2020 年 9 月
中国应用语言学（英文）
Sep. 2020
第 43 卷 第 3 期
Chinese Journal of Applied Linguistics
Vol. 43 No. 3
A Case Study of an Experienced University
EFL Teacher ’s Use of POA Teaching
Materials1
Zheng BI
Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, Beijing Foreign Studies University
Abstract
Although research on teaching materials use has important implications for materials development,
little literature examines how teachers actually use materials in the classroom. The present study,
taking the theoretical framework for using and evaluating Production-Oriented Approach (POA)
teaching materials (Wen, 2017), explores the procedure and the rationale of an experienced Chinese
university EFL teacher’s use of POA teaching materials. Multiple methods were employed in data
collection, including classroom observations, teacher interviews, the teacher’s lesson plans, and
PowerPoints, as well as students’ written and oral products. Data analysis showed that the teacher
followed a three-phase process of materials use. Before class, teaching objectives were set, materials
were selected, adapted, and then transformed into teaching activities. During class, the teaching
activities were implemented with the materials. After class, the effectiveness of using the materials
was assessed. The study revealed that the teacher played an active role in practicing the essential
POA principles of “productive-objectives-determined” and “input-in-service-to-output” in the entire
process of material use.
Keywords: college English teaching, Production-Oriented Approach, materials use
1 This study was funded by the Humanities and Social Sciences Key Project at Key Research Centers of the Ministry
of Education in China (16JJD740002) and was supported by the Project of Discipline Innovation and Advancement
(PODIA)—Foreign Language Education Studies at Beijing Foreign Studies University.
ISSN 2192-9505 Chinese J. of Appl. Ling. 43-3 (2020), pp. 373-387 DOI 10.1515/CJAL-2020-0024
© FLTRP, Walter de Gruyter, Cultural and Education Section British Embassy
373
A Case Study of an Experienced University EFL Teacher’s Use of POA Teaching Materials
1. Introduction
Teaching materials, in the broad sense, are anything that can be used by language learners to
facilitate their learning of the target language (Tomlinson & Masuhara, 2018, p. 2). It applies
primarily to the textbook, which is the most prominent of the materials employed by college
English teachers; there are also other materials supplemented by the teacher in order to fulfill
teaching objectives. Given that teaching materials are oftentimes the de facto curriculum in the
classroom (Miguel, 2015, p. 309), “it is surprising how little attention they have received until
recently in the literature on applied linguistics” (Tomlinson, 2012, p. 144).
The general literature on language teaching materials falls into three broad areas: content,
use, and production (Harwood, 2014, p. 2). Among them, research on materials use is the
only field that is conducted within the classroom context, which examines “the ways that
research gap
participants in language learning environments actually employ and interact with materials”
(Guerrettaz et al., 2018, p. 38). However, materials use is widely acknowledged as the leaststudied area within materials research (Garton & Graves, 2014; Larsen-Freeman, 2014). The
limited studies on materials use mainly examine the strategies teachers adopt to adapt materials
and their rationales (Miguel, 2015; Xu & Fan, 2017), but few explore the whole process of
materials use.
The present study, taking the theoretical framework for using and evaluating ProductionOriented Approach (hereafter POA) teaching materials (Wen, 2017), explores the process of
an experienced Chinese university EFL teacher’s use of them. POA teaching materials refer
to a series of college EFL textbooks based on the POA theory. Many college English teachers
have been taking initiatives to employ POA teaching materials as agents of instructional
improvement (e.g., Chen & Wen, 2020; Qiu, 2017; Sun, 2017; L. L. Zhang, 2017; W. J. Zhang,
2017), but few studies have examined the whole process of how teachers use POA teaching
materials in the classroom context. This study explores how the teacher actually uses POA
teaching materials before, during, and after class.
2. Theoretical Framework
The theoretical framework for using and evaluating POA teaching materials (Wen, 2017)
was proposed to guide teachers to effectively use teaching materials. It acknowledges that
a classroom is rather complex and akin to an ecosystem (Guerrettaz & Johnston, 2013) in
which the elements are closely interrelated. Therefore, materials use should be perceived as a
complicated process in which related elements such as the teacher, students, textbooks, and the
理论框架
course should be all taken into consideration. According to Wen’s framework, materials use
includes pre-, in-, and post-class phases (see Figure 1). In the pre-class phase, the teacher first
sets teaching objectives based on his or her analysis of the textbook, students, and curriculum
requirements. Second, the teacher selects teaching materials according to teaching objectives.
