Group 3: Dang Thi Cam Tu
Le Thi Tuyet Suong
ASSIGNMENT 1
TEXTBOOK EVALUATION
Material evaluated: Tieng Anh 10 (Advanced)
Aspects evaluated: Teacher-friendly, Interesting, Realistic
I. Teacher-friendly
1. No index => inconvenient for teachers
2. Answer key: provided in Teacher’s book => convenient for teachers
3. Teacher’s preparation time
3.1. No explanations for Grammar in both Students’ book and Teacher’s book => not help teacher save preparation time
3.2. Separate before-, while-, after- skill activities => help teachers prepare lesson plans more easily
4. Organization
4.1. Themes: spiral development in the series of Tieng Anh 10-12 (You and me, Education, Community, Nature, Recreation, People and places)
4.2. Consolidation units
Consolidations after every 4 units => not theme-based tests
ThemesUnit 1: School talks / You and me
Unit 2: People’s backgrounds
Unit 3: Daily activities
Unit 4: Special education / Education
Consolidation 1
Unit 5: Technology /
Education
Unit 6: School outdoor activities
Unit 7: The mass media / Community
Unit 8: Life in the community
Consolidation 2
Unit 9: Undersea world / Nature and environment
unit 10: Conservation
Unit 11: National Park
Unit 12: Music / Recreation
Consolidation 3
Unit 13: Theater and movies / Recreation
Unit 14: The world cup
Unit 15: The Pacific Rim / Places and people
Unit 16: Historical Places
CONSOLIDATION 4
4.3. Organization of each unit (The order: Reading à Listening à Speaking à Writing à Language Focus (Word Study & Grammar))
a. It is inconvenient for teachers to teach Language Focus after the 4 skills in each Unit.
Ex: Unit 14: The World Cup (p. 187)
Reading: The World Cup
Speaking: Describing how to play soccer
Language Focus (Word study): Words used in Soccer
In this case, teachers will have difficulties teaching Reading and Speaking because students need to be presented with the vocabulary about Soccer in Language Focus before they do the reading and speaking activities.
b. The order (receptive skills è productive skills) does not support the teaching of teachers because the content in the activities of receptive skills is irrelevant to that of productive skills.
Ex: - Unit 3: Daily activities (p.33)
Reading: A worker’s typical day
Writing: Writing a letter of complaint
- Unit 4: Special education (p.43)
Reading: Helen Keller
Writing: Filling a registration form
ð Overall, the book is not well-organized.
v Conclusion: Tieng Anh 10 (Advanced) is not teacher-friendly.
II. Interesting
1. There are no games in the book.
2. There are two songs in the book, namely Blowin’ in the Wind and The song of the World’s Last Whale. These songs were written in 1960s and unpopular to many Vietnamese students nowadays. Young people may have no taste for such old-fashioned songs.
3. Tasks
3.1. Grammar exercises are mainly structure-based and non-communicative.
Ex:
Put the following sentences into the passive.1. We clean the garbage every day.
2. They have found and buried hundreds of sea turtle eggs today.
3. Why don’t people classify dolphins as fish?
4. We exported tons of shellfish to Japan last year.
5. People send lots of junk mail to our office every day, which really annoys us.
6. Does contact with people affect dolphins’ lives?
(The exercise of the Passive Voice,
Unit 9: Undersea world, p. 125)
3.2. Many writing activities are too difficult for 10th graders (e.g. describing information from a table, interpreting and describing graphs) or inapplicable to the real life of Vietnamese students (e.g. writing a letter of complaint).
3.3. In some speaking activities, students are sometimes asked to talk about serious issues that 10th graders may have little concern about and seldom spend time discussing in their daily life.
Ex: Students are required to talk about the effects of building a supermarket to replace a small traditional market in their neighborhood (Unit 8: Life in the Community, p.99).
3.4. Many reading texts are uninteresting.
Ex:
Units / Reading texts / Why uninteresting?Unit 6: School outdoor activities / Camping / It tells about what camping is and how to plan a camping trip. That is what students have clearly known even before reading the passage.
Unit 13: Theater and Movies / The appeal of the theater / It is about the sources of the theater’s appeal. In daily life, theater tends to lose their popularity; not many young students like watching plays or dramas these days.
Unit 3:
Daily activities / A worker’s typical day / The text is about the routine of a Japanese worker. His daily activities are just chronologically listed (getting up at 5:15, commuting at 5:55, working at 8:00, etc.)
3.5. The information given in some units is unrelated to students’ lives.
Ex:
Units / Reading texts / Why unrelated to students’ lives?Unit 1:
School talks / Team learning / Team learning activities written in the text (e.g. sharing class notes, doing research) are hardly applied to Vietnamese high school students.
Unit 12:
Music / Music / The text is about Pop music, Rock-‘n’-roll, Elvis Presley, The Rolling Stones, all of which are not popular to Vietnamese youngsters.
v Conclusion: Tieng Anh 10 (Advanced) is not interesting to learners.
III. Realistic
1. Language in the book
1.1. The language of modern technology is updated.
Ex:
- Unit 5: Technology (CT scanner, a blood pressure monitor, LCD screen, digital cameras (mode dial, shutter button, zoom button))
- Unit 7: Mass Media (smart phone, internet language (junk mail, direct media, browse the web, etc.))
1.2. Daily spoken language is included.
To ask for reasons or explanations / To give reasons or explanations+ Why should people treat dolphins with caution? They are so friendly.
+ People should treat dolphins with caution. Why? They are so friendly.
+ How come people shouldn’t disturb wild dolphins?
+ People shouldn’t disturb wild dolphins. How come? / + Because they are really wild animals and may harm people.
+ ‘Cause they are really wild animals and may harm people.
+ ‘Cos dolphins may get angry and do dangerous things.
(cited from Unit 9, Speaking, p.117)
ð The language in the book is current and true-to-life.
2. Communication in the book
2.1. There is no information gap among speakers in most speaking activities. Students are provided with prompts and speak based on the given prompts.
2.2. Some communication contexts in the writing activities are non-authentic.
Ex: Unit 3: Daily activities (p.37)
Students are asked to write a letter to the travel agency to complain about the quality of the tour of Ha Long.
In reality, Vietnamese people rarely write such letters of complaint.
2.3. Some communication activities in the listening recording do not happen in a real-life manner.
Ex: Unit 10: Conservation (p.129)
In the listening part of this unit, students are asked to listen to a class discussion about ecotourism. However, in the recording, it is like a conversation between a teacher and only one student rather than a real class discussion with the participation of many class members.
ð The communication in the book is not authentic.
v Conclusion: Tieng Anh 10 (Advanced) is not realistic to some extent.
Evaluation Criteria
Criteria / DescriptionKnowledge & application / Students demonstrate a good knowledge of ELT and a successful application of theory to practice.
Creativity / Students demonstrate a degree of creativity in the application.
Clarity / The assignment is clear and understandable.
Criteria / Score
1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5
Knowledge & Application / ü
Creativity / ü
Clarity / ü
Total score: / 13/15