coursebook evaluation

UNIVERSIDAD CATÓLICA DE LA SANTÍSIMA CONCEPCIÓN

FACULTAD DE EDUCACION

PEDAGOGIA EN INGLES

“Coursebook Evaluation”

English Methodology II

Mg Roxana Correa

Students: Nataly Muñoz P.

Makarena Sánchez C.

Concepción, October 28th 2013 .

Interview prompts

Eliciting teacher’s views on coursebooks

Introduction

The following essay has as a purpose to analyse a specific teacher’s point of view

on course books. For this reason, a series of questions are provided for the teacher such as

what are your criteria for choosing a coursebook? When, why and how do you supplement

the coursebook? among others.

First of all, it is necessary to point out the fact that the chosen teacher works at a

public school and most of his course books are not necessarily based on the Chilean

Ministry of Education, but rather by some of her own. Conforming with the first question

about the importance of coursebook according to the teacher, they play a very helpful role

for English classes, but it has also been considered that they are not the only source to take

into consideration. In addition, the interviewee has stated that coursebooks should be

chosen focus on both the student’s interests and reality, such as their life, city or country.

Moreover, related to the frequency use of text books, the participant teacher has stated that

coursebooks are frequently managed through the use of reading comprehension activities

and vocabulary as well; however, the activities that are less used by her are the ones relate

to grammar activities, mainly because students tend to get bored and to lose the focus of the

class, so in order to work with the grammar area, the activities are searched in the Internet

to get better results.

Consequently, the school teacher has said that coursebooks are a supplement when

the activities are not linked with the student’s interest as previously said; instead she rather

looks for the activities online to change the mood and to obtain student’s willingness to

work, but the interviewee has not mentioned when or how to use those materials. Finally, in

the last inquiry, which is connected in terms of aspects of the language, the teacher has

recognized the idea of applying more interesting activities that are according to student’s

current context, specifically for developing communicative skills, for example oral

activities and listening activities, from this last item listening activities should be centered

in those student who only have 3 hours per week of English, because most of the time they

encounter huge problems for these type of task, that at the end it become a challenge to

accomplish.

As a conclusion, it should be interpreted that the teacher claimed the fact that

coursebooks should be around the student’s interest, and also should be located in their

contemporary context. Accordingly, it is also emphasized the idea of making use of online

resources that are available today on the web. At the end, she added an importance of

practicing activities related to communication skills, because of the importance that it is

attribute nowadays to English as a second language.

Factual details

Title: Click on. Workbook & Grammar book 1a/1b

Author (s): Virginia Evans – Neil O’Sullivan

Publisher: Express Publishing Price: $10.000 pesos

ISBN: 1-8446-918-1 No. of pages: 120 pages

Components: Student’s Book/Teacher’s Book/ Workbook & Grammar book Student’s

Test/ Workbook & Grammar book Teacher’s/ Test Booklet/ Class Cassettes/ Audio CDs /

Student’s Cassette Cd/ Video-DVD/ Video activity book.

Level: Secondary level

Length: 1 year and half Units: 10 units Lesson/section: 5 Lessons.

Target skills: Grammar skills

Target learner: Secondary school.

Assessment: (* Poor ** Fair ***Good ****Excellent)

Rationale: Suggestopedia approach

Availability: It can be found at “Liberia Inglesa” in Concepción, Chile.

Layout/ graphics: The organization of the coursebook is organized in two parts, which is

Click on 1a and Click on 1b. First of all, each unit starts with specific vocabulary items, and

then moves to grammar, communication activities, listening activities, reading and writing

exercises. The coursebook has attractive images, and each activity has an example to

follow.

Selection/grading: The coursebook begins with a low level of English, and it goes up to a

higher level of proficiency.

Authenticity:

1° Dialogue

Discourse feature Textbook data

Lexical density 94 78.33%

Repetition 0 0%

Back-channels 4 3.33%

2° Dialogue



Repetition 0 0%


Cultural bias: British oriented.

Stimulus: Throughout the coursebook there are plenty of activities focus primarily on

grammar; however, the textbook does not provide enough speaking or reading activities for

the students so as to use the language. At the end of each book there is review which

emphasizes mainly grammar features with its corresponding exercises. Finally there is a list

that contains irregular verbs, and likewise tests in order to assess the student’s progress per

unit.

Flexibility: It would not be possible to move from one unit to the other, because the book is

designed from a basic to upper level, there are some units which ask students to use the

knowledge they already have learnt from previous topics.

3° Dialogue



Repetition 0 0%


Source: Evaluating ELT textbooks and materials by Sheldon (1988)

A comparison of textbook and authentic interactions by Gilmore (2004)

C- Activities

1. Do the materials of a chosen Unit provide a balance of activities that is appropriate

for your students?