Third, the teacher transforms materials into a set of teaching activities. During the in-class
phase, the teacher carries out teaching activities with the assistance of materials. In the post374
Zheng BI
class phase, the teacher evaluates the effectiveness of materials use by examining whether the
teaching objectives have been met or not.
Figure 1. The process of using POA teaching materials (adapted from Wen, 2017)
Based on this theoretical framework, this study addresses the following question: How
does the teacher use POA teaching materials before, during, and after class? By exploring how
the teacher actually interacts with the teaching materials in different phases, the research aims
to provide implications for university teachers to effectively use teaching materials in an EFL
context.
3. Methods
3.1 Context and participants
This study investigated the process of materials use in an EFL college English class at a public
university in northern China. The class was typical in China in terms of class size and the
course objective. The students were 55 freshmen (42 male, 13 female) in their late teens with an
estimated average English proficiency level of B2. Their reading and listening skills were better
than their speaking and writing skills, a common phenomenon for college students in China.
The course objective was to improve students’ English proficiency to meet potential practical
needs for international communication in the future.
The teacher, Qi, was a Chinese EFL teacher with 12 years of college English teaching
experience, who had won many awards in national teaching competitions. She had a strong
sense of responsibility and established a friendly relationship with her students. Qi was familiar
with the POA theory since practicing and optimizing the theory was her Ph.D. focus. She had
conducted several rounds of POA teaching experiments before the present study. Informed
consent was obtained from all participants for this study.
3.2 Teaching materials
The textbook used by the teacher and students were iEnglish, a series of college English
textbooks compiled based on the POA. One of the essential features of the textbook is “inputoutput-integration” (Chang, 2017, p. 366). A productive activity is designed for each unit as a
unit project, which was the exit activity that students were supposed to accomplish based on
介绍教材和选取的具体内容
375
A Case Study of an Experienced University EFL Teacher’s Use of POA Teaching Materials
what they had learned. The productive activity should demonstrate potential communicative
value, meaning that it was possible for students to encounter similar communicative scenarios
in their lives (Wen, 2018a, p. 396). All input materials and teaching activities are designed to
help students learn ideas, language, and structure necessary to accomplish the unit project.
The specific unit used in the present study was Unit 4 from iEnglish Book 2. The topic
of this unit is “Kindness and Indifference,” specifically referencing the Yueyue incident in
China. Yueyue, a two-year-old girl in Guangdong Province, was knocked down and run over
by a mini-van on the street. Eighteen people passed by, but no one offered any help until a
scavenger found her and moved her to the roadside. In the end, the girl died in the hospital.
The unit project was to write an opinion piece to be posted on the Internet about helping in
emergencies. The opinion piece was to explain why so many people didn’t help in emergencies
and how to encourage them to lend a hand when help is needed.
In order to enable students to accomplish the unit project, the textbook provided two
reading passages entitled “The Bystander Effect” and “The Kindness of Strangers.” The first
passage introduced the murder of Kitty Genovese in the US during the 1960s, in which
the young Kitty was killed by an assailant in a parking lot. Some neighbors heard the noise
and the scream for help, but no one came to her aid. Kitty was eventually killed. The text
provided possible reasons for the bystanders’ reactions, “the bystander effect,” and argued
that people didn’t help because they were not sure of what had happened (i.e., the ambiguity
of interpretation) and they expected others to take action first (i.e., the moral diffusion). The
second passage asserts that humans were born to be kind and helpful, and humans would
offer help for fear of others’ criticism. In addition to these reading passages, the textbook also
provided relevant videos and pictures about the texts and a set of teaching activities for teachers
to choose and adapt according to their specific teaching needs.
3.3 Data collection and analysis
Research data were collected from three complementary sources: classroom observations,
teacher interviews, and teaching artifacts. Classroom observations lasted for two weeks, with a
total of 8 class hours. The class was also videotaped with prior consent for subsequent reference.
The semi-structured teacher interview was conducted after class, which lasted for two hours
(later transcribed into 32,000 words). The teaching artifacts consisted of the textbook, materials
supplemented by the teacher, and PowerPoint slides used in the classroom teaching.
Data analysis was primarily qualitative. Data from classroom observations were examined
to show how the teacher used materials during the class. They were first segmented according
to the POA teaching procedures, i.e., the motivating phase, enabling phase, and assessing phase.
Then the types, forms, and purposes of the teaching activities in each phase were analyzed in
detail. Data from the teacher interview were examined to explore how the teacher prepared
the materials before and after class, as well as the rationale behind using the materials that way.
The interview data were first analyzed and categorized to identify major steps of materials
use by applying Wen’s (2017) theoretical framework for using the POA teaching materials.
