Textbook Adaptation:

All-Star 3, Unit 4: Money and Consumer Issues

Lita Brusick Johnson

LING 583 - Materials and Curriculum Development
April 21, 2013

This paper describes an adaptation of All-Star 3, Unit 4, and is based on the

following assumptions about context and constraints:
Class and Students. The students are parents of elementary students who
have limited English language proficiency and attend ESL classes during regular school
hours (9:15-11:45 a.m., Tuesday/Thursday). The 15 mothers are 18-40 years old; the
majority speak Spanish as their L1.
Program. This outreach program of a local elementary school is coordinated
by the schools ESL coordinator. While it receives minimal financial support and is
volunteer-taught, the two courses (this intermediate course and one for beginners) are
strongly supported by the administration. Classrooms are equipped with whiteboards
and overhead projectors.
Goals. The programs overarching goal is to increase parents communicative
competence in English so that they can engage more confidently in community life and
provide a positive learning environment for their children. The instruction focuses on
English for life skills.
Approach. An integrated four-language-skills approach is buttressed by
learning and critical thinking skills elements; particular attention is given to enhancing
vocabulary acquisition. The All-Star scope and sequence forms the backbone of
both classes, within the context of a learner-centered approach that takes seriously
students needs and interests. Teachers are generally expected to follow All-Stars
sequencing of skill development (listening/speaking, reading/writing, critical thinking,
and grammar skills). However, teachers have substantial latitude to adapt, replace, and
supplement textbook activities, particularly at the unit and the activity level (Graves
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2000, p. 188 ff.), in order to meet learning goals and respond to parents
interests/needs.
The following are unit-specific goals and objectives.

Listening & Speaking

Engage in increasingly
fluent and meaningful
conversation. Focus:
buying/selling
discussing purchases
warranties/ consumer
rights
avoiding scams/ identity
theft
children and finances
disagreeing
politely

Unit 4 (Money & Consumer Issues): Goals and Objectives

Reading & Writing
Vocabulary
Grammar
Improve reading
comprehension.
Focus:
Warranties
Banking
documents
Improve writing
skills.
Focus:
Writing questions
Writing advice on
children and finance

Learn words related

to everyday finances
Major purchases
Warranties
Banking
Money
management
Word Family
vocabulary building:
form shifts (suffixes)
Recycling to enhance
fluency

New focus:
Gerunds
Recycling:
Present
progressive
Simple past

Learning
Strategies
Enhance
abilities to:
Use context
to discover
meaning
Focus on:
main idea/
details
Take notes
Advanced
planning:
outlining
(with cluster
diagram)

Critical
Thinking
Make
Inferences
Analyze/
Synthesize
Evaluate
Provide
reasons for
opinions
Solve
problems

The unit is taught over a 2.5 weeks period (five 2.5 hour lessons). Within the
thematic syllabus, the unit plan features elements of both cycle and matrix organization.
Some activities/processes are recycled (pair, group work; task work with specific
outcomes; competitions); some are new. A balance is sought between meaningful
reception and production; functional use of language and attention to language forms
(explicit and implicit, inductive and deductive); and skill-getting and skill-using
exercises, activities, and tasks (Nunan 1989, p. 61). By this fourth unit, students have
experienced unit cycles (theme introduction, vocabulary and grammar input,
progressively more complex speaking, reading, and writing activities/tasks) as well as
week and lesson cycles, enhanced by threads (described below). These routines
have clear pedagogical purposes (e.g. lessening students cognitive load, enabling them
to marshal attention to new elements).
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The thematic content and graphics provided by All-Star are fully exploited, and
some learning activities are embedded in the unit plan or are expanded. Others are
rejected and replaced by more contextually appropriate elements; changed (content or
procedures); or supplemented by activities and materials from authentic sources
(McGrath, 2002, pp. 60 ff.). This adaptation seeks to fills cognitive and affective gaps in
order to meet unit learning goals and respond to the needs and interests of the students
though the following key elements:
New Threads. Several threads (Woodward 2001, p. 55) linked to specific
learning objectives run through the unit in predictable and systematic ways; they build
skills and integrate form and meaning, supplementing the textbook. They provide
additional opportunities for meaningful student-centered input/output, skill-building and
fluency enhancement (while also providing informal opportunities for addressing
accuracy issues that can undermine intelligibility). These threads enable the
adaptation to more closely approximate Paul Nations (2007) four strands approach to
language learning, a balance among meaning-focused input, meaning-focused output,
language-focused learning, and fluency development. Vocabulary learning is
intentionally integrated into this frame, as Norbert Schmitt advocates, providing both an
explicit, intentional learning component and maximum vocabulary exposure and use
(Schmitt, 2008, p. 329). These important threads include:
o Introductory activities. These alternate-day threads focus on fluency, recycle
forms learned earlier, and build community: (1) Since Last Time (recycling in
meaningful speech the past tense form, providing opportunities for natural

pronunciation feedback on final consonants). (2) Whats New with the Children?
(recycling in meaningful speech the present progressive).
o Focus on Form: Teaching about Word Families (as advocated by Schmitt,
2008b, p.3). This thread provides students with immediately applicable
metalinguistic vocabulary-building hints. Elements present in All-Star are extended
in the adaptation (Lessons 1.11, Handout #3).
o Unit Learning Log. All-Star provides a learning log for unit-end student selfassessment (AS, p. 71). However, this checklist is repurposed, and is used briefly
at the end of each day to help students chart their learning progress.
o

