English Coursebooks Research Articles

Adapting Reading Instruction to Meet the Needs of Nursing Students: Insights from a Targeted Educational Study

Developing Higher-Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) and effective information transfer is crucial for nursing students, impacting their academic and professional competence. This study aims to identify the gaps in English reading materials used by nursing students at a Health Polytechnic, assessing their adequacy in supporting these critical cognitive skills. The research focused on 79 second-semester nursing students during the 2022/2023 academic year and employed a 25-item questionnaire to analyze target situations, deficiencies, current situations, and strategies. The results reveal that existing general English coursebooks need to meet the specialized needs of nursing education. Notably, these materials lack content that promotes HOTS and aids in information transfer, essential elements for nurturing the cognitive and professional skills required in nursing. The study underscores a significant need for more appropriate materials that support HOTS, highlighting the need for strategically revised material development. It is recommended that custom English reading materials integrating HOTS and effective information transfer techniques be developed to enhance comprehension and relevance in the nursing curriculum, thereby better preparing nursing students for their future roles.

Comparative evaluation of writing assignments in English Coursebooks for young learners

Comparative evaluation of writing assignments in English Coursebooks for young learners

Merits and Demerits of English Language Coursebooks Designs: A Scoping Review

The evaluation process of English coursebooks in Saudi schools began long back when the English curriculum was updated in the 1980s. This paper reviews the works that have surveyed the Saudi English syllabi from the 1990s to the present. It aims to explore the timeline of the most prominent evaluation endeavors. The findings reveal that the common components of evaluations include content, form, learning tasks, and instruction methods. The majority of these attempts were executed using standardized checklists but implemented on a relatively small number of respondents. However, one study was conducted as part of a project launched by the Ministry of Education (MOE) for the development of the English curriculum. The distinctive satisfaction themes of merits among all evaluations were the visuals, syllabi appearance, and overall content. While teaching methods and the difficulty of tasks were highlighted as demerits. From a cultural perspective, syllabi tend to be contextualized in a Western way, based on the local Saudi culture. This paper recommends conducting a more comprehensive evaluation process online to cover more participants, developing a well-tailored checklist that suits the content and culture of Saudi Arabia, and considering the new technological changes in coursebooks.

AN ALTERNATIVE APPROACH TO TEACHING MATERIALS DESIGN FOR PROMOTING AUTHENTIC COMMUNICATION IN UNDERGARDUATE BUSINESS ENGLISH COURSES AT SEEU

Business English coursebooks undoubtedly offer structure and provide the necessary frame for students to rely upon, however, a pitfall to be avoided is blind, uncritical and unselective overreliance on them. The idea behind this paper is not to entirely banish ESP for Business coursebooks but to supplement them substantially with authentic written, audio and video materials tailored to students’ immediate and future needs. This paper advocates incorporating new approaches and practises in materials design and selection. When intended to be used with inexperienced students, business English teaching materials play a major role in introducing students to the real world of business, in addition to equipping students with the necessary business related vocabulary and the most frequently used grammar structures. This paper also summarizes the findings of a student survey on the extent to which the business English teaching materials used at SEEU incorporate the essential features of real-world business communication.

The Analysis of Interjections in Two English Coursebooks

There has been a growing interest in the teaching of interjections in English, as interjections play an important role serving a bridge between verbal and non-verbal communication. However, interjections remain as an under-researched area in English language teaching (ELT). This study explores and compares the use and frequency of interjections in two English coursebooks. Yes You Can (written by non-native speakers of English and funded by the Turkish Ministry of Education) and Touchstone 2 (written by native speakers of English and published by Cambridge University Press) were chosen to collect data. A total of 97 dialogues were analysed. Although the findings indicated similarities between the two coursebooks regarding the functions and meanings of the interjections within the coursebooks, an obvious gap was observed between them regarding the diversity and amount of interjections integrated. The study offers suggestions to material developers, ELT teachers, language learners and authorities.

