893119

research-article2020
REL0010.1177/0033688219893119RELC JournalAtkinson

Article

RELC Journal

The Adaptive Expertise of

1­–15
© The Author(s) 2020
Article reuse guidelines:
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DOI: 10.1177/0033688219893119
https://doi.org/10.1177/0033688219893119
Writers journals.sagepub.com/home/rel

Dawn Atkinson
Montana Technological University, USA

Abstract
Although the ELT (English Language Teaching) materials development literature points to the
influence of classroom experience on materials design, the literature is less specific about how such
experience affects skilled textbook writing. Drawing primarily upon concurrent verbalization and
pre- and post-concurrent verbalization interview data collected from two expert ELT textbook
writers as they produced coursebook content, this study finds the participants tapped their
English language teaching and teacher training experience – with experience operationalized here
as knowledge and skills developed as a result of time and effort spent operating in a domain
– during writing episodes when using problem-solving skills, navigating constraints, applying
pedagogical reasoning skills, and engaging repertoire. The participants, in other words, were able
to effect transfer from the neighbouring domains of English language teaching and teacher training
to the expertise domain of ELT textbook writing, demonstrating adaptive expertise. This study
demonstrates the usefulness of collecting data while participants are writing to discover how
transfer effects and adaptive expertise are realized in real-time work and thus makes an important
contribution to the research field of materials development. In addition, the results of this study
may benefit teachers who look to textbooks for guidance as they develop pedagogic confidence.

Keywords
ELT textbook writing, materials development, teacher training, adaptive expertise and transfer,
concurrent verbalization

Adaptive Expertise in a Study ELT Textbook Writing

To be an expert is to be outstanding in a particular area. Thus, expertise reflects finely
tuned knowledge and skills, developed as a result of time, effort, inner motivation, chal-
lenge, repetition, and feedback, that can be deployed in focussed ways while operating in

Corresponding author:
Dawn Atkinson, Montana Technological University, 1300 West Park Street, Butte, Montana 59701, USA.
Email: DAtkinson@mtech.edu
2 RELC Journal 00(0)

a domain (Ericsson et al., 1993). Because of the work and years that go into developing
superior knowledge and skill in an area, expertise is domain-specific (Ericsson and
Lehmann, 1996); nevertheless, transfer of skills and knowledge to adjacent expertise
domains has been known to occur.
Salisbury (2005), for instance, detected transfer effects while investigating how teach-
ers with little or no experience of exam-item writing and expert participants who wrote
listening test questions for international EFL (English as a Foreign Language) examina-
tions constructed listening exam items. She found that many of the expert participants
drew upon a combination of knowledge and skills developed through experience in test
marking, oral examining, EFL teaching, textbook writing, and other-skills exam-item
writing when producing test questions. Salisbury (2005: 76) concluded that these influ-
ences resulted in a ‘dynamic or adaptive expertise system,’ with time and effort spent
operating in adjacent domains influencing the participants’ effectiveness in listening
exam-item writing.
Salisbury’s study points to transfer effects amongst domains that share a common
knowledge base, and these are realized by individuals who call on adaptive expertise ‘to
apply meaningfully learned procedures flexibly and creatively’ (Hatano, 2003: xii).
Adaptive experts, thus, ‘transfer learning to novel tasks within and beyond the initial
domain’ (Kimball and Holyoak, 2000: 118) in order to derive benefits.
Similar to Salisbury (2005), Wineburg (1998) discovered adaptive expertise at work
when investigating how historians who operated in different specialty areas interpreted
historical documents. He concluded that adaptive expertise characterized the operations
of one participant who was unfamiliar with the subject area covered in the documents:
regardless of this dearth of knowledge, the participant synthesized the information pro-
vided in order to interpret it. As this adaptive expert engaged with the documents – and
found challenge in interpreting them – his knowledge base consequently expanded.
Wineburg (1998: 337) suggested that this finding accorded with the concept of knowl-
edge transforming present in Scardamalia and Bereiter’s (1991) expertise theory: the
adaptive expert’s knowledge supported his ability to interpret the documents, but his
manner of working with the documents also became part of what he knew, reflecting a
bidirectional process.
In case study research that aimed to discover what characterized expertise in ELT
textbook writing, Atkinson (2013) also found transfer effects and adaptive expertise pre-
sent in the work of two participants while investigating the processes (steps) and prac-
tices (behaviours or characteristics) they described and displayed during textbook
development. In particular, the participants were found to tap knowledge and skills
gained in the associated domains of English language teaching and teacher training when
writing ELT textbooks.
While drawing on data collected during the development of Atkinson (2013), the
current study expands that research by delving into specific ways transfer is realized in
the work of two expert ELT textbook writers to answer the following research question:
How is adaptive expertise exhibited during textbook-development episodes? This study
finds that the participants bring their English language teaching and teacher-training
experience to bear during textbook development when using problem-solving skills,
navigating constraints, applying pedagogical reasoning skills, and engaging repertoire.
Atkinson 3

