Luan van danh gia sach giao khoa va thiet ke bai day phu hop voi hoc sinh tai mot truong trung hoc pho thong. luan van co tinh thuc tien cao.co phan phat trien tai lieu rat thu vi. trinh bay dep. noi dung chuan.
1 PART I: INTRODUCTION Rationale of the study Nowadays English has become increasingly important as a means of global communication and a bridge to mankind’s knowledge In the process of global integration, the teaching and learning English has become a great concern in Vietnam Therefore, the government has changed the curriculum in order to train the citizens who can use English for communicative purposes By doing this, in 2002 the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) announced a new textbook project for upper secondary school level The new textbooks comprised two sets Set 1, unofficially called “sách chuẩn” (i.e “standard textbooks”, was intended for students pursuing Ban (i.e The non-specialization program) and Ban tự nhiên (i.e specialization in sciences) Set 2, unofficially called “Sách nâng cao”(i.e advanced textbooks), was intended for Ban xã hội (i.e specialization in social sciences and humanities) Each set comprised of three books, from English 10 to English 12 The new English textbooks for high school students are claimed to adopt the latest teaching and learning approaches: communicative approach and learner-centered approach and aim at developing both language skills and language knowledge for students Each unit in the new English textbooks consists of five parts: Reading, Speaking, Listening, Writing and Language Focus English 10 and English 11 were approved and officially introduced into schools by MOET in the academic years 2006-2007 and 2007-2008 respectively However, English 12 textbook has only been used nationwide since the academic year 2008-2009 Therefore, English 12 textbook is rather new to the students and teachers and little research has been carried out to evaluate this textbook Uong Bi High school, one of the high schools in the country, adopted “standard textbooks” As a teacher of English, the researcher has worked quite closely with the new textbooks It is noticed that although the textbooks have shown a great deal of improvement compared to the old series of grammar-based textbooks, the implementation of this textbook causes a large number of difficulties, especially the writing component Evaluation of teaching materials is obviously a very important process in language teaching and learning The results from materials evaluation help to determine whether the set of materials is suitable for a particular situation Most often materials evaluation is carried out to find out the strengths and weaknesses of the materials so that changes need to be made to improve the suitability and enhance the effectiveness of the materials This is the reason why the researcher conducted an evaluation of the writing component in “English 12” textbook Aims of the study The study is aimed to evaluate the Writing component in “English 12” textbook at Uong Bi secondary school in terms of content and methodology to determine whether it truly reflects the objectives prescribed by MOET for the course and suitable to the students’ needs of English It is expected that the findings from the study would make contribution to the improvement of the textbook or propose changes to enhance the effectiveness of the material for the future use Research questions The study is to find out the answers to the following research questions: Does the writing component of the “English 12” textbook meet the requirements of the course in terms of content and methodology? Is the writing component of the “English 12” textbook suitable to the students’ needs in terms of content and methodology? Scope of the study Though the author is aware that in order to have a comprehensive evaluation of any material, a great number of criteria should be taken into consideration, such as the audience, the content, the methodology, the cultural bias, the authenticity, the layout etc, and each criterion needs taking into account various aspects With the scope of this minor thesis, this study is only aimed at evaluating the suitability of the writing component in English 12 textbook in the standard in terms of content and methodology This study is a in-depth survey at Uong Bi High School in Quang Ninh Therefore, the findings of the study are not intended to be generalized to other school contexts Indeed the findings may not apply beyond the actual participants in this particular study Significance of the study The findings of the thesis will serve as a back- up for the improvements of the writing component in the “English 12” textbook, teachers’ method adjustment and materials adaptation as well Practically, the findings are beneficial for both teachers and learners at Uong Bi High school from the experience of reflection Secondly, the findings of the study will contribute information to textbook writers and educators to determine curricula and program direction It is also hoped that the thesis will be of contributions towards the development of the writing component in general and the writing component in “English 12” textbook in particular Method of the study In order to evaluate the writing component of the ‘English 12’ textbook, document analysis and survey questionnaires were employed to address the two questions being investigated Document analysis was one of the main instruments with a thorough objective analysis of the textbook under evaluation Survey questionnaire was used to collect the data that related to the teachers’ and students’ perspectives and attitudes towards the textbook they have just finished The findings are expected to provide convincing evidence for the contribution to the improvement of the textbook for the future use Design of the study The study