(7)
Grammar.
(8)
Numbers.
(9)
Conversation.
(10) writing.
The procedure APPENDIX G
THE PROCEDURE
The team spent the period November
10-13
in tooling up for the project. AS a by-product of this activity they produced one complete lesson in malaria control and a parallel lesson in leprosy control. The sequence of the work is set forth below.1. The team first drew up a list of question-types which they thought would enable the student to elicit the content vocabulary of a specialized field.
2. within the general areas of 'malaria control' and
'leprosy control,' the team then listed several component activities in which volunteers would spend much of their time. For the tooling-up period, they then selected one of these sub-specialties for malaria, and one for leprosy.
The centers of interest that they selected were 'Spray-ing' and 'Examining Patients for Leprosy.'
3.
The list of question-types was adapted for each sub-specialty. The results for 'Spraying' and 'Leprosy Examinations' are reproduced on pp.161-164.
4.
Hirth and Brinkman provided in English multiple answers to each question in the indices, based on their own ex-perience of the needs of health Volunteers in Thailand.Their answers were then edited and translated into Thai.
Parallel samples are found on pages
165-170.
(Throughout the project, Thai and English were placed on consecutive pages. Because few of the readers of this account can be expected to read Thai, and in order to conserve space and the reader's time, most of the samples will be given in English only. )CHAPTER 4 MUTUALLY-DERIVABLE MATERIALS (THAI)
5. Fo~ each sub-specialty, Professor Sutira wrote a number of- exchange sequences. Each consisted of three of the questions from the index, with one answer for each question.
6. She then placed the exchange sequences in order relative to one another and began to develop a lesson around each.
The format was that of 'clusters' (Chapter
4,
p.ISO),
in which each drill, exchange sequence, Cummings device, etc. was placed on a separate sheet of paper and punched for looseleaf binding. The order of components which most closely paralleled that of the A.U.A. Course (P.156, above) was the following:
(0) statement of 'objectives' for using Thai. On the same sheet were references to the question series, and to grammatical exposition in other textbooks.
(This item is numbered
'0'
because i t precedes the items that correspond to numbered sections in the A.U.A. course.) Examples are found on pp.17l-l72.(1) New vocabulary from the pages in the question series (see step 3, above).
(2) Pattern drills for structures not covered in basic lessons. In the lessons from which these illustra-tions are being taken, the pattern that corresponds to English 'use something for some purpose' was in that category. I t was treated as shown on pp.173-177.
(3) The exchange sequence. The ones used in the two les-sons on which we are concentrating our attention are found on pp. 179-180. A longer and more realistic one from a lesson on malaria surveillance, is found on p. 181.
The Procedure APPENDIX G
(4)
Extra drills on the new structures introduced in (2), and also 'routine manipulations' (Chapter 8) on persistent grammatical problems covered in the basic lessons, but emphasizing vocabulary from thelesson. An example from the first malaria lesson is on p. 182. The parallel example from leprosy is obvious and will not be reproduced here.
(5)
Materials to be prepared outside of class. Some, but not all of these items contained new, genuineinformation. See pp. 183-184.
(6) 'Applications:' Suggestions for using Thai in class or outside, in ways that will be rewarding either esthetically (humor, competition, etc.), or in demonstrating attainment of objectives (0, above), or preferably both. See pages l85f for the examples from the first lessons on malaria and leprosy, and pp. 187-188 for corresponding pages from other lessons.
After the tooling-up period, work proceeded rapidly. Other sUbtopics were covered within malaria and leprosy control, and a new series of lessons were written for laboratory technologists.
Parallelism among the series was even closer than had been ex-pected. Reception of the new materials in the training program itself was encouraging.
SUMMARY
Quod erat demonstrandum. The team did in fact succeed in writing materials with replaceable parts on a number of different
scales. The materials are in this sense highly 'modular'. They
CHAPTER 4 MUTUALLY-DERIVABLE MATERIALS (THAI)
will permit mutual derivability: any one o~ the set of parallel units provides a basis for reconstructing any of the others, ~
for constructing new units on topics yet to be selected. This quality is obviously of great economic importance in training
international Volunteers, or commercial, industrial and diplomatic personnel, where each trainee has some clearly defined technical specialty that he must be able to discuss in his new language.
Possibly of equal interest, however, are the applications of
mutual derivability in enhancing the strength, or socio-topical relevance of teaching in schools and colleges.
The question remains, however, whether this set of materials is merely a mildly interesting tour de force, with no wider
significance. Could the same series of basic questions be applied to Thai cooking, or Thai boxing, or malaria control in Lingala, or French cuisine in French? Can the same 'cluster' format that seems to have worked in this program be applied to teaching by Quechua speakers in the Andes? Or to teaching of English by Thais in Thailand?
The answers are not apparent. The general approach of
Chapter
4
is only general, and this specific case study describes only one ad hoc solution. Together, however, we hope that they represent a potentially fruitful trend in finding other ad hoc solutions to other problems. writers of language lessons can do no more than that.160