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1. Introduction
This research presents an evaluation of an newly designed textbook—— Experiencing English, which is one of the General Higher Education "Fifteenth" NationalProgramTextbooks and"New Century Network Course Construction Projects" approved by Educational Ministry of the State Council. This article seeks to find out to what extent the materials are suitable for the learning and teaching based on the data from the questionnaires both for students and for teachers. The information generated from this study could be beneficial, as it can help the current users of the book to make their own adaptations when using the book.
2. Method
This study adopts a three-phase evaluation approach: analysis evaluation adaptation.
(1) Data Collection
The questionnaire survey for students and teachers (the questionnaires are omitted here) was conducted at LanZhou University of Finance and Economics. 100 participants were randomly selected sophomores and 40 randomly selected teachers who had used the materials as their core textbook. 81 of the students and 37 of the teachers returned the questionnaire with complete answers. Among the students, 38 were males and 43 were females, and among the teachers 7 were males and 30 were females.
(2)Data Analysis
In this section, we will first analyze the materials in terms of the 7 categories in our evaluation criteria: namely, Topic content, activities, skills, methodology, layout/design, practical considerations and cognitive skills. Then we will present the data of the study for detailed discussion.
Criteria A: Topic content
1.Most of the topics covered in the text book are likely to be tangible to the students.
2.The topics in the text book are closely related to the students' life and the real world matter.
3.Each book covers 8 units, totally 32 topics. The topics varied in themes, culture and genre.
4.Since the subject matters are real, challenging, exciting, and they are familiar to or useful for the students.
5.The course book does cover the main grammar items and these are appropriate for the students of the level targeted.
6.There is ample room for self-study.
Criteria B: activities
1.There is some scope for learners to increase their general knowledge.
2.The arrangement of activities is enjoyable and fits to students' learning style.
3.Some activities are likely to encourage students' spontaneous communication.
4.Learners have many choices over activities.
5.A reasonable proportion of the activities promote group and pair work.
6.Each activity is designed under clear instruction. We can not find activities that have no instruction; some activities even have tips for the students.
7.No matter in Integrated Textbook, Exploring Textbook or Listening and Speaking Textbook, lead-in activities are covered.
Criteria C: Skills
1.The text book does cover listening, reading, speaking, writing and translation and the five skills are thematically linked.
2.Listening materials are well recorded, as authentic as possible, accompanied by background information, questions and activities which are helpful for comprehension.
3.Speaking is undertaken in Dialogue, Discussion and Real world speaking.
4.There are 5 reading materials around the same theme with sufficient vocabulary in ever unit. And after each material there is a comprehension exercise to help understand.
5.Writing is put at the end of each unit (Guided Writing), which is divided into General Writing and Practical Writing. And the Practical Writing includes a variety of styles.
6.Translating activities are arranged in the Integrated and Exploring Textbook based on the sentence patterns, phrases and key words that just learned in each unit. And the translating skills practice provides for some general skills, as how to translate multiples.
7.However, we can not find any materials for pronunciation work in the text book..
Criteria D: Methodology
1.The materials are geared towards communicative activity. Most of the exchanges in the activities are for interaction.
2.Inductive or deductive learning?
3.Students play an active role in learning.
4.The textbook make its guiding principles clear. ?
5.Study skills sections are included in the materials.
6.When each unit is finished, students can check whether they have completed their goal by using the Goal Checking, which provides a way of self-assessment.
Criteria E: Layout and design
1.The layout and the sequence of activities are quite clear.
2.The visual material (usually the real world situation) is integrated into the texts and dialogues. The illustrations are both functional and appealing. Each unit is drawn in different colors according to the contents of the theme.
Criteria F: Physical make-up
The cover of the book is durable enough to withstand with attractive texts. The size of the book seems convenient for learners/teachers to handle.
Criteria G: Cognitive Skill
Some degree of thinking is expected in "lead- in discussion" (p. 8), "communicative tasks" (p.11), "think about it" (p. 12, 17), and practical writing——job advertisements (p.28) in Integrated Textbook. Also in real world speaking —— let's have a debate (p.80) in listening and speaking Textbook.
