An Evaluation of the material New Headway_ Elementary for the first year non-English major students at Thai Nguyen College of Economics and Technology

Within these regards, the thesis was carried out to evaluate the material "New Headway_ Elementary" which is being used at Thai Nguyen College of Economics and Technology in order to de

Đánh giá giáo trình “New Headway_Elementary” dành cho sinh viên

không chuyên ngữ năm thứ nhất trường Cao đẳng Kinh tế - Kỹ thuật Thái Nguyên

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE: 60140111

Hanoi, 2014

Đánh giá giáo trình “New Headway_Elementary” dành cho sinh viên

không chuyên ngữ năm thứ nhất trường Cao đẳng Kinh tế - Kỹ thuật Thái Nguyên

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE: 60140111

SUPERVISOR: TÔ THỊ THU HƯƠNG, DR

Hanoi, 2014

DECLARATION

I certify the minor thesis is submitted entitled “An Evaluation of the

material New Headway_ Elementary for the first year non-English major

students at Thai Nguyen College of Economics and Technology” in partial

fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts I confirm that this

is the result of my own work, and that it has not been submitted for any other

degrees

Signature

Bùi Thị Hương

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My thesis has been completed with the supports of many people I would like

to thank them for their thoughtful help

First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Dr To Thi Thu Huong for her valuable guidance, thoughtful comments, sympathy and encouragement Without her help, I can not complete this thesis

I am also grateful to all the professors and lecturers at College of Foreign Language (CFL), Vietnam National University, Hanoi (VNUH) for their insightful lectures and useful guidance during the course

I would also like to express my thankfulness to all my English colleagues and all the first year students in the class K9QLMT, K9KT, K9CNTT, K9QLĐ at Thai Nguyen College of Economics and Technology (TNCET) for the great cooperation in the collection of data for my study

Finally, I am deeply indebted to my husband and my little daughter for their love, encouragement and support, who helps me to accomplish this research

ABSTRACT

Material evaluation is an important task in the process of language teaching

Within these regards, the thesis was carried out to evaluate the material "New Headway_ Elementary" which is being used at Thai Nguyen College of Economics

and Technology in order to determine how the material is suitable for the needs of students within the framework of the English program Thanks to this, there are some suggestions for material adaptation to make a more appropriate material with the hope of improving the quality of teaching and learning English at Thai Nguyen College of Economics and Technology

The material is evaluated based on the criteria of Hutchinson and Waters (1987) in terms of objective, content, and methodology by using two instruments to collect the data from teachers’ and students’ opinions such as questionnaires and interviews

Research results show the strengths and weaknesses of the material, it also reveals some inappropriate things to the needs of students Based on these findings, they help the researcher come up with some suggestions for material adaptations as omission, addition and replacement to have a more appropriate material for the following courses

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

VNUH: Vietnam National University, Hanoi

CFL: College of Foreign Language

TNCET Thainguyen College of Economics and Technology ELT: English Language Teaching

LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES

Figure 1: The materials evaluation process (Hutchinson and Waters 1987, p 98) Table 1: Students’ desire and achievement after finishing English course Table 2: The match of the material to the needs of students

Table 3: Students’ interest on the material

Table 4: Teachers’ opinions about students’ achievement after learning this

material Table 5: Students and teachers’ opinion about language point in this material Table 6: Students and teachers’ opinions about the proportion of four macro-

skills in this material Table 7: Teachers and students’ opinions about the integration of four macro-

skills in this material Table 8: Teachers and students’ opinions about the kinds of texts in this

material Table 9: Teachers and students’ opinions about the organization and sequence

of content in this material Table 10: Teachers and students’ opinions about topics of the material

Table 11: Teachers and students’ opinions about each part of units in this

material Table 12: Teachers and students’ opinions about the number of new words in

each unit in this material Table 13: Teachers and students’ opinions about the variety of kinds of tasks/

exercises in this material Table 14: Teachers and students’ opinions about teaching and learning

interactions/techniques in this material Table15: Teachers and students’ opinions about teaching aids