Yes No

The material provides a balance of activities which is appropriate for students;

although, it is believed that most of the exercises are focus on grammar, which ultimately

achieves the expectations of the book. Another fact to highlight is that the unit starts from a

basic level such as vocabulary and it continues advancing to a more complex stage that is to

produce specifically in a writing task what students have learnt.

Lesson Adopt (select) Reject Adapting Extra Materials

1st

Lesson43 part a5 part a /b

The vocabulary is appropriate. The exercises are simple in order to rehearsal what they have learnt.

13 part b

The exercise is similar to other ones.The topic do/don’t is not connected with the topic and also it has not been checked previously in other units.

2 part a/b/c

Another item (spices) will be included, as part of the vocabularyIt is necessary to reduce the amount of questions; otherwise it will take long to finish the class.

2nd

Lesson69 part a10

The activities are focus on grammar, inside a specific context.

7 part a9 part b1112 part a

It is not a real context.The exercises are been repetitive.Mini-dialogue takes time for a normal class to do

7 part a 812 part b

The students should classify their trimmings to the corresponding word.It is required add more words. They do not have to

Pictures of different categories of food

act out It should be this way in order to do the class more entertaining and effective, in terms of time

3rd

Lesson19

As students have been dealing with grammar features, they could start with a short writing activity.

131415 part b

The exercises are not quite link with the topicSimilar activities are been checked before.

15 part a17

1 of the 3 advertisement will be left out, in order to compare two of them, and more alternatives are included in the reading.The students are asked to act out with a short dialogue. In this way students will demonstrate so far what they have learnt.

4th

Lesson 18 part a

It encourages students to do a sort of deeply reading comprehension activity.

16 part b20

It might be coherent to continue doing reading comprehension activities. It will be more entertaining to write something about the student’s interest.

16 part a18 part b 19 (homework)

The brochure is deleted, instead a dialogue is included.The students have to create the appropriate title for each paragraph.The student should come up with a writing composition about their favourite food.To develop writing and creative skills.

5th

Lesson19 Review about what the students have done.

2. Is there a sufficient amount of communicative output in the units (3 at least) under consideration?

Yes No

There is no sufficient amount of communicative output, as the title of the book

indicated, it is concentrated on grammar features, even though it covers each area

(grammar, reading, listening, vocabulary and communication), but in this opportunity the

majority of the exercises are for students to developing grammar skills.

Unit 5: “I’d love to”

Activity´s number Activity´s name Type Reason

1a Use the words bellow to fill in the table

Structural The activity is guided. It starts with grammar exercises.

1b In pairs Functional The learner has to use the language, but the structure of the activity is given.

4 Complete the diagram

Functional Even when the learner produces, the context of the activity is given.

6 Fill in with the Structural The activity is

correct words from the list

guided, besides the students use grammatical rules.

10 Use the phrases and the prompts

Functional The context and instruction are given and according to this the learner has to produce.

12 Read the article and answer the questions

Quasi-communicative

Grammar in context, however the context is reducing.

9 Look at the pictures and complete the sentences

Structural The learner follows specific and guided instructions.

16 Write a book review Functional The model of the activity is given, so the learner does not produce everything.

Unit 7: “What´s on the menu?”

Activity’s number Activity’s name Type Reason2 Complete the

diagram Structural Based on grammar

features4 Fill in Structural The instructions are

given5b Who usually says? Quasi-

communicativeThe context is reduced, however grammar feature are putted in context

7a Match the words in the list

Structural The activity is guided and the learner using language they will need

7b Pack your picnic basket

Social interaction The context is given, besides students have to produce

9a Fill in Structural The instruction are

given so the student need to follow them using grammatical rules

17 Read the advertisements and answer the questions

Quasi-communicative

The content is in setting and the instructions are precise

19 Look at the pictures and answer the questions

Functional Students have to put in practice the function (grammar) in use

Coursebook Evaluation

Source: Communicative language teaching: An introduction by Littlewood (1981

The Practice of English Language Teaching by Harmer (1991)

Materials Evaluation and Design for Language Teaching by Mcgrath (2002)

The purpose of this analysis is to being able to make judgments about considering a

coursebook the correct one for applying to the students and its characteristics. As it is

known, in the field of teaching, most of the teachers rely on the usefulness that a

coursebook provides during a lesson class; however, the matter lies on choosing the correct

resource to the students, which lead us to the next question what are the necessary features

that a coursebook should have in order to obtain the correct output? For the latter, it might

be expected that teachers take many factors into consideration when selecting a textbook,

for this reason they need to think about their students' needs, interests, ability and level.

