Building ESP
Content-Based Materials to Promote Strategic Reading
Diseño de materiales basados en contenidos para fomentar estrategias de lectura en un curso de inglés con propósitos específicos
Myriam Judith Bautista Barón
Universidad Externado de Colombia
bautistamyriam@yahoo.es
This article
was received on March 6, 2012, and accepted on November 20, 2012.
This article
reports on an action research project that proposes to improve the reading
comprehension and vocabulary of undergraduate students of English for Specific
Purposes–explosives majors, at a police training institute in Colombia. I
used the qualitative research method to explore and reflect upon the
teaching-learning processes during implementation. Being the teacher of an English for specific purposes course without the
appropriate didactic resources, I designed six reading comprehension workshops
based on the cognitive language learning approach not only to improve
students’ reading skills but also their autonomy through the use of
learning strategies. The data were collected from field notes, artifacts,
progress reviews, surveys, and photographs.
Key words: CALLA, learning strategies, materials development, reading.
Este
artículo informa sobre un proyecto de investigación cualitativa
que propone mejorar la comprensión de lectura y el vocabulario de
estudiantes universitarios de inglés que se especializan en temas
relativos a explosivos en una escuela de policía, en Colombia. Por
tratarse de un curso de inglés específico que carece de los
recursos didácticos apropiados, diseñé seis talleres de
comprensión de lectura basados en el enfoque del aprendizaje cognitivo
de la lengua, para mejorar tanto su comprensión de lectura como su
autonomía para usar estrategias de aprendizaje. Para la
recolección de datos se emplearon notas de campo, artefactos, pruebas de
progreso, encuestas y fotografías.
Palabras clave: CALLA, diseño de materiales, estrategias de aprendizaje, lectura.
Introduction
The students at the
Escuela de Investigación Criminal—a police training institute in
Bogotá—study English for specific purposes and there is an immediate
need to design didactic resources for teaching the classes effectively because
there are no appropriate materials related to crime in Colombia in English.
Besides, nowadays the abundance of English information found in journals,
articles, books, and web sites demands a good level of reading abilities. For
this reason, these students need to be competent in the comprehension of English
texts to promote their own practice and interest in their lives as police
officers.
Considering the
English for Specific Purposes (ESP) institutional goals and the students’
needs, I feel the main aim of this study was to understand whether and how
reading comprehension and strategy awareness can be developed through the
implementation of content-based materials anchored in the Cognitive Academic
Language Learning Approach (CALLA).
I developed and
implemented criminalistics materials to promote reading comprehension based on
CALLA by designing six reading workshops as didactic units that provide both
language and content learning activities, with an explicit focus on language
learning strategies, the inclusion of relevant content, the possibility for
interactive teaching and learning, and opportunities for students’
self-assessment of their own learning process. The workshops also allow me to
track the participants’ progress for interpretation and analysis of data
when necessary.
This situation aroused
my interest in materials development, so that I could provide my students with
authentic readings to help them achieve the pre-established learning
objectives. As a teacher, I consider that this student-centered approach helps
us to get closer to the students’ language needs and enhances the success
of our work. This research can motivate other teachers to develop
contextualized ESP materials as a regular pedagogical task, and I believe that
this study is a worthy example of how teachers can give the practice of
teaching a well-deserved boost in the education field.
Theoretical Framework
The pillars that
shape this research are reading comprehension, materials development and the
Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach. They were combined to set up a
productive work environment to fulfill the expectations of a group of police
officer trainees who were interested in learning about criminalistics as a
science that deals with processing criminal events. According to The California
Association of Criminalistics (CAC, 2010, p. 1), “This science involves
the application of principles, techniques and methods of the physical sciences
and has as its primary objective a determination of physical facts which may be
significant in legal cases.”
This was the main
curriculum subject at this school, so the students needed to be taught
vocabulary related to physical descriptions, clothes, belongings and evidence
elements relevant in a criminal investigation. Also, they needed to be familiar
with crime information and to read material dealing with criminal cases,
updated technologies in data analysis, fingerprints, explosives and weapons.
Reading Comprehension
The reading process
is not easy to examine be-cause it is complex and personal. Many communicative
events take place during the reading process and the reader has to cope with
them trying to comprehend and obtain as much as he/she can from the text. There
is a close relationship between the reader and the text (Alderson &
Bachman, 2000), and the reader’s perception of the material is affected
by life experiences and purposes.