376
Zheng BI
Meanwhile, the codes for the steps were kept open for modification and further improvement
based on the empirical findings. Afterward, the interview data were examined bottom-up to
identify the sub-steps of material use according to the emergent themes. Teaching artifacts
such as PowerPoints were used to analyze the details of the teaching activities. The three sets of
data triangulated with each other, enhancing the credibility of the data.
4. Research Findings
4.1 The pre-class phase
During the pre-class phase, the teacher prepared the lesson with the help of the textbook,
which included setting teaching objectives, adapting materials, and transforming materials into
teaching activities.
4.1.1 Designing teaching objectives: Prioritizing the productive objective
The teaching objectives are goals the teacher expected the students to achieve after they learned
the whole unit. In general, the teaching objectives Qi set could be divided into four dimensions:
productive objectives, language objectives, knowledge objectives, and moral objectives.
Productive objectives were presented in the form of what students could do after learning
this unit (Wen, 2017, p. 21). The three productive objectives provided in the textbook were: 1)
describing the bystander’s psychological reactions to an emergency; 2) explaining why humans
are willing to help others, even strangers, for no reward; 3) telling why many people do not
help in emergencies and explaining how to encourage them to help. Qi adapted the productive
objectives after carefully reading the two passages in this unit. First, she changed “describing
the bystander’s psychological reactions to an emergency” into “describing the Yueyue incident
and Kitty’s murder.” Second, she deleted the objective of “explaining why humans are willing
to help others, even strangers, for no reward.” She explained the reasons for the adaptation in
the interview:
Almost one third of the texts in the textbook were about Kitty’s murder. However, the productive
objective didn’t require the students to produce that. In order to align what the students learned
and what they produced, I revised the first productive objective into describing the cases of Kitty’s
murder and the Yueyue incident. Also, my students were weak in description, and they needed
more practice… I deleted the objective of “explaining why humans are willing to help others, even
strangers, for no reward” because I think it wasn’t so closely related to the unit project, and wasn’t
consistent with the logical line of these productive objectives either. (Interview)
From the interview, the rationale to set the productive objectives can be explained as
follows. First, the productive objectives should be aligned with the input materials, namely the
“input-output integration” teaching principle in the POA (Wen, 2015, p. 550). Logically, the
productive objectives should be designed first, and the input materials selected to serve the
377
A Case Study of an Experienced University EFL Teacher’s Use of POA Teaching Materials
purpose of production; however, in real classroom practice, it was also possible that part of
the productive objectives was revised based on the input materials as Qi did, and this showed
that the design of the productive objectives was an iterative process. Second, there should be a
logical link between the sub-productive-objectives, which could form a coherent unit activity
when put together.
The language objectives were the target language items that were useful for accomplishing
the unit project. The encyclopedic knowledge objectives refer to the encyclopedic knowledge
related to the unit project. The moral objectives refer to the guidance the teacher gave in order
to help students develop positive values based on what they learned from the texts. Table 1 lists
some of the language, encyclopedic, and moral objectives.
Table 1. Teaching objectives in four dimensions
Productive objectives
Language objectives
Encyclopedic knowledge objectives
Moral objectives
Describe the Yueyue incident and infamous case; a sudden grab;
The Yueyue incident and Kitty’s
Kitty’s murder
run over; knock down; offer help murder
Explain why many people do not moral diffusion; level of
help in emergencies
ambiguity
psychological reasons of the
bystander effect
escape the collective paralysis;
specific strategies such as call the
Discuss how to encourage people
take immediate action; not follow police, take initiatives to offer help,
to help
the herd
etc.
Guide students to learn how
to react in emergencies, and
encourage them to actively
help others in need
In terms of the relationship between the four dimensions, Qi believed that the productive
objectives played a decisive role, while the language objectives and knowledge objectives served
the needs of the productive objectives. All four objectives worked together to fulfill the ultimate
goal of enhancing students’ communicative abilities. At the same time, the moral objectives
fulfilled the educational responsibility of the course to educate students to behave ethically. Qi
stated:
教师对这些objectives的看法
The teaching objectives were multi-dimensional, but in my opinion, their status was not equal.
The productive objectives had the priority, because the ultimate goal of my teaching was to enable
students to communicate in English. The language objectives and the knowledge objectives were
decided by the productive objectives. The moral objectives were closely related to the topic of this
unit and were achieved by giving the students guidance on how to do things correctly. (Interview)
Qi’s words show that her teaching beliefs about the teaching objectives were consistent
with the POA theory, that is, teaching objectives should be set to enhance students’ key
competencies (Wen, 2018b, p. 4), which include various dimensions of knowledge, skills,
morality, and so on.