consists of three parts: the introduction, the main content and the conclusion The introduction provides the basic information such as the rationale of the study, the aims, the research questions, the scope, the significance of the study and the methods of the study The main content is divided into chapters Chapter one reviews the literature on materials evaluation It first presents the roles and types of materials in language teaching Then it presents major issues in materials evaluation, including reasons for materials evaluation, types of materials evaluation, who carries out and who provides data for materials evaluations, models for materials evaluation and criteria for materials evaluation Next it provides the information about materials adaptation such as reasons for adapting and adapting techniques Finally, it focuses on theoretical backgrounds to writing and teaching writing, which consists of reasons for teaching writing and main approaches to teaching writing This part plays an important role in the evaluation of the writing component in the study Chapter two focuses on the methodology employed in the study, including the research questions, research method, data collection procedures and the participants Chapter three reports discussions of the results, the findings and the recommendations for the improvement of the materials The conclusion presents a review of the study, the limitations and some suggestions for further research PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1.1 Teaching materials in language teaching and learning Materials are used in all language teaching and their role in the process of language teaching and learning is of great importance (Dudley – Evans & St John, 1998; Richards, 2001) The role of teaching materials in language teaching will be discussed in more details in the next part of this section 1.1.1 The roles of teaching materials Significant roles that teaching materials play in language teaching are discussed by different authors in the literature Richards and Rodgers (cited in Nunan, 1991) view instructional materials as detailed specifications of content, and guidance to teachers on both the intensity of coverage and the amount of attention demanded by particular content or pedagogical tasks Richards and Rodgers’ perspective is supported and clarified by Richards (2001), who points out that teaching materials can serve as the basis for much of the language input that the learners receive and as the source for much of the language practice that occurs in the classroom Richards further explains that materials provide basis for the content of the lesson, the balance of skills taught, and the kind of language practice students take part in In addition, good teaching materials are of great help to inexperienced teachers and poorly trained teachers (Nunan, 1991; Richards, 2001) They can serve as “ a form of teacher training” (Richard, 2001: 251) and teachers can get ideas on how to plan and teach the lesson from the materials Obviously, teaching materials are a key and crucial component in any language teaching contexts, the teacher needs to take account of the roles as well as the requirements of teaching materials when designing or selecting materials for his/ her own teaching situation to facilitate the most learning from the students 1.1.2 Types of materials Materials in use can vary from a textbook, institutionally prepared materials or the teacher’s own materials (Richards, 2001) The former is referred to as published textbooks and the latter in-house materials by Robinson (1991) Which one to choose, published textbooks or in-house materials is what specialists in the field of English language teaching (ELT) weigh up arguments O’Neill (cited in Robinson, 1991:58) suggests that no other medium is as easy to use as a textbook More important “ a textbook is complete not just in the physical sense but in the sense that the whole term’s or year’s course is available to the students at once” However, Ewer and Boys (cited in Robinson, 1991) reject it in terms of the validity of the linguistic contents, the accuracy of the explanations and examples given, and the number and coverage of the exercises because the writers just focus on approach and methodology Moreover, as Swales (cited in Robinson, 1991:57) indicate published textbooks are “less self- sufficient in practice materials and in coverage of skill areas” so these textbooks need to be supplemented by some other materials There are also arguments for and against the use of in-house materials On the one hand, as Robinson (1991) suggests, there are three advantages of in-house materials Firstly, inhouse materials are likely to be more specific and appropriate than published material and to have greater face validity in terms of the language dealt with and the contexts it is presented in Secondly, in house materials may be more flexible than published textbooks Finally, the writers of in-house materials can make sure of the suitability of methodology for the intended learners On the other hand, Robinson (1991) points out making in-house materials is time- consuming and expensive What is worse is that many locally produced materials “show a striking resemblance to the published materials that have been rejected” (Swales, cited in Robinson, 1991: 58) As a rule, there always two sides of one problem And as it is always said that there is no perfect textbook which fits all teaching- learning context So, an evaluation of materials is really important before a course book is chosen 1.2 Materials Evaluation 1.2.1.The concepts of materials evaluation There are many ways of defining evaluation According to Brown (1995) evaluation is defined as “ the systematic collection and analysis of all relevant information necessary to promote the improvement of a curriculum and assess