Reading is a
complex, strategic, and active process of constructing meaning, not simply a
matter of skill application (Palinscar & Brown, 1984). Comprehension
requires a dynamic participation of the readers and their ability to seek,
organize and reformulate the information in their own words, resorting to their
own experiences and background knowledge.
To prepare students
to read, it is essential to overcome comprehension difficulties and prepare
them to be autonomous in the future. There are lots of effective ways to guide
them, but, unfortunately, sometimes teachers ignore them and tell students to
simply read and hope they become skillful in getting information without
planning any strategic steps i.e. organizing ideas, taking notes, using
reference skills, etc. In this respect, there are many kinds of effective
instructional activities that can help students comprehend and remember what
they read and as teachers it is our responsibility to make them available to
the students.
Additionally, the
reading process includes a variety of strategies, skills and types of texts
that make the reading task multifaceted and a combination of mental processes,
knowledge, and abilities. Grabe (2004, p. 55) suggests that “it should be
centered on the use of and training in multiple strategies to achieve
comprehension.” Then, the real value and effectiveness of the reading
process involve frequent practice with clear purposes and expectations.
Likewise, the use
of authentic and adapted readings helps students familiarize themselves with
specific content-based expressions and vocabulary, and become skillful at
consciously recognizing the organization of the information and the structure
of the target language. Students should also be trained in the use of
terminology related to their field of study, thus feeling more engaged (Scott
& Winograd, 2001).
Noles and Dole
(2004) state:
Researchers have collected much evidence that supports explicit strategy instruction. The teaching of strategies empowers readers, particularly those who struggle, by giving them the tools they need to construct meaning from text. Instead of blaming comprehension problems on students’ own innate abilities, for which they see no solution, explicit strategy instruction teaches students to take control of their own learning and comprehension. (p. 179)
There is a variety
of direct and indirect learning strategies to facilitate reading comprehension
in the language learning process. From Oxford’s strategy classification
system (Oxford, 1990) I focused on direct strategies that allow the straight
learning and practice of content and vocabulary and indirect ones that help the
students organize and evaluate their knowledge and performance (see Figure 1).
Materials Development
Teacher-developed
didactic materials can be defined as any kind of resources and layouts that the
teacher creates, looks for or adapts to fulfill the daily needs in the
teaching-learning process. In the same line of thought, Tomlinson (1998, p. xi)
defines materials development as “Anything which is used by teachers or
learners to facilitate the learning of a language”. The interesting point
here is that the author comments that learning is a shared responsibility
between the teacher and the learners.
Due to the lack of
appropriate didactic resources for the ESP course I teach, materials
development is one of the main constructs that underpins this research.
Developing materials is an opportunity to find solutions for immediate teaching
problems at Escuela de Investigación Criminal and without depending on
foreign resources and help. Moreover, it is really refreshing when we teachers
not only instruct all the time, but also develop our own materials based on
reflection and concern, and look for new experiences as teacher-researchers. We
can produce solid and excellent material with the quality level of materials
created in English speaking countries.
From my point of
view, it is really exciting to explore this attractive possibility because it
helps the teacher reflect on his/her labor to continue seeking knowledge and
discovering new facets that enormously feed his/her intrinsic motivation. It is
also an opportunity to be updated with recent research in the educational field
(Núñez, Téllez, Castellanos, & Ramos, 2009). Reading
and being informed is an essential prerequisite to know about new theories and
practices that support the design of new materials.
De Mejía and
Fonseca (2006) argue that foreign materials are not always appropriate to any
context and do not fit in with the cultural and historical aspects of other
countries. Sometimes they integrate misunderstandings or fictitious concepts
about cultures in which the foreign language is taught. This is another
valuable reason to convince teachers to elaborate their own materials since
they belong to and are much closer to the culture and social situations in
which they are teaching.
Materials
development also requires attention to affective and motivational factors
(Núñez et al., 2009) since teachers should create an enjoyable
learning setting that fosters students’ confidence. When there is an
affectionate environment, learning is more motivating and effective because the
level of anxiety decreases and confidence increases.