Based on the teaching objectives, Qi revised the unit project in the textbook in order to
integrate the teaching objectives into a communicative activity. Students were divided into
groups of four. Then they randomly selected to take on the identity of an expatriate, a Chinese,
a psychologist, and an educator. The four students took turns to post their opinion piece on the
378
Zheng BI
Internet forum. First, the expatriate wrote a post to describe the Yueyue incident, which he or
she had read on the Internet and expressed the view that Chinese people are too cold-blooded.
Second, the Chinese replied with a post to argue that such incidents also happen in other
countries, like Kitty’s murder in the United States. Third, the psychologist replied with a post
to analyze the reasons for which people did not help in such cases. Finally, the educator replied
with a post to put forward suggestions on how to remove the bystander effect. All the postings
were closely related to what was taught by Qi in this unit.
4.1.2 Adapting the materials: Revising the content, form, and order
According to the teaching objectives, the teacher adapted the teaching materials in terms of the
content, form, and order. As to the content of the materials, Qi found that the texts provided
useful information about Kitty’s murder, and the psychological reasons for people not to offer
help in emergencies, i.e., “the bystander effect.” However, there was no description of the
Yueyue incident, and there were few suggestions on how to avoid the bystander effect. Besides,
Qi believed that the text “The Kindness of Strangers” was not closely related to the unit project.
As a result, Qi supplemented the video and text passage of the Yueyue incident, as well as
reading materials on how to avoid the bystander effect. Meanwhile, Qi omitted the text “The
Kindness of Strangers”. She explained the reasons for the adaptation:
一个行为之后有解释这样做的原因
When I decided which materials to use, the fundamental principle was to connect the input and
output. For example, the students were asked to describe the Yueyue incident, but there were no
corresponding materials in the textbook. Therefore, I must bridge the gap by supplementing the
materials myself. … I omitted the text about the kindness of human nature, because I believe the
content of the text which is about the goodness of human nature couldn’t help students to explain
why people didn’t help in emergencies. (Interview)
As to the form of the materials, Qi believed that different forms of materials had different
advantages. Videos and pictures were intuitive, while texts were suitable for deep processing of
the content and language. Therefore, Qi took into account which was the most effective form of
materials in her preparations. For example, the textbook provided texts on Kitty’s murder, but
Qi thought videos might be more impressive, and thus searched the Internet for more videos
about this case. She stated:
Kitty’s murder was a little bit far away for my students. I was thinking if I were the student, how
could I “read out” the bystander effect only by the texts? I must get the students to watch the video in
order to give them first hand feelings. (Interview)
Qi also revised the order of the materials in the textbook. For example, the textbook
provided a video on the phenomenon of the bystander effect and its psychological reasons,
which were designed to be used in the motivating phase. However, Qi used the video in the
enabling phase, playing it after teaching the reading passages, because she believed it was easier
379
A Case Study of an Experienced University EFL Teacher’s Use of POA Teaching Materials
for the students to understand the video after learning the texts. Qi explained:
I believe the video was too difficult for my students to understand. But if they watched it after
learning the texts, it would be much easier for them. What’s more, it could reinforce what they
learned from the textbook because many phrases in the video had already appeared in the texts. So
what mattered was not only which materials to use, but also when to use them, and the students’
readiness was an important consideration. (Interview)
In summary, Qi took the following factors into consideration when adapting materials:
whether the content was sufficient and relevant for the necessary information with which
students could fulfill the unit project, whether the form was effective for students to process
and take in, and whether the order was appropriate for students to learn in the cognitively
progressive way.
4.1.3 Transforming the materials: Building the scaffold for the unit project
After the materials were selected and adapted, they needed to be transformed into teaching
activities that could be implemented in class. Qi followed the criteria of alignment, gradualness,
and variety to transform the materials into teaching activities (Wen, 2017, p. 22). For example,
8 teaching activities were designed for the teaching objective of “explaining why people didn’t
help in emergencies” (see Table 2).
Table 2. Teaching activities designed for “explaining why people didn’t help in emergencies”
No.