3. Discussion
As regards topics, most of them are tangible (student(S)=3.9, teacher(T)=3.8) and interesting to the learners (S=3.6, T=3.8). The producer claims that one of the most distinguished characteristics of this textbook is its up-to-datedness. However, what is interesting here is that we find a contradictory viewpoint on this matter. The students regard the topics up-to-date (3.9), while the teachers do not quite agree (3.2). The reason that the score generated by the teacher is low may be because some of the teachers think up-to-date topics are not always good for teaching and learning. There are a considerable amount of variety of topics-32 topics in all, with each book eight topics, which is enough for the learners (S=3.6, T=3.8). However, those various and up-to-date topics are not emotionally engaging enough as it should be (S=3.6, T=3.4). We may attribute this to the fact that the students think the materials are not well designed to equip them for real life interaction (3.5) and the fact that the teachers assume the contexts for spoken English are not so relevant to learners' EFL environment in China (3.6). Since there is a part named Culture Salon at end of each unit, it indeed expands lea-rners' awareness of English-speaking cultures (S=3.9, T= 3.7).
Both learners and teachers are satisfied with the activities designed in the materials and find them enjoyable (S=3.7, T= 3.6). Teachers think the instructions are quite clear (4.1). What is worth noticing is that teachers consider the activities do not sufficiently cater for learners' style (3.5) while the learners consider them do (3.9). The producer claims that this textbook stresses the importance of cultivating learners' communicative ability and it surely does. The activities in this textbook encourage spontaneous communication (S=3.8, T=3.8) in such sections as "let's have a debate" and "talk about it" etc. and group/pair work (S=3.8, T=3.9). And the activities also have the potential to increase the learner' general knowledge. For each passage, there are such activities as "think about it", "read about it", "talk about it", and "write about it", which provides a good reading model for the learners.
Most mean scores in the part of skills are comparatively low. Though teachers and learners stated that all the five skills——listening, speaking, reading, writing and translating——are sufficiently covered in the materials (S=3.6, T=4.1) and integrated together around the same theme (S=3.8, T=3.8), some of them are not satisfying, especially translating activities do not improve learners' translating ability effectively (S=3.4, T=3.5). In addition, we can not find pronunciation works in the textbook which can be supported by the data especially the teacher's data (3.0). What's more, the learners' can not get enough background information for the listening (3.6) and reading (3.5) and the teachers also think so (3.2).
As the editors claimed, "the focus of the materials is not only the skill training, but also the application of these skills," and the materials are geared towards communicative activity (S=3.7, T=3.7). Table 2 shows that the textbook is not sensitive to what students need (2.7) and does not expect the students to take responsibility for their own learning (3.4). This may result in the failure of teaching and learning. However, there are clear guiding principles (T=3.9) and study skills sections (T=3.8).
On one hand, teachers and students say Yes about the layout of the materials in some aspects such as the sequence of activities and visual material integrated into the text. On the other hand, as shown in Table 1, learners express that the materials is not good enough for use in a self-study mode (3.4) and in Table 2, teachers think new vocabulary is not recycled adequately (3.4). And usually it is hard for them to finish the teaching tasks within schedule (3.3) due to the large amount of information it contains.
While the students think the textbook is durable enough to withstand wear (3.8), it is not the case with regard to its attractiveness (3.5) and convenience of size (3.5), which is not expected by the producer who claimed that the textbook is in a internationally fashionable size and attractive in color and design.
Pay attention to learners' cognitive skill is another characteristic of the materials. Learners generally respond, "They have much chance to think" (3.8), which is helpful to develop the thinking skills. However, the materials are relatively poor in encouraging the learners to develop creativity (S=3.4, T=3.6).
4. Implications
Upon the findings and discussions presented in previous section, possible adaptations and teaching methodological implications are suggested as below.
1. As regard to topic content, some classic materials could be included..
2. Since translating ability is a weak point among most students, more translating activities and translating skills could be employed in the textbook. The story is true with writing, therefore more guidance and tips could be included.
3. By discussing learner needs explicitly may help teachers better understand their students and thus teach them well.
References:
[1]Cunningsworth,A. Choosing Your Coursebook. ShangHai: ShangHai Foreign Language Education Press.2002.
