Page:Adapting and Writing Language Lessons.pdf/111

CHAPTER 3 Where is this (gas station)?

It's (near here, on Fairfax Drive, at parkington, etc.).

Going still further, if one is willing to introduce yes-no questions at this stage, then the students could use questions like 'Is this a parking lot? Are we at the library?' and also learn each other's marital status and inquire about such states as fatigue and hunger. But this too is a question of balancing new communicative potential against increased length and complexity of the lesson. Would such an extension be justifiable? The most important fact about this kind of question is not whether the answer is yes or no, but rather who is qualified to answer it. We sometimes forget that a worthwhile answer can only come from a classroom teacher who understands its implications, and that even he or she can answer it for only one class at a time. Someone writing a case study like this one can only guess at the answer, but. This is one reason why published textbooks are so often rejected by prospective users. It is also one reason why we must give to adaptation much more thought, time, and prestige than we have been accustomed to doing.

The final proof of the lessons, as we have said, is in what the students can now do that they recognize as immediately useful or enjoyable in its own right, or potentially so in the immediate future. Greetings and introductions, marked (1) in the matrix on p.87, are certainly socio-topical 'behavioral objectives' in this sense, and these were in the lesson from the beginning. New 'objectives' relate to the boxes marked (2) in the matrix. Although the student is still unable to carry out sustained conversation with neighbors on the subject of getting around in Arlington, he at least has some of the most crucial sentence patterns and