Relatively recent movements in U. S. universities toward proficiency goals must be reflected in the classroom if we, as teachers, are to achieve felicitious results. Some universities have already designed and are using proficiency-based exit exams that students must pass in order to graduate. Since there are so few, if any, textbooks adopted by U. S. universities that reflect this new orientation, teachers need to know how to analyze, adapt and supplement the one they are using to make it proficiency-oriented. By examining several first-year college textbooks, as, for example, ¡Vamos! by Kenneth Chastain, ¿Cómo se dice? by Ana C. Jarvis et al. and ¿Que tal? by Thalia Dorwick et al., this article demonstrates a procedure to follow in adapting the foreign-language text and planting the seeds of proficiency.

As the reader knows, proficiency can be defined as the ability to use language creatively in context, i. e., to be able to carry out one's communicative purposes. It takes into account 1) the functions or linguistic tasks, 2) the context in which they occur [including the specific content], and 3) the accuracy with which the functions are accomplished¹⁴⁴. Therefore, as Frank Medley, Jr. has stated, «Text adaptation [...] is largely a matter of deciding how the chapter themes can best be exploited to practice tasks or functions» (23). It basically involves four stages that can be outlined as follows:

1. Select the specific objectives [functions + context] for each chapter.
2. Select the linguistic elements and vocabulary needed to realize the objectives in Stage 1.
3. 3) State the type of control that is expected -conceptual control, partial or full control.
4. Use appropriate activities to carry out the functions in Stage 1, employing the grammar and vocabulary in Stage 2.

The first step in text adaptation involves identifying the specific objectives. This is an essential step in a communicative approach because the traditional textbook has a grammatical syllabus and fails to indicate the functions the students are to practice. For example, Chapter 3 of ¡Vamos! is entitled ¿Cuáles son sus aspiraciones? Even though Chastain indicates the theme of this lesson, it is not clear to the student what s/he might be able to do with all the structures and lexical items. The teacher must provide the link between the grammar and vocabulary and specific communicative tasks. In Academic Preparation in Foreign Languages, the authors underscore the importance of a functional approach to language learning:

If our students are to become proficient in a second language, we must provide them with opportunities to practice using the language to accomplish real-life purposes. Chapter 3 of ¡Vamos! can be best exploited to practice the function of description. This chapter contains some vocabulary that has to do with professions and presents ser plus a noun to express identification. Clearly, then, the students will be able to identify themselves and talk about their career goals as, for example, Soy estudiante y deseo ser profesor. We can also vary the context and have the students describe or invent what their parents do for a living: Mi padre es médico. Mi madre es ingeniera. Since a proficiency-oriented methodology promotes active communicative interaction among students, we can also have them practice the function of asking and answering questions: Student 1: ¿En que trabaja tu padre? Student 2: Mi padre es abogado. In addition, Chapter 3 involves the use of ser plus an adjective to express the concept or norm that we have of an individual; thus, we can give the students added incentive to practice description by having them discuss the

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physical and psychological characteristics of classmates and teacher as, for example, Juan es un chico extrovertido; El profesor es un hombre inteligente.

Most textbooks, including ¡Vamos!, contain too much grammar. However, there are ways to deal with it so that there is more time for communicative activities. Generally, a given functional task will identify a variety of structures the students need to know. We can specify these grammatical points for productive practice and designate the rest for receptive control or elimination.

In Chapter 3, the students need to know ser + (noun/adjective) as well as ser+ de in order to carry out the function of description. We can eliminate certain structures that are not pertinent to this task or that are too complex for beginners. In this category can be placed the change in meaning of adjectives according to position (for example, cierto, diferente, varios, nuevo) and the apocope of adjectives (for example, primero, tercero, alguno, ninguno). On the other hand, we can designate the use of personal a and the contractions al and del for receptive control. Later, the material chosen for receptive practice can be reintroduced for productive practice following a spiral arrangement (Gunterman and Phillips, 13)¹⁴⁵.