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rational for the study 1

2 Aims of the study 2

3 Research questions 2

4 Methods of the study 2

5 Scope of the study 2

6 Design of the study 2

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 4

CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW 4

1.1 Materials in language teaching and learning 4

1.1.1 Material and types of materials 4

1.1.2 What are roles of material in language teaching and learning? 5

1.2 Material evaluation 5

1.2.1 What is material evaluation? 5

1.2.2 Different types of material evaluation 6

1.2.3 What are purposes of material evaluation? 7

1.2.4 Who are material evaluators? 7

1.2.5 Models for material evaluation 8

1.2.6 Different methods of evaluation 10

1.2.7 What are criteria for material evaluation? 11

1.3 Material adaptation 13

1.3.1 Why should adapt materials? 13

1.3.2 Adapting techniques 13

CHAPTER II: METHODOLOGY 15

2.1 The current teaching and learning situation at TNCET 15

2.1.1 Teaching and learning context 15

2.1.2 General description of the material 15

2.2 Research methodology 16

2.2.1 Participants 16

2.2.2 Instruments 16

2.2.3 Data collection procedure 16

2.2.4 Data analysis procedure 17

2.3 Summary 17

CHAPTER III: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 18

3.1 Material analysis 18

3.1.1 The objective of the material 18

3.1.2 The content of the material 18

3.1.3 The methodology of the material 20

3.2 Survey results 21

3.2.1 The suitability of the objectives of the material to the needs of students within the framework of the English program at TNCET 21

3.2.2 The suitability of the content of the material with the students’ needs within the framework of the English program at TNCET 25

3.2.3 The suitability of the methodology of the material to the needs of students within the framework of English program at TNCET 29

3.3 Major findings 31

3.3.1 The suitability of the objectives of the material to the needs of students within the framework of the English program 31

3.3.2 The suitability of the contents of the material to the needs of students withinthe framework of the English program 32

3.3.3 The suitability of the methodology of the material to the needs of students within the framework of the English program 33

3.4 Suggestions for material adaptation 34

3.5 Summary 35

PART C: CONCLUSION 36

1 Conclusions 36

2 Limitations and suggestions for further study 36

REFERENCES 37 APPENDICES I Appendix 1: HUTCHINSON AND WATERS’S CRITERIA CHECKLIST FOR MATERIALS EVALUATION (1987: 99-104) I Appendix 2: QUESTIONNAIRE FOR STUDENTS VI Appendix 3: QUESTIONNAIRE FOR TEACHERS XI

Appendix 4: PROPOSED QUESTIONS FOR INTERVIEWS……….XVI

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rational for the study

English is an international language and as a mean of communication between nations, cultures and international organizations In the trend of globalization today, English has become a prerequisite for success and national integration into the world family With the strong development of the English language in modern society in Vietnam, National Foreign Language 2020 has been made and implemented with goals “

by 2020 most Vietnamese students graduating from secondary, vocational schools, colleges and universities will be able to use a foreign language confidently in their daily communication, their study and work in an integrated, multi-cultural and multi- lingual environment, making foreign languages a comparative advantage of development for Vietnamese people in the cause of industrialization and modernization for the country” Therefore, the teaching and learning of English has become one of the very pressing needs And it is necessary for students to be educated in the appropriate skills with the appropriate

tools This is the first reason for me to carry out an evaluation of the material New Headway_ Elementary

Materials play an important role in most language programs It is one of the most important factors in English class, functioning as the teaching and learning tool, the tutor and guidebook It is, therefore, necessary to choose the one that suits the desired and attainable goals of the course as well as students Furthermore, Cunningsworth (1995) and Ellis (1997) suggest that textbook evaluation helps teachers move beyond impressionistic assessments and it helps them to acquire useful, accurate, systematic, and contextual insights into the overall nature of textbook material This is another reason for me to execute the research

At TNCET, New Headway_ Elementary has been used for 10 years but no

evaluation has been conducted to assess how the material is Moreover, under the requirement for language skills of National Foreign Language 2020 Project, the researcher’s college requires students to achieve A2 level as a condition of graduation Hence, it is very important to have a suitable textbook that helps students achieve goals And, it is really necessary to carry out the material evaluation to see how it matches the needs of students within the framework of the English program at this college

From above reasons, the researcher decided to evaluate the material New Headway_ Elementary to discover the suitability of the material to the needs of students

within the framework of English program at TNCET in terms of objective, content, and methodology and then having suggestions for material adaptation to improve the quality of English teaching and learning

2 Aims of the study

This study is carried out to evaluate the material New Headway _Elementary is

suitable for the students’ needs within the framework of the English program From that, teachers can make suggestions for material adaptation to have more appropriate material These can help to improve the quality of teaching and learning English at TNCET

3 Research questions

- To what extent does New Headway_Elementary suit the needs of students at

TNCET in terms of objective, content and methodology?

- What suggestions for material adaptation should be given to meet the needs of students at TNCET?