However, materials
development is a tremendous responsibility that requires both preparation and,
above all, time. Searching for exercises, strategies, visual aids and contents
requires a lot of patience, time and creativity. These tools must be constantly
improved to optimize their effectiveness and replaced whenever they do not
fully meet the desired outcomes.
CALLA
CALLA is a helpful
resource to uphold academic and linguistic development. Also, it emphasizes
higher levels of thinking, fosters effectiveness, motivates learners and benefits
varied language level students towards learning a foreign language. I consider
this to be a model that works for content-based instruction and learning
strategies development, and therefore it was suitable for the development of
this research. Chamot, Barndhardt, Beard and Robbins (1999) state that CALLA
provides explicit instruction that assists students in learning both language
and content, and helps them to become more autonomous and better
self-evaluators of their learning process.
This approach is
based on the social-cognitive learning model that integrates the
students’ prior knowledge, collaborative learning and the development of
metacognitive awareness and self-reflection. It is an approach for learners of
second and foreign languages and uses explicit instruction in learning
strategies for academic tasks. The main purpose of this approach is to have
students both learn essential academic content and language, and become
independent and self-regulated learners through their increasing command over a
variety of strategies for the acquisition of knowledge. The main elements of
this instructional approach are summarized in Figure 2.
For this work, two
components of CALLA have been emphasized. The first one is the cognitive
learning model which defines learning as a dynamic process in which learners
are fully engaged and the information given is retained when it is important to
them. The second one has to do with the learning strategies defined as ways to
understand, remember and recall the information; these also have a close
relation with thoughts and actions that assist learning tasks and link the new
learning with the prior knowledge.
Instructional Design
In order to obtain
and organize evidence on the way students develop the reading comprehension
through the implementation of ESP content-based materials based on CALLA, I
designed reading workshops that focused on: (1) helping students to identify
vocabulary and expressions related to crimes, suspects and victims with the use
of their prior knowledge; (2) promoting the students’ interest in the
learning content and the English language; (3) training students in the use of
learning strategies for the development of different activities; (4) fostering
the students’ reading comprehension of short crime-related texts; (5)
aiding students in the recognition of vocabulary and expressions in context;
(6) creating and adapting activities to encourage students to use the learning
strategies as a routine to be more independent; (7) making the students aware
of the usefulness of English in their academic success, and (8) teaching
students to do an ongoing self-evaluation of their own learning process.
The reading
workshops were designed considering CALLA’s five steps (Chamot et al.,
1999) to organize the lesson plans flexibly so as to combine content, language
and learning strategies (see Figure 3).
Preparation (Warm
up): Students prepare for strategy instruction by
identifying their prior knowledge and the use of specific strategies.
Presentation (Warm
up): The teacher demonstrates the new learning strategy and
explains how and when to use it.
Practice (Before
Reading): Students practice using the strategy with regular
activities of moderate difficulty.
Evaluation (While
Reading): Students self-evaluate their use of the learning
strategy and how well the strategy is working for them.
Expansion (After
Reading): Students extend the usefulness of the learning
strategy by applying it to new situations or learning tasks.
The workshops
integrated these steps which were implemented in three two-hour sessions. The
example presented in Appendix A refers to the first workshop where the teacher starts
by introducing the topic so that the students can define the concept of crime
(Warming up). Then, they identify crime vocabulary using pictures; they use
these new words in context through guessing, scrambling, matching, and
completion activities (Before reading). With this type of activities students
are prepared for the reading process and are also introduced to the recognition
of learning strategies. After that, they read short crime cases in groups
(While-reading) and the teacher revises the reading comprehension exercises
with the whole class (After-reading). Then, students reflect on their
experience of strategy use. In the last part of the workshop, there is a
self-evaluation that the teacher explains to students; in it, each student
reflects on learning attitudes, content learning, development of reading
comprehension skills and learning strategy awareness.
Research Design
The research
approach of this study is qualitative since it gives me the chance to have a
better understanding of my students’ behaviors, informing on their
thoughts, feelings, motivation, and performance. James, Kiewicz and Bucknam
(2008, p. 58) mention that “qualitative methods aid researchers in
extracting the depth and richness of the human experiences from their
subjects.”
