Ayşe Yılmaz graduated from the ELT Department at Kahramanmaraş Sütçü İmam University, Türkiye. She has taken part in various projects related to foreign language teaching. She is interested in research, writing and designing engaging materials using technology. Email: aysegulyilmaz271@gmail.com

 

Introduction

In foreign language teaching, using texts is essential to enhance learners’ reading skills, expand their vocabulary and facilitate their language acquisition in general (Krashen, 2004). Authentic or adapted texts, i.e. authentic texts that have been modified in some way,  provide exposure to real language use and cultural elements, and they provide areas for context-based learning. Texts also serve as models for teaching grammar and writing, aiding the improvement of learners’ productive abilities. Furthermore, when texts are interesting and relevant to learners’ lives, they can boost their motivation and engagement in the learning process (Berardo, 2006; Rathert, 2016; Tamo, 2009).

An effective way to integrate texts into language teaching is the text-driven approach (Tomlinson, 2018). This approach places the text at the centre of the lesson and builds the development of language skills around it. It promotes deep learner engagement with the text, resulting in meaningful language use and personal involvement. By using tasks that focus on both the content and the language of the text, the text-driven approach fosters learners’ critical thinking, language fluency and ability to communicate effectively.

In this paper, I report on a lesson plan based on Tomlinson’s text-driven approach. While prepared for a specific learner group, this outline can be adapted and, I hope, it inspires teachers to adopt the text-driven approach in their own context.

 

Text-driven approach

The text-driven approach places importance on the holistic experience of a text, treating it as a stimulus for language growth rather than a tool for isolated skill practice (Tomlinson, 2018). It motivates learners to connect personally with the text, drawing their emotions, background knowledge and creativity to interpret meaning and use language in authentic ways. This approach is implemented through a series of interconnected and interchangeable stages.

Steps of the text-driven approach are readiness activities, experiential activities, intake response activities, development activities and input response activities. According to Tomlinson (2018), readiness activities invite learners to think about the content of the text in order to connect it with their personal life. Experiential activities link the images and thoughts from the readiness activities to the text when first experiencing it. Intake response activities aim at developing and then articulating personal responses to the text. In development activities, learners use the text to, for example, write a continuation, relocate it, change the writer’s views, personalise it, or respond to it. Finally, input response activities focus on a specific linguistic, pragmatic, discourse, genre or cultural feature of the text in order to make discoveries about linguistic elements in the text.

It is noteworthy to state that the text-driven approach is flexible. The sequence of stages can be changed if necessary. In this designed lesson plan, the order of the input response and development stages has been changed.

 

The lesson plan

Selection of the topic, painting and the text

The lesson outline below is based on the text-driven approach. It was designed for young adult preparatory class students between the ages of 18-20 at B1/B2 level, but it can be used in different comparable contexts. The text is a poem called ‘The Road Not Taken’ written by Robert Frost, a piece of literature dealing with decision making. Additionally, the lesson outline employs a painting and a recitation of the poem to address the learners’ visual and auditory senses.

Considering the age of the target learner group, their educational background and the fact that they are in the decision-making process on some issues, I thought that the topic of the poem would attract their attention. Furthermore, I thought it had the potential to engage most of the target learners cognitively and affectively, thereby facilitating language learning.

 

Readiness stage

The teacher shows the painting shown below and asks the learners to give a life to the woman in the picture based on the following cues and to write a story outline about her.

• Name
• Age
• Occupation
• Her problem
• The path she chose
• Satisfaction or regret over her decision

Learners work in pairs or small groups.

The painting (The portal of decisions – a painting by Reena Ahluwalia):

(Ahluwalia [2015]. Reproduced with permission)

 

Experiential stage

The teacher distributes the papers with the poem and has the learners listen to the recitation of the poem on YouTube (Awetblackbough, 2011). Learners read and listen to the poem and then compare the first-person narrator with their women created in the readiness stage.

 

The poem: The Road Not Taken

by Robert Frost

 

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I couldn't travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

 

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted to wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

 

And both that morning lay equally

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to the way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

 

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

 

Intake response stage

The teacher asks the learners to give their explanations on what the metaphors and images (road, divergence, forest and nature, the less travelled road, sigh) in the poem symbolize.

Input response stage

The teacher asks the learners to read the poem again and answer the questions below:

• Which tense structure is used most in the poem?
• Why do you think this tense is used?
• Find examples of this tense used in the poem.

The teacher gives the learners a worksheet with five words from the poem and asks them to match these words with their meanings.

Worksheet

diverged	a growth of plants or shrubs under trees or other tall vegetation; brushwood, underwood
tread	a sudden, prolonged, deep and more or less audible respiration, following on a deep-drawn breath
sigh	to proceed in different directions from a point or from each other, as lines, rays of light, etc.
undergrowth	of ground, an area, etc.: covered with grass; having much grass
grassy	to walk, go, pace; to set down the feet in walking; to step

 

The teacher then asks the learners to find words related to the woman they have created.

Development stage

The teacher asks the learners to put themselves in the woman’s shoes and write a poem on behalf of this woman. Learners can work individually, in pairs or groups. Learners can read their poems at a poetry recital.

 

References

Ahluwalia, R. (2015, December 22). The portal of decisions - a painting by Reena Ahluwalia. https://www.reenaahluwalia.com/blog/2015/12/22/the-portal-of-decisions-a-painting-by-reena-ahluwalia

Awetblackbough (2011). Robert Frost reads The road not taken [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/ie2Mspukx14?si=82h6IiMsCfT82bp2

Berardo, S.A. (2006). The use of authentic materials in the teaching of reading. The Reading Matrix 6(2), 60-69

Krashen, S. (2004). The power of reading. Insights from research (2nd ed.). Libraries Unlimited.

Rathert, S. (2016). A comparison of text authenticity and focus of reading comprehension questions between an English and a Turkish as a foreign language coursebook. Turkophone, 3(2), 1-17.

Tamo, D. (2009). The use of authentic materials in classrooms. Linguistic and Communicative Performance Journal 2(1), 74-78.

Tomlinson, B. (2018). Text-driven approaches to task-based language teaching. 18(2), 4-7.

 

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