This document contains questions and answers about assessment principles and effective instructional material development. It discusses Bass & Glacer's three principles of assessment: models of competence, graphical tools to track progress, and opportunities for reflection and revision. It defines "tailor-making" instructional materials as adapting them to meet state standards. Features recommended for effective material development include instructional goals, accurate and up-to-date information, organization, appropriate reading level, effective presentation, lack of bias, teaching concepts as variations, and real-world applications. It provides definitions for NASTA and NIMAS, and argues that textbooks will continue to be necessary classroom tools for the foreseeable future due to the amount of classroom time spent using them

1. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
FOR
EFL classrooms
by teacher Licda. Sylvia Johnson
Smith

2. 1-Comment on Bass & Glacer’s three major
principles that “make assessment informative to
students.” ( page 41)
• There are : Models of Competence ; gives
clear standards for what the students is
expected to be able to do and how well he/she
is expected to do it.
• Graphical Tools ; to track progress so that
students can visualize their progress over a
time of period.
• Structured opportunities for reflections and
revision ; so that students have a structure that
gives them in how to examine and make
corrections in their performances.

3. 2- What does « taylor-making » or
«customizing » imply in the process creating or
developing instructional materials.
In that it is to meet the standards set for formal
statewide adoption by publishers who attempt
to develop instructional materials; they
generally begin with a literature review by the
author and the editorial staff; at the same time
a review begins to identify the state and
national standards which are « divergent, and
increasingly specific . »

4. 3-Comment on the features recommended during
efffective materials development.(page 43)
• Instructional goals with adaptability to course
requirements.
• Accurate , relevant, and relatively up-to-date
information.
• Well-organized, coherent, and unified flow of
information.
• Appropriate reading level and vocabulary.
• Effective layout, visual presentation, and
phisycal features.
• Absence of stereotypes and biases.
• Small concepts taught as variations on larger
themes.

5. * Multidisciplinary content with multiple rather than single
perspectives.
• Development of insight and thinking skills rather than just
memorization of isolated or unrelated facts.
• Real-world applications of informational skills.
• Inclusion of supplemental and reference materials for teaching.

6. 4-What do NASTA and NIMAS stand for ?
NASTA : National Association of State
Textbook Administrators.
NIMAS: National Instructional Materials
Accessibility Standard.

7. 5-Regarding textbook dominance, do
you think textbooks will eventually
become obsolete in the near future.
• Not then ,not now, not never. Not
to my point of view; these tools
regardless of the time , topic,
theme or context in which things
happen, has always been
necessary from generation to
generation and will continue to be
according to, ( Ajavi, Risner;
Nicholson, & Webb; Watts-
Taffe,Wiley & Barr, Sadler &

8. • tterman, cited in Blumberg, Stein,
Stuen, Carnine & Long); the
amount of classroom time that
students spend using textbooks is
estimated at 75 to 90 percent.
• The need for books will always be
there , because there would always
be a need for information no matter
what.

9. Although this type of works have been very
difficult for me, in spite of it all, I have surely
enjoyed the whole course through.
My reasons are many; first of all, God in his
wisdom has sent to us a very nice teacher, full of
patience, flexible I think sometimes too much,
knowlegable in every way, excellent person who
never felt it a burden to come to Limon to be
among us. For that I am very grateful and I hope
that teacher Gilberto will be given the grace to
continue sharing his knowledge wherever he goes
like he is doing here with us. Thank
you…