The literature review group consisted of five voluntary instructors, who chose what to read based on their interests: reading, listening, speaking, writing, grammar and vocabulary. Apart from these main areas, the group also read about other areas that may be useful, such as critical thinking, EAP curriculum, study skills. Each group member selected on average two books.
The literature review group had the freedom to choose which specific books they would like to read. However, there were some main principles. One of the principles was that the published work would have to be recent. The group was asked to have at least one of the resources per skill area to be published after 2010, but the secondary books could be from those that were published before 2010. With this principle, the aim was to ensure that in School of Languages we followed the latest findings in language teaching and learning. The second principle was that the main source book for each skill area had to be from an author/authors who are considered experts in their field. However, the other sources could be from less well-known sources as well.
After the literature review group made their selection, books were ordered through the Information Centre. The process of finishing the readings and preparing our presentations to the writers took about two months. Although this may sound too long, it was critical to allow each person enough time without much time pressure to do their in-depth analysis. This is because although all instructors at our institution have received degrees, various diplomas and certificates on English Language Teaching methodology, as a school we believe in the importance of following the latest research findings and fresh ideas. With the teaching and other responsibilities, two months gave the literature review group enough time to read our books thoroughly, synthesize the information in various books and prepare the presentations.
Following the presentations of the literature review group, the writers themselves as well read more on skills they would be working on.
The whole process was very important for us. Some of the points emphasized in literature confirmed our assumptions about teaching and learning. For instance, we already had the assumption that students needed more frequent listening practice to improve their listening and note-taking skills, and that the duration of the listenings needed to be much longer compared to what commercial course books tend to offer (research suggests commercial course books offer around 2 hours in total throughout the book). For this reason, we increased the number of listening inputs in each unit, as well as increasing the length of listening texts.
There were other useful information that we had a rough idea about, but needed more information on. For instance, we already knew that our students needed to be exposed to various speech rates. However, we did not know that, for example in conversations, on average 160-230 words per minute were spoken. In academic lectures, it is around 126-160 words per minute (Graham & Santos, 2015). Such information provided us with clearer guidance to implement in our book.