4 Methods of the study

In this thesis, survey research was employed with survey questionnaires and informal interviews for data collection

Survey questionnaires were designed for the English teachers and the first-year students at TNCET, who have experienced using the book

Informal interviews were applied to get more information from selected participants

5 Scope of the study

Although the researcher mentioned the Common European Framework of Reference, she did not analyze it; she just relied on it to assist in the evaluation of the material Thus, the most important task of this research is focusing on evaluating the

material New Headway_ Elementary from the opinions of the English teachers and the

first-year students at college in terms of Objective, Content and Methodology basing on material evaluation model and criteria proposed by Hutchinson and Waters (1987)

6 Design of the study

This study consists of three parts:

- Part A: Introduction presents the rational, aims, research questions, methods, scope, and design of the study

- Part B: Development includes three chapters:

+ Chapter 1: Literature review provides a theoretical basic for issues relating to Material, Material evaluation and Material adaptation Material part concludes definition of material, types of material, and roles of material in language teaching and learning Material evaluation part consists of definition, types, purposes, material evaluators, models, methods, and criteria of material evaluation Material adaptation part mentions about reasons for material adaptation and adapting techniques

+ Chapter 2: Methodology focuses on the methodology employed in this thesis including an overview of current English teaching and learning situation at TNCET, research methodology, data collection procedures, and data analysis procedures

+ Chapter 3: Results and Discussion analyze and discuss the findings of the study, and give suggestions for material adaptation

- Part C: Conclusion summarizes the study, reveals the limitations remaining in the study, and offers some suggestions for further study

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Materials in language teaching and learning

1.1.1 Material and types of materials

There are several concepts of material from different authors

Tomlinson (1998, p.66) defines: “Materials are anything which is used to help

to teach language learners Materials can be in the form of a textbook, a workbook, a cassette, a CD-Rom, a video, a photocopied handout, a newspaper, a paragraph written on a whiteboard: anything which presents or informs about the language being learned”

According to Richards (2001, p.251), “Materials can be instructional, experiential, elicitative, and exploratory, in that they can inform learners about 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”

Material is a crucial component in language teaching and learning It is very necessary to choose the material which should be used in particular circumstance

As mentioned in the definition, materials exist in many different forms However, McGrath (2002) studied and classified into four main types:

- Published materials: This type of material can be books and reference material as dictionaries, grammars, advice on language learning, test practice materials, tapes accompanying course books, or supplementary books

- Authentic materials: Taken from real life, these consist of newspapers, magazines, user manuals, leaflets and brochures, foreign mission information, letters, faxes, emails, videos, and songs

- Adapting and supplementing published materials: These are ones that have been adapted or supplemented in some ways These cut-up materials can be self-standing or deliberately designed to supplement the course books

- Specially-prepared materials: For self-access activities, this type of material proves to be useful as there is always a need for material that is more precisely tailored to the needs of students working on their own

Basing on features of types of the material, it is easy to realize the material New Headway_ Elementary is published material In addition, these features provide teachers

understanding of each types of material Thus, they can be successful in choosing the material that suits the specific circumstances and needs of learners

1.1.2 What are roles of material in language teaching and learning?

In the process of English language teaching and learning, there are many important components which can affect the quality of teaching and learning but the most essential one is the material It is very difficult for teachers to teach systematically without a material Indeed, the material plays a crucial role in providing the foundation of knowledge for both teachers and learners And the role of materials is a subject which is discussed by many authors The following reasons prove how materials are very important in language teaching and learning process

According to Richard (2001), materials provide a basic 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 In this case, materials may also serve as

a form of teacher training It means that they provide ideas on how to plan and teach lesson form materials

Cunningsworth (1984, p.6) states that no material is totally suited with a particular teaching situation However, the role of the material is to be the service of teachers and learners but not to be their master So the relationship between teacher and the material is a partnership which shares common goals to which each side brings its special contribution Besides, the aims of the material should seek to meet the needs of the learner to the highest degree To get these aims, it is necessary to conduct materials evaluation so that teachers can choose suitable materials in a particular situation

1.2 Material evaluation

1.2.1 What is material evaluation?

There are some ways of defining material evaluation from different researchers According to Hutchinson and Waters (1987, p.96), “evaluation is a matter of judging the fitness of something for a particular purpose”

With regards to this issue, Tomlinson defines material evaluation as a procedure that involves measuring the value (or potential value) of a set of learning materials It involves making judgments about the effect of the materials on the people using them (Tomlinson, 2003, p.15)

In the other words, Dudley (1998 p.128) claims “evaluation is a whole process which begins with determining what information to gather and ends with bringing about the change in current activities or influencing future ones”