This inquiry is an
action research whereby “the participants examine their own educational
practice systematically and carefully, using the techniques of research”
(Ferrance, 2000, p. 1). The purpose is to improve the way they address issues
and solve specific problems within the classroom; thus, I consider this type of
research to fit my study because it can generate genuine and sustained
improvements in language learning at Escuela de Investigación Criminal.
This action research comprised various phases: problem identification,
theoretical research, diagnostic stages, selection of learning strategies to be
promoted, development of reading materials and workshops data collection and
analysis.
Research
Questions
Context and Participants
The study was
conducted at Escuela de Investigación Criminal de la Policía, a
police training institute in Bogotá accredited by the Ministry of
National Defense. Regarding ESP, is imperative to improve the police
officers’ performance in English, because it has become an important
means of communication and information in their profession. Additionally,
during their studies, they have to work with different materials and situations
in English and use it to solve problems or to be informed. They also need to
manage technical vocabulary related to criminalistics to understand, for
example, foreign texts related to racketeering.
The group where the
research was carried out was attending the undergraduate program
“Technical Professional in Explosives.” It was composed of 16 male
students whose ages ranged from 24 to 36, and all of them participated in the
process. The English subject is divided into two levels: Basic English and ESP.
The students belonged to the latter, but their real language performance was elementary.
Data Sources
Freeman (1998)
considers the triangulation of data sources as a suitable methodological
strategy to test the credibility of qualitative analysis. Incorporating various
sources of information will make the research results more vigorous. First of
all, a needs assessment (see Appendix B) and a diagnostic
test were carried out for the diagnosis process and the design of the
workshops.
Three main data
sources were used during and after the implementation of the workshops:
students’ self-evaluation reports in six reading comprehension workshops,
and two surveys: The first survey (see Appendix C) was a final questionnaire to gather data about the students’
thoughts and behaviors, factual information and preferences; the second survey
(see Appendix D) consisted of three open-ended questions that the
students answered in their own words, providing qualitative information on
their learning process (Marsden & Wright, 2010).
Apart from these
sources, I also used three progress friendly reviews consisting of written
papers with different exercises to observe the students’ reading
comprehension progress through the implementation of the workshops. These
reviews were a very helpful tool since they provided evidence about the
students’ cognitive and metacognitive processes, and their ability to
choose the appropriate learning strategies to do the tasks. I also took
observation field notes and some photographs that document the development of
collaborative work in class and the teaching-learning environment in general.
Data Analysis
According to
Seliger and Shohamy (1989, p. 201), data analysis refers to “sifting,
organizing, summarizing and synthesizing the data so as to arrive at the
results and conclusions of the research”. The procedure was systematic
and included the description, the illustration of two research categories
supported with the information collected from various sources: Knowing the
what, the how and the what for and Building it up together. The type
of data analysis was the a priori approach since the categories were the
support of this study, as affirmed by Freeman (1998, p. 103): “It starts
with established categories and organizes them into a basic display, then names
by category and finds patterns in the display.”
Findings
The needs
assessment form was used before the intervention and included 14 multiple
choice questions to find out about the students’ previous English
learning experience and performance, their definition of strategy, their
opinions about reading comprehension in criminalistics, their learning activity
preferences and their meaning of autonomous work. The last question had to do
with expressing general comments and suggestions to facilitate the achievement
of the ESP objectives.
Most students
indicated that English was an essential component in their professional
development and they had to read a lot of material in English. Nine students
agreed that the type of learning materials that might help them in their
learning process could be guided reading workshops with a variety of
crime-science activities to allow some complete and holistic progress.
Finally, 8 students
mentioned that they felt more comfortable during collaborative work (between
the teacher and the students) and emphasized the importance of the
teacher’s help and guidance in the whole teaching-learning process. 6 of
them preferred to develop their work and class activities under the
teacher’s supervision and 2 felt better when working alone. A subsequent
diagnostic test, that included the reading of a crime text in which students
had to answer some comprehension questions, revealed that almost half of the
class (14 out of the 16 students did it) had a low level of language
proficiency (49%). I also asked them some oral questions after the test to know
how they solved each one of the exercises. I found that most of them were not
aware of the handling of strategies while doing the exercises.
