热点聚焦 | 外语教材研究（四）：出版研究

从世界范围看，外语教材作为意识形态、知识和文化内容的载体，既是外语教师教学的主要依托，也是育人的重要保障。虽然相关研究已蓬勃兴起，但无论研究视角，还是理论构建和方法论层面仍有较大探索空间。加强外语教材研究，有利于外语教师结合我国外语教育的实际情况创新教学和教材建设，为培养具有中国情怀和国际视野的新时代人才提供支撑。

外语教材研究主题多样，比如文化呈现、国际化元素、教师使用、教材的编写与创作等，不同主题下的研究侧重、方法、启示也不同。因此，在接下来的系列“热点聚焦”栏目中，我们将为大家呈现内容丰富的外语教材研究案例，以期为外语教师的教材使用、编写和研究提供参考。

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在英国学者Harwood看来，外语教材研究主要包括三大方面——内容研究、使用研究和出版研究。出版研究探讨教材呈现背后所受到的文化、商业、社会等综合因素的影响，涉及教材编著者、编辑、出版商、发行商、教材使用者等利益相关方的对话与合作。本期热点聚焦关注教材出版研究，所选的四篇文章来自Nigel Harwood主编的《英语教材研究：内容、使用与出版》一书。Ivor Timmis介绍了一位教材编写者在写作过程中与利益相关方博弈、沟通、协调的详细过程，并分享了其真实的写作经验和教训。Fredricka L. Stoller和Marin S. Robinson为我们展示了一个跨学科的教材创作团队（化学老师和英语老师）是如何合作编写创作和出版出大学学术英语教材的，并提出了合作编写教材的参考流程。Christine B. Feak和John M. Swales探讨了教材改版过程中编者、编辑、使用者三方的一些矛盾和妥协。Jill Hadfield自述了教材编写过程中反复曲折、在既定框架中与灵感不断碰撞和调整的心理过程。因篇幅所限，本文仅梳理了四篇文章的概要，有意了解详情的读者可参阅该书。

Writing Materials for Publication: Questions Raised and Lessons Learned

作者简介

Ivor Timmis is Reader in English Language Teaching at Leeds Metropolitan University. He has been involved in materials writing projects for Singapore, Ethiopia, and China and is an active member of the Materials Development Association (MATSDA).

内容概要

This article discusses the process of writing materials for publication, with a particular emphasis on what happens when the principles of the materials writer conflict in some respects with the views and wishes of other stakeholders in the process, such as publishers and education authorities. The article describes a particular instance of this process, outlining the key methodological principles of the materials writer and the difficulty of applying these principles in the light of feedback from the publishers. Specific examples are given of potentially problematic feedback from the publishers, along with examples of how the problems were negotiated. The main issue is how far and on what basis we should attenuate principles we have drawn from language teaching research in response to the traditions, expectations, wishes, and constraints of a particular educational context. The article argues that in a discipline such as applied linguistics the views of practitioners and other stakeholders are a part of the theoretical equation and that some kind of compromise between research-based principles and local realities is, therefore, not only necessary but also desirable. For such compromise to be principled and constructive, however, we need a set of principles to help us to mediate between theory and practice in materials design. The article concludes by proposing some principles which might help us to achieve principled compromise rather than compromised principles, including (i) Is the feedback based on evidence from actual practice? (ii) How confident can you be that your principle is sound? (iii) Is the feedback based on reliable local knowledge? (iv) Can you incorporate the feedback, whether you like it or not, without serious detriment to the principles?

An Interdisciplinary Textbook Project: Charting the Paths Taken

作者简介

Fredricka L. Stoller is Professor of English at Northern Arizona University, where she teaches in the MA in Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL) and PhD in Applied Linguistics programmes. Her professional interests include disciplinary writing, second language reading, project-based learning, and teacher training.

Marin S. Robinson is Professor and Chair of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Arizona. Her research interests include chemistry-specific writing and atmospheric chemistry.

