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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.
Dawn Atkinson (Sat,) studied this question.