A Correspondence Analysis of Fifty-Five Japanese Historical First-to Fifth-Year English-as-a-Foreign-Language Textbooks

Abstract

The present paper aims to quantitatively analyze the features of fifty-five Japanese historical English-as-a-Foreign-Language textbooks, Books 1-5, by using a correspondence analysis, focusing on their homogeneities / differences, and to compare the results with those of the correspondence analyses of the Book-1, Book-3 and Book-5 textbooks. The following were the obtained results. First, the correspondence analysis results proved capable of differentiating the features of the fifty-five historical textbooks. In particular, the bipolar map indicated that the two dimensions, difficult (+) vs. easy (-) (Dim 1) axis and artificial- (+) vs. natural-sounding (-) (Dim 2) axis contributed to differentiating their inter-relationships. Second, their inter-relationship was explained 80.4 percent by the seven dimensions, i.e., (1) difficult/easy texts (Dim 1), (2) artificial-/natural-sounding discourse (Dim 2), (3) dialogue-/passage-based textbooks (Dim 3), (4) t eacher-/non teacher-dominance (Dim 4), (5) strictly / loosely controlled (Dim 5), (6) redundant/concise (Dim 6) and (7) connected/disconnected (Dim-7). Third, the differences of the fifty-five Books-1-5 textbooks were explained by the same dimensions as those of the Book-3 and Book-1 results up to the seventh dimension. The results of the present correspondence analysis were graphically represented by two methods, coordinate (bipolar) representation and dendrogram. Concerning the theoretical implications and practical use of the present study, it was proved that CA is a powerful tool for the quantitative analysis and evaluation of EFL textbooks and that difficulty vs. easiness and artificial-sounding vs. natural-sounding are useful viewpoints for EFL teachers and educators in describing and grasping EFL textbooks. https://doi.org/10.26803/ijlter.19.4.14