Page:Adapting and Writing Language Lessons.pdf/86

Rh of the four components may take the form of replacing what is inappropriate and supplementing what is inadequate for a particular group of students.

The authors of the text have themselves made a first step toward greater flexibility in the 'sample' component by underlining approximately half of the lines of the dialog. They suggest that only the underlined sentences be used if an abbreviated version is preferred.

It will be instructive to take a closer look at this dialog. The underlined portion (we shall call it Part A) contains 13 of the 20 sentences, including most of the short, very frequent, and relatively invariable phrases such as greetings, 'really?' and 'of course.' It also contains the two longest and 'heaviest' sentences. All of the second-person verbs, all of the exclamation points, and all expressions of emotion are in the underlined sentences.

The sentences that are not underlined (Part B) are more nearly uniform in 'weight.' Except for the last, they consist of factual questions and answers. Part B will therefore be relatively more susceptible to 'lexical exploration,' through Cummings devices (Chapter 3, p.59, and Chapter 6) or in other ways.

Adaptation of the dialog itself is likely to be slight and superficial. Some teachers will feel that if only one form of the second person is to be taught in the opening lesson, it should be the formal rather than the informal one. Most students will have destinations other than Santa Ana, Chile. Some will expect to live in hotels or dormitories rather than with a family. All of these changes can be made without disturbing the basic structure of the dialog.