Based on the
results of the students’ needs assessment and the diagnostic test, I
designed 6 reading workshops with activities that allowed them to work on
crime-science content and learning strategies for vocabulary and reading
development. To carry out the process of self-reflection, I selected and
adapted a brief evaluation at the end of each workshop to gauge the awareness
of their performance in terms of learning and autonomy. The two research
categories supported by the data sources are presented in Table
1 and explained below.
Knowing the What, the How and the What For
Suitable
Content and Linguistic Input
For the students it
was a double challenge since they had to handle both the language and the new
contents at the same time, which brings to my mind what Cantoni-Harvey (1987,
p. 201) says: “Language is essential for understanding content materials
and can be taught naturally within the context of a particular subject
matter.” Both the specific content (crimes, victims and suspects,
relevant suspect’s marks, criminal notice and summary of crime reports),
and the language (colors, parts of the body, clothes, simple sentences in
present and past tenses, expressions of time and places) were addressed by
means of a consistent application of an array of learning strategies that aimed
at developing the students’ reading processes.
The results of the
survey at the end of the course (see Appendix C) confirmed that 63% of the learners considered they were always able to
understand the contents developed through the reading workshops, and the other
37% could usually comprehend them.
In survey 2, the
students answered a question related to the contribution of the implementation
of the strategies in their content and language learning. Some of their answers
appear in the following excerpts (translated from Spanish):
Yes, the strategies help to understand the topics
Some strategies are easy to understand the crime words and expressions
The reading of the texts was easier with the help of the strategies Survey 2 (November 8th, 2010)
Students’
Learning Attitudes
In general, my
students’ attitude was really motivating as the planned topics had to do
with their own work as police officers. In fact they were willing to
participate, take risks without feeling disappointed, and accept more
responsibility for their learning from the beginning. Even though the
instruction of learning strategies was both interesting and useful to the
students, it was difficult for them to take full control of their own learning
process and this had a direct effect on their attitude depending on the tasks
and the time they had to invest in the workshops. Sixty-two percent of students
indicated that they always had positive feelings towards the class, the
learning process and their classmates. Ten percent answered they usually had
them, 5% sometimes and 23% did not give any answer.
Strategy Use
Awareness and Appropriateness
Students realized
they had used strategies and vocabulary but had not been aware of their use in
other contexts as can be verified in some of their opinions:
I didn’t know there were strategies to learn English
So, the strategies can be used for everything?
I learned vocabulary watching police films
Field notes (October 4th, 2010)
Some instruments
evidenced the fact that in the first tasks students tended to use direct
strategies like imagery, making associations, translating and placing new words
into a context, etc. They also began to realize which strategies were most
appropriate for each activity and that using them was helpful for developing
the tasks and doing the readings. The examples below confirm this variable:
It is imagery porque hay dibujos (It is imagery because there are drawings)
I need the strategy list para usarla cuando hago los exercises (I need the strategy list to use it when doing exercises)
Terrorism como in Spanish (Terrorism as in Spanish)
Field notes (October 4th, 11th, 2010)
The information
from the survey at the end of the course showed that 60% of the students
considered they always implemented the learning strategies and used the reading
ones for a better understanding of texts and descriptions. Thirty-five percent
indicated that they usually implemented them and only 5% sometimes did so.
Collaborative
Work
The majority of the
students agreed that they felt more comfortable working with others and with
the teacher’s guidance. In this respect, the strategies that brought this
issue to the surface were the social ones: Asking for clarification or
verification and cooperating with peers, which are documented in the following
excerpts.
Teacher can I use the same strategies?
I like this exercise because we can work in pairs
I am always cooperating with my partners because they don’t understand
Field notes (October 12th, 2010)
The evidence
collected from the survey at the end of the course evidenced that 62% of the
students always respected others’ opinions and points of view and also
asked the teacher and classmates for help to solve problems and doubts. Ten
percent stated that they usually paid attention to their partners’ ideas
and only 5% sometimes did. Unfortunately, 23% did not answer.
What I enjoyed the most was the work in groups
I liked a lot to share ideas with my classmates
My partner was my best strategy because he clarified all my doubts
Survey 2 (November 8th, 2010)
The collaborative
work implied students working together as well as with the teacher, which
brought more resources into play, improving mutual trust, self-confidence and
support. Overall, this enhanced the human relationships that I, as a teacher,
deem an essential part of my mission.
