1 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES TRẦN THỊ CHUNG OANH AN EVALUATION OF THE MATERIAL “LIFELINES”FOR THE FIRST NON- ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTSAT HAI PHONG UNIVERSITY ĐÁNH GIÁ GIÁO TRÌNH “LIFELINES” DÀNH CHO SINH VIÊN KHÔNG CHUYÊN NĂM THỨ NHẤT TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC HẢI PHÒNG MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS FIELD: METHODOLOGY CODE: 601410 HANOI – 2010 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com 2 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES TRẦN THỊ CHUNG OANH AN EVALUATION OF THE MATERIAL “LIFELINES”FOR THE FIRST NON- ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT HAI PHONG UNIVERSITY ĐÁNH GIÁ GIÁO TRÌNH “LIFELINES” DÀNH CHO SINH VIÊN KHÔNG CHUYÊN NĂM THỨ NHẤT TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC HẢI PHÒNG MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS FIELD: METHODOLOGY CODE: 601410 SUPERVISOR: DR. HOANG THI XUAN HOA HANOI – 2010 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com 6 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS T: Teachers S: Students HPU: Hai Phong University TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com 7 LIST OF TABLES Table 1: The teachers and students‟ opinion about using text types in the 23 material 24 Table 2: The teachers and students‟ opinion about proportion of 4 macro skills 24 Table 3: The teachers and students‟ opinion about allocation time for each unit Table 4: The teachers and students‟ opinion about content sequenced of this 25 material Table 5: The teachers and students‟ opinion about language points in this 25 material Table 6: The teachers and students‟ opinion about kinds of exercises need to be 26 included in this material Table 7: The teachers and students‟ opinion about using techniques in this 26 material Table 8: The teachers and students‟ opinion about using aids in this material 27 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com 8 TABLE OF CONTENTS Certificate of originality of project report i Acknowledgements ii Abstract iii List of Abbreviations iv List of tables v Table of Contents vi PART I: INTRODUCTION 1 1. Aims of the study 2 3. Significance of the study 2 5.
Scope of the study 3 7. Organization of the study 3 PART II: DEVELOPMENT 4 CHAPTER 1 : LITERATURE REVIEW 4 1.1 Definition of material 4 1.Types of material 4 1. Roles of teaching materials in a general English course 5 1. Definitions of material evaluation 5 1.
Types of material evaluation 6 1. Purposes of material evaluation 8 1. Models for material evaluation 9 1. Methods of evaluation 12 1.
Criteria for material evaluation 13 1. Material adaptation 16 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. Reasons for adaptation 16 1. Areas for adaptation 17 1.
Techniques for adaptation 17 1. Summary 19 CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 20 2. The current teaching and learning situation at HPU 20 2. The context of the study 20 2.
The material description 20 2. Data collection procedure 22 2. Data analysis procedure 23 CHAPTER 3 : RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 24 3. The contents of the material 24 3.
The methodology of the material 25 3. The suitability of the content of the textbook with the students‟ requirements from the teachers and students‟ opinions. The suitability of the methodology of the textbook with the students‟ requirements from the teachers and students‟ opinions. The suitability of the content of the textbook with the students‟ requirements from the teachers and students‟ opinions.
The suitability of the methodology of the textbook with the students‟ requirements from the teachers and students‟ opinions.Recommendations for material improvements 35 3.Summary 35 PART III : CONCLUSION 36 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. Summary of previous parts 36 2. Limitations and suggestions for further research 37 References 38 APPENDICES: Appendix 1: Questionnaire for teachers Appendix 2: Questionnaire for students Appendix 3: Hutchinson and Water‟s criteria checklist TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com 11 PART I: INTRODUCTION This part includes seven sections. The first section focuses on the rationale of the thesis; the second section presents the aims of the thesis; the third section touches on the research questions; the fourth section is the significance of the thesis; the fifth section points out the methodology, the next section is the scope and the last is the organization of the study.
Rationale of the study Textbooks are a key component in most language programs. They may provide the basis for the content of the lessons, the balance of skills taught and the kinds of language practice the students take part in (Richards, 2001:35). Allwright (1981:5-18) also emphasizes that textbooks are too inflexible to be used directly as instructional material, they should give teachers rationales for what they do. From O‟Neill‟s points, in many cases, teachers and students rely heavily on textbooks and they determine the components and methods of learning.
Students learn what is presented in the textbook and the way the textbook presents material is the way students learn it. Thus, according to Minh (2007) “textbook should be carefully evaluated and selected before being used for a language program. Textbook evaluation helps the managerial and teaching staff select the most appropriate materials available for a particular course. It also helps to identify the strengths and weaknesses of a particular textbook that is already in use”.
