Get Information From A Flash Input Textfield To A Javascript Function

I have a web page with a couple of Flash Input TextFields. When I press a button on my web page, I am using javascript (jQuery) to get all the values from the text fields and checkboxes etc on the page.
 
In order to get a value out of my Flash TextField, I understand that I have to use the ExternalInterface API. I am using ActionScript 3.0 and Flash CS4.
 
In the flash IDE, I have a layer with just the textbox instance and another layer 'actions', which has all the actionscript.
 
As soon as I put: import flash.external.ExternalInterface
 
in my code, then the textfields full functionality does not seem to work on the webpage.
 
I assumed what I had to do was something like:
 
import flash.external.ExternalInterface;
ExternalInterface.addCallback("getFlashFieldText", getText);
function getText():String  {
return myTextField.text;
}
 
then I thought that perhaps I had to call a javascript function to return the textfields value like so:
 
function getText():void  {
var word:String = myTextField.text;
ExternalInterface.call("alert", word);
}
 
but nothing is working, and I think it is strange that the textfields functionality (some letters being styled) does not work as soon as I import the ExternalInterface class. I have tried putting the ActionScript 'actions' layer in a package, but it didn't help. As you can probably tell I am new to Flash and Actionscript, and I would be very greatful if someone could point me in the right direction.