Parity of learning tasks in New Total English coursebooks

Coursebooks have an essential function in language instruction since they function as not only the guidance for both educators and learners in conducting learning programs but also the primary source of learning materials and learning tasks. Nevertheless, language learning program provides an imbalanced opportunity to develop students’ language skills equally. This study sought to analyze the balance of the learning tasks in New Total English Coursebooks in terms of the four strands. The research question in this study was “From the perspective of the Four Strands, what is the frequency distribution of learning tasks in New Total English Coursebooks?” In order to answer the research question in this study, the researchers used content analysis. The total of 637 learning tasks were analyzed in this study from three coursebooks. In selecting the samples of learning tasks, the researchers applied stratified random sampling. The findings showed that the highest frequency of strand found was meaning-focused input with 28.08%. The fluency development strand occupies 25.79% and language-focused learning occupies 23.57% of the whole learning tasks. Lastly, the meaning-focused output had the lowest frequency with 22.54%. In conclusion, the coursebooks are proven to provide balanced distributions of the four strands. The findings of this study suggest that English instructors use the coursebooks in classrooms as they provide equal balance of the four strands.

Alignment of Coursebook and Curriculum: Effective Business English Learning Outcomes

Confronted with the challenges of an interconnected work environment, students often have difficulties in connecting theoretical knowledge with practical communication skills. This article examines the potential of business English coursebooks to be reimagined as transforming tools that equip students to traverse the business environment effortlessly. Previously seen as purely theoretical resources, these coursebooks may now be recognized as valuable assets for students. We contend that meticulously crafted coursebooks, when used proficiently, may serve as gateways to developing essential communication aptitudes, cultural consciousness, and pragmatic negotiation proficiencies. Through interesting case studies, interactive activities, and simulations, students obtain genuine experience in composing emails, making presentations, and participating in negotiations, increasing confidence and enhancing their employability potential. In conclusion, we emphasize the many advantages of using coursebooks not just as reservoirs of information but also as dynamic tools for molding self-assured and accomplished corporate communicators. This article only concentrates on the compliance of the coursebook to the aims of the course of the English major students at Ho Chi Minh City University of Industry and Trade.

Testing the Relationship of Linguistic Complexity to Second Language Learners’ Comparative Judgment on Text Difficulty

AbstractThis study examined the relationship of linguistic complexity, captured using a set of lexical richness, syntactic complexity, and discoursal complexity indices, to second language (L2) learners’ perception of text difficulty, captured using L2 raters’ comparative judgment on text comprehensibility and reading speed. Testing materials were 180 texts abridged from college English coursebooks, and raters were 90 advanced Chinese learners of L2 English. Forty‐five raters read paired texts and determined which text was harder to understand in each pair, and another 45 raters read paired texts and determined which text they read faster in each pair. Two stepwise linear regression models containing lexical, syntactic, and discoursal features explained 48.1% and 54.6% of the variance in L2 learners’ estimates of text comprehensibility and reading speed, respectively, outperforming four commonly used language readability models. These findings contribute useful insights into the relationship between linguistic complexity and L2 learners’ perception of text difficulty.

Comparison of Writing Approaches in Yeni Istanbul and Headway Coursebooks

This study aims to evaluate the writing approaches used in Teaching Turkish as a foreign language and English coursebooks to support the writing process and identify the differences and general trends between these books. For this purpose, the writing activities in the Yeni Istanbul Turkish coursebooks and the Headway English coursebooks were analyzed within the scope of assessment criteria determined for product, genre, and process-oriented writing approaches. In this study, Headway English and New Istanbul Turkish language textbooks were examined using qualitative research methods, specifically the descriptive analysis technique. As a result of the study, a comparison was made by determining which writing approaches were more emphasized in the examined textbooks. It was observed that in both series of books, the number of activities related to the product-oriented approach tended to decrease as the language levels increased, and completion activities were the most commonly used writing activity at all language levels. In the genre-oriented approach, it was observed that in both Yeni Istanbul and Headway coursebooks, the activities diversified as language levels increased, showing an increase from beginner levels to advanced levels. Additionally, different types of activities under the genre-oriented approach were observed in both book series. Finally, it was determined that process-oriented writing activities were fewer compared to other approaches. These analyses will contribute to generating new ideas about how writing approaches can be more effectively used in coursebooks. At the same time, this information aims to assist teachers in selecting the most suitable textbooks for enhancing students' writing skills and adopting the most appropriate approaches to support the writing process.