This research presents an evaluation of an newly designed textbook—— Experiencing English, which is one of the General Higher Education "Fifteenth" NationalProgramTextbooks and"New Century Network Course Construction Projects" approved by Educational Ministry of the State Council. This article seeks to find out to what extent the materials are suitable for the learning and teaching based on the data from the questionnaires both for students and for teachers. The information generated from this study could be beneficial, as it can help the current users of the book to make their own adaptations when using the book.
2. Method
This study adopts a three-phase evaluation approach: analysis evaluation adaptation.
(1) Data Collection
The questionnaire survey for students and teachers (the questionnaires are omitted here) was conducted at LanZhou University of Finance and Economics. 100 participants were randomly selected sophomores and 40 randomly selected teachers who had used the materials as their core textbook. 81 of the students and 37 of the teachers returned the questionnaire with complete answers. Among the students, 38 were males and 43 were females, and among the teachers 7 were males and 30 were females.
(2)Data Analysis
In this section, we will first analyze the materials in terms of the 7 categories in our evaluation criteria: namely, Topic content, activities, skills, methodology, layout/design, practical considerations and cognitive skills. Then we will present the data of the study for detailed discussion.
Criteria A: Topic content
1.Most of the topics covered in the text book are likely to be tangible to the students.
2.The topics in the text book are closely related to the students' life and the real world matter.
3.Each book covers 8 units, totally 32 topics. The topics varied in themes, culture and genre.
4.Since the subject matters are real, challenging, exciting, and they are familiar to or useful for the students.
5.The course book does cover the main grammar items and these are appropriate for the students of the level targeted.
6.There is ample room for self-study.
Criteria B: activities
1.There is some scope for learners to increase their general knowledge.
2.The arrangement of activities is enjoyable and fits to students' learning style.
3.Some activities are likely to encourage students' spontaneous communication.
4.Learners have many choices over activities.
5.A reasonable proportion of the activities promote group and pair work.
6.Each activity is designed under clear instruction. We can not find activities that have no instruction; some activities even have tips for the students.
7.No matter in Integrated Textbook, Exploring Textbook or Listening and Speaking Textbook, lead-in activities are covered.
Criteria C: Skills
1.The text book does cover listening, reading, speaking, writing and translation and the five skills are thematically linked.
2.Listening materials are well recorded, as authentic as possible, accompanied by background information, questions and activities which are helpful for comprehension.
3.Speaking is undertaken in Dialogue, Discussion and Real world speaking.
4.There are 5 reading materials around the same theme with sufficient vocabulary in ever unit. And after each material there is a comprehension exercise to help understand.
5.Writing is put at the end of each unit (Guided Writing), which is divided into General Writing and Practical Writing. And the Practical Writing includes a variety of styles.
6.Translating activities are arranged in the Integrated and Exploring Textbook based on the sentence patterns, phrases and key words that just learned in each unit. And the translating skills practice provides for some general skills, as how to translate multiples.
7.However, we can not find any materials for pronunciation work in the text book..
Criteria D: Methodology
1.The materials are geared towards communicative activity. Most of the exchanges in the activities are for interaction.
2.Inductive or deductive learning?
3.Students play an active role in learning.
4.The textbook make its guiding principles clear. ?
5.Study skills sections are included in the materials.
6.When each unit is finished, students can check whether they have completed their goal by using the Goal Checking, which provides a way of self-assessment.
Criteria E: Layout and design
1.The layout and the sequence of activities are quite clear.
2.The visual material (usually the real world situation) is integrated into the texts and dialogues. The illustrations are both functional and appealing. Each unit is drawn in different colors according to the contents of the theme.
Criteria F: Physical make-up
The cover of the book is durable enough to withstand with attractive texts. The size of the book seems convenient for learners/teachers to handle.
Criteria G: Cognitive Skill
Some degree of thinking is expected in "lead- in discussion" (p. 8), "communicative tasks" (p.11), "think about it" (p. 12, 17), and practical writing——job advertisements (p.28) in Integrated Textbook. Also in real world speaking —— let's have a debate (p.80) in listening and speaking Textbook.