Teaching activities
Types of activities
Units of language processing
Forms of activities
1
Sts fill the blanks of the text about the
bystander effect
Comprehensive & productive
Phrase
Reading & Writing
2
Sts fill the blanks of the text about the
reasons for the bystander effect
Comprehensive & productive
Phrase
Reading & Writing
3
T illustrates useful phrases for
explaining the bystander effect
Comprehensive
Phrase
Listening
4
Sts translate sentences about the
bystander effect into English with the
help of given key phrases
Productive
Sentence
Translating
5
Sts translate sentences about the
bystander effect into English without
the help of given key phrases
Productive
Sentence
Translating
6
Sts describe pictures about the
bystander effect with the help of given
key phrases
Productive
Paragraph
Speaking
7
Sts describe pictures about the
bystander effect without the help of
given key phrases
Productive
Paragraph
Speaking
8
Role play of interviewing the
bystanders of Kitty’s murder
Productive
Paragraph
Speaking
380
Zheng BI
Alignment means that all teaching activities should align with the productive objectives
and with the difficulties of the students to fulfill the unit project (Wen, 2017, p. 22). It can
be seen from Table 2 that all 8 teaching activities were targeted at helping students fulfill
the productive objective of explaining the reasons for the bystander effect. To deal with
students’ difficulties in lacking knowledge and language, Activities 1, 2, and 3 were designed
to familiarize students with the psychological knowledge and key language items, and the five
remaining activities were designed to provide more opportunities for students to practice what
they had learned through productive activities.
Gradualness means the difficulty levels of the teaching activities should increase step
by step in terms of the cognitive type of the activities and unit of language processing (Qiu,
2017, p. 35; Wen, 2017, p. 22). Generally speaking, the eight activities Qi designed followed
the principles of moving from comprehension to production, and from phrases to sentences
to paragraphs. Even within the same type of activity like Activities 6 and 7, the scaffold of “the
key phrases” was given first and then withdrawn, showing that Qi carefully built stairs for
the students to progress step by step towards the fulfillment of the productive objectives. Qi
explained:
When I designed the teaching activities, I was always thinking about the cognitive process of
learning. The key phrases for translating sentences or describing pictures were given first, and then
withdrawn. The students processed the same information twice within a short period of time, and
this forced them to memorize the phrases and then use them. (Interview)
Variety means that the teaching activities should be designed in different forms (Wen,
2017, p. 22), which help students improve their overall English proficiency. It can be seen that
the eight activities were designed in the forms of reading, writing, listening, speaking, and
translating, which not only provided opportunities for students to practice different kinds of
skills but also made the learning more interesting.
4.2 The in-class phase
According to the POA theory, the teaching procedures in class include the motivating phase,
enabling phase, and assessing phase (Wen, 2015). This section will illustrate how the teacher
used the teaching materials in these three phases.
4.2.1 Motivating phase: Arousing students’ emotional and cognitive interests
The major goal of using the teaching materials in the motivating phase was to arouse students’
interest to learn (Wen, 2018a, p. 396). The teacher employed multi-modal materials to motivate
the students emotionally and asked them to try the unit project to motivate them cognitively.
In order to attract the students’ attention to the unit topic, Qi presented the video and
pictures of the Yueyue incident. It could be seen through class observations that students’
emotional interests were greatly aroused because the multi-modal materials directly displayed
381
A Case Study of an Experienced University EFL Teacher’s Use of POA Teaching Materials
the sad scene of Yueyue’s plight, and evoked students’ sympathy, anger, and disappointment. Qi
stressed the role of the multi-modal materials in the motivating phase in the interview after class:
The multi-modal materials could give students first hand feelings about the Yueyue incident, as if
they were the bystanders themselves. When they were asked to describe the case later, I found many
of them using the same expressions in the news report. I think it was because they were greatly
impressed by the materials. (Interview)
This example demonstrated that the proper use of multi-modal materials in the
motivating phase could arouse students’ emotional interests. Moreover, the materials in the
motivating phase would even perform the enabling function as long as they were carefully
chosen to be highly related to what students were asked to produce, as was shown in Qi’s case.
After presenting the multi-modal materials, Qi invited students to talk about their feelings,
and then discuss why the passers-by didn’t offer assistance and how to encourage people to
help in such cases, and that was part of the unit project. The failure to express their opinions
appropriately made students aware of their deficiencies, and this cognitively motivated them to
learn this unit.
疑问：课堂观察真的和这些步骤有对应吗
4.2.2 Enabling phase: Guiding students to integrate the input from the materials with the
output
In the enabling phase, Qi implemented the teaching activities which were designed before
class in order to help students process the input materials and use them to accomplish the
productive activities.