The participants’ adaptability means that they are not context-bound in terms of prob-
lem solving since they may refer to their work in the adjacent domains when operating
within the expertise domain of ELT textbook writing. In expertise research, a problem
refers to an objective without a definitive means for achievement (Bereiter and
Scardamalia, 1993: 83), and writing expertise demands problem solving since writing
goals may be met by following any number of indeterminate solution pathways
(Kellogg, 2018: 413). Akin to Salisbury’s (2005) conclusion then, I contend that those
domains adjacent to ELT textbook development in which the two participants in this
study were involved interacted with textbook-writing expertise in a dynamic way. In
short, the neighbouring domains may inform and may similarly be informed by ELT
textbook development.
Although the applied linguistics literature recognizes the influence of teaching experi-
ence on materials development (see, e.g., Mares, 2003), the existing literature is less
specific about how teaching experience influences textbook development. Johnson
et al.’s (2008) research, which investigated the real-time textbook evaluation procedures
used by three English language teachers with varying amounts of classroom experience,
represents an outlier case since it identified how participants called on their teaching
experience during a textbook evaluation session – with evaluation representing one stage
of materials development. The research findings reported in the current study similarly
point to the advantages of collecting data from participants during textbook-develop-
ment episodes – for instance, by using concurrent verbalization whereby a participant
expresses his or her thoughts aloud while carrying out an activity – to determine how
neighbouring-domain influences, such as English language teaching and teacher train-
ing, impact textbook writing.

Neighbouring-Domain Influences on ELT Textbook-

Writing Expertise
Functioning as a store of professional knowledge, instructional materials may reflect the
pedagogical reasoning skills of their authors and, by deduction, the authors’ experience
working in the field of English language teaching, with experience constituting an essen-
tial component of expertise (Ericsson et al., 2018). Indeed, Dubin (1995: 15) claimed
that classroom experience is necessary for writing materials for multiple audiences of
learners. While interviewing ELT textbook authors in Kenya, Kiai (2015: 15), too, dis-
covered the value the participants placed on their teaching experience in helping them to
conceptualize textbook content and how it would play out in the classroom. Freeman
(2014: 100–101) added that textbook writers who have also worked as English language
teachers bring their viewpoints about language learning and teaching to textbook writ-
ing. Adapting Shulman’s (1987) work on pedagogical reasoning for ELT, Richards
(2010: x) posited that pedagogical reasoning skills are at the core of expert materials
development since they enable English language teachers to envision ideas and logistics
for lessons to advance teaching and learning goals.
Reflecting a two-way process, textbooks (also known as coursebooks) support teach-
ers in developing pedagogic confidence, a contention much reinforced within the applied
4 RELC Journal 00(0)

linguistics literature (see, e.g. McGrath, 2013). Textbooks, thus, serve as teacher-training
resources and, by extension, reflect the teacher-training skills of their authors.
While ELT teaching and teacher-training skills may contribute to the development of
coursebooks, few sources reveal how these skills play a part in the real-time production
of content. Instead, as Samuda (2005: 235) acknowledges, the materials-development
literature is largely comprised of reflective accounts of past textbook-writing projects,
which are based on authors’ perceptions of how they write. Although reflective accounts,
such as those shared in Bell and Gower (2011) and Prowse (2011), provide insight into
the complexities involved in skilled ELT materials writing, the current study takes the
view that new and potentially different insights about textbook writing can be gained by
exploring textbook-development episodes to determine how expert ELT textbook writers
apply adaptive expertise while drawing from adjacent skill sets to transfer and store
knowledge in their products. Thus, this study is intended to supplement the extant body
of materials-development literature by revealing specific ways transfer occurs while
writers are working.