its effectiveness within the context of the particular institution involved” This definition requires that information be gathered and analyzed in a systematic manner and that only relevant information should be included, that is other information can be ignored Nunan (1988) suggests that evaluation be “a process not a final product” that means it takes place at any time of the material design The first and foremost emphasis of evaluation is to determine whether the goals and objectives of a language program are being attained According to Tom Hutchinson and Waters (1993) evaluation is really 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 number of possibilities can represent the best solution? There is no absolute good or bad- only degrees of fitness for the required purpose” From the above definitions, it can be inferred that materials evaluation involves the determination of what needs to be evaluated, the objectives and requirements for the materials, and the judgments of the value of the materials being evaluated in relation to the objectives and requirements determined 1.2.2 The reasons for materials evaluation There are two main reasons for carrying out materials evaluation Firstly, there may be a need to choose among the materials available the most suitable ones to use for a particular situation Secondly, there can be a need for materials evaluation to determine whether the material which has been chosen works for that situation after it has been used for a period of time ( Ellis, 1997) Robinson (1991) adds, 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 Then we can decide whether the materials can be reused or whether it needs to be adapted to meet the need of the particular teaching situation or we need to change it absolutely In short, the findings of materials evaluation will provide input for responsible people to evaluate the effectiveness of the materials 1.2.3 Types of materials evaluation There are three types of evaluation according to the reasons for materials evaluation: Preliminary evaluation, formative evaluation and summative evaluation Preliminary Evaluation This types of evaluation is carried out before a course begins in order to select the most suitable and relevant materials for a particular group of learners This also has the purpose of identifying which aspects of the published materials need to be adapted to suit the purposes of the evaluators (Robinson, 1991; Ellis, cited in Tomlinson, 1993) This can be done by “determining a set of criteria which are used to reach a decision regarding which book to adopt and how it needs to be adapted” ( Ellis, cited in Tomlinson, 1993: 220) Formative Evaluation This type is normally carried out during the life of a course project and the results obtained can be used to modify what is being done Or in other words, such results may suggest the development of the materials in the future Summative Evaluation Summative evaluation is referred to as evaluation as retrospective evaluation (Ellis, 1997) It takes place at the end or sometimes after the course has been implemented and very valuable for “durable course” (Dudley – Evans, 1998) According to Richards (2001), a summative materials evaluation is conducted to determine whether the materials have worked well The findings will normally lead to the decision whether to repeat or use the materials again or not: and which aspects of the materials need to be changed and how to modify them to make the materials after they have been used This kind of evaluation therefore can serve as a means of “testing” the validity of a before- program evaluation and it can point out “ways in which the predictive instruments can be improved for future use” ( Ellis, 1997: 37) In short, whatever the types of evaluation, preliminary, formative, or summative are, it is very important that the evaluator identifies clearly the reasons for their evaluation so that it can be beneficial for the use of the materials (Robinson, 1991) 1.2.4 Materials evaluators A great deal of published work on materials evaluation (Dudley – Evans & St John, 1998; Tomlinson, 1998; Robinson, 1991; Richards, 2001) reveals that materials evaluation can be carried out by outsiders (those who are not involved in the program, for example, consultants, inspectors, and adminstrators ) or insiders (e.g teachers, students, course or materials designers); each method has its own advantage as well as disadvantages 1.2.4.1 Materials evaluation by outsiders As many researchers think, the advantages of having outsiders involved in materials evaluation are obvious They can bring “ fresh” and “ objective” perspectives into the evaluation However, there may be some disadvantages; outsiders as evaluators will have their own views on language teaching methods They may not understand the teaching and learning situation in which the evaluation is being carried out So, as Robinson (1991) suggests, they may be unsympathetic and it may take more time for them to get to know the local situation such as learners’ needs, facilities as well as constrainst As a result, it may be hard for them to make exact judgements and realistic recommendations; or may be what they find has already been found ( Dudley- Evans & St John, 1998) 1.2.4.2 Materials evaluation by insiders Materials evaluation by insiders has some advantages especially if the overall purpose of evaluation is for “ development” and thus for better use in the future As they have already involved in the program, they will understand the teaching and learning situation well (Tomlinson, 1998) Tomlinson’s view is strongly supported by Holliday (cited in Dudley – Evans & St John, 1998) and Richards (2001) According to Holliday (1998: 296), the evaluator’s understanding of “ cultural and political factors” of the institution in which the evaluation takes place