3. Discussion
As regards topics, most of them are tangible (student(S)=3.9, teacher(T)=3.8) and interesting to the learners (S=3.6, T=3.8). The producer claims that one of the most distinguished characteristics of this textbook is its up-to-datedness. However, what is interesting here is that we find a contradictory viewpoint on this matter. The students regard the topics up-to-date (3.9), while the teachers do not quite agree (3.2). The reason that the score generated by the teacher is low may be because some of the teachers think up-to-date topics are not always good for teaching and learning. There are a considerable amount of variety of topics-32 topics in all, with each book eight topics, which is enough for the learners (S=3.6, T=3.8). However, those various and up-to-date topics are not emotionally engaging enough as it should be (S=3.6, T=3.4). We may attribute this to the fact that the students think the materials are not well designed to equip them for real life interaction (3.5) and the fact that the teachers assume the contexts for spoken English are not so relevant to learners' EFL environment in China (3.6). Since there is a part named Culture Salon at end of each unit, it indeed expands lea-rners' awareness of English-speaking cultures (S=3.9, T= 3.7).
Both learners and teachers are satisfied with the activities designed in the materials and find them enjoyable (S=3.7, T= 3.6). Teachers think the instructions are quite clear (4.1). What is worth noticing is that teachers consider the activities do not sufficiently cater for learners' style (3.5) while the learners consider them do (3.9). The producer claims that this textbook stresses the importance of cultivating learners' communicative ability and it surely does. The activities in this textbook encourage spontaneous communication (S=3.8, T=3.8) in such sections as "let's have a debate" and "talk about it" etc. and group/pair work (S=3.8, T=3.9). And the activities also have the potential to increase the learner' general knowledge. For each passage, there are such activities as "think about it", "read about it", "talk about it", and "write about it", which provides a good reading model for the learners.
Most mean scores in the part of skills are comparatively low. Though teachers and learners stated that all the five skills——listening, speaking, reading, writing and translating——are sufficiently covered in the materials (S=3.6, T=4.1) and integrated together around the same theme (S=3.8, T=3.8), some of them are not satisfying, especially translating activities do not improve learners' translating ability effectively (S=3.4, T=3.5). In addition, we can not find pronunciation works in the textbook which can be supported by the data especially the teacher's data (3.0). What's more, the learners' can not get enough background information for the listening (3.6) and reading (3.5) and the teachers also think so (3.2).
As the editors claimed, "the focus of the materials is not only the skill training, but also the application of these skills," and the materials are geared towards communicative activity (S=3.7, T=3.7). Table 2 shows that the textbook is not sensitive to what students need (2.7) and does not expect the students to take responsibility for their own learning (3.4). This may result in the failure of teaching and learning. However, there are clear guiding principles (T=3.9) and study skills sections (T=3.8).
On one hand, teachers and students say Yes about the layout of the materials in some aspects such as the sequence of activities and visual material integrated into the text. On the other hand, as shown in Table 1, learners express that the materials is not good enough for use in a self-study mode (3.4) and in Table 2, teachers think new vocabulary is not recycled adequately (3.4). And usually it is hard for them to finish the teaching tasks within schedule (3.3) due to the large amount of information it contains.
While the students think the textbook is durable enough to withstand wear (3.8), it is not the case with regard to its attractiveness (3.5) and convenience of size (3.5), which is not expected by the producer who claimed that the textbook is in a internationally fashionable size and attractive in color and design.
Pay attention to learners' cognitive skill is another characteristic of the materials. Learners generally respond, "They have much chance to think" (3.8), which is helpful to develop the thinking skills. However, the materials are relatively poor in encouraging the learners to develop creativity (S=3.4, T=3.6).
4. Implications
Upon the findings and discussions presented in previous section, possible adaptations and teaching methodological implications are suggested as below.
1. As regard to topic content, some classic materials could be included..
2. Since translating ability is a weak point among most students, more translating activities and translating skills could be employed in the textbook. The story is true with writing, therefore more guidance and tips could be included.
3. By discussing learner needs explicitly may help teachers better understand their students and thus teach them well.
References:
[1]Cunningsworth,A. Choosing Your Coursebook. ShangHai: ShangHai Foreign Language Education Press.2002.