The Research Participants and Their Projects

This study’s parent investigation (Atkinson, 2013) used several criteria to determine par-
ticipant expertise. First, the participants – TW1 (Textbook Writer One) and TW2
(Textbook Writer Two) – had to have been active in ELT textbook development for at
least five years to establish that they had engaged in deliberate practice in the domain for
a prolonged period of time. Time, effort, inner motivation, challenge, repetition, and
feedback comprise the necessary elements needed for steady refinement of performance,
and expertise researchers characterize this assemblage of factors as deliberate practice
(Ericsson et al., 2018).1 TW1 had more than five years of experience in the area, while
TW2 had eight years of experience. TW1 and TW2 had also worked as English language
teachers and teacher trainers for a considerable amount of time: 21 years and 32 years
respectively. Although textbook writing, teaching, and teacher training constitute sepa-
rate expertise domains, I contend that the time and work in the associated domains con-
tributed to the participants’ effectiveness as textbook writers. Johnson et al. (2008: 161)
noted a similar correlation when studying the textbook-evaluation procedures used by
English language teachers with differing levels of experience. In the case of my research,
the participants developed materials for use in their own classrooms and trained others to
do so, pointing to domain overlap in their skill sets. And since experience is requisite for
expertise development, but it is not the only condition that mediates expertise (Ericsson
et al., 2018), I also used academic credentials and colleague recommendations to estab-
lish expertise. The participants’ publication records and successive textbook-writing pro-
jects also provided research-independent means by which to verify expertise: TW1’s
textbook package won an award post-publication, for instance, while TW2 relied on her
textbook-writing ability to earn the majority of her living. In all likelihood, their com-
missions would have ended if they had demonstrated less-than-expert textbook-develop-
ment skills.
The participants also had to be involved in textbook-writing projects to take part in
the research. TW1 co-wrote a textbook package for adult students with learning
Atkinson 5

disabilities and literacy and mobility issues during data collection; this package was
designed for use in both adult education courses and in non-formal educational contexts,
such as rehabilitation centres, in various European countries. According to the partici-
pant, the educational aims of the textbook were ‘more to do with social inclusivity and
self-esteem than with specific cognitive or knowledge goals’ since ‘[languages] have
often been regarded as too difficult for students with learning difficulties’. TW1 helped
select topics for inclusion in the textbook and composed most of its 10 units over roughly
one year while I gathered data. TW2 wrote the majority of her 20-unit coursebook, tar-
geted for secondary school students in a particular country in Africa, during roughly
seven months while I gathered data. Her project required that she follow a national syl-
labus issued by the country’s education ministry, and her teaching and teacher-training
experience in the country helped her identify content the ministry would look favorably
upon when approving books for use: her book, for example, included 16 content units
accompanied by four revision units intended to help learners prepare for a high-stakes
national exam they would take in the same school year. Although the research focussed
on just two participants, I reasoned that I might be able to detect stable aspects of ELT
textbook-writing expertise by exploring how TW1 and TW2 undertook dissimilar pro-
jects. The longitudinal nature of data collection and the volume of data gathered during
whole-textbook development also necessitated a focus on just two participants to ensure
the feasibility of project completion.

Data Collection and Analysis

The investigation from which this study emanates (Atkinson, 2013) used concurrent ver-
balization with the aim of collecting a large, detailed corpus of data simultaneous with
textbook progression that might help reveal novel insights about ELT textbook-writing
expertise – insights different from those shared in reflective accounts of coursebook
development. The participants engaged in concurrent verbalization each time I was pre-
sent to gather data while they wrote their textbooks; TW2 also self-recorded four concur-
rent verbalization sessions. Although Ericsson and Smith (1991) recommend that
concurrent verbalization take place in a laboratory setting to control for unanticipated
variables, TW1 opted to write at his place of employment in between other workplace
commitments, while TW2 wrote in her home office where she ordinarily composed text-
book content. Considering that the participants had deadlines and contractual obligations
to meet during textbook development, this aspect of the research design aimed to accom-
modate their writing schedules and encourage productive writing output. It also helped
distinguish my project from Johnson’s (2003) research, which investigated expertise in
pedagogic task design for English language teaching by asking participants to work in a
laboratory environment while writing tasks in response to a design brief.
To supplement and triangulate data collected via concurrent verbalization, I also
utilized interviews and, to a lesser extent, diary records and stimulated recall. During a
stimulated recall session, a participant is asked to comment on an activity after having
completed it; an audio or video recording of the activity may be used to simulate the
participant’s comments. Concurring with Saldaña (2011: 76), I reasoned that using mul-
tiple methods to gather multiple types of data would offset the possible limitations of
6 RELC Journal 00(0)

