Once the first reading is finished and I have a feeling for the shape of the book and topic, now is the time to dive deep. I read a chapter and pick out one or two references and access those if I can. Doing this far ahead allows me time to get the articles I want.

The second reading serves more than one purpose, though. I need to fill in the holes, so I build a schema, a background database of interesting facts and conjectures. That means taking lots of notes. Now that I know what a Task is, I can be on the lookout to build a set of sample Tasks that I can use for the third reading (teacher reading).

I start mapping out where information is that will appeal to different types of participants. It will allow flexibility to more research-oriented, or teacher-oriented particpants.

This second reading allows me to create a grounding, look for patterns, find out who and what is more important. I focus on typical practices in both research and teaching.

I develop a taste for the flavor of authors (Ellis, Robinson, Li, etc), how each one writes, thinks, and what they believe. I can also put a perimeter on the topic by noting down what is not there. What about SLA? CALL? Steven Krashen and Beniko Mason? David Nunan?

Reading (Wed 0:32 Ch. 1, Fri 0:56 Ch 2, Sat. 1:13 Ch 3, Thu 1:22 Robinson 2011, Sun 0:55 Long 2014) and Blogging (0:36)

Previously: Announcement. Book. Selection. 3Readings. FirstRead. BloodBrainBarrier. Serendipity.

Background: I’m preparing an 8-week course about TBLT for iTDi as part of their Great Minds series (not mine, the ones in the book). I am blogging about the process of preparation mostly for the fun of it. I was inspired by Cory Doctorow, an SF writer that does this with all his books. But it also helps me focus. This is even more exciting than teaching a grad school course. I’m looking forward to it and hope this might spark an interest.