Cunningsworth (1995:45) and Ellis (1997) also suggest that textbook evaluation helps teachers move beyond impressionistic assessments and it helps them to acquire useful, accurate, systematic and contextual insights into overall nature of textbook material. At Hai Phong University, “Lifelines” has been used as major material for several years but no evaluation or consultation has been conducted to determine its strengths and weaknesses and to see how well it suited the desired and attainable goals of the course. From above reasons, it necessary to conduct an evaluation for the “Lifelines” textbook, it is also a good opportunity to discover the suitability of the material with the students‟ level from the students‟ and the teachers‟ perceptions and so that adaptation can be made to gain better results of teaching and learning. TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.
Aims of the study: This study aims to evaluate the “Lifelines” textbook in terms of its content and methodology from the teachers‟ and the students‟ opinions to determine whether the material is suitable with the students‟ requirements. Research questions The study is to discuss the following questions: 1. Does the content of the textbook suit the students‟ requirements in the teachers‟ and the students‟ opinions? 2. Does the methodology of the textbook suit the students‟ requirements in the teachers‟ and the students‟ opinions? 4.
Significance of the study: The findings of this study will find out the suitability of the textbook with the students‟ requirement in terms of its content and methodology, which helps the teachers adjust their ways of teaching and adapt the material to provide their students effective lessons More importantly, it is hoped that the study will make some contributions to the field of material evaluation. Methodology In this thesis, survey questionnaire and informal interview used to collect data: Survey questionnaires here play an important role in collection ideas of teachers and students on the material which are very useful for the completion of the thesis. Informal interview is used to seek for detailed and objective opinions of participants on the material and students „requirement. Scope of the study In Hai Phong University, “Lifeline” material uses for both major and non-major students with different levels in the first year and second year.
But due to the limitation of minor thesis, this study only focuses on evaluating the “Lifelines” material using for the first non-English major students in terms of its content and methodology to determine whether the material is suitable with the students‟ requirements. TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. Organization of the thesis The thesis consists of three parts: Part I: introduce the rationale, aims, significance, scope and methodology of the study. Part II: includes three chapters: Chapter1: Literature review: provides a theoretical basis for issues relating to Material and Material evaluation such as definition of material, types of material, and criteria for material evaluation and so on.
Chapter 2: Methodology: Includes an overview of the approach used on conducting the study. It also provides a thorough description of the data collection procedure as well as the analytical procedure. Chapter 3: Results and Discussion: reports the findings of the survey and discusses the prominent aspects. Part III: Conclusion: summarizes the study, recommends o the material and acknowledges the limitations of the study.
TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com 14 PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1. Definition of material It is common knowledge that with the development of science and technology, the forms of materials have great changed and so has the concept of materials. (Tomlinson, 1998: 66) defines: “Materials include anything, which can be used to facilitate the learning of a language. They can be linguistic, visual, auditory, kin aesthetic and they can be presented in print, through live performance or display, or on cassette, CD-ROM, DVD or the internet”.
In Richards (2001:251) definition: “Materials can be instructional, experiential, elicitative, and exploratory, in that they can inform learners about the language, they can provide experience of the language in use, they can stimulate language use or they can help learners to make discoveries about the language for themselves”. Types of material Materials in use can vary from a textbook, institutionally prepared materials or the teacher‟s own materials (Richards, 2001). The former is referred to published textbooks and the latter in- house materials by Robinson. According to Robinson (1991:21), choosing published textbooks or in-house materials is what specialists in the field of English language teaching weigh up for arguments.
Swales (cited in Robinson, 1991: 57) indicates published textbooks are “less self- sufficient in practice materials and in coverage of skill areas” so these textbooks need more supplementary materials. The same story could be seen with arguments for and against the use of in-house materials. Robinson (1991) suggests there are three advantages of in-house materials: more specific and appropriate than published materials; more flexible than published textbooks; and more suitable in terms of methodology for intended learners It can be said that there are both good points and bad points in the selection of textbook or in-house material. However, it should be noted that “there is no such a thing as TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com 15 a perfect textbook” (Brown, 1995: 41) so an evaluation of materials is necessary to judge the appropriateness to the target students.
Roles of teaching materials in general English course There are five important components involved in English language instruction namely students, teachers, materials, teaching method and evaluation among which the most essential constituents are the textbooks and instruction materials. Because instructional materials provide the foundation for the content of the lesson, the balance of the skills taught, as well as the kinds of language practice the students engage in during class activities. Stressing on the role of materials, Richard (2001) states that materials provide a basis for the content of the lesson, the appropriate proportion of skills taught, and the type of language practice students take part in. Furthermore, useful teaching materials provide great assistance to inexperienced teachers or poorly trained teachers.
They can serve as “a form of teacher training” (Richard, 2001: 251) and teachers can get ideas on how to plan and teach the lesson from the materials. Material evaluation Deciding which textbooks to use or whether the materials being used are suitable or not is obviously of great importance in process of learning and teaching of language. And this decision can be achieved only by the means of a comprehensive evaluation. The next part of this chapter is the review of literature of major issues in material evaluation.
Definitions of material evaluation A number of researchers express their point of view regarding the definition of material evaluation. First, let‟s look at term “evaluation”.