any one method, helping to build trust in the research. Before and after concurrent ver-
balization sessions, I thus asked the participants semi-structured interview questions to
inquire about their textbook-writing, teaching, and teacher-training experiences; their
educational qualifications; their writing procedures; their approaches to projects; and
their perspectives on textbook development. I also emailed the participants questions
that arose outside of the face-to-face data-collection meetings. In addition, TW1 took
part in one stimulated recall session, during which I asked him to comment upon a
think-aloud protocol (the record of a concurrent verbalization session), while TW2
completed one diary entry, in which she discussed background on her textbook project
and her ideas for tackling it. However, both participants subsequently indicated that the
concurrent verbalization and interview sessions provided them with ample opportunity
to share their ideas regarding textbook development; as a result, I did not collect addi-
tional stimulated recall or diary data from them. This decision reflects the flexible
nature of qualitative research design, which necessitates that investigators respond to
research circumstances as they emerge.
The use of concurrent verbalization, interview, stimulated recall, and diary methods
– and subsequent data transcription – resulted in 620 pages of data, which I coded using
qualitative content analysis. Thus, rather than predetermining codes at the outset of anal-
ysis, I derived them from themes detected in the data, with subsequent rounds of coding
revealing, in ever-increasing levels of detail, links in the data. Since analysis revealed
that variable-sized pieces of data reflected units of meaning, I applied codes to words,
phrases, sentences, and short paragraphs, as Kim (2010: 123) did when investigating
expertise in EFL textbook evaluation. As the following discussion indicates, coding
revealed a number of salient themes across TW1 and TW2’s data sets.

Participants Transferred from Neighbouring Domains

When Writing
As mentioned, TW1 wrote for learners with learning disabilities and literacy and mobil-
ity issues. Since he had never written a textbook for this target group, the project offered
him opportunities to stretch his knowledge and skill base, and he was able to effect this
stretch by negotiating constraints and activating pedagogical reasoning skills during
writing episodes. Constraints, in this article and in the expertise literature, refer to con-
siderations that must be addressed during problem solving to reach a feasible solution
path (Sternberg and Sternberg, 2012: 535). During a post-concurrent verbalization inter-
view, TW1 explained some of the needs of the target learner group that resulted in project
constraints:

if I’m doing. . .mainstream ELT materials. . .I’m assuming a far greater ability to cope with
language. . .they’ve never met before. . .students who can. . .happily ignore bits that they
don’t understand. . .or work them out. . .from context. . .the feeling is. . .with. . .this group
that if you had. . .quite a bit of unknown language in there it would. . .demoralize them.

To tailor his textbook for the learners, TW1 prioritized flexibility by incorporating an
inventory of options into its design. The inventory of options provided multiple ways of
Atkinson 7

utilizing the book, which TW1 articulated in accompanying teacher’s notes, and it
meant that teachers could customize the textbook to meet the needs of learners with
variable levels of ability who would use the book in various educational contexts, such
as in rehabilitation centres and adult education classes. When developing a unit focussed
on travelling and vacations, for example, TW1 brainstormed ways to encourage stu-
dents to practise vocabulary relevant to the unit topic, vocabulary that was initially
presented in a video listening segment. In one option for a practice activity, he asked
students to listen for and repeat the names of countries mentioned in the video. In
accompanying teacher’s notes, he also adapted the option for students who might strug-
gle with the task, as he articulated during a concurrent verbalization session: ‘To make
it easier you could put France and Switzerland on the board. . .and ask them to choose
the right one’.2 To accommodate learners who might appreciate greater challenge, TW1
also provided another option, which involved practising other language used in the
video. By incorporating an inventory of options, TW1 thus negotiated the constraint of
learner level while prioritizing the accessibility of the textbook, and he engaged his
pedagogical reasoning skills by envisioning in detail how the textbook’s activities
would be actualized in practice.
In addition to learner level, TW1 also addressed the constraint of learner literacy by
providing a number of options during textbook design. Demonstrating his pedagogical
reasoning skills and his attentiveness to learner needs, he again presented these options
in the teacher’s notes as adaptations that could be made to textbook activities based on
learner circumstances. He demonstrated this approach during a concurrent verbalization
session while designing a unit to do with health:

I’ll address this to the teachers. “You need a large drawing of a human body. . .and some
stickers. . .with the English word on one side and the L1 word on the other.” Yah I like this.
Unusual. . .type of activity for me but never mind. . . “some sticky labels with the English
word.  .  .for parts of the body on one side and the L1 on the other.  .  ..The students put the labels
on the body with the English word facing up.” OK fine now what happens if they can’t read in
their first language?. . ..You know in that case if they can’t read. . .the teacher could read out
the word in L1 and then get them. . .to stick it on the parts of the body with the English word
facing up.