In conclusion, the researchers give a general identification that material evaluation

is a process of deciding whether the materials is suitable to the teaching and learning objectives based on collected data and suggesting actions to make changes in the process

of language teaching and learning

1.2.2 Different types of material evaluation

Educators have classified evaluation according to its purpose And different researchers have different divisions in classifying material evaluation Robinson (1991, p.59) divides materials evaluation into three types: preliminary, summative and formative while McGrath (2002, p.181-203) classifies materials evaluation into three stages: pre-use,

in -use and post-use evaluation In all classifications from different authors, Mc Grath’s classification seems to be most widely accepted

- Pre- use evaluation is often carried out before the course starts to select the most appropriate materials for the particular group of learners and for the aims of the course Besides, this evaluation is to identify which aspects of the published material needed adapting to suit the purposes of the evaluators

- In-use evaluation often takes place during the learning process This process evaluates suitability, involving, matching the material against a specific requirement including the learner’s objective, the learner’s background, and the resources available

- Post- use evaluation is carried out when the course is finished to identify strengths and weaknesses and the findings of this evaluation is very helpful to decide whether to repeat or use the materials again or not

In short, each type of material evaluation has the advantages as well as disadvantage Therefore, in order to evaluate material effectively, the researchers should determine which type of material evaluation will be suitable for research purposes and their real context Among three types of material evaluation mentioned above, only Post- use evaluation is carried out after finishing the course At that time students have approached all the lessons or parts in the material, it is more objective to give evaluators personal opinions about material Therefore, evaluator can get the most useful results in material evaluation process and these results will support English program in the next

school year to adjust some program contents to meet the quality of teaching and learning English This is the reason why the author decides to use post-use evaluation in this study

1.2.3 What are purposes of material evaluation?

Material evaluation is a very important activity of teachers in language teaching process It is becoming more and more important in sorting out the most appropriate material among the masses of books available in the market

According to Cunningsworth (1995), through evaluation, we can assess whether the course book is the most appropriate for the target learners at various levels and in various teaching settings

Robinson (1991) states that evaluation can be used as part of quality control Through evaluation, we can know about the advantages and disadvantages as well

as the effectiveness of the being used materials

Alderson (1992) set out a list of purposes of material evaluation as follows:

- To decide whether materials have had the intended effect

- To identify what effect materials have had

- To vindicate a decision

- To justify future courses of action

- To compare approaches/methodologies

- To identify areas for improvement in future use

- To show the positive achievements of teachers and students

- To motivate teachers

- To allay suspicions among parents or sponsors

At TNCET, New Headway_ Elementary has been used for 10 years The material

itself has revealed many strengths as well as weaknesses in the teaching and learning environment However, no evaluation has been conducted to determine that Therefore, the author decided to carry out this research in order to have a more appropriate set of material

1.2.4 Who are material evaluators?

A number of researchers including Robinson (1991), Tomlinson (1998), Evan & St John (1998) and Richards (2001) indicate that materials evaluators can be both outsiders and insiders Depending on the role of evaluators in the language teaching program, their name can be changed either outsider or insider

Dudley-Outsiders are those who have not been involved in the programsuch as consultants, inspectors and administrators Accordingly, they may not fully understand the teaching and learning situation in which the evaluation is being carried out In addition, it may take them more time to be aware of the local situation such as learners’ needs, facilities and time constraints so it may be difficult for them to make truly judgments and recommendations

of the program

In contrast to the outsiders, the insiders are those who have been directly involved

in the language-teaching program such as teachers, students, course and materials designers Therefore, they can provide the most valid information in the evaluation process Also, their understanding of cultural and political factors of the institution in which the evaluation takes place would enhance the reliability of judgments and recommendations To stress the role of the insiders as evaluators, Richard (2001, p.296) states that the involvement of the insiders plays an important part in the success of evaluation because “as a consequence, they will have greater degree of commitment to acting on its result” He also adds that the teachers can watch out for when the materials are being used Consequently, they can know exactly the extent that the materials work for their purposes and they can make modifications to improve the effectiveness of the materials However, there are also disadvantages to insiders when they are “too close and involved” (Dudley- Evan and St John, 1998, p.131) so the evaluation may be influenced

by their subjective points of view and their teaching experience

The author of this research is a teacher, so she plays the role of insider evaluator while conducting the study

1.2.5 Models for material evaluation

In the material evaluation process, evaluation model plays an important role for evaluators to follow Many authors have studied about it and have given different models for material evaluation However, the most popular models are the ones suggested by Hutchinson & Waters (1993), Ellis (1997), and McDonough & Shaw (1993)

