VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES WX YZ AN EVALUATION OF LIFELINES ELEMENTARY AS THE ENGLISH COURSE-BOOK AT THE CENTRAL PROFESSIONAL SCHOOL OF ARCHIVES AND RECORDS MANAGEMENT NO. II A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts (TESOL) Submitted by NGUYEÃN TRÖÔNG ANH TRAÂM Supervisor NGUYEÃN HOAØNG LINH, M. Ho Chi Minh City, 2006 CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION This chapter sketches out the Central Professional School of Archives and Records No.II (CPSOARM) as the setting of the study before presenting some typical characteristics of the students at this school, which accounts for the choice of Lifelines Elementary as the English course-book at the school. In this chapter, the aims of the study and an overview of the thesis are also presented.
A general description of CPSOARM and the characteristics of the learners at this school The Central Professional School of Archives and Records Management No II was established in 1977, directly dependent on Ministry of Home Affairs. The school is a public base in the south of Vietnam, responsible for training the manpower of records, archives and office work for the provinces from Quang Tri to Ca Mau. Hence, a vast majority of students come from the central part while the remainder from western provinces of Vietnam. Especially, most of them are from rural and remote areas, which partly justifies their lack of knowledge in general and their poor English in particular.
As a matter of psychology, most of the students find learning English horrifying. This partly results from the fact that Vietnamese learners are timid and shy by nature. Since then, shyness and passiveness are inherent in their study manner. Particularly, in language learning, this characteristic unsurprisingly forms a barrier between learners and the target language.
Having the same nature, the learners at CPSOARM are not very ‘affectionate’ towards English because this language is still alien to them. They are likely to have the sense of inferiority complex that they cannot study well, let alone make progress in 1 learning English. To these kinds of learners, learning English is a frustrating problem because they think they that hardly tackle this language successfully. In any class of any training areas in this school, the students’ knowledge of English can be interpreted as a mixture of all levels.
At high school, some studied English for seven years, some three years, and some never studied it. However, all of them share the same feature that they lack a solid foundation of this language. Reasons for selecting Lifelines Elementary as the English course-book As a result, the course-book selected for English teaching is Lifelines at elementary level because all the learners are assumed to be beginners due to their weakness of English language. Besides, according to the requirements of the training areas (Records Administration and Secretarial Office-work mainly served in state offices rather than in foreign companies), English is just introductorily exposed to them.
It means that the learners are not required to invest much in this subject. The teaching staff is unanimous in presuming that the selected book will be suitable for the learners. At first sight, Lifelines gains the teachers’ enjoyment because of its rich content and vivid pictures that they hope will engage the learner’s eye and mind. Additionally, Lifelines is counted as one of the latest and the most updated books which presumably benefit learners more than old- fashioned ones.
Moreover, the teachers assume that this course-book is not the one with which learners have to wrestle strenuously. Consequently, in 2003, the long-time used Streamlines was replaced with the new-fashioned Lifelines. However, I can say, the use of this book to substitute for Streamlines is just based on the teaching experience of the teachers without any backing of scientific proof, and undeniably Lifelines is not tailored for any particular kind of second /foreign language learners; thus the practical 2 use of this book may, more or less, cause trouble, which gives birth to this study inherently functioning as a scientific base to justify the existence of Lifelines in this environment. The aims of this study After all, the objective of this research is to supply the teacher with scientific evidence that makes her have a proper evaluation of the book.
In this sense, the findings of this thesis will be a solid base for the teacher’s decision to adapt or modify the book to suit her students’ tastes. While using the book, the teacher does not know if it is completely suitable for the learners or not and she wonders what problem may arise from the use of the book. However, the teacher cannot impulsively give any conclusion. In her opinion, any decision and conclusion must be based on solid scientific evidence.
For this reason, the research is brought forth. As mentioned above, the purpose of this study is to examine the fitness of the book for the learners at CPSOARM in respect of psychology and ability and to discover the most serious problem resulting from the use of this book. On this basis, the examination was performed on the data collected from the direct observation during the course, questionnaires distributed to the learners inquiring their own evaluation of the course-book, and interviews with both sample students and other English teachers in the same school. The research questions The purpose of this study is to examine the suitability of Lifelines Elementary as the English course-book at the Central Professional School of Archives and Records No II.
Specifically, this study is aimed at pointing out in what aspects the book was suitable and in what aspects it is unsuitable for the learners at this school. Thus the questions guiding this study are: 1. In what aspects is Lifelines Elementary suitable for the learners at this school? 3 2. In what aspects is the book unsuitable for the learners at this school? Three sub-questions: (1) How do the students perceive the book in terms of suitability for their ability and psychology? (2) How do the students evaluate their proficiency after using the book? (3) What is the most difficulty they have in using this book? 1.