TW1 revealed during a pre-concurrent verbalization interview that the constraint of lit-
eracy caused him to consider his teaching experience – operationalized here as knowl-
edge and skills developed as a result of time and effort spent operating in the domain – in
order to develop practicable activities for the textbook’s target audience of special needs
learners: ‘I had some refugees who weren’t literate so that made me realize how much
my own teaching depends on the written word’. As a result, TW1 was able to devise
textbook activities that did not rely on the students’ ability to read or write. He thus
applied adaptive expertise to transfer knowledge gained in the domain of English lan-
guage teaching to the neighbouring domain of ELT textbook writing. And the first tran-
script excerpt in this paragraph reveals that when applying adaptive expertise, TW1 both
used his knowledge during problem solving and extended it as a result of problem solv-
ing. He was thus able to develop activities that he judged as being ‘unusual’ in
8 RELC Journal 00(0)

comparison to what he had produced in the past. Similar, then, to the adaptive expert in
Wineberg’s (1998) study, problem solving for TW1 reflected a dialectical process in
which extant knowledge was both engaged and expanded. This observation accords with
Scardamalia and Bereiter’s (1991: 190) expertise framework, which contends that
experts advance their domain knowledge by tackling problems that push their existing
levels of competence.
TW1 also applied pedagogical reasoning skills while considering the incorporation of
activities from his repertoire, with repertoire reflecting his textbook-writing and teaching
experience, as well as knowledge of what had worked in the past. However, TW1 dem-
onstrated that his use of repertoire did not sidestep the intricacies involved in writing an
original textbook for a specific target audience and pedagogical context; instead, reper-
toire represented a baseline of extant knowledge from which instantiation and complexi-
fication of the book’s content could proceed. While producing the textbook unit focussed
on health, for instance, TW1 acknowledged that he drew upon an existing repertoire of
activity type; however, he also complexified its design by adding dimensions to the
activity type while considering the target group of learners who may have never experi-
enced such an activity before:

I’ve got as far as. . .talking about everyday ailments and. . .the standard exploitation of that is
then to go into a doctor patient role play. . .I have done it several times before but maybe they
haven’t so I might put it down. . .as an option. . ..I think they could probably do that with. . .a
bit of help from the teacher. . ..And I think it might work well with the teacher. . .and maybe
one of the stronger students modeling first. And it would be nice if the teacher had some picture
or. . .realia to show that they were playing the part of a doctor a toy. . .stethoscope or
something.  .  .I’m not sure whether to phrase this as an option or put it in the main body I’ll put
it in the main body now.  .  ..the teacher could use a picture of a toy stethoscope.  .  ..despite what
I said earlier. . .I’m gonna suggest. . .that the students do the role play and it might be quite
difficult but they could do it in a mixture of first language and second language. . ..I think
that. . .gives it a bit more scope.

Here, during concurrent verbalization, as TW1 thought carefully about the activity type
intended for inclusion in the unit, he also added to it a progressive sequence of difficulty
while remaining mindful of the relevance and challenge the activity presented for target
learners. By visualizing different ways the activity type could be employed in practice,
he was demonstrating his ability to draw from his teaching experience while integrating
his ideas into the textbook in ways that would work for the learners. And TW1’s use of
repertoire in this example evidences deployment of the highly connected store of domain
knowledge – reflective of years and work spent developing textbooks and teaching – that
he holds and brings to bear as an expert during textbook-writing episodes.
Similar to TW1, TW2’s data set provides evidence of the participant engaging reper-
toire, derived from her textbook development and teaching experience, to lay a founda-
tion for unit content from which further design work could proceed. For instance, while
developing a unit focussed on the topic of life in the future, TW2 expressed during con-
current verbalization that she was drawing on her design repertoire of activity types to
generate content:
Atkinson 9

I could do the sort of thing that I’ve done before with relatives which is kind of joining two
sentences. . ..let’s do that. . .. ‘Join the following pairs of sentences together using the relative
pronoun. That’3. . ..then I usually give an example. . ..Let me have a look at these passages I
think there are a couple of examples in the passage.  .  ..OK ‘all the latest clothes are in very thin
plastic that is very comfortable to wear.’ Right. That’s an example. . ..maybe I can start. . .by
asking them to find examples. . ..Ah there are three examples in the first two paragraphs of the
fashion section. . ..OK so I’ll get them. . .to find three examples. . ..OK that’s. . .for starters.

