Lina Mukhopadhyay_Overall comments

Overall comments on the chapters on grammar and vocabulary teaching:

The chapters are written in a simple and lucid manner. They have a
comprehensive coverage for ESL teachers. Lots of examples as tasks are
included; these are likely to facilitate concept building and give ample practice to
pre and in-service ESL teachers.
The theoretical base of the chapters, especially teaching vocabulary can be
further improved. At present, it is rather bare. For any such book where the
target audience are ESL teachers, who might not do a lot of theory redaing or
read research articles, such information would not only improve their knowledge
base but go a long way to change their ideology of teaching/ instruction and
understand the role of scaffolding and facilitation through instruction.
The following ideas could be inserted into the chapter to improve upon its style
and content:
i.

ii.
iii.

iv.

v.
vi.

Include more theoretical information to all the bits in the chapters to

give teachers sufficient background and a clear rationale as to why
they should engage their learners with suh activities.
Number all the example sentences in a continous manner and use
figures instead of roman letters.
Each task has to be preceeded by a rationale and its advantages and
limitations are to be pointed out so that teacehsr do dnot use the tasks
mecahnically but with awareness - which task(s) will work best at
which level(s).
The discussion of the tasks/appropriate responses within the chapters
is confusing and not reader friendly. Take those bits out and have a
sepereate text/chapter/appendix which discusses the answers and the
rationale behind possible correct answers. Teachers can refer to this
document simultaneously. Alternatively, after each task include the
discussion.
In some places, the explanation is too simplistic or bare. So, I have
indicated what has to be done to improve those bits.
At the end of each chapter, a test needs to be included to check
achievment in terms of understanding the content and checking
whether teachers can apply the knowledge gained through this chapter
to designing meaningful level appropriate tasks and add an answer
key/evaluation criteria to check teachers progress. This way teachers

Check chapter-wise comments for specific suggestions to the sub-sections of the

chapters.