An overview of the thesis Except the abstract, this thesis consists of six central chapters: Chapter 1, Introduction, includes five sections. The first one, A general description of CPSOARM and the characteristics of the learners at this school, exposes the background to the study giving a sketchy description of CPSOARM as well as the characteristics of the learners at this school. The second section, Reasons for selecting Lifeline Elementary as the English course-book accounts for the reason why the English course-book selected for learning and teaching at this school is Lifelines Elementary. The third section reveals the aims of the study, the fourth the research questions, and the last one gives an overview of the thesis.
Chapter 2, Literature Review, presents other literature that is relevant and fundamental to this study. In this chapter, principles central to the materials evaluation are listed, several teaching approaches are introduced and one related study in the same field is presented. Chapter 3, named Methodology, portrays three data collected procedures employed in this study: 1) the direct observation of the learners’ behaviors performed by the teacher during the course; 2) questionnaires asking the learners to give their assessments of the book; 3) interviews with both learners and teachers. 4 Chapter 4 displays Data analysis and findings.
Accordingly, the findings of the study are exposed in the light of the data collected from the three instruments. Chapter 5, titled Discussions and Recommendations, discusses the findings and gives several recommendations on teaching and learning method. Chapter 6 leads to conclusion. Summary This chapter has presented a description of CPSOARM as well as the characteristics of the learners at this school before elucidating the reason why Lifelines Elementary has been chosen as the English course-book in this school.
The following sections reveal the aims of the study as well as the research questions and deliver an overview of the entire thesis. 5 CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter consists of five main sections. The first section interprets the nature of a course-book evaluation so that the reader has a notion of the aim and the perspective of the writer on the issue because the term ‘evaluation’ itself is almost universal which may lead to many ways of understanding. The second section presents some studies that instruct the ways to evaluate materials in general.
These instructions were useful to the study because the writer employed some of these principles as standards for the evaluation of Lifelines. The third section gives a view over some typical teaching and learning approaches whose advantages and disadvantages are revealed. This part was useful in that it helped the writer identify and evaluate the learning and teaching approach suggested in the book. The fourth portion introduces existing literature that has given an evaluation of Lifelines.
Eventually, the last section gives brief introduction to Lifelines Elementary. The nature of the course-book evaluation “Oppression makes the wise man mad” Robert Browning The relationship between teaching and learning has long been a subject of controversy. In metaphorical terms, teaching and learning is a form of art, the creation of beautiful or thought-provoking works. In this sense, it is far from easy to execute teaching and learning effectively.
From the angle of teachers, to pass their knowledge on to learners is not a simple matter as “ for every person wishing to teach there are approximately thirty who don’t want to learn much” (W. Sellar, a British writer of humor, Encarta, 2004). On the part of learners, learning is more than just memorization. In this view, learning is synonymous 6 with understanding, arranging, acting on the material with which learners are engaged (Newsam, Encarta 1994).
Noticeably, if the roles of teachers and learners are overemphasized during the process, the role of course-books as a medium of these two extremes is likely to be neglected. Thus, selecting, considering and evaluating a course-book is an essential process. As part of the mentioned process, this thesis only centers on evaluating the course-book after it is brought into use over a period of time to identify its strengths and weaknesses. Evaluation is a matter of judging the fitness of something for a particular purpose.
Given a certain need, and in the light of the resources available, which out of a number of possibilities can represent the best solution? Evaluation is, then, concerned with relative merit. There is no absolute good or bad – only degrees of fitness for the required purpose. (Tomlinson, 1998) According to this assumption, the evaluation of this course-book is, in fact, turned to the evaluation of its degrees of suitability for the users because the book is presumably perfect in itself. In the same view, it is specified that the purpose of this thesis is to discover if the course-book employed is suitable for the users’ ability and psychology or not, and in what aspects it is inappropriate for these learners.
Studies instructing the ways to evaluate materials in general There has been little existing literature concerning evaluating a particular course-book so far. However, there are numerous studies instructing the ways to evaluate materials in general. First of all, a definition of materials evaluation is raised. In chapter 9 of the book Materials Development in Language Teaching (1998) edited by Brian 7 Tomlinson, materials evaluation is characterized as “a matter of judging the fitness of something for a particular purpose,.
There is no absolute good or bad – only degrees of fitness for the required purpose” (p. In the same spirit, this study did not evaluate the book on its positive and negative side on the assumption that the book is intrinsically faultless, but it is just aimed at examining the levels of suitability of the book for the students’ ability and characteristics at CPSOARM.