In this instance, the joining-text-with-a-relative-pronoun activity type provided a starting

point for design, with TW2 acknowledging that she had utilized that activity type in the
past when developing materials. Nevertheless, her comment ‘that’s. . .for starters’ indi-
cated that she intended to use the activity type as a point of departure from which to
launch the development of original unit content written for a specific group of target
users operating in a specific educational context. TW2 elaborated during a post-concur-
rent verbalization interview that her choice of unit topic and her inclusion of the relative
pronoun activity type could be traced to repertoire developed as a result of teaching
experience:

I’d done something like that once as a communicative activity when I was teaching.  .  ..And it’s
worked well for me in the past. . ..I’ve got an idea of the kind of activity that works and what
doesn’t work.

Connecting themes raised in this paragraph’s transcript excerpts, as TW2 engaged reper-
toire drawn from teaching experience during design episodes, she demonstrated adaptive
expertise by transferring knowledge and skills gained in an adjacent domain of operation
into the expertise domain of ELT textbook writing. Her store of repertoire – ‘specialized
knowledge possession’, which is a representation of the well-developed and highly inte-
grated knowledge base that experts possess (Johnson, 2003: 93) – reflected the effort she
had devoted to honing her teaching skills and the positive effects of that effort, which
traced their results on her approach to textbook writing.
Similar to TW1, TW2 engaged pedagogical reasoning skills during data collection by
calling upon experience gained in the associated domains of English language teaching and
teacher training to apply it to the expertise domain of ELT textbook writing. She activated
these reasoning skills, for example, when developing textbook content that prioritized cul-
tural appropriacy in terms of the particular educational context for which she was writing:

you’ve always got to be careful that what you’re writing will be accepted. . .you’re not using
activities that is too way out.  .  .for a very formal school situation. . .They have to be able to be
handled in the class. . ..it’s very much a teacher centered. . .learning situation. . .and so if you
do things that teachers don’t agree with. . .they won’t use them. . .if you do things that the
teachers will find too difficult to conduct or too threatening in that there’s too much noise in the
classroom or something like that so.  .  .you’ve always got to be thinking of the actual classroom
situation. . .as you write. Is this activity doable and acceptable to both teachers and pupils.

As this excerpt from a post-concurrent verbalization interview indicates, TW2 applied

pedagogical reasoning to envisage how her textbook would be received in the classroom
10 RELC Journal 00(0)

and developed her book with both teachers and learners in mind. TW2 also drew upon
her teacher-training experience when formulating textbook content to create a list of
components that were essential for inclusion. While taking into account the educational
context in which her book would be used, she discussed the importance of focussing on
test preparation, for instance, to accommodate the needs of learners and teachers who
would look to the textbook who would look to the textbook for this content:

their tests scores are very important at this age. . ..so for that reason I don’t want to neglect. . .
the grammar which is what the.  .  .exam is based on.  .  .mainly the.  .  .language part of it.  .  ..I’m
very familiar. . .because. . .I taught in a teacher training college. . .and then. . .I worked with
the British Council in English language advising training teachers. . .I. . .had a lot of. . .
experience in schools there. . .I’ve sat in goodness knows how many schools observing
teachers. . .so I know what people want and I know. . .they need to pass exams. . .to get
anywhere.

During this interview session, TW2 acknowledged the realities of the educational con-
text for which she was writing and, to cite Byrd (1995: 8), ‘the realities of the classroom
interactions of teachers and students in particular settings who are trying to realize par-
ticular goals’. Thus, TW2’s experience in the neighbouring domain of teacher training
helped her centre her textbook on practical content that would resonate with target audi-
ences. In summary, by applying her teaching and teacher-training experience to the
domain of ELT textbook writing, TW2 was able to achieve the transfer of knowledge and
skills that accompanies adaptive expertise.
As was the case with TW1, TW2’s project brought constraints to be negotiated during
writing episodes, which the author also addressed by engaging pedagogical reasoning
skills. While TW2 discussed the writing of teacher’s books during concurrent verbaliza-
tion, for instance, the constraint of access to the books came to light:

when I write down these instructions.  .  .I write it in.  .  .some detail because a lot of the teachers
will not have access to the teacher’s books. What. . .happens when the textbooks are sent out
and bought by schools.  .  .the publishers usually include several teacher’s books free with every
certain number of.  .  .pupil’s books.  .  ..But what happens is that they either get lost in cupboards
or certain teachers make off with them and many teachers actually don’t have. . ..A teacher’s
book to refer to.