For the
aforementioned reason, I included an item related to the teacher support in the
final self-evaluation to know if my role as a guide, facilitator and companion
was effective and supportive. The data gathered showed that 72% of the students
considered that I always promoted their interest in several aspects such as
learning content and language, instruction of strategies, development of their
reading comprehension of crime science related topics, and encouragement to become
independent readers able to use learning strategies as a routine. The remaining
27% asserted that I usually accomplished these goals and 1% declared I
sometimes carried them out.
Self-reflection
Self-reflection
implied the students’ awareness of the use of the learning strategies for
the development of reading comprehension. Ormrod (2004) defines this awareness
as “people’s knowledge of effective learning, and cognitive
processes and their use to enhance learning” (p. 358). It also has to do
with the form, the appropriate time and the reason to apply the learning
strategies that helped students to become autonomous and more self-regulated.
I took into account
the metacognitive model proposed by Chamot et al. (1999): organization of the
learning strategies which includes the reflection processes of planning,
monitoring, problem solving and evaluating, all useful for reading and
retention of language and content. The first step, planning, consisted
of socializing the objectives at the beginning of each reading workshop making
sure they are clear to all the students. Prior to starting the activities, I
invited them to look at the list of strategies and to select the ones they
considered more appropriate.
The second step, monitoring,
implied the students resorting to their prior knowledge, the previous workshops
or the dictionary to complete the tasks. The third step, problem-solving,
entailed having students use learning strategies like asking and verifying,
linking with already known materials, adjusting the messages, and using the
context, among others, to sort out problems during their implementation. The
last step, evaluation, comprised correcting and verifying the exercises
within their groups, which allowed them to reflect and become aware of their
results. This stage enabled students to reflect upon all these issues and
consider them to solve the following workshops and more complex tasks. The
evidence below exemplifies the students’ perceptions.
I need the list of strategies to do the exercise
I used placing new words into context because the words are in the first exercise
There are key words that help to recognize the type of crimes
To complete with letters I have to use the strategy asking for clarification and verification
Field notes (October 12th, 2010)
Building it up Together
Tailor-made
Materials
I took into
consideration an array of aspects to modify the syllabus and to create the plan
of activities for this ESP course. Among them, I incorporated students’
needs and expectations as the improvement of their reading comprehension, the
design and implementation of activities and tasks with an increasing degree of
complexity, the use of authentic materials as much as possible, and the
continuous teacher support and guide. This can be seen in Appendix A and in these students’ remarks:
In the way you learn more the difficulty is greater
Very positive experience because the methodology was innovative and easy
I think the learning was good thanks to the teacher’s methodology
I liked the readings because they were real
Survey 2 (November 8th, 2010)
Moving from
Simple to Complex Reading Comprehension Exercises
This aspect
features the reading process in the design, the implementation of the workshops
and the progress reviews. As getting information and its manipulation are two
of the main objectives in reading, I merged a variety of activities and tasks
to nurture mental processes, build knowledge, and improve learning skills to
strengthen the students’ reading comprehension abilities. I also
implemented permanent practical procedures to make it more effective.
Additionally, I chose appropriate teaching strategies to promote a didactic
reception of the reading passages moving from the simpler to the more complex.
In addition, I made
use of authentic readings that allowed students to read real information in the
foreign language, familiarize themselves with different reading processes and
become skilled in consciously recognizing the organization of the information
and the structure of the target language. In reference to this, Jacobson,
Degener and Purcell-Gates (2003, p. 13) propose that “It is best for
adult students to receive instruction which utilizes authentic, or real life,
materials and activities to be also grounded in the context of the
learner’s life outside of class.” Furthermore, the learners were
trained in the use of common expressions and vocabulary related to their field
of study which made them more engaged and enthusiastic. Here are some views that
illustrate this issue:
There are many words related to crime
I used placing new words into context because it helps me to know the meaning.
I used selecting and paraphrasing to understand better
The marks are very important to describe the suspect
Field notes (October 12th, 25th, 2010)
Figure
4 illustrates the process of developing materials that gradually moved from
the simplest reading exercises in the first workshops to the most intricate in
the last ones. In the first 4 workshops, according to the students’
perception of reading comprehension abilities, progress was increased 20%.
