VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES LƯU THÙY LINH AN EVALUATION OF THE COURSEBOOK “ENGLISH FILE ELEMENTARY STUDENT’S BOOK – THIRD EDITION” FOR ENGLISH MAJORED STUDENTS AT A PRE-UNIVERSITY SCHOOL FOR ETHNIC STUDENTS IN PHU THO PROVINCE (Đánh giá giáo trình “English File Elementary Student’s Book - Third Edition” dùng cho học sinh chuyên Tiếng Anh tại một trường dự bị đại học dành cho người dân tộc ở tỉnh Phú Thọ) M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 8140231.01 HANOI – 2022 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES LƯU THÙY LINH AN EVALUATION OF THE COURSEBOOK “ENGLISH FILE ELEMENTARY STUDENT’S BOOK – THIRD EDITION” FOR ENGLISH MAJORED STUDENTS AT A PRE-UNIVERSITY SCHOOL FOR ETHNIC STUDENTS IN PHU THO PROVINCE (Đánh giá giáo trình “English File Elementary Student’s Book - Third Edition” dùng cho học sinh chuyên Tiếng Anh tại một trường dự bị đại học dành cho người dân tộc ở tỉnh Phú Thọ) M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 8140231. Dương Thu Mai HANOI – 2022 DECLARATION I certify that the work contained in this thesis is the result of my own research, and this thesis has not been submitted for any degrees at any other universities or institutions. Hanoi, August 2022 Signature Luu Thuy Linh Approved by Supervisor Dr. Duong Thu Mai Date: 31/8/2022 i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Dr.
Dương Thu Mai for her useful comments and continuous support of my study, for her patience, encouragement, enthusiasm and immense knowledge. Her guidance helped me tremendously in all the time of research and writing of this thesis. I would also like to thank my school leaders and colleagues for their support and sharing the workload so that I could wholeheartedly focus on the study and get it completed. Finally, I would like to express my profound gratitude to my family, and to all of my friends for providing me with unfailing support and continuous encouragement throughout my years of study and through the process of researching and writing this thesis.
This accomplishment would not have been possible without all of them. Thank you! Hanoi, August 2022 Signature Luu Thuy Linh ii ABSTRACT The present study evaluates the coursebook ―English File Elementary Student‘s Book – Third Edition‖ by Christina Latham-Koenig, Clive Oxenden (Oxford University Press, 2014), which has been currently used in the first semester for English majored students at a pre-university school for ethnic students in Phu Tho province. This research explores the extent to which a foreign-produced English coursebook used at an ethnic school has oriented towards an English as an International Language (EIL)-oriented pedagogy and prepares students to use English for cross-cultural communication. On the purpose of achieving this goal, a survey for 140 students and interviews for 6 teachers were employed to collect the data.
The findings indicate that despite the fact that international communication may involve a broad spectrum of global English users, the coursebook tends to focus merely on preparing students to use English for communication with Anglophone English users, thus only partially meeting the learners‘ multiple communicative needs in the real world. Our findings highlight the importance of moving towards an EIL-oriented approach in the development and use of ELT materials, adding that several proposed course book revisions have been proposed to make it more relevant to the local learning context and make the best use of the material in the years to come. Key words: coursebook, textbook, material, evaluate, English as an international language (EIL), English File Elementary Students’ Book, English majored students, ethnic students. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION.
iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS. vii LIST OF TABLES. viii LIST OF FIGURES. viii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION.
Objectives of the study. Scope of the study. Significance of the study. Method of the study.
Organization of the thesis.4 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW. Materials in language teaching and learning. Definitions of materials. Types of materials.
Coursebooks as a type of materials in ELT. Definitions and purposes of materials evaluation. Types of materials evaluation. Models of materials evaluation.
Criteria of materials evaluation. English as an international language (EIL) and materials evaluation in EIL. An overview of the field of teaching English as an International Language. Features of an international language.
Teaching and learning EIL. Teaching methods/approaches in EIL. Features of EIL teaching materials. Material evaluation criteria in EIL.
Previous studies in materials evaluation according to EIL. An overview of the research contexts and the evaluated coursebooks. The participants of the study. Data collection instruments and procedures.
Semi-structured interviews. Design of the study and data collection process .56 CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS. The students‘ evaluation of the coursebook. The appropriateness of the topics.
The appropriateness of the names/ places/ events. The appropriateness of the English users and English communication. The appropriateness of content of cross-cultural communication. The appropriateness of multiculturality.
The appropriateness of multilingualism. The appropriateness of English in local life-worlds. The appropriateness of Language ideology. Learners‘ suggestions to improve the coursebook.
The teachers‘ evaluation of the coursebook. The appropriateness of the topics. The appropriateness of the people/ places/ events. The appropriateness of the English users and English communication.
The appropriateness of content of cross-cultural communication. The appropriateness of multiculturality. The appropriateness of multilingualism. The appropriateness of English in local life-worlds.