The enabling of the teaching objective of “explaining why people didn’t help in
emergencies” was an example. As stated in Section 4.1.3, the teacher designed eight activities
to help students achieve this productive objective (see Table 2). To implement them in class,
first, the teacher guided the students to process the input materials selectively. Qi asked the
students to scan Activities 1 and 2, and gave them specific instructions to read Paragraphs 1
to 3 of the text in order to find the relevant information to finish the two activities. Second,
Qi helped students synthesize useful information from the input materials for the productive
activities. She then asked the students to finish Activities 1 and 2, which helped them sort out
key ideas from the text in a manner of being presentable in the unit project, and then explained
the key phrases to help students learn the useful language points. Third, Qi provided sufficient
opportunities for the students to put the input into use in the output. She asked them to
translate the sentences, describe the pictures, and role play based on the previous information
and language points, and that helped students transfer declarative knowledge into procedural
knowledge by finishing a series of productive activities. Qi explained her rationale for the
enabling procedure:
I guided the students only to learn those input that could be used in the output, and this I believe
is an advantage of the POA over other teaching methodologies, because the students were aware of
382
Zheng BI
why to learn them, and would be more concentrated in class. After that, sufficient chances must be
provided for the students to practice several times what they had learned, pulling them forward step
by step. (Interview)
What Qi said in the interview shows that “selective learning” and “input-output
integration” are the two most important principles she follows when implementing teaching
activities during the enabling phase.
4.2.3 Assessing phase: Using students’ samples as the main material for remedial teaching
There are two kinds of assessment in the assessing phase: one is instant assessment, undertaken
during the teaching process based on student performance in class; the other is delayed
assessment, undertaken in the next round of classes based on students’ oral or written products
(Wen, 2018a, p. 396).
The instant assessment Qi carried out was during the enabling phase in order to ensure
the effectiveness of the enabling. For example, Qi asked the students to describe Kitty’s
murder with the help of some key verb phrases in class. Here is a typical oral product of the
description1:
The man grabbed her. She screamed. Lights in the apartment nearby went on, but nobody came to
help. Then the attacker stabbed her. She struggled and screamed again. (Transcription of a student’s
oral product. The underlined words were given by the teacher.)
After hearing several students’ oral production, Qi realized that the common problem of
the descriptions was that they were too simple to be vivid and detailed since students made
the sentences simply by connecting the given verbs together. Qi then pointed out the problem,
wrote some phrases on the blackboard like “violent grab,” “brutal stab,” “desperate scream”
and “struggled into the building,” and explained their usage in the description in order to help
the students improve the communicative effectiveness of their descriptions.
The delayed assessment Qi carried out was at the beginning of the next class as the
remedial teaching to the previous class, referred to as teacher-student collaborative assessment
in the POA (Wen, 2016). For example, after students handed in their draft unit project, Qi
reviewed the drafts and selected one of the typical problems to conduct the remedial teaching
for the next class, using students’ typical written sample as the teaching material itself:
How could you say Chinese people are cold? Why don’t you check up yourself before criticizing
other people? For instance, the murder of Kitty Genovese suggests you foreigners are cold-blooded.
(Excerpt from a student’s written work)
1 This is the transcription of a student’s oral product. The original false starts and slips of the tongue have been omitted.
The underlined words were given by the teacher.
383
A Case Study of an Experienced University EFL Teacher’s Use of POA Teaching Materials
After presenting the sample to the class, Qi guided them to identify the problem of
inappropriate tone in the communication and asked them to revise the sample together and
then to revise their own drafts individually.
Here, the main teaching materials used in the assessing phase were the students’ own
products, and the goal of using them was to improve the communicative effectiveness of
their products by remedial teaching, and this showed that the nature of the assessment was
the teaching. The foci of assessment selected by the teacher were determined both by the
productive objectives and by the emergent typical problems in student work. Besides, it could
be seen that the teacher’s reflection on and modification to the plan of materials use were
carried out through the whole teaching process, and this signified the dynamic nature of
material use in classroom teaching (Guerrettaz & Johnston, 2013, p. 782).
4.3 The post-class phase: Evaluating the effectiveness of materials use
In the post-class phase, Qi evaluated the effectiveness of materials use from the perspectives
of the students and the teacher herself. In order to evaluate the effects of materials use on
students’ learning, Qi examined the quality of the students’ products, especially the quantity
and quality of the target language items used. The average usage of the target language items
in the students’ final products was six per hundred words, meaning they used one target
language item for every 16 words. Meanwhile, Qi interviewed a group of 13 students about
their engagement in class, their sense of fulfillment of the learning, and their suggestions on
the teaching. Generally speaking, the feedback was rather positive, and some said that they felt
they could put to use what they learned, and this is exactly what the POA strives for. However,
some high-level students said the scaffold the teacher gave was excessive.
From the teacher’s perspective, Qi reflected on her teaching and gave a self-evaluation:
I think some of my teaching designs were successful based on the students’ feedback. I was satisfied
with the percentage of the target language items that the students could put to use in their products.