would be very important for the evaluator to make exact judgements and realistic recommendations Richards (2001) holds the view that the involvement of the insider plays a very important role in the success of evaluation because “ as a consequence, they will have a greater degree of commitment to acting on its results” Richards also points out insiders, especially teachers, can ‘ monitor’ when the materials are being used, they therefore can determine if and to what extent the materials ‘ work’ for their purposes and thus they can make modifications to improve the effectiveness of the materials However, the insiders “ may be too close and involved” (Dudley-Evans & St John, 1998: 131) so the evaluation may be influenced by their teaching experience and their subjective views In short, who will carry out the evaluation outsiders or insiders should be determined according to the purposes of the evaluation and to the facilities as well as the constraints of the situation in which the evaluation takes place 1.2.5 Models for materials evaluation There are different models for materials evaluation suggested by different authors in the literature The popular models are the ones suggested by Hutchinson and Waters (1993), Ellis (1997) and McDonough and Shaw (1993) 1.2.5.1 Evaluation model by Huchinson and Waters Hutchinson and Water (1997)’s model is a macro- evaluation which as defined by Ellis (1997:37) as the “overall assessment of whether an entire set of materials has worked” for a particular situation In their model, Hutchinson and Waters (1993: 96) defined materials evaluation as a “matter of judging the fitness of something for a particular purpose” In this view, the evaluation is divided into steps (see Figure 1) DEFINE CRITERIA On what bases will you judge materials? Which criteria will be more important? SUBJECTIVE ANALYSIS What realizations of the criteria you want in your course? OJECTIVE ANALYSIS How does the material being evaluated realize the criteria? MATCHING How far does the material match your needs? Figure 1: The materials evaluation model of Hutchinson and Waters ( 1993: 98) As can be seen in Figure 1, this model presents a logical procedure for materials evaluation To examine whether the materials are suitable for a certain group of learners or not, there must be certain criteria against which our judgments or evaluation are based It is also a must to determine the objectives or the requirements for the materials because we can not measure the success of a particular activity or a whole set of materials if there is no clear objective for it 1.2.5.2 Evaluation model by Ellis A Micro – evaluation is the evaluation of one particular teaching task which the evaluator has a special interest in (Ellis, 1997) In this model Ellis suggests the practice of a detailed empirical evaluation and focuses on evaluation at the task level with reference to its actual 10 teaching-learning context The aim in this model is to identify the match between task planned and task in use He also suggests that dimensions focused on macro- evaluation (e.g approach, purpose, focus, scope, evaluators, timing, and types of information) can also be applicable to micro evaluation This type of evaluation can only be conducted when the materials are being used in the classroom The steps involved in the evaluation model suggested by Ellis (1997) are: Choosing a task to follow Describing the task with specification of input, procedures, language activities, and outcome 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 Analysis of the information collected Findings of the evaluation and making recommendations for future teaching: and Writing the report It could be said that a micro evaluation may be more manageable than a macro-evaluation, but it is time-consuming 1.2.5.3 Evaluation model by McDonough and Shaw Mc Donough and Shaw (1993) suggest a three-stage evaluation model, namely external evaluation, internal evaluation and overall evaluation: - External evaluation (Macro-Evaluation) is the examination of the claims made for the whole materials by the author or publisher They can be in the forms of claims made on the cover of the book, the instructions, and the table of content The evaluation at this stage helps to identify whether the material is potentially appropriate If the external evaluation shows that the materials are potentially appropriate then the internal stage starts, if the findings show that the materials are inappropriate, the evaluation will be finished at the external stage - The internal stage (Micro- Evaluation) requires an in-depth look at two or more units to examine whether the claims made by the author are the one found in the internal evaluation 29 writing each topic so that they could not acquire such a large amount of knowledge in a short period of time because of the variety of writing topics and lacking of practice time Question 8: Table 3.5: The students and teachers’ judgment on each part of the writing component in the textbook ( Q8) Difficult Topics Easy Suitable T S T (%) (%) (%) (%) ( %) (%) (%) 100 97 family rules Describing 83 85 typical feature of Writing about S T S Unsuitable T Boring Interesting S T S T S (%) (%) (%) (%) (%) 83.3 85 83.3 98 100 90 Vietnamese conical leaf hat Building 83 sentences using 98 the given words Re-ordering given sentences to make a complete paragraph Describing 83.3 87 Vietnam Writing a letter 83.3 90 of request Writing a formal 100 95 100 94 school education system in letter of job application Writing a report 100 100 based on given information Describing the world you would 30 like to live in in the future Describing main 83.3 93 100 95 83.3 90 features of a desert Writing about 100 95 100 98 measures to protect endangered species and possible result Describing a book Giving 83 instruction Describing a 85 83.3 