), in combination with more vocabulary work? Shouldn't the idea of skillwork be more up to classroom teachers, who can call on particular skills or sets of skills as they are needed or relevant, and in response to texts that are written for their interest value first and foremost? Wouldn't it be more beneficial for this to be more of an oral/dialogic process (which is the way I experienced reading skills at school: as a result of class discussion with the teacher around and through a large variety of reading material)?
Perhaps these two divergent priorities aren't as mutually exclusive as they at first seem... If a skills-based reading coursebook is only one part of the overall approach to classroom reading (as in, it is used with more natural and extensive reading drawing on the teaching skills and dialogic process mentioned above), perhaps the two can benefit each other in a variety of ways for the particular needs of ELLs.
But that raises some thorny issues for me as well. What if teachers don't actually know enough about reading and its associated skills to engage in a dialogic process with learners that incorporates more extensive reading? What if they assume a coursebook series identifying itself as a sort of definitive learning resource for a particular macro-skill (reading), level and age group is all (or the most important or defining material) that is needed for their learners?
Herein lies both the benevolence and bane of coursebook-based approaches to learning.
And so much for confidently trumpeting that my own work in ELT is blessedly free of the curse of the nuggets!
Would be interested in hearing your thoughts on the issue.
=D