However, how to balance the needs of the students with different levels was a challenge I should deal
with in the future. (Interview)
How well students could put to use what they learned in their production was the main
criterion to evaluate the effectiveness of materials use, because this was the most direct
manifestation of whether her efforts paid off.
5. Discussion
The research findings of this study suggest that the process of materials use includes four key
steps: selection and adaptation of materials, transformation of materials into teaching activities,
implementation of teaching activities with materials in class, and evaluation of the effectiveness
of materials use. According to Wen (2017, p. 20), the essential principles of POA materials use
384
Zheng BI
are “productive-objectives-determined” and “input-in-service-to-output,” and this means that
productive objectives determine the input materials. This section focuses on how the process
of Qi’s materials use followed the principles in two aspects; that is, productive objectives
determine 1) what to learn as input materials; and 2) how input materials should be learned.
The selection and adaptation of materials result in what needs to be learned as the
input. As detailed in section 4.1.2, whatever strategies (including selecting, supplementing,
deleting, or revising) Qi used to adapt the textbook, the ultimate goal was to ensure that the
input materials could provide necessary information for students to complete the unit project.
What’s more, when implementing the teaching activities with the materials, Qi guided the
students to learn the materials selectively instead of paragraph by paragraph (see 4.2.2). In a
word, the teacher would only choose and teach those input materials that could provide ideas,
language, and discourse structure for students to fulfill the productive objectives. Since learners
have limited processing capacity, this will narrow down what they can attend to when learning
the materials (Skehan, 2011). Therefore, making the content of learning closely related to
productive objectives could improve learning efficiency.
The transformation of materials determines the kinds of teaching activities through which
the input materials will be learned. Students were required to complete a set of productive
activities (see Table 2), which were all targeted at productive objectives, immediately after
learning the input materials in order to put to use what they had learned. That is to say, Qi
created sufficient opportunities for students to transform the receptive knowledge from input
materials into productive and even procedural knowledge. As Long (2015, p. 314) summarized
based on his own teaching experience, creating productive opportunities for students to
“overtly plagiarize” the newly learned input could improve the effectiveness and the efficiency
of language learning. A possible reason for this is that since the power of implicit learning in
adults is reduced, the deliberate use of new forms helps to hold the form-meaning connections
in short-term memory to be processed and rehearsed, and will facilitate the storage of formmeaning connections (Long, 2015, p. 50).
6. Conclusions
The present study explores the procedure of an experienced Chinese university EFL teacher’s
use of POA teaching materials. In the pre-class phase, the teacher designed teaching objectives,
adapted materials in terms of content, form, and order, and transformed them into teaching
activities. In the in-class phase, she employed multi-modal materials to implement the teaching
activities. In the post-class phase, she evaluated the effectiveness of materials use with the
crucial criteria that productive objectives are attained.
This study entails two implications for college English teachers in materials use. From a
theoretical perspective, in order to make clear of the theoretical rationale of the materials, the
teacher should systematically learn the essential teaching principles which guide the compilation
of teaching materials. This is the prerequisite for the teacher to practice the teaching principles
embodied in the teaching materials. From a practical perspective, the teacher should uphold
385
A Case Study of an Experienced University EFL Teacher’s Use of POA Teaching Materials
productive objectives as the guiding principle, and play an active role in selecting, adapting,
transforming, and using materials based on the specific teaching context. An important issue
that the present study could not possibly tackle is how the teacher’s use of POA teaching
materials facilitates student learning over a long period of time. Future studies are suggested to
examine this question from triangulated perspectives.
References
Chang, X. L. (2017). “产出导向法”的教材编写研究 [Textbook writing based on the production-oriented
approach]. Modern Foreign Languages, 40(3), 359-368, 438.
Chen, H., & Wen, Q. F. (2020). 基于“产出导向法”的学术英语写作名词化教学研究——以促成教学
环节为例 [POA-based instruction of nominalization in academic English writing course—Take
enabling phase for example]. Foreign Language Education in China, 3(1), 15-23.
Garton, S., & Graves, K. (2014). Identifying a research agenda for language teaching materials. The Modern
Language Journal, 98(2), 654-657.
Guerrettaz, A. M., Grandon, M., Lee, S., Mathieu, C., Berwick, A., Murray, A., & Pourhaji, M. (2018).
Materials use and development: Synergetic processes and research prospects. Folio, 18(2), 37-44.
Guerrettaz, A. M., & Johnston, B. (2013). Materials in the classroom ecology. The Modern Language
Journal, 97(3), 779-796.