BRITISH ENGLISH VERSUS AMERICAN ENGLISH PREFERENCE BY UNIVERSITY STUDENTS OF EFL

For decades English has been considered a global language used as not only a native language, but as an official language, a second language in many countries and taught as a foreign language worldwide. Herein, English includes numerous varieties, regional and local dialects, professional speech, slangs, jargons etc. The variety of English is an important feature for learners of EFL, especially for future teachers of English. The constant exposure to different types of English through television, movies, online content etc. might hinder the fluency of EFL learners. Therefore, EFL teachers need to help their students and prevent any ambiguities due to the differences between American and British English. In this research, we have analysed the preference of students between British English and American English vocabulary. The analysis includes 60 first year students of English language and literature from the University “Goce Delcev” in North Macedonia and the South-West University in the Republic of Bulgaria. The results provide an insight on both the knowledge and linguistic preference of students between the two standardized English varieties and enable teachers, university professors and English coursebooks authors to determine their approach in class and help students master fluency.

Investigating Technology Integration into English Language Coursebooks: A Systematic Evaluation

Among a variety of language learning materials, the crucial role that coursebooks have on learning and teaching processes takes a great deal of attention in the scholarly literature. English language coursebooks have been thought of as one of the most pivotal instruments for effective and systematic language learning experiences. Therefore, it is of paramount importance to address the issue of developing English language coursebooks that meet current requirements of the 21st century. This study aims to explore the extent of technological affordances in English coursebooks used in upper secondary schools in Türkiye. To achieve this aim, a qualitative methodology based on content analysis has been taken as a methodological approach. In this regard, an evaluation checklist for technology integration has been developed and used in the study. Data were collected investigating the content of the two coursebooks from the 9th grade and 10th grade used in Türkiye. Overall, the findings substantiate that despite some notable attempts to integrate technology into current coursebooks, further work is required to develop a well-designed and systematic standard for technological affordances in the content of current coursebooks. The findings provide several insights and implications for developing technology-integrated coursebooks, thus promoting technology-enhanced teaching and learning practices.

Visual Metaphor in Early Second Language Education

The paper adapts the theory of knowledge enablement in knowledge-sharing companies to the needs of the second-language classroom to explicate the association between pedagogical interaction and the effectiveness of the teaching process. The goal of the inquiry is to alert language teachers to the hidden opportunities visualization and layout suggest in designing a stress-free educational environment conducive to amplifying language knowledge and skills in a context stimulating knowledge enablement. Visualization is explored at two levels: 1) the level of text layout and illustrations; and 2) the level of visual images and visual metaphors. The method of structural and functional modelling is used to present the layout of exercises and language content and the visual metaphor identification method is employed in the analysis of visual images. A conclusion is asserted of the instrumental role of visuals in English coursebooks for young learners as a medium of visual literacy and as a factor in streamlining the development of productive second language skills. This claim is substantiated by a case study that 1) demonstrates the contextualizing function of images and visual metaphors in English language coursebooks for young learners; and 2) explores the means, instruments and ways of visualizing the instructional content of two TEYL coursebooks published in 2014 and 2015.

