Validating a Research-Based Monograph for Teaching Post-Secondary EFL Reading Teachers the Meta-Cognitive Aspects of How to Teach Summarizing Strategies for Expository Text: Phase II of a Harvard Business School Type Case Study

Wei Xu, James Carifio, Lorraine Dagostino

College of International Education, Shanghai International Studies University, Shanghai, China.
School of Education, University of Massachusetts, Lowell, USA.

DOI: 10.4236/ce.2013.45048                

Abstract

This article reports the results of the second phase of a Harvard Business School type case study on the evaluation of a comprehensive research-based English language monograph for teaching Chinese EFL reading teachers the metacognitive aspects of how to teach summarizing strategies for English language expository texts to Chinese undergraduate students. This monograph could be used by native English speaking EFL teachers to teach native English speaking students the same skills, but the focus of this study was on the bilingual and bicultural aspects of such a monograph (text) and its development as a general model of such cross-language and cross-culture instructional materials development problems which are becoming increasingly more prevalent now and are a harbinger of the future of instructional materials. A cross-panel replicated expert reviewer (native Chinese EFL practitioners and academics) design was used to validate the monograph developed using the Carifio-Perla instructional materials development model as a guide. The expert reviewers used a 30-item previously validated structured responding protocol that reflected 7 evaluative criteria and 4 open-ended responding questions to review and rate the monograph chapter by chapter and then again for all 8 chapters. The reviewers unanimously agreed that the general Metacognitive Knowledge Framework, devised as a result of the literature reviews, analyses done, and numerous problems identified in Phase I of this study concerning views, definitions and strategies for analyzing and teaching summarizing strategies metacognitively, was appropriately constructed and effectively communicated and represented in The Monograph for the target audiences. The uniformly positive ratings by the two expert panels validated the high quality and consistency of the monograph in terms of the 7 evaluative criteria used. These results also showed aspects of skills, knowledge, understandings, and metacognitions both transcend and can be represented and communicated successfully across languages and cultures and to different professional audiences as well.

Keywords

Instructional Materials Development Models; Metacognition; Metacognitive Knowledge; Bilingual and Bi-Cultural Instructional Contexts; Summarizing Strategies Instruction; Expository Text; Teacher Training

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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