The first model of evaluation by Hutchinson & Waters is called Marco Evaluation

In this model, they divided the material evaluation process into four main steps presented

in the following diagram:

Figure 1: The materials evaluation process (Hutchinson and Waters, 1987, p 98)

The second model is Micro Evaluation which is developed by Ellis (1997) According to him, this is the evaluation of one particular teaching task which the evaluator has a special interest in The model consists of the following steps:

- Choosing a task to follow

- Describing the task with specification of input, procedures, language activities, and outcomes

- Planning the evaluation with reference to the dimensions above

- Collecting information before, while and after the task was used, and what and how the task was performed

- Analyzing the information collected

DEFINE CRITERIA

On what bases will you judge materials?

Which criteria will be more important?

SUBJECTIVE ANALYSIS

What realization of the criteria

do you want in your course?

OBJECTIVE ANALYSIS

How does the material being evaluated realize the criteria?

MATCHING How far does the material match your

needs?

- Reaching conclusions relating to what has been discovered, and making recommendations for the future teaching

- Writing the report

The third model is a combination of macro- and micro- evaluation which is developed by McDonough & Shaw (1993) In this model, the authors suggest a three-stage evaluation model called: external evaluation, internal evaluation, and overall evaluation

The external stage (macro- evaluation) is used to identify whether the material is potentially appropriate, then the internal stage starts and if the findings show that the material is inappropriate, the evaluation will be finished at the external stage

The internal stage (micro- evaluation) requires an in-depth investigation into the materials so we need to examine at least two or more units of the book to examine the extent to which the factor in the external evaluation stage actually match the internal consistency and organization of the materials staged by the author/ publisher

The final step is the overall evaluation It helps to determine the suitability of the materials for specified groups or individuals by considering a number of the factors such as the usability, the generalizability, the adaptability, and the flexibility

In short, Hutchinson and Waters (1987) suggest a logical model for materials evaluation It seems to be the most appropriate model to follow because it can help the evaluators know exactly what must be done to analyze the material Firstly, the author set out both subjective analysis and objective analysis Then the findings of the two analyses are compared to find out whether they match to each other and if not, to what extents they

do not match up Based on the research results, good aspects as well as problematic parts

of the material can be identified, which may serve as a reliable ground for further suggestions on material improvements These are the reasons why the author has chosen the evaluation framework by Hutchinson and Waters (1987) to check whether the existing material is suitable for the needs of students

1.2.6 Different methods of evaluation

In general, there are three basic methods of material evaluation McGrath (2002) refers them to the impressionistic method, the checklist method, and the in-depth method

The impressionistic method is concerned to obtain a general impression of the material This is wide-ranging but relative superficial (Cunningworth, 1995, p.1) The

method involves glancing at the publisher’s description on the back cover, the content page, book layout and visuals

The checklist method is the use of a list of items which is referred to for comparison, identification or verification It is considered systematic, cost effective, convenient and explicit

The in-depth method looks at the kind of language description, underlying assumptions about learning or values on which the materials are based (McGrath, 2002) It focuses on specific feature (Cunningworth, 1995), close analysis of one or more extracts (Hutchinson, 1987)

In short, each of these methods has its limitations as well as its specific uses Among the three methods of material evaluation above, the checklist method seems to suit best over the rest because the checklist method helps evaluators easily to carry out the research with a list of items In addition, it is systematic, cost effective, convenient and explicit Therefore, the researcher decided to adopt it as the major method to evaluate the

material New Headway_ Elementary

1.2.7 What are criteria for material evaluation?

There are many different criteria for material evaluation, so it is not easy to identify which criteria we take to evaluate material And in order to evaluate material effectively, teachers should be sure what is being evaluated and why they need to be evaluated before choosing criteria for material evaluation

The first set of criteria is stated by William (1983) It concludes seven criteria, each

of which has the following aspects:

- General criteria: give introductory guidance on the presentation of language items and skills

- Speech criteria: suggest aids for the teaching of pronunciation

- Grammar criteria: offer meaningful situations and a variety of techniques for teaching structural units

- Vocabulary criteria: distinguish the different purposes and skills involved in the teaching of vocabulary

- Reading criteria: provide guidance on the initial presentation of passages for reading comprehension

- Writing criteria: demonstrate the various devices for controlling and guiding

content and expression in composition exercises

- Technical criteria: contain appropriate pictures, diagrams, tables, etc… This criterion seems to be very useful and appropriate for evaluating a material