A SOCIOPRAGMATIC ANALYSIS OF THE SPEECH ACT OF REQUESTING IN LOCAL ENGLISH COURSEBOOKS

<p>The speech act of requesting is a speech act commonly found and used in daily conversations. It is an intriguing research topic of pragmatics, particularly pragmatics in materials development, which is a sub-topic of language teaching. Earlier studies of pragmatics in language teaching reported that English teachers tend to look down on pragmatic aspects when teaching the language, including being ignorant of sociopragmatic information about language use in English coursebooks. For this reason, this paper discusses the findings of a sociopragmatic analysis in a local English coursebook. A content analysis employing pragmatic and sociopragmatic theoretical frameworks and a pragmatic judgment task by a native speaker of American English was carried out to investigate the sociopragmatic information in the course book. Results indicated that it did not contain an adequate amount of sociopragmatic knowledge indicating sociopragmatic failure. Thus, it implies that the coursebook may not be reliable language input for pragmatic competence improvement. <strong></strong></p>

Teaching Pronunciation to Young Learners in an ELF Context An Analysis of Pronunciation Activities in English Coursebooks for the Primary School

This paper deals with the teaching of English pronunciation in the primary classroom. It starts from two major premises. First, the Lingua Franca status of English (ELF), which has prompted a shift in pronunciation teaching from the attainment of a native accent to the achievement of mutual intelligibility. Second, the features of today’s primary classroom, which is de facto an ELF context, the school population being characterised by a growing number of multilingual pupils and of non-native teachers of English. Three English coursebooks for the primary school are analysed to investigate: 1) if and which pronunciation-focussed activities are suggested; 2) if and what support is provided to the primary teacher to make the most of the activities; 3) whether any of such activities/support show a trend towards an early inclusion of ELF-aware pronunciation pedagogy.

Need for Tailor-made English Coursebooks to Meet the Desired Learning Outcomes with Special Focus on Phonetics and Spoken English

World’s second highest number of English speakers (125,344,737) are in India. But there is no comprehensive linguistic description of Indian English. The reasons are: no one pattern of spoken English; diversified pronunciation and spoken English problems in each State. When all these problems converge towards one English, a standard variety of Indian English is possible. The solution is the ‘Arpiciency’ model. Implementing ‘Arpiciency’, through tailor-made English coursebooks can possibly bring solution. Different pronunciation problems are to be dealt to acquire one standard variety of Indian English. This study attempts to address this need by reviewing the English textbooks of Andhra Pradesh. The review reveals the gaps in meeting the objectives. Additionally, ‘National Assessment Centre’ plans to guide ‘school boards to shift assessment patterns towards meeting the 21st century skills’ through NEP 2020. So, there is a need for tailor-made English coursebooks focusing on ‘Indian’ students’ speaking problems. ‘Arpiciency’ proposes to focus on listening and speaking. The study focuses on Phonetics and Spoken English. It tries to offer solutions to pronunciation and speaking problems of Telugu speaking English learners pertaining to segmental, suprasegmental levels and functional aspects of English to design tailor-made coursebooks using ‘Arpiciency’. Keeping the diversity of Indian languages in view, similar study in other mother tongues eventually result in a standard Indian English.

A comparison of vocabulary items in eighth grade English coursebooks

This study aims to analyze vocabulary items in the eighth grade English coursebooks used in Turkey and to compare their frequencies with the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR), British National Corpus (BNC), Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), and Academic Word List (AWL). Additionally, we extracted the most frequent 50 verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. The results revealed that the most frequent verbs were do, is are; the most frequent adjectives were correct, short, natural, great, good, new, social, first, favorite and the most frequent adverbs were then, really, there, here, very, always, too, well, more, usually and often. Touchstone 2 mostly corresponded to the CEFR A2 level, BNC’s and COCA’s first 2000 lists, while others had less satisfactory inclusion percentages. When we compared the coursebooks with AWL, Upswing English had the highest inclusion percentages. Although Touchstone 2 seems to have the highest inclusion percentages, all coursebooks should consider this study’s results to revise their vocabulary selection.