However, in workshops 5 and 6 almost 45% of the students did not complete the
survey, which made it impossible to check their complete insights. But
according to the graphic the students who did complete the survey (55%) kept
the perception of a possible improvement (40%).
Students’
Self-Appraisal of their Learning Attitude and Strategy Use Awareness
This last aspect
that supports the second category concerns the reflective manner in which
students reflect on their learning process and their attentiveness in the use
of strategies. According to Scott and Winograd (2001), when students are
strategic, “they consider options before choosing tactics to solve
problems and then they invest effort in using the strategy. These choices
embody self-regulated learning because they are the result of cognitive
analyses of alternative routes to problem-solving” (n. p.).
In the first
workshops I explained to the students every aspect to consider in the
reflection process and how to do it. However, it was not easy for them since
they were not used to doing it due to their cultural and educational
backgrounds. At the beginning they mentioned that their success or failure was
a direct result of the difficulty of the new concepts and vocabulary and lack
of personal abilities in the use of appropriate strategies. Fortunately,
through continuous practice they started to feel more comfortable judging by
how well they applied the strategies to do the tasks and then compared with
their classmates, discussed in group or talked with the teacher.
They also learned
that various strategies could be used in the same activity and began to think
about better ones they could have used. In general, there was a tendency to use
the most attractive to them, as imagery, asking for clarification and
verification, making associations, cooperating with peers and translating what
they found difficult to understand. However, when they started to gain control
over strategy use, they began to select more difficult strategies as placing
new words in context, taking risks widely, getting the idea quickly, adjusting
and approximating messages, using linguistic and other clues. The examples
below confirm the idea that students have specific preferences.
I always use imagery
I liked this exercise porque trabajamos de a dos (I liked this exercise because we work in pairs)
I liked this workshop porque hay mucha imagery (I liked this workshop because there is a lot of imagery)
I choose translating with the dictionary because hay muchas palabras que I don’t know (I choose translating with the dictionary because there are many words that I don’t know)
Field notes (October 12th, 25th, Nov 3rd 2010)
According to the
analysis of the final survey, 60% of the students recognized that the
self-evaluation at the end of each workshop was always important as part of
their learning experience and that they were able to choose the strategies by
themselves. Thirty-five percent said that they were usually able to do it, and
5% stated that only sometimes they knew how to do it. Similarly, 63% of the
students considered that they were always able to evaluate their own progress
in the new language; 34% were usually able and 3% only sometimes as shown in Figures 5 and 6.
Conclusions and Implications
Based on the data
collected, I concluded that the students understood the importance of ESP in
their professional performance, praising the creation of Criminalistics-based
reading workshops under pinned by CALLA principles. They improved their reading
comprehension by consciously selecting and applying learning strategies and
self-evaluating their own progress. In addition, there was a significant
advancement in self-sufficiency and communication in general as they were able,
at the end, to share their failures and achievements, identify their
difficulties, and look for possible solutions grounded on their own knowledge
while interacting with their classmates and the teacher.
They learned most
of the crime-science topics developed through the course mainly because those
had to do with their professional aim and interests. This fact helped them to
improve their language competence, have a very positive learning mood, be
willing to take risks and be more responsible during the learning process. The
use of a variety of direct and indirect strategies helped the students to
understand the content better even though in the first workshops they preferred
to use the direct ones since they were memory and cognition-related. Progress
was observed as they learned to use all the strategies and became aware of
their appropriateness in the different tasks.
To sum up, the
whole analysis gave me confidence to state that the development of reading
comprehension through content-based material was an effective process in which
the learners used their prior knowledge and built up on it as they fused their
experience as police officers with the language.
The field of
materials development not only gives teachers the opportunity to design new and
motivating activities for the students but also opens their minds to become
more proactive and creative in their teaching practice. Moreover, the use of
innovative materials encourages students to participate more actively,
increases general interaction, and gives an enhanced sense to the teaching
profession. It is also an alternative to the continuous use of the same
textbooks, traditional class activities and teacher-centered classes.
This issue is also
a good point to foster thinking about the current teaching practices and the
need for teacher-generated materials that cater to students’ language
learning and professional needs, likes and expectations. Indeed, contributing
to the betterment of the English level of our students through the development
of contextualized materials reduces the tendency of using traditional textbooks
and methods that are not always the most suitable for ESP context.