However, such frameworks are more suitable for the selection of course books available in

the market than for the examination of the material

According to Ur (1996), there are two types of criteria including general (the

essential features of any good teaching – learning material) and specific (context-related)

criteria

Criteria of Ur (1996) are too general, so it is not appropriate for evaluating a

material

For more specific criteria, Hutchinson and Waters (1987) suggest that there are five

main criteria for materials evaluation concluding the audience, the aims, the content, and

the methodology and other criteria

- The audience of the materials: the evaluator should obtain information about and

from learners to find out whether the materials are suitable to the students’ age, knowledge

of English, interest and so on

- Aims of the materials: refer to the purpose of learners’ course and materials

- Content of the materials: refers to language points, macro-skills/ micro-skills, and

topics suit the learners’ needs

- Methodology of the materials: is concerned with learners’ expectations from the

course, kinds of tasks, teaching techniques and the aids available for use

- Other criteria: consist of price range and the possibly available quantities of the

materials

Comparing the three sets of criteria presented above by William (1983), by Ur

(1996) and by Hutchinson and Waters (1987), we can not deny that the set of criteria of

Hutchinson and Waters (1987) is very appropriate to material evaluation which focusing

on material being in use The authors gave very specific criteria which are based on that

evaluators can look at the material thoroughly in almost all aspects In their criteria,

objective and content as well as methodology have a direct impact to the quality of

teaching and learning English Therefore, in order to fit the setting and constraints of the

current research which is for a minor thesis, the researcher decides to evaluate material based on the three criteria namely objective, content and methodology to see how much

New Headway_Elementary matches with the needs of the students in the context of the

English program they are working in

1.3 Material adaptation

1.3.1 Why should adapt materials?

In fact, most commercial textbooks are not written for any particular class, so teachers should be judiciously to choose suitable materials that meet the needs of the learners within the framework of the English program And to have those materials, adaptation seems to be a very necessary activity in teaching process Therefore, in most ELT cases, teachers always use adapting technique with aims to help their teaching to be more effective and more interesting

According to McDonough and Shaw (1993, p.85), material adaptation is “to maximize the appropriacy of teaching material in context, by changing some of the internal characteristics of a course book to better suit our particular circumstances.” So, after the process of material evaluation teachers should conduct material adaptation

Besides, adaptation helps teachers to maximize the value of the book for the benefit

of their learners So, they can improve it so that it is suitable for the particular situation (Apple and Jungck, 1990; Shannon, 1987)

From several opinions of different authors above, we can see the important role of material adaptation to teaching and learning process and it is easy to understand why teachers carry out the adaptation And in order to adapt effectively, teachers should realize what are necessary to be adapted before they decide to adapt material such as aims, topics, texts, visuals, guidelines and explanations, exercises, activities, tasks, games, quizzes, questionnaires, etc (Grabrielatos, 2001)

1.3.2 Adapting techniques

There are many ways to adapt material that are discussed by many authors such as McDough and Shaw (1993), Maley (1998), Tomlinson (1998).etc But due to the limited framework of the study for a minor thesis, the researcher only presents the following options for materials adaptation suggested by Maley (1998, p.281):

- Omission: the teacher leaves out things deemed inappropriate, offensive, ductive, etc., for the particular group

unpro Addition: where there seems to be inadequate coverage, teachers may decide to add to textbooks, either in the form of texts or exercise material

- Reduction: where the teacher shortens an activity to give it less weight or emphasis

- Extension: where an activity is lengthened in order to give it an additional sion (For example, a vocabulary activity is extended to draw attention to some syntactic patterning.)

dimen Rewriting/modification: teacher may occasionally decide to rewrite material, especially exercise material, to make it more appropriate, more “communicative”, more demanding, more accessible to their students, etc

- Replacement: text or exercise material which is considered inadequate, for ever reason, may be replaced by more suitable material This is often culled from other resource materials

what Rewhat ordering: teachers may decide that the order in which the textbooks are prewhat sented is not suitable for their students They can then decide to plot a different course through the textbooks from the one the writer has laid down

pre Branching: teachers may decide to add options to the existing activity or to suggest alternative pathways through the activities

In short, although there are many adapting techniques, teachers should choose suitable techniques with materials to get the best effectiveness in teaching and learning process

In summary, this chapter has provided a brief review of literature on materials evaluation It includes three sections The first section mentions some issues in the material The second sections presented major issues in materials evaluation The last section also included some issues in material adaptation Therefore, this chapter can be seen as the theoretical foundation for the applications for the study in chapter III

