TITLE:
Validating a Research-Based Monograph for Teaching Post-Secondary EFL Reading Teachers the Meta-Cognitive Aspects of How to Teach Summarizing Strategies for Expository Text: Phase II of a Harvard Business School Type Case Study
AUTHORS:
Wei Xu, James Carifio, Lorraine Dagostino
KEYWORDS:
Instructional Materials Development Models; Metacognition; Metacognitive Knowledge; Bilingual and Bi-Cultural Instructional Contexts; Summarizing Strategies Instruction; Expository Text; Teacher Training
JOURNAL NAME:
Creative Education,
Vol.4 No.5,
May
10,
2013
ABSTRACT: This article reports the results of the second phase of a Harvard
Business School type case study on the evaluation of a comprehensive
research-based English language monograph for teaching Chinese EFL reading
teachers the metacognitive aspects of how to teach summarizing strategies for
English language expository texts to Chinese undergraduate students. This
monograph could be used by native English speaking EFL teachers to teach native
English speaking students the same skills, but the focus of this study was on
the bilingual and bicultural aspects of such a monograph (text) and its
development as a general model of such cross-language and cross-culture
instructional materials development problems which are becoming
increasingly more prevalent now and are a harbinger of the future of instructional materials. A cross-panel replicated expert reviewer
(native Chinese EFL practitioners and academics) design was used to validate the monograph developed using
the Carifio-Perla instructional materials development model as a guide. The expert reviewers used a 30-item previously validated structured responding
protocol that reflected 7 evaluative criteria and 4 open-ended responding
questions to review and rate the monograph chapter by chapter and then again
for all 8 chapters. The reviewers unanimously agreed that the general Metacognitive
Knowledge Framework, devised as a result of the literature reviews, analyses
done, and numerous problems identified in Phase I of this study concerning
views, definitions and strategies for analyzing and teaching summarizing
strategies metacognitively, was appropriately constructed and effectively
communicated and represented in The Monograph for the target audiences.
The uniformly positive ratings
by the two expert panels validated the high quality and consistency of the monograph in
terms of the 7 evaluative criteria used. These results also showed aspects of
skills, knowledge, understandings, and metacognitions both transcend and
can be represented and communicated successfully across languages and cultures
and to different professional audiences as well.