Harwood, N. (Ed.). (2014). English language teaching textbooks: Content, consumption, production. New
York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Larsen-Freeman, D. (2014). It’s about time. The Modern Language Journal, 98(2), 665-667.
Long, M. (2015). Second language acquisition and task-based language teaching. Oxford: John Wiley and
Sons, Inc.
Miguel, N. M. (2015). Textbook consumption in the classroom: Analyzing a classroom corpus. ProcediaSocial and Behavioral Sciences, 198, 309-319.
Qiu, L. (2017). POA教学材料使用研究：选择与转换输入材料过程及评价 [Selecting and transforming
teaching materials into enabling activities: Process and evaluation]. Foreign Language Education in
China, 10(2), 32-39.
Skehan, P. (2011). Researching tasks: Performance, assessment and pedagogy. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign
Language Education Press.
Sun, S. G. (2017). “师生合作评价”课堂反思性实践研究 [Teacher-student collaborative assessment in
classroom teaching: A reflective practice]. Modern Foreign Languages, 40(3), 397-406, 439.
Tomlinson, B. (2012). Materials development for language learning and teaching. Language Teaching,
45(2), 143-179.
Tomlinson, B., & Masuhara, H. (2018). The complete guide to the theory and practice of materials
development for language learning. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Wen, Q. F. (2015). 构建“产出导向法”理论体系 [Developing a theoretical system of the productionoriented approach in language teaching]. Foreign Language Teaching and Research, (4), 547-558.
Wen, Q. F. (2016). “师生合作评价”：“产出导向法”创设的新评价形式 [Teacher-student collaborative
assessment: An innovative assessment method for the production-oriented approach]. Foreign
386
Zheng BI
Language World, (5), 37-43.
Wen, Q. F. (2017). “产出导向法”教学材料使用与评价理论框架 [A theoretical framework for using and
evaluating POA-based teaching materials]. Foreign Language Education in China, 10(2), 17-23.
Wen, Q. F. (2018a). “产出导向法”与对外汉语教学 [Production-oriented approach in teaching Chinese
as a second language]. Chinese Teaching in the World, 32(3), 387-400.
Wen, Q. F. (2018b). 新时代高校外语课程中关键能力的培养：思考与建设 [Cultivating key
competencies through university foreign language courses in the new era: Reflections and
suggestions]. Foreign Language Education in China, 1(1), 3-11.
Xu, J. F., & Fan, Y. M. (2017). 大学英语教师使用教材任务的策略与动机 [Exploring the strategies and
motives of using textbook-based tasks by college English teachers]. Modern Foreign Languages, 40(1),
91-101.
Zhang, L. L. (2017). “产出导向法”的教学有效性研究 [An experimental study on the effectiveness of the
production-oriented approach]. Modern Foreign Languages, 40(3), 369-376.
Zhang, W. J. (2017). “产出导向法”对大学英语写作影响的实验研究 [An experimental study on the
effect of the production-oriented approach on college students’ English writing quality]. Modern
Foreign Languages, 40(3), 377-385, 438-439.
About the author
Zheng BI is an editor at Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press. She holds a Ph.D. in
applied linguistics from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Her research interests are materials
research and EFL teaching. Email: bizheng@fltrp.com
387
中文提要
备注：本研究得到教育部人文社科重点研究基地重大项目（16JJD740002）中子课题“产出导向法理论
体系与实施方法研究”和北京外国语大学北京高校高精尖学科‘外语教育学’建设项目的支持，特此
致谢！
熟手型大学英语教师使用产出导向法教材个案研究
北京外国语大学外语教学与研究出版社......................................................................................... 373
毕争
虽然教材使用研究对于教材开发具有重要作用，但是考察教师如何在实际课堂教学中使用教
材的研究非常少。本研究基于产出导向法教材使用和评价理论框架，采用个案研究方法，通过课
堂观察、教师访谈、教案和课件、学生产出文本等数据，考察一位熟手型大学英语教师在实际教
学中使用教材的过程和理据。研究发现，教师课前设定教学目标，选择和改编材料，然后将材料
转换为教学活动；课中基于材料实施教学活动；课后对教材使用效果进行评价。研究揭示出教师
在使用教材时能够积极发挥主观能动性，将产出导向法教材使用的核心理念“产出目标决定说”
和“输入材料服务说”充分体现在教材使用全过程中。
关键词：大学英语教学；产出导向法；教材使用
备注：本研究得到教育部人文社科重点研究基地重大项目（16JJD740002）中子课题“产出导向法理论
体系与实施方法研究”和北京外国语大学北京高校高精尖学科‘外语教育学’建设项目的支持，特此
致谢！
390