85 100 98 100 90 83.3 92 sport event (a football match) Writing a short description of an organization Describing a chart Writing a letter 100 100 of recommendation As can be seen from the table above, both teachers and students shared the same points of view about the writing topics given in the writing component of the textbook A high pecentage of the teachers and students agreed that the topics: Writing about family rules, Describing school education system in Vietnam, Writing a letter of request, Writing a formal letter of job application, Describing the world you would like to live in in the future, Describing main features of a desert, Writing about measures to protect endangered species and possible result, Describing a book, Describing a sport event (a football match), Writing a short description of an organization, Writing a letter of recommendation were 31 quite suitable to the students’ level They supposed these topics are quite familiar with them, and they are very useful for them in their real life situation Building sentences using the given words, Re-ordering given sentences to make a complete paragraph was found rather difficult and boring by 83.3% teachers and 98 % students they believed that the tasks have complicated structures and most of the sentences here are so long, they are complex sentences, which makes it difficult for the students to finish the tasks Whereas, describing typical feature of Vietnamese conical leaf hat and Giving instruction were believed to be easy and boring by 83.3 % of the teachers and 85 % of the students They thought that these topics simply used the suggested words and easy structures to write the full sentences The given information made them passive in the writing process as it required little thinking 100 % of the students and teachers said that writing a report based on given information and describing chart were the most challenging topics for them The teachers and students said that these topics were difficult because these writing topics were beyond the students’ background knowledge In addition, the students lack of language knowledge and the instructions in the textbook were not given clearly enough Question 9: Table 3.6: Teachers and students’ suggestions on each part of the writing component ( Q9) Appropriate T S Topics (%) (%) of 100 90 Vietnamese conical leaf hat Building sentences using the given words 83.3 98 100 100 Writing about family rules Describing typical feature (%) 100 (%) 99 Delete T S Supplement T S ( %) (%) Simplify T S (%) (%) 100 100 Re-ordering given sentences to make a complete paragraph Describing school education system in 83.3 98 Vietnam Writing a letter of request Writing a formal letter 100 100 96 97 of job application Writing a report based on given information Describing the world you would like to live in in the future 100 99 32 Describing main features of a desert Writing about measures to protect 83.3 100 97 97 100 97 100 98 match) Writing a short description of an 100 100 organization Describing a chart Writing a letter of recommendation 100 90 endangered species and possible result Describing a book Giving instruction Describing a sport event (a football 100 89 100 100 100 100 As can be seen from the table above, most of the teachers and students agreed that the topics: Writing about a family rule, Writing a letter of request, Writing a formal letter of job application, Writing a letter of request, Describing the world you would like to live in in the future, Describing a book, Describing a sport event (a football match), Writing a short description of an organization, Writing a letter of recommendation are appropriate to the students’ level and should be remained unchanged Most of the teachers and the students thought that the topics such as Describing typical feature of Vietnamese conical leaf hat, Building sentences using the given words-Reordering given sentences to make a complete paragraph, Giving instruction should be deleted and replaced by more interesting topics They said that these topics were so boring, the tasks in these topics simply asked students to use the given words and rewrote them to make meaningful sentences There were no specific situations for them to practise Students were not required to brainstorm, give their own ideas to write a creative writing In addition, 100 % of the students and teachers supposed that the topics Describing a chart and Writing a report based on given information seemed to be the most challenging and not suitable to the students’ level at a high school They should be simplified or deleted and replaced by other topics Question 10: Table 3.7: The teachers and student’s suggestions of tasks in the writing component (Q8) Macro skill Writing Tasks for practice More Less Unchanged T (%) S (%) T (%) S (%) T (%) S(%) 16.3 10 0 83.3 90 33 Question 10 aimed at surveying the teachers and students’ suggestions on the proportion of the tasks in the writing component We can see that 83.3 % of the teachers and 90 % of the students found that the tasks for writing practice are sufficient, only one teacher and students thought that more task ought to be given 3.2.2 The appropriateness of the writing component in terms of methodology Question s 11, 12 Table 3.8: Teachers’ opinion about the writing approaches used in the textbook ( Q11,12) Opinions The writing approaches used in the textbook are appropriate to Yes (%) 66.7 NO (%) 33.3 the learning/ teaching situation The writing approaches meet the learners’ expectations in 66.7 33.3 learning the writing skill It can be seen from the table that only 66.7 % of the teachers thought that the writing approaches used in the textbook were approapriate to the learning and teaching situation and they could meet the learners’ expectations The rest ( 33.3 %) disagreed with the ideas above, they said in the writing component of the textbook, both product and process approaches were adopted However, the product approach seemed to be predominent That meant it focused on the end-result of writing rather than the process of the writing because it often began with some preparation work in which students were asked to analyze the tasks, work with models, and then imitating, copying and transforming models of correct language texts to the new writings This made students very passive and they could not write about unfamiliar topics That was the reason why they believed that the approaches did not meet the students’ expectations totally Question 13 Table 3.9: Students’ opinion of the teaching methods used by the teachers during the writing lessons.