On one hand, the coursebook was analyzed by identifying under what sort of

approach it worked, connected mainly as specified before with grammar, so immediately

was expected to get students with less active participation in the usage of the language. On

the other hand it was examined by paying attention to the different areas, which are the

following: vocabulary, grammar, reading comprehension, listening, communication and

writing. Nonetheless, as it was expected by checking the pages, the coursebook was build

up focused specifically on grammar aspects. Consequently, it is believed that the aim is to

develop grammar skills for students, although the current situation asks to develop

communicative abilities, so that a student can use English language in real context.

Moreover, the most frequent techniques used by the text book were vocabulary and

grammar exercises; for example, classifying, fill in or matching concepts, for this it was

interpreted that students learnt words isolated and without frame of reference, in other

words they acquired vocabulary by memorizing it

As mentioned above, the coursebook was related to grammar exercises as a whole,

and at the same time did not present sufficient communicative amount of tasks, instead

syntax structure was the main concern, and in this case the majority of the activities

belonged to pre-communicative activities by Littlewood (1981), which the aim is to teach

grammar features step by step. Another important issue considered was the fact of the

degree of complexity that the text developed for grammar production, there were plenty of

different activities, and there was a special item for writing tips that a student could have

taken as an advice to expand their knowledge. Unfortunately, it would have been more

precise to teach and learn the language in a real setting, rather than separate, in order to

accomplish the student’s attention. One of the most complicated dilemmas that teachers

have to encounter is how to get students engagement with the class, especially if students

are learning a second language, and one of the alternatives is by making use of a

coursebook that can provide authentic material according to Peacock (1997), so students

can be exposed to a real context, and can be able to use it properly, and more importantly

can be motivated with the topics, activities etc.

Another important fact to take into account is the proper use of the different skills

every student has. According to Oxford (1990) the four skills that every student needs to

develop are: reading, listening, speaking and writing, these four are directly related when

learning a second language, in this case English. Grammar is sometimes seen as a skill, but

is different from the “four” previously seen. The skills are increasing during the process of

language development. In fact, the coursebook was focused strictly on grammatical rules,

grammarian vocabulary and grammatical exercises. According to Chamot (1989) different

strategies can be used in order to develop the “four” learning skills previously mentioned,

and these can be used to obtain content and also vocabulary, which was one of the goals of

the coursebook. The textbook was covered primarily on two kinds of receptive skills

listening and reading, but it kept the focus on a big amount of grammatical and vocabulary

items. Nonetheless, the productive skills are poorly covered specially speaking, only small

dialogues were found inside the coursebook. Furthermore, it can be found material for all

the different skills work; however, the material mentioned can be found inside every unit,

but not in every activity.

The topics covered by the book were directly related to the student’s interest, for example

music, food, technology, among others. This facilitated the delivery of knowledge since

students might felt motivated when reading or learning from some topic they were

interested of. Talking about listening material, we could not have access to the recorded

material so we were not able to establish, whether the material was acceptable or not.

Nevertheless, we were able to read the exercises corresponding to each recording. It could

be noticed that even when the topics of the exercises where interesting the instructions were

not clear enough, as a result it may be thought that the students could get easily confuse

when reading the instructions.

As previously said, speaking material are poorly covered in the coursebook. Just

few dialogues can be found in the coursebook, and even when the topics were interesting

for teenagers, the students did not need to produce too much so they were not able to speak

a lot. Furthermore, even when the amount of writing activities were acceptable the students

were not asked to produce longer pieces of writing. Instead, the students were asked to

produce specific information about attractive topics, the structures of the activities were

given and precise and the context of the work was mostly guided. An interesting point to

mention was the important of teaching a language in a real setting, something that the

coursebook did not take as a priority.

Finally, the coursebook provided all the grammatical rules that students should be

aware of, but it did not take into account the use of the vocabulary taught into a real context

in which the students could understand the topics in a better form. Also, there were plenty

of activities guided by the teacher which did not allow the students to create or to answer

the activities applying the knowledge already taught.

References.

Chamot, A. U. (1989). Learning strategies in foreign language instruction.

Gilmore, A. (2004). A comparison of textbook and authentic interactions. ELT journal,

58(4), 363-374.

Harmer, J. (1991). The Practice of English Language Teaching. Longman Press: England,

UK.

Littlewood, W. (1981). Communicative Language teaching: An introduction. Cambridge

University Press.

McGrath, I. (2002). Materials Evaluation and Design for Language Teaching (Edinburgh

Textbooks in Applied Linguistics). Edinburgh University Press: Edinburgh, UK.

Peacock, M. (1997). The effect of authentic materials on the motivation of EFL learners.

ELT Journal, 51(2), 144-156.

Oxford, R. (1990). Language learning strategies: What every teacher should know.

Sheldon, L. (1988). Evaluating ELT textbooks and materials. ELT journal, 42(4), 237-246.