Once we have identified what the students will be expected to do with the language (the functions) in a given context, we can express them in terms of measurable objectives. In Chapter 3, we have selected the following functions/contexts:

Functions	Context/Content
Describe	Work/Aspirations
Seek & give information	Self/Family/Classmates

The communicative objectives for Chapter 3 can now be stated as follows:

The student will learn some ways to

1. describe self and classmates
2. seek and give information about occupation(s) of parents as well as his own career goals

Next, we can say that to meet the communicative objectives listed above, the student will learn how to

1. use the verb ser with adjectives
2. place the limiting or differentiating adjectives in their proper position
3. make adjectives agree with nouns in gender and number
4. use the third person singular of the verb tener in the present tense
5. use the possessive adjectives mi, tu, su
6. use the verb ser to express identity
7. use the verb ser + de to express origin

Since proficiency takes into account the accuracy of our speech, we should also specify the type of control that is expected. This, in turn, will effect our selection of activities. Looking at the structural objectives listed above, we could indicate that we expect full control of 1, 4, 5, 6, 7 but only partial control of 2 and 3.

Two other textbooks that use a grammatical syllabus are ¿Cómo se dice? and ¿Qué tal? Both texts are organized around the grammatical structures and a topic but the authors fail to mention the communicative functions of each lesson. In Chapter 4 of ¿Cómo se dice? we find the following topics and grammatical structures:

Given the vocabulary and grammatical structures of the lesson, we can select such functions as the following:

Functions:

The student will learn some ways to 1) express preferences -Prefiero (quiero) ir al museo del Prado 2) express future plans- Voy a (pienso) visitar a mi familia en diciembre 3) talk about and describe family.

Given the complexity of some of the structures in this chapter, we can eliminate the ordinal numbers and designate for recognition the comparative structures. We might say, for example, that the students will be able to respond to yes/no questions with ¿quién? like ¿Es su padre más alto que usted?; ¿Quién es mayor, usted o su hermano? At a later stage in the students' development, we can reintroduce these structures for productive control.

Structural Objectives:

The students will learn some ways to 1) use the verbs querer and preferir plus infinitive 2) use the verb ir + a + infinitive 3) use

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the verb ser with adjectives to express characteristics 4) make the adjective agree with the noun in gender and number.

Chapter 5 of ¿Qué tal? is entitled ¡Vamos de compras! The theme of the lesson is shopping and the chapter is organized around the following structures:

In the table of contents, the authors classify ¿Adónde vas? and ¿De quién es? as the functional uses of Chapter 5. However, these are structures used to realize a function like asking questions. The authors need to make it clear to the student the tasks that can be carried out. Given the theme of the lesson along with its grammar and vocabulary, we might select the following communicative objectives:

The students will learn some ways to 1) talk about ownership 2) express future plans 3) purchase non-food survival items such as shoes and clothing.

The structural objectives for lesson 5 are as follows: The students will learn how to 1) use ir a + infinitive 2) use possessive adjectives.

The next step is to see if exercises are present in the text that allow students to practice the specific functions. If not, supplementary activities and explanations will need to be developed. In Academic Preparation in Foreign Languages, Paulston and Selekman suggest a progression of drill stages that will lead to proficiency. Their model identifies three stages of drill practice: 1) manipulative [mechanical] drills -primary focus on form, 2) meaningful exercises -focus on form [plus meaning], 3) communicative exercises -focus on meaning [66]. Omaggio stresses the need for contextualized practice which, she says, «links forms with meanings the language learner might genuinely want to convey in natural communicative situations» (95). According to her, a good exercise has a unifying theme, sentence-connectedness, and is based on a real-world situation. If an activity does not meet these conditions, then it will be necessary to modify or rewrite it. To illustrate, we find the following drill in ¡Vamos! that has to do with adjective position:

This exercise is mechanical in that it allows the student to concentrate on manipulating the forms. However, it consists of disjointed phrases without any context. If our goal is proficiency, then our in-class activities must be based on authentic language-use situations. We must create exercises that are contextualized and that consist of sentences connected to one another in a logical sequence. Since students like to describe or gossip about their friends, we could utilize the following drill which provides contextualized practice:

This drill is mechanical because the teacher controls the form and content of the responses. The students can respond and practice whether or not they understand the meaning of what they are saying.

Following the progression of exercises that might lead to more realistic communication, we might do the following meaningful activity:

Even though the student is manipulating and practicing the verb ser, it requires him/her to think about the meanings being expressed as well. That is, the learner must produce adjectives that aptly convey his/her opinion about each famous person.