While access to teacher’s books was an important factor to consider in terms of the
national context for which she was writing, TW2 also shared her view of teacher’s books
during concurrent verbalization, revealing another constraint to be navigated: ‘Teacher’s
books are often full of dense instruction. . .and they’re very off putting’. Although TW2
acknowledged two formidable challenges associated with teacher’s guides, she applied
pedagogical reasoning to deliver a guide in a useable format that was designed with
instructors in mind, while simultaneously minimizing the need for access to it, as the
following concurrent verbalization excerpt indicates:

what I try and do when I’m writing the teacher’s books is to. . .bullet the points to make them
a little bit more accessible but what.  .  .I try mainly to do is to make sure in the pupil’s book the
Atkinson 11

activities are easy to understand and.  .  .the teacher can.  .  .work out what to do with the activity
from the pupil’s book without having to look at the teacher’s book.

TW2 thus called upon her experience as an ELT teacher and teacher trainer to determine
what was optimally beneficial for instructors in terms of teacher guidance, and she trans-
ferred this adjacent-domain knowledge to the expertise domain of ELT textbook writing,
thus demonstrating adaptive expertise.
Similar to TW1, the complexities associated with TW2’s textbook-writing project
also necessitated the use of advanced problem-solving skills that called for adaptive
expertise – in particular, when considering the set syllabus for her textbook. To elaborate,
the textbook TW2 wrote during data collection was the fourth in a series. While the first
three books adhered to a structure-based syllabus established by the ministry of educa-
tion where the books would be used, the ministry revised the syllabus prior to TW2 start-
ing work on book four, resulting in a function-based syllabus that emphasized
communicative competence. Although TW2 was not required to focus on structures
when using the new syllabus specifications, she was nevertheless aware that the national
exams students would take still placed considerable emphasis on knowledge of struc-
tures, and she did not want to neglect this focus when developing book four, as she
explained in her diary entry:

I’m loath to leave out the language in book four. . ..because where the new syllabus has
changed. . .the exams haven’t changed at all. . .I feel not to put the structures in. . .is going
to. . .be a big problem for the pupils who have to do the exam. . ..I know. . .they need to pass
exams. . .to get anywhere. . ..so that’s why with this [book four in the series] I’m kind of
talking about structures and functions. . .and I’m trying to combine all the old syllabus. . .plus
the new syllabus.

TW2 thus complexified the design of book four by incorporating items from both the
structure- and function-based syllabi to address learners’ assessment needs and maintain
continuity within the design of her series. Her experience as a teacher and teacher trainer
in the country meant that she identified the disparity between the new syllabus specifica-
tions and what students would be expected to demonstrate on the national exam, and she
transferred the knowledge and skills gained from these associated domains to reconcile
the need for structure- and function-focussed content in her book, thereby demonstrating
adaptive expertise.

Conclusions and Implications for Materials Development

and Teacher Training
The results of this study reveal that the participants’ approaches to textbook development
are influenced by their experience and deliberate practice working in the neighbouring
domains of English language teaching and teacher training. These adaptive experts are
thus able to transfer knowledge and skills gained in the associated domains when writing
ELT textbooks, which points to the dynamic way in which the three domains interact in
the participants’ work. In particular, TW1 and TW2 apply adaptive expertise during
12 RELC Journal 00(0)

textbook-writing episodes when using problem-solving skills, navigating constraints,

applying pedagogical reasoning skills, and engaging repertoire. These findings under-
score the importance of maintaining flexibility during ELT textbook development, to
promote the transfer that accompanies adaptive expertise in order to assimilate knowl-
edge and skills gained in associated domains into textbook design.
Although it has been recognized that ELT textbook authors source their teaching
experience when writing (see, e.g., Bell and Gower, 2011), many materials-development
accounts in the applied linguistics literature are retrospective in nature. In contrast, this
study demonstrates the usefulness of collecting data while participants are writing to
discover how transfer effects and adaptive expertise are realized in real-time work and
thus makes an important contribution to the research field of materials development.
Taking a cue from Tsui (2009: 422) who maintains that teacher expertise can only really
be understood by considering the contexts in which teachers work, I contend that contex-
tual factors, such as other-domain experience, must be examined when investigating
textbook-writing expertise in order to account for their influences on coursebook devel-
opment. Studying writers in action as they produce their textbooks can help to expose
such influences on textbook development.
Viewing the study from another vantage point while taking inspiration from Morris
and Hiebert (2011), expertly developed ELT textbooks store the professional knowledge
of their creators – for instance, writing, teaching, and teacher-training knowledge. When
expert ELT textbook writers are also involved in English language teaching and teacher
training, the opportunity exists for a continuous improvement cycle as the writers store
professional knowledge in their books during writing episodes and expand their knowl-
edge and skill base through classroom experience. This bidirectional process of expertise
development aligns with Bereiter and Scardamalia’s (1993) theory of expertise, which
views expertise as developing along an infinite trajectory as experts tackle problems at
the upper limits of what their knowledge and skill levels will allow and continually learn
from doing so. This continuous improvement cycle may, in turn, benefit teachers who
look to textbooks for guidance as they develop pedagogic confidence.
Since steady refinement of performance is mediated by time, effort, inner motivation,
challenge, repetition, and feedback (Ericsson et al., 1993), the trainability of expertise is
limited. This conclusion does not necessarily constrain practical application of the cur-
rent study, however, since the research provides empirically derived findings from which
those interested in textbook development might draw insight when considering their own
work. English language teachers who wish to know how classroom experience is
reflected in teaching materials, for example, may be interested in the research, as might
materials developers who want to compare their own operations with those of the partici-
pants in this study, possibly to identify points of convergence or divergence that may, in
turn, inform writing practice.
This study’s conclusion that concurrent verbalization can supplement understandings
of textbook writing offered in retrospective accounts of materials development points to
another practical application of the research: concurrent verbalization might be used by
teachers in training to understand their own materials-development operations. Given
that concurrent verbalization has the potential to provide highly detailed records of mate-
rials development simultaneous with writing episodes, the data-collection method might
Atkinson 13