References
Alderson, J. C., & Bachman, F. L. (2000). Assessing reading.
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Cantoni-Harvey, G.
(1987). Content-area language instruction: Approaches and strategies. Reading,
MA: Addison-Wesley.
Chamot, A. U.,
Barndhardt, S., Beard, P., & Robbins, J. (1999). The
learning strategies handbook. New York, NY: Pearson Education.
De
Mejía, A. M., & Fonseca, L. (2006). Lineamientos para
políticas bilingües y multilingües nacionales en contextos
educativos lingüísticos mayoritarios en Colombia. Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá.
Ferrance, E.
(2000). Action research. Themes
in education. LAB at Brown
University: The Educational Alliance.
Freeman, D. (1998).
Doing teacher-research: From inquiry to understanding. A
Teacher Source book. San
Francisco, CA: Heinle & Heinle.
Grabe, W. (2004). Research on teaching reading. Annual Review of Applied
Linguistics, 24, 44-69.
Jacobson, E., Degener, S., & Purcell-Gates, V. (2003). Creating authentic materials and
activities for the adult literacy classroom. A
handbook for practitioners. NCSALL Teaching and training materials. Boston, MA: NCSALL
at world education.
James, E., Kiewicz, M., & Bucknam, A. (2008). Participatory action research
for educational leadership. Los Angeles, CA: Sage
Publications.
Marsden, P., &
Wright, J. (2010) (2nd ed.). Handbook of survey research. Bingley, UK: Emerald
Group Publishing.
Noles,
J. D., & Dole, J. A. (2004). Helping adolescent readers through explicit instruction. In T. L. Jetton, & J. A. Dole
(Eds.), Adolescent literacy research and practice, (pp. 162-182).
New York, NY: Guilford Press.
Núñez,
A. (2010). On the road 2. Elementary A. Bogotá, CO:
Uniempresarial.
Núñez,
A., Téllez, M., Castellanos, J., & Ramos, B. (2009). A practical material development guide for
pre-service, novice, and in-service teachers. Bogotá, CO: Universidad
Externado de Colombia.
Ormrod, J. E.
(2004). Human learning (4th ed.)
Upper Sadle River, NJ: Merrill/Prentice-Hall.
Oxford, R. (1989). Strategy inventory for language learning (SILL).
Retrieved from http://homework.wtuc.edu.tw/sill.php
Oxford, R. (1990).
Language learning strategies: What every teacher should know. New
York, NY: Newbury House.
Palinscar, A. S., & Brown, A. L. (1984). Reciprocal teaching of
comprehension-fostering and comprehension-monitoring activities.
Cognition and Instruction, 1, 117-175.
Scott, G., & Winograd, P. (2001). The role of self-regulated learning in contextual teaching:
Principles and practices for teacher preparation. In A Commissioned Paper
for the U.S. Department of Education Project Preparing Teachers to Use
Contextual Teaching and Learning Strategies to Improve Student Success in and
Beyond School. Retrieved from http://www.ciera.org/library/archive/2001-04/0104parwin.htm
Seliger, H. W., & Shohamy, E. (1989). Second language research methods.
Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
The California Association of Criminalistics [CAC]. (2010). Code of ethics of the
California association of criminalists. Retrieved from http://www.cacnews.org/membership/CaliforniaAssociationofCriminalistsCodeofEthics2010.pdf
Tomlinson, B.
(1998). Introduction. In B.
Tomlinson (Ed.), Materials development in language teaching (pp. 1-24).
Cambridge,
UK: Cambridge University Press.
About the Author
Myriam Judith
Bautista Barón studied
Philology and Languages (Spanish and English) at Universidad Nacional de
Colombia. She holds a specialization in Bilingual Education (Universidad
Antonio Nariño, Colombia), and a Master’s in Education with
emphasis on English Didactics (Universidad Externado de Colombia). She has
taught in different educational institutions in Colombia and Spain.
Acknowledgements
My infinite gratitude to my master and friend, Astrid
Núñez Pardo, for her patience and support. Special thanks to my graphic designers Nicolás
Ávila and Juan Fernández for their devotion and collaboration.
Appendix
B: Students’ Needs Assessment
Appendix
C: Final Self-Evaluation (Survey 1)
Appendix
D: Expressing my Personal Opinions (Survey 2)