It may also be necessary to supplement the text with information that is more conducive to the specific tasks at hand. Eliminating the less important items enables one to do so without overburdening the students. Moreover, we can allot more time for practice using language in context. Regarding the function of description in Chapter 3 of ¡Vamos!, we can supply comprehensible input by using visuals -photographs, drawings, filmstrips, videos, films, transparencies- to introduce new words and grammatical forms that have to do with a variety of physical characteristics: color and length of hair, facial hair (barba, bigote); eye color and glasses¹⁴⁶. S/he can use both predicate nouns and predicate adjectives in the presentation:

The students are to write down in a notebook the words they do not know and study them for homework¹⁴⁷.

Then the teacher might follow the presentation with some meaningful and communicative activities that would give the students ample opportunity to assimilate the material. Terrell's Dos Mundos is a source of good activities on a variety of themes, including physical description. I used two activities from his text, the second of which has undergone some modification:

Meaningful Activity: Los compañeros de clase. Describa a los compañeros de clase. Mire el ejemplo de Esteban.

Students write the names of five classmates on a separate sheet of paper and, under each name, number blanks from one to five... Have them answer questions with a simple word for each student named.

In this activity, the student must know the meaning of the sentences in order to respond correctly.

Meaningful Activity: The teacher asks students to describe their best friend.

After presenting the professions, the students can do a communicative activity of the following sort:

In communicative activities, the students are allowed to use the language for their own purposes. Gunterman and Phillips specify a hierarchy of communicative activities that ranges from «real» to «realistic» and that includes, for example, classroom behavior, roleplaying, translocation, make-believe, and games (33-38)¹⁴⁸. In the game of «Twenty Questions», the activity still revolves around the structures being practiced in the lesson, but the students can express their own meanings by using other linguistic forms if they so desire. They, in effect, control the form and content of the responses (66-67).

It would be appropriate to take a closer look at the progression of drill stages leading to proficiency and the process of text adaptation. As the reader knows, meaningful exercises may be used to practice a structure or a function. In ¿Cómo se dice?, we do not find any meaningful exercises that enable the students to practice the present indicative of e > ie stem-changing verbs. The chapter contains some mechanical drills like the following:

We can eliminate an exercise like A because it is not contextualized. But we can utilize exercise C which consists of sentences that follow in a logical manner and allow the students to manipulate the stem-changing verbs. However, there are not any meaningful exercises in the chapter that serve to bridge the gap between the mechanical drills and the communication activities that follow. We could improve upon the text by providing meaningful exercises that would allow the student to practice the structure. We might include the following:

In ¡Vamos!, there is an interesting activity (K) in which the students are asked to discuss a variety of things that have to do with work as, for example, their special skills, interests, and objectives (free time, job security, etc.). At the beginning level, it might be too difficult for them to comment on these issues but this activity can readily be adapted to make it more suitable for the Novice/ Intermediate level:

In place of this activity, the student can do the following meaningful exercise:

Meaningful exercise: The teacher asks students questions about their parents' occupations. (Students can invent a profession if they so desire).

After doing these meaningful exercises, we seek to integrate the grammar point and vocabulary in a more functional activity. Chastain provides a good communicative activity at the end of the chapter in which students work in pairs and interview each other. They ask and respond to questions about their parents' occupations and their own career goals. A proficiency-oriented methodology promotes active communication interaction among students.

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Thus, this activity is highly desirable because students use the language for their own real purposes-communication with their peers in the classroom.

In a recent California Foreign Language Teacher Preparation Project (henceforth, CFLTPP) workshop, Marilyn Bente stressed the need for extensive communication practice. She underscored the fact that the Point of View Statement for Modern Foreign Language Instruction avers that «communication should be not only the major objective but also the «dominant activity» in second language instruction (handout)¹⁵⁰. As I have mentioned, the organizing principle of the traditional textbook is grammar. The starting point of a communicative activity is a language function. Chapter 4 of ¿Cómo se dice?, for example, introduces the verbs querer and preferir. We can have the students practice the function of making plans and expressing preferences by creating a communicative activity that combines various themes in the book. In this way, we are adhering to one of the hall-marks of proficiency-oriented instruction: the spiraling of material. Toward the end of the chapter, Jarvis et al. have an activity that they call Situaciones, some of which do not allow the students to participate in exchanges of more than two lines. We find:

Some of these situations that have to do with plans are rather limited. Let's take #5. A simple conversation like the following might take place: Student 1: ¿Quieres ver unas fotos de mi familia? Student 2: Sí, quiero ver las fotos. We might have a more spontaneous exchange if we combine, at some point, some of the themes in the text and come up with a communicative activity that focuses on the function of making plans. This, in turn, gives the student the opportunity to practice extended discourse. Chapter 1 is entitled «Al teléfono» and contains numbers up to 100. Chapter 4 is called ¡Vamos a Madrid! and contains querer and preferir. One of the topics of Chapter 5 is telling time. We can either recycle the function of making plans in Chapter 5 or introduce la hora in Chapter 4 and use the following situations:

In the CFLTPP, we are emphasizing a task-based approach to language instruction and practice. As Hal Wingard has stated, this means that «classroom instruction's first aim is at consolidating students' skills by offering a wide variety of interactive tasks at the same proficiency level, exploring different situational contexts, and therefore involving lexical diversification in a meaningful fashion» (handout). In a task-based approach to language instruction, we want to create a situational context based on topics of interest to the students and of basic content. Besides the movie invitation given above, we can illustrate this approach with Chapters 5 and 6 of ¿Qué tal? Chapter 5 is entitled ¡Vamos de compras! and includes the names of some stores as, for example, la papelería, la farmacia, la tienda de ropa, and la zapatería¹⁵¹. Even though the title of this lesson has to do with shopping, there is a paucity of lexical items in this chapter that has to do with what can be purchased in the aforementioned stores. In the next chapter, though, the authors introduce clothing and colors. We might want to present this material in Chapter 5 by providing comprehensible input. Then we can create a situation, for example, in which the students have to buy clothing for a specific occasion.

There are several advantages to a task-based approach. Not only do we motivate students by creating situations that are relevant and fun but also they get practice at using the language to accomplish real-life purposes. Moreover, the students work and interact in pairs or groups and get to know one another.

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This reduces the affective filter and allows them to practice communicating in the foreign-language in a nonthreatening environment.

In conclusion, one of the most important tools at our disposal in teaching a foreign-language is the textbook. Thus, we should evaluate it carefully in order to determine if it is organized by grammatical structures or functions. We should ask ourselves if the activities in the text focus on a grammar point or allow the students to use language to convey meaning. If they are purely mechanical, we should modify them or create new ones so that students can express their own thoughts. Since our goal is proficiency, we should develop activities that are contextualized and that range from the purely manipulative to open-ended, creative, and personalized ones. By supplying comprehensible input, we provide students with the structures and vocabulary needed to carry out specific tasks. By exposing them to a variety of situations, we are preparing them for successful communication in the target culture.

Academic Preparation in Foreign Languages: Teaching for Transition from High School to College. New York: The College Board, 1986.

Bente, Marilyn. «Deciding Whether Specific Learning Activities Provide Communication Practice or Drill». (Handout). CFLTPP California State University, Long Beach. 13 Oct. 1988.

Chastain, Kenneth. ¡Vamos! Boston: Heinle & Heinle. 1985.

Dorwick, Thalia et al. ¿Qué tal? 2nd ed. New York: Random House, 1987.

Gunterman, Gail and June K. Phillips. Functional-Notional Concepts: Adapting the Foreign Language Textbook. Language in Education: Theory & Practice, no. 44. Washington DC: Center for Applied Linguistics, 1984.

Jarvis, Ana C. ¿Cómo se dice? 3rd ed. Massachusetts: D. C. Heath & Co., 1986.

Medley, Frank W. Jr. «Designing the Proficiency-Based Curriculum»; Northeast Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. Proficiency, Curriculum, Articulation: The Ties That Bind, ed. Alice C. Omaggio (N, p., Northeast Conference, 1985). 13-40.

Omaggio, Alice. Teaching Language in Context: Proficiency-Oriented Instruction. Boston: Heinle & Heinle, 1986.

Terrell, Tracy et al. Dos Mundos: A Communicative Approach. New York: Random House, 1986.

Wingard, Hal. Handout. CFLTPP California State University, Northridge. Nov. 14, 1988.

Hispania [Publicaciones periódicas]. Volume 73, Number 1, March 1990