be employed during teacher-training courses, with trainee teachers subsequently coding

and analysing their own or classmates’ think-aloud protocols to both gain understanding
of how they write materials and experience the data-collection method in practice, which
might possibly spark an interest in continuing the research outside of those courses.
Johnson et al. (2008: 162) make a similar call for using concurrent verbalization to
explore textbook evaluation practices during teacher-training courses.

Limitations and Future Research

As indicated, this study’s focus on just two participants may be viewed as a limitation,
particularly since TW1 and TW2’s ways of developing textbook content are grounded in
their experiences as textbook writers, English language teachers, and teacher trainers. To
address the limitation, I might have integrated a cross-sectional element into my research
design, meaning the study would have looked at the writing approaches used by a num-
ber of participants at various moments during textbook development. Johnson (2003)
used this approach when investigating how experienced and less-experienced partici-
pants designed tasks for English language teaching. Considering that my project aimed
to collect data during whole-textbook development with the aim of gleaning potentially
different insights about materials writing than previous studies, this approach would
have also met with limitations since the data would have focussed on specific moments
in time during textbook development rather than on whole-book creation. Combining
longitudinal and cross-sectional research techniques in one project might have offered
another alternative, although the feasibility of completing such a project, given the
amount of possible data produced, may have been limited by the sheer scope of the
endeavour. In the end, despite this study’s focus on just two participants, the research
itself points to the transferability of findings (see Duff, 2008: 51) since TW1 and TW2
composed textbooks for different populations of target learners in varied educational
contexts during data collection but both demonstrated adaptive expertise by tapping
knowledge and skills gained in neighbouring domains during textbook-writing
episodes.
Despite the valuable insights drawn from this study, the investigation also collected
limited stimulated recall and diary data, as noted. Although the participants indicated
they had sufficient opportunity to share their thoughts on textbook development during
concurrent verbalization and interview sessions, I might have made adjustments to the
research design to collect additional data via the other two methods. For example, I could
have asked the participants to focus only on short segments of concurrent verbalization
data during stimulated recall, to avoid participant fatigue during data-collection sessions.
In addition, I might have established a diary-writing schedule by asking participants to
complete a diary entry after the conclusion of each textbook unit to comment on how the
units developed and to articulate their plans for upcoming units.
Regardless of the limitations associated with data collection, the study’s rich data set
did reveal how adaptive experts call upon their teaching and teacher-training experiences
to craft textbooks. Although the study did not disaggregate textbook-writing episodes
from instances when the participants worked on teacher’s notes, future research in this
area could focus in-depth on the creation of teacher’s books to further investigate how
14 RELC Journal 00(0)

textbook-writing expertise and ELT teaching and teacher-training experience combine in

the production of those texts. This type of study has the potential to contribute additional
empirical insights to the thriving research field of ELT materials development.

Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article.

ORCID iD
Dawn Atkinson https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5933-4417

Notes
1. See Atkinson (2020) for a discussion of how the authors manage the rigours of deliberate
practice while writing their texts. This article also provides a description of the research
design and its limitations.
2. The single quotation marks indicate that TW1 is reading the teacher’s notes aloud.
3. The single quotation marks indicate that TW2 is reading the textbook aloud.

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