Page:Adapting and Writing Language Lessons.pdf/103

CHAPTER 3 difference between 'in school' and 'in class' might pose problems.) The nearest reference to meaning is a statement (p. viii) that the vocabulary has been drawn from 'basic semantic fields.' Echoing Fries, the authors state that their goal is to teach 'with a limited vocabulary of high-frequency words, those features of English phonology and syntax which students should be able to comprehend and manipulate before proceeding beyond the intermediate level' (p. vii).

Teachers who are philosophically in communion with the authors will welcome their work and will probably adopt it. Those who reject the philosophy will also reject the book. In the field of English as a Second Language it makes little difference, for if one book is cast aside, there are still dozens of others waiting to be examined. The same is not true for seldom-taught languages, where he available courses usually number between 1 and 5. All too easily, a new teacher or language coordinator despairs of all that is in print and decides to set out on his own. But such a decision is expensive in money and time, and dubious in result. A Swahili proverb tells us that 'there is no bad beginning,' and so the newcomer, encouraged by the ease with which he has pleased himself with his first few lessons, launches yet another material-writing project.

This appendix, then, is a review of Kane and Kirkland's. It is primarily addressed, not to practitioners of TESOL, but to prospective teachers and lesson writers in the so-called 'neglected languages.' Its purpose is to demonstrate how, by following a particular set of principles, one may adapt and supplement existing materials instead of rejecting them. English has been chosen for this illustration only because examples are easier to follow in a