( Q13) The students’ opinions I like the way they teach because I learn a lot in my classroom I like their teaching at first, but after some time I get bored because the way S (%) 40 23 they give instructions doesn’t change Sometimes I like the way they teach, sometimes I don’t, depending on what 35 type of activities the lesson is about 34 I don’t like the way they teach because it doesn’t suit my learning strategies (other opinions, please specify) As can be seen from the table above, only 40 % of the students said that they totally liked the way their teachers teach because they learnt a lot in the classroom, 23% of the students supposed at first they liked the teachers’teaching but after some time they got bored because the way their teacher teach did not change Whereas, 35 % of the students said that sometimes they liked, sometimes they did not like depending on what types of tasks and activities the lesson is about, which made the reseacher very curious They said there are different ways of teaching writing, which depend on each lesson and topic If the topic is easy and students have no difficulty in gerenating ideas, the process approach may be suitable, whereas if the topic is difficult and students don’t have much background knowledge about it, it is a good way to use the product approach So that, only 62% of the students thought that the ways which their teachers teach met their expectations in learning writing skill ( question 14) Question 14 Table 3.10: Students’ expectations about the ways the English teachers’ teaching writing ( Q14) Item The ways the teachers teach meet the learners’ expectations in Y (%) 62 N(%) 38 learning the writing skill Questions 15, 16 Table 3.11: Teachers and students’ opinions about kinds of tasks, exercises and guidance in the writing component (Q15, 16) Items T S Kinds of exercises and tasks in the writing Y (%) 83.3 N (%) 16.7 Y (%) 70 N (%) 30 component suitable to the students’ level The guidance and instruction of the writing 83.3 16.7 80 20 component clear The the table above showed that 83.3 % of the teachers and 70 % of the students assured that the kinds of tasks and exercises in the writing component were suitable to the students’ 35 level The rest said some tasks were so difficult that they could not They said the topics: describing chart and writing a report were very difficult because they were not familiar with these topics They did not know how to write a report and describe a chart because some instructions from the teachers were not clear and in detailed (according to 20 % of the students) Question 17: Table 3.12 Teachers and Students’ opinions of the interaction patterns in the class (Q17) As noted, Le Van Canh (2004:96) has remarked that one of the very important factors which benefits teaching and learning is the teachers’ good understanding of the classroom data It is by no means exaggerated to claim that interaction in class, to some extent, could provide the teachers an individual source of data of where the students are and what they really need In table 3.12, data of the interaction patterns in the surveyed class will be indicated: Table 3.12.Teachers and Student’s opinions of the interaction patterns in the class ( Q 17) Interaction patterns Teacher talk Choral responses Student initiates, teacher answers Individual work Pair work Group work T (%) 100 83.3 100 16.7 16.7 S (%) 90 85 87 15 15 The results given in the table 3.12 showed that the high percentage of the students who clarified the interaction patterns their teachers often used in the class was on teacher talk (90 %), choral responses (85 %), and individual work (87 %) Amazingly, only 15 % of the students said that they had expose in pair work and group work Nobody were familiar with student initiate, teacher answers They remained the idea that if those interaction patterns had been instructed more, it would create in the learners the desire to express themselves and to help each other As can be seen from the table, there were a good possibility that not all the interactions were adopted by the teachers For example, teacher’s talk, choral responses, closed-ended teacher questioning and individual work had been occurred in class In contrast, almost of the teachers admitted that such patterns as student initiates, teacher answers, pair work and group work had not been adopted much in the class due to their infeasibility in big class 36 with limited amount of given timetable However, the teachers demonstrated full awareness of those interaction patterns in actively involving the students in real communication Considering the effectiveness of the already adopted interaction patterns, individual work and teacher talk, according to the teachers, seemed to easily catch up much attention from the students than other kinds of patterns, particularly the passive ones 3.3 Major Findings As being stated at the beginning of the thesis, it aims to find out if the writing component of the “English 12” textbook meets the requirement of the course and suitable to the student’s level in terms of content and methodology