Language Journal. Students are asked to notice interesting, difficult, funny,

or perplexing elements of English. At the end of every Thursday class, students

hand in a paragraph describing an element and then share what they observed in
cocktail hour exchanges (meaningful output about language awareness/fluency
building). This sequence creates a natural pre-planning (writing) phase that
undergirds informal oral production.
Activities and tasks that engage interest, respect experience, and provide
choice. Adaptation decisions reflect a commitment to the principle of providing as
much student input and choice as possible. The adaptation is structured to enable
replacement of sections, should students identify more relevant sub-unit thematic
content. (Lesson 1.4 provides an intentional opportunity for students to identify such
areas.) Included in the current adaptation are replacements/supplements/adjustments
that embody the underlying principle:

o Lesson 5.5: The AS final reading text (a business success story about a wealthy
immigrant) might not connect with financially strapped mothers who attend class. So
the class will read instead authentic (or minimally adapted) texts that in the areas of
interest they identified (in Lesson 1.4).
o Lessons 2.8, 2.9. 3.7: Content on scams (including identity theft) with authentic
listening (video) resource is added.
o Lessons 4.4.a, 5.4: The major summative writing task in the All-Star unit (focus:
major purchase; diagramming/outlining strategies in preparation for paragraph writing)
is enhanced by new scaffolding that begins in a previous section (teaching children
about money). The arc of instruction begins with affirmation of student experience
in a new Learning from Experience task. Students financial experiences (smart things
and not so smart things they did) are shared and categorized before students read
and evaluate the advice of an outside expert. Prior to the Dear Abby writing task,
students are exposed to the first level of writing strategies (diagramming). Then the
advice letters, typed overnight, provide written, class-generated financial advice which
provides input into the final writing task about how to go about making a major purpose.
Elements of this expanded arc are carefully sequenced and scaffolded, moving from
schemata activation to simple activities to more complex tasks. Students have a choice
on what issues to address. And throughout, student views are valued as (or more)
highly than outsider input.
Task and Project Work. All-Star generally does not include tasks, so additional
tasks are added in five of the six lessons, offering increased opportunities for
meaningful speaking and listening with an outcome that often becomes the scaffold for

future activities. Also included is a major four-skills project element that is a regular
thread not only within but between units: a Storycorps project that allows for both the
authentic input (the voices/stories of everyday people, told in their own words) and
authentic, personalized, and highly relevant output. Every Thursday, the final half hour
of class is devoted to this project and efforts are made to utilize computer
technologies (despite classroom limitations).
Assessment. This school does needs assessments with each class of
learners/mothers at the beginning, middle, and end of the school year. Since there are
no external funders, the program can choose to do assessment as it deems best; it
need not utilize All-Stars standardized testing formats. The adaptation anticipates a
unit-final quiz that documents student learning (summative assessment); such an
assessment would be carefully crafted to avoid demotivating learners. However, such
an end-of-unit quiz provides an incentive for students to review, helps them chart their
progress, and provides teachers and administrators information needed to assess
whether learning outcomes are being realized. Summative assessment is augmented
by ongoing formative assessment (in particular relating to speaking). The end-of-theunit writing tasks/activities provide a blend: a structured way to assess learning and a
non-test-based vehicle for learners to receive written teacher feedback.
The attached unit plan recognizes the strengths of All-Star 3 even as it
identifies areas where teacher creativity, context-sensitivity, and respect for learners
needs can complement it. Together, the two elements contribute to a roadmap for
learning that can assist learners to achieve specific language learning outcomes and
thus contribute to the fulfillment of their broader life goals.

References

Graves, K. (2000). Designing Language Courses: A Guide for Teachers. Boston, MA:
Heinle Press.
McGrath, I. (2002). Chapter 4 Coursebook-based Teaching: Adaptation. Materials
Evaluation and Design for Language Teaching. Edinburgh, Edinburgh:
Edinburgh University Press.
Nation, P. (2007) The Four Strands. Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching.
1(1):1-12.
Nunan, D. (1989). Chapter 3 Task Components. Designing Tasks for the
Communicative Classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Schmitt, N. (2008). Review Article: Instructed Second Language Vocabulary Learning.
Language Teaching Research. 12(3):329-363.
Schmitt, N. (2008). Teaching Vocabulary. Pearson Education, Inc. Accessed online,
April 2013.
Woodward, T. (2001). Chapter 1 How Long is the Lesson? in Planning Lessons and
Courses. Cambridge, UK, Cambridge University Press.