CHAPTER II: METHODOLOGY 2.1 The current teaching and learning situation at TNCET

2.1.1 Teaching and learning context

TNCET is a college in a mountainous area in the North of Vietnam Although this college was built and developed for 40 years, facilities for teaching and learning are also poor and lacked What the teachers and students often use in an English class are the course book, the board, chalk, cassettes and projectors Besides, English classes in my college are always very large ones, from 75 to 80 students in each They are not homogeneous in level, ability and age English subject is taught in two semesters in the whole course with totally 108 school periods In the first semester, the students have to complete 7 units and in the second semester, they complete the rest units During the term, the students have two mid-term tests and at the end of each term, they have to take an oral test

All students are at different levels of English proficiency and their learning style is varied They have experienced 3 to 7 years studying English at secondary school They hardly have high motivation to learn English because they know that after graduating from college, they will work in where no English is used The status and role of English in the students’ living environment are not highly considered Therefore, many students don’t want to learn English

2.1.2 General description of the material

New Headway_ Elementary is written by Liz & John Soars and published by

Oxford University Press in 2002

The objectives of the material are to provide the students with basic English grammar and vocabulary relating to familiar topics in their daily lives to help them communicate in English in common situations After learning this material, students are able to:

- Read and understand simple texts and a range of high frequency vocabulary in context

- Talk about aspects of personal and everyday life, using appropriate stress, intonation, and rhythm, and understand simple, spoken texts on familiar topics

- Write simple paragraphs/letters on familiar topics

-Demonstrate some control of essential grammatical structures with occasional inconsistencies

Students’ book has 14 units with 14 different topics relating to our life, a Tapescript, Grammar Reference, Wordlist, Irregular verb, Phonetic symbols

Each unit is based on around a theme and has the main structure focus, which is recycled and developed through the unit Each unit is divided into 5 sections: Grammar, Vocabulary, Skills work, Everyday English and Writing After every four units, there is a Stop and check at Teachers’ book This section provides students the opportunities to practice and review the knowledge in those four units

2.2 Research methodology

2.2.1 Participants

The study was carried out on 265 students, 5 English teachers 265 students were from 4 classes such as K9QLMT, K9KT, K9CNTT, and K9QLĐ Teachers were all from English department at TNCET and by the time the research was conducted, they had

experience in teaching the material New Headway_ Elementary to non-English major

students They used this material to teach the first year students of different classes; therefore, they were in a better position to evaluate the material

Informal interviews were applied to get more information from selected participants

2.2.3 Data collection procedure

Data collection was conducted via questionnaire for both the teachers and the students The questionnaires were given to the teachers and students at the same time First, they read through the questionnaires to make sure that any unambiguity could be avoided The questionnaires then were asked to return in a week

2.2.4 Data analysis procedure

In this thesis, data was analyzed by using descriptive statistics method After collecting data, the results were analyzed and presented in forms of tables After that, writing an explanation of the descriptive statistics to report the results for the study

2.3 Summary

This chapter has provided an overview of the current English teaching and learning context at TNCET The participants involved in this research were English teachers who

had been teaching the material New Headway_ Elementary for at least four years and the

first-year students at TNCET

CHAPTER III: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 3.1 Material analysis

3.1.1 The objective of the material

The material is designed with the purpose of developing language skills of learners

as they can read, speak, write and listen simple texts/conversations or familiar topics To achieve this, it provides a foundation in the structure of language, gradually building student’s understanding of the basic grammar, vocabulary, and functions of English

The material provides students a large amount of various vocabularies on the fields

of life through simple texts, conversations or daily situations Besides, the material helps students to get the basic grammars and functions of English Tasks/exercises are organized logically, so that students can have the opportunity to practice using the vocabulary and grammar points in a combination of skills These activities aim to practice the skills to develop language competence of learners

The material also gives learners the opportunity to learn about cultural interference between countries through social topics Through tasks around those topics, students can understand more about the world This is a good opportunity for them to develop language

In short, with the contribution of the material, it early helps learners achieve the development of language skills

3.1.2 The content of the material

Regarding the content of the material, the researcher analyzes the following aspects: language points (grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation), language skills, topics, organization of content, and sequence of content These are important aspects which directly affect the English language ability of students

Language points:

Grammar section provides students basic English structures such as: the verb to be, there is/are, present simple, past simple, present continuous, to be going to, present perfect, comparatives, superlatives, how many, can/could, etc and they are practiced them

by students in the next sections Grammar section has three stages including starter, presenting grammar point, practice The starter stage is designed to be a warmer to the lesson and it is a short activity and always has direct relevance to the language to be

introduced in the unit In the presentation of grammar point, students are asked to perform tasks which are related to the new grammar in order to infer the rules and usages of this In the practice stage, students practice some exercises by applying the new structures in order

to help students reinforce their grammar knowledge

Vocabulary and pronunciation sections are integrated together Although each lesson has its own vocabulary section (except unit 5, 9, 14), in all sections of the each unit, there is also the number of vocabulary and they are displayed at the end of the page with the transcription and meaning Vocabulary is related to various common topics such as: countries, everyday objects, family, food and drink, jobs, places, relationships, city and country, weather and so on In order to help students learn vocabulary better, this section gives the illustrations and exercises for them to practice

To combine the use of vocabulary in context, the pronunciation section helps students learn the pronunciation of words by giving the transcription of difficult words and some important sounds This section also provides some exercises to practice

In Reading and Writing, two reading and writing skills are incorporated together After reading the text, students are asked to write a paragraph related to the topics studied Thus students have the opportunity to consolidate their knowledge and promote their creative abilities

In Listening and Speaking or Reading and Speaking, after each listening or reading, students are often required to resolve certain situations or themes related to listening or reading but more realistic and closer to life aim to improve their speaking skills

In Reading and Listening, these skills enhance the ability of reception of language

to conduct next activities more smoothly and more easily These requirements are carried out in groups or in pairs, so students can bring into play their creativity effectively

The tasks of each section in the material are done by the integration of four macro skills These techniques make students have the interest in learning; they are not trained only one skill for too long time With this advantage, the material can meet students’ needs

Topics:

The material provides students the common and interesting topics such as jobs, food and drink, leisure activities, relationships, shopping, people, clothes, the weather etc with the content closer to their daily lives Therefore, they give students the useful background knowledge to make them easily communicate in familiar situations of life They really suit the needs of students

Organization of content:

Each unit has 5 sections namely Grammar, Vocabulary and Pronunciation, Skills work, Everyday English and Writing Grammar section is presented through the texts or dialogues, grammar spot and exercises Vocabulary and Pronunciation section appears along with illustrations and practical exercises Skills work section is the reading texts and exercises to do relating to the content of the texts Everyday English section is also presented through the dialogues or illustrations and exercises Four sections above are in the students’ book, only writing section is designed in the workbook with writing samples, grammar points, and practice exercises

Sequence of content:

The content of each unit is divided into five parts including grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation, skills work, everyday English and writing The repetition of parts of each unit aims to provide the opportunity for students to improve skills effectively

3.1.3 The methodology of the material

Types of tasks/ exercises:

In grammar section, there are a variety of tasks/exercises such as: fill in the blanks, tick the correct sentence, read the text and answer questions, ask and answer questions, read and complete the questions, write questions/sentences basing on given words, match the question and answer, make the sentence opposite, describe something/people, match the sentences/verbs and pictures, correct the false sentences, writing the correct sentences basing on available pictures and verbs, put the words in the correct order to make

questions, read and listen and practice, listen and repeat, write and read, read and speak, etc They are always used to help students remember exactly all new grammar structures

In vocabulary and pronunciation section, there are many types of tasks to help students learn new words effectively such as: listen and say, match the words and pictures/theirs opposites/symbols, ask and answer questions, write sentences using the adjectives, use dictionary and match pictures with jobs, find the words that have the same pronunciation, correct the mistakes, listen and answer questions/complete the answers, listen and practice, fill in the blanks, match the words that rhyme etc

Skills work section (including reading and writing, listening and speaking, reading and listening, reading, speaking, speaking and listening, reading and speaking) has various types of tasks such as listen and read, complete the texts/conversations, write and read, match the photograph with part of the letter/sentence/places, correct the false sentences, write questions and letter, read and answer the questions, choose true or false, listen and complete the chart/conversation/question, role play, write the paragraph, interview

In everyday English, the following types of task are used concluding read and listen and complete suggestions, put sentences in the correct order to complete the conversations, practice the conversation and make more conversation, fill in the blanks, write correct word next to the numbers, ask and answer questions, listen and check and practice,

The teaching/ learning techniques:

The material has the effective teaching and learning techniques There are clear instructions in all units such as working individually, working in pair, and working in group, role play, and interview These techniques give students many opportunities to practice or develop their skills They also motivate students more interested in learning English This is a great success of the material in improving the quality of the teaching and learning English