Review of Primary School English Coursebooks in Terms of Creative Writing Activities

In this paper, the writing sections in Primary School English Coursebooks were reviewed to determine the creative writing activities and content analysis method was used in the context of document review. In this process, the coursebooks published by Ministry of National Education Publications and private publishing houses were both selected from each grade level. Results of the review showed that, creative writing types are not included enough in 4th, 5th, and 6th grade textbooks. Though 7th and 8th grade books have a large number of creative writing activities, they do not have enough genre types. In addition to that review, writing skill learning outcomes given in the syllabi and the writing activities in the books reviewed in this paper are also compared. After a comparison of the books of the publications was made, it is revealed that the private publishing houses’ textbooks have more types of genre than the other ones have.

Comparing English and French for Business Coursebooks: a Cross-Cultural Discourse Analysis

The focus of this article is to present the discipline Cross-Cultural Discourse Analysis and show how this approach was used in the analysis of business language coursebooks published in France and the United Kingdom. After presenting the foundations of this discipline, two areas of comparison will be explored. The first area concerns the representation of professional activity and examines how the work of women and men is represented differently in the coursebooks of both languages. The second area explores how the age of the characters contributes to the representation of a specific type of woman in the French coursebooks, while in the English coursebooks age serves to represent an opposition between youth and old age. These results are indicative of how a contrastive approach reveals certain aspects in the coursebooks of both languages that would otherwise go unnoticed in an analysis of a single set of coursebooks.

Teachers’ Evaluation on Seventh Graders English Coursebooks: English in Mind 1 and When English Rings A Bell Revised Edition 2017

This study evaluated two English coursebooks. The research questions stated in this research deal with whether English in Mind 1 and When English Rings a Bell revised edition 2017 meet the standard of a good coursebook in terms of its content, content organization, topic, skills covered in it, vocabulary, grammar, teacher’s book, work book and CD-ROM. This study was conducted by analyzing the two coursebooks by using evaluation checklist of a good coursebook and the data were triangulated by distributing the coursebook evaluation chekclists to English teachers who use the Coursebooks. The result showed that English in Mind 1 meets the standard of a good coursebooks . On the other hand, When English Rings a Bell revised edition 2017 does not meet the standard of a good coursebook in terms of its content, grammar, skills and CD-ROM. It is suggested that When English Rings a Bell revised edition 2017, can provide materials that consist of target language culture. Moreover, the grammar presented can be more varied and the language skills should be covered adequately. In addition, the coursebook should be completed with teaching aids such as audio, video or CD-ROM.
 

Turkey’s Primary English-as-a-foreign Language (EFL) Coursebooks: An Investigation of Emergent Literacy Tasks

Turkey’s most recent primary English language curriculum, which highlights oral skills, mandates communicative English language teaching to young English language learners. Recent primary English curriculum comprises two hours per week of English-as-a-foreign language (EFL) instruction to include listening and speaking only for Grade 2 and very limited reading and writing for Grade 3 onward. While communicative skills are highly emphasized, literacy skills are kept on the back burner as reading and writing are incorporated gradually with minimal reading and writing at earlier grade levels and some literacy practices at upper grade levels. Successful emergent literacy development in English highly depends on young language learners’ phonological (e.g. alliteration, rhyme), phonemic (i.e. sound manipulation), and orthographic awareness (i.e. spelling conventions) in English. The present study investigates to what extent Turkey’s locally-designed primary EFL coursebooks—used in 2018-2021 academic period—cater to the early literacy needs of young learners at grades two, three, and four. The study explores early literacy content in coursebooks in a mixed-methods design: qualitatively with the descriptive content analysis and quantitatively with the frequency of early literacy constructs. The results of those analyses reveal primary English coursebooks do not promote a linguistically sound and pedagogically appropriate integration of literacy skills according to principles of second language (L2) literacy acquisition at primary levels. Turkey’s misaligned early English literacy curriculum, in its current state, sends alarming messages to foreign language policy-makers, material designers, and EFL educators.