The appropriateness of Language ideology. Teachers‘ suggestions to improve the coursebook. Adding materials for teaching. Modifying the current coursebook.
Limitations of the study and suggestions for further research. I vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ELT English Language Teaching EIL English as an International Language CLT Communicative Language Teaching CPSEM Pre-university school for Ethnic Students EFL English Foreign Language ESL English as a Second Language vii LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Criteria to evaluate EIL coursebook suggested by Hu & McKay (2014).42 Table 2: The students‘ evaluation about the topics .57 Table 3: The students‘ evaluation about names of people/ places/ events .58 Table 4: The students‘ evaluation about the appropriateness of the patterns of communication .60 Table 5: The students‘ evaluation about the appropriateness of .61 content of cross-cultural communication .61 Table 6: The students‘ evaluation about the appropriateness of multiculturality .62 Table 7: The students‘ evaluation about the appropriateness of multilingualism .62 Table 8: The students‘ evaluation about the appropriateness of .63 English in local life-worlds .63 Table 9: The students‘ evaluation about the appropriateness of Language ideology .64 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: The materials evaluation model of Hutchinson and Waters .17 Figure 2: Kachru's categorization of countries in which English is used .22 Figure 3: Criteria for evaluating materials according to EIL by Matsuda (2012) .41 viii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION This chapter presents a general overview of the study with specific references to the rationale, the aims of the study, research questions, scope of the study, significance of the study, and structure of the study 1. Rationale The worldwide spread of English, brought about by the forces of globalization and the unprecedented growth in the number of multilingual users of English, has impacted the English language teaching (ELT) discipline and profession in profound ways. For a long time, the English language was associated merely with Anglophone countries and acquiring ‗native-speaker‘ competence was assumed to be the ultimate goal in ELT.
However, with the pluralization of the English language and therefore a shift in ownership of English away from its Anglophone origins, a monolingual English-speaking model is no longer seen as the only appropriate model for all English learners (Hu & Jiang, 2011). For those users of English in multilingual contexts, learning English is not to replace their first language, but to expand their linguistic repertoire for specific communicative purposes. Consequently, a majority of them do not necessarily desire to emulate native speakers or be assimilated into Anglophone cultures. On the contrary, they may only target at becoming competent users while preserving their own cultural and linguistic identities (Canagarajah, 2007).
In fact, previous English as a Lingua Franca research has revealed that multilingual users of English do not always defer to native speakers‘ norms when communicating with one another. Yet they manage to interact successfully by drawing on their multilingual repertoire and shared ‗non- nativeness‘ to negotiate linguistic and cultural variations and accommodate their interlocutors (Jenkins, Cogo, & Dewey, 2011). As the populations of multilingual users of English have far surpassed the populations of monolingual Anglophone English speakers and will continue to grow dramatically in the future (Graddol, 2006), communication in English is expected to increasingly involve a broader 1 spectrum of global English users. Hence, to prepare learners to use English in global contexts, there is a need for ELT pedagogy to move away from monolingual and monocultural norms to encourage learners to learn to embrace diversity as well as their unique identities as multilingual users of the language (McKay, 2018).
The shift in paradigm from teaching English as a second/foreign language to teaching English as an international language (EIL) needs to be manifested not only at the curricular level, but also in classroom practice and especially teaching materials. The field of material development and evaluation has always been an important one in the history of English language teaching. According to Cunningsworth (1995) and Ellis (1997), materials evaluation supports teachers to move beyond impressionistic assessments and help them have contextual insights into the nature of materials. Besides, William (1983) suggests that all English language teachers need to identify the different criteria, models, approaches and principles of materials evaluation to check if the materials are appropriate for the teaching and learning process as well as recognize the strengths and weaknesses of the different materials.
It can be seen that the ability of materials evaluation is considered as an extremely essential activity for all English language teachers as well as program designers. At the pre-university school for ethnic students (CPSEM), 100% of the school's students are ethnic minority students, each ethnic group has its own cultural identity, so the main goal of teaching English in the school is to not only serve to help students gain enough English ability to initially communicate independently and confidently, but also become competent users while preserving their own cultural and linguistic identities. This is the fifth year that the coursebook “English File Elementary Student’s Book – Third Edition” has been used at the pre- university school for ethnic students in Phu Tho province. The material is approved and accepted as an official coursebook for teaching in the first semester for English majored students.
Up to now, there have been different opinions from the teachers and the students about this material. However, no attempt has been made to evaluate 2 the relevance of the coursebook ―English File Elementary Student’s Book – third edition” to current trends of teaching English as an international language. These are the reasons why the author of the study made a decision to conduct this evaluation research. As a result, this study is conducted with the hope that the merits and demerits of the coursebook can be discovered in order to improve or modify the material for future use and therefore make contribution to the teaching and learning foreign languages at the intended school.
Objectives of the study The research aims at evaluating the material of current use at a pre-university school for ethnic students on the relevance of coursebook ―English File Elementary Student‘s Book – third edition‖ to current trends of teaching English as an international language.