内容概要

Advanced-level literacy textbooks, written for students who are transitioning from ‘general’ academic English to the English of their academic disciplines, are not often discipline-specific, nor are they written by teams of authors who bring in both language and disciplinary expertise. In this article, we showcase an interdisciplinary textbook development project that brought together professionals from two disparate fields: applied linguistics and chemistry. Specifically, we explain the complex and iterative process that led to the publication of Write like a Chemist, a textbook that assists university-level chemistry students (native and nonnative speakers of English) develop discipline-specific reading and writing skills. To explain why the textbook looks the way it does, we chart the various paths taken during the writing process. After providing background on the project and identifying the textbook’s defining characteristics, we highlight numerous (and intertwined) steps that led to its development and final publication. We comment on these steps sequentially, even though most occurred in a non-linear fashion, influencing and informing one another throughout the multi-year project. We depict the following steps in the textbook-development process: (i) articulating priorities and principles; (ii) scaffolding the instructional approach; (iii) selecting target genres, compiling corpora with full-length text exemplars, and analyzing them using tools from corpus linguistics and discourse, genre, and move analyses; (iv) converting analytical findings into instructional materials; (v) piloting and assessing materials; and (vi) using feedback to improve materials. To describe the textbook publication process, we focus on steps taken to (i) find a publisher; (ii) secure copyright permissions; (iii) select a title; (iv) acknowledge contributors; and (v) finalize copy. We conclude with suggestions for language professionals who wish to pursue interdisciplinary textbook endeavors in other content areas or with different skill emphases.

Tensions between the Old and the New in EAP Textbook Revision: A Tale of Two Projects

作者简介

Christine B. Feak is a lecturer at the English Language Institute, University of Michigan, where she is the lead lecturer for academic writing courses.

John M. Swales is Professor Emeritus of Linguistics at the University of Michigan, where he was also Director of the English Language Institute from 1985 to 2001.

内容概要

At first sight, revising an English for Academic Purposes (EAP) writing textbook seems a simple matter. All that appears to be needed is to update example texts, incorporate recent research findings, and fine-tune the tasks and explanations in the light of practitioner experience. However, it soon becomes clear that little is simple, given multiple stakeholders in the revision process. Instructors who regularly use the textbook have their favorite tasks and topics (with different instructors having different preferences), and so they want these to be retained. Then there are instructors who have become tired, as the years pass, of ‘the same old stuff’. Publishers want a product that is a marketable new edition of a successful previous edition, rather than a completely new or new-looking book. Finally, the author has expectations since, as most materials writers know, the impetus of revising often turns into an impetus for rethinking, often quite dramatically. In this chapter we discuss these tensions between the old and the new via two case histories: the radical transformation of English in Today’s Research World (Swales and Feak, 2000) into a series of small, narrowly focused volumes; and the more conservative preparation of a third edition of Academic Writing for Graduate Students (Swales and Feak, 2012). We explore, in particular, the issues related to addressing the concerns of stakeholders, who may have competing interests. The two projects reveal that at times in the publisher–author–end-user relationships critical asymmetries can arise, which may redirect an author’s desired plans. At other times, when the publisher, the author, and the end-user embrace a similar vision for a textbook revision, the relationship may be more flexible, resulting in greater author autonomy in designating the content and matters of style.

Chaosmos: Spontaneity and Order in the Materials Design Process

作者简介

Jill Hadfield has worked as a teacher trainer in Britain, France, China, Madagascar, and New Zealand and conducted short courses, seminars, and workshops for teachers in many other countries. She is currently Associate Professor in the Department of Language Studies at Unitec, New Zealand.

内容概要

This article examines the process of writing activities for Motivating Learning (Hadfield and Dörnyei, 2013), which aims to take new insights from research and translate them directly into practice, in the form of resource materials for teachers. It examines my materials-writing process in relation to the existing literature on materials creation – in particular in relation to other materials writers’ self-reports on their processes and the comments made on these by theorists – but it also situates the discussion within the critical landscape of debate on the creative process in general, across various disciplines. In comparing my own and other writers’ accounts of their creative processes with theorists’ critiques of the process, two oppositions are defined: that between the circuitous and recursive process described by the writers and various attempts to impose a more linear, orderly progression on the design process, and that between the apparently ad hoc spontaneous and intuitive process the writers describe and the call for design to be based on principled frameworks. It concludes that textbook writing is a highly recursive and circuitous activity which cannot be reduced to a linear progression through checklists of concerns, but which demands flexibility and responsiveness to particular activities and contexts. Its spontaneity and ad hoc nature, however, does not imply a lack of principles; rather, materials writers have a ‘tacit’ framework of principles underlying their design decisions which can be called into play at any moment, depending on the demands of the task.

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