Download - 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
Discourse feature Textbook data
Lexical density 118 79.72%
Repetition 0 0%
Back-channels 6 4.05%
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
Discourse feature Textbook data
Lexical density 67 64.42%
Repetition 0 0%
Back-channels 2 1.92%
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.