This section will summarize the suitability of the writing component to the requirements of the couse and the students’level in terms of content and methodology based on the document analysis and the data analysis of the teachers and students’ answers 3.3.1 Suitability of the the writing component in the new textbook English 12 to the requirements of the MOET In terms of contents The contents of the writing sections of the new textbook English 12 meet the requirements of the MOET in that they cover a wide range of topics, which are necessary for the students Language points, text types, tasks and activities are the strong points of the material In the writing component, the writing types are authentic and varied in style ranging from writing letters, writing report, giving instruction or description That means the writing types are contextualized in real communication situations and suitable to the students’ psychological background knowledge The tasks in the writing component are various and introduced from simple to complex Four macro-skills are supposed to be partially intergrated in the writing component so that the students can practise not only writing skills but other skills during the writing lessons In terms of methodology In the writing component, it is said that writing consists of the combination of communicative approach and process approach However, the writing approach underpinning in the book seems to be product-oriented rather than process-oriented because emphasis seems to be placed on the product of writing rather than the process of writing itself As described above the writing section often begins with some preparation 37 work in which the students are required to think about the ideas and organization of the text they are going to write Then students may have to one or two controlled or/ and guided writing activities and end with a freer writing activity By this way, students are made to be familiar with imitating, transforming models to new writing task Apparently, there seems to be no room for planning, drafting, revision, and editing as required in the process approach So that the writing section partially meets the requirements of the MOET in terms of methodology The communicative approach to the writing skill requires the writing activities to address real readers with real purposes This is necessary because in real life, anyone must know who they are going to write for, what relationship they have together and why they have to write so that they can decide on what text type and what language to use to achieve their purposes However, critically looking at the writing sections in the new textbook English 12 shows that many of the writing tasks not specify the readership and the purpose for writing 3.3.2 The suitability of the writing component to the students’ needs in terms of content and methodology In terms of contents All teachers and students agreed that the amount of knowledge given in the writing component is too much for the students in an academic school year There are so many topics and a variety of the writing types made students confused and did not have time to practise in a short period of time Moreover, some topics are thought to be rather boring, some others are believed very difficult to the students’ level In terms of methodology The main weaknesses in the methodology of the material remain in the kinds of teaching methods and teaching techniques As we can see, the writing section emphazes on the product-approach not process approach That means it focuses on the end-result of writing and students are engaged in imitating, copying and transforming models of correct language texts to the new writing task There seems no explicit emphasis on the process of planning, drafting, revision and editing So that the teaching methods in the writing component seems not to meet the learners’ expectations Besides, the kind of tasks and exercises give students little opportunity of working in pairs or groups, which, definitely, creates very limited interaction during the learning process 38 The teaching techniques employed in the writing component are of “lockstep” form This is partly because of the habitual learning style of the students that prevent teachers exploiting pair work, small group work In short, one weakness of the material is the lack of learning activities that can encourage students to use the language, arouse their interest and enjoyment, and motivate their involment in learning As can be seen, besides the appropriateness of the writing component, there exist some inappropriateness that should be overcome To improve the effectiveness of the material, some suggestions will be given in the following section 3.4 Suggestions for the improvement It is believed that the material will meet the requirements of the course and suitable to the students’ needs at Uong Bi High school in terms of content and methodology if some changes and adjustments are made: Based on the findings of the survey with the samples of the teachers and students at Uong Bi high school, the researcher here summarizes the following suggestions hoping that it may help improve the materials for future use Content adaptations In terms of topic requirements, it is recommended that the techniques of deletion and simplifying should be used to make the textbook more suitable in the following situations: The boring topics: Describing typical feature of Vietnamese conical leaf hat, Building sentences using the given words- re-ordering given sentences to make a complete paragraph, giving instructions should be deleted and replaced by suggested topics respectively such as: Describing a ceremony or a festival, Writing a letter to a foreigner and give him (her) some pieces of advice when the first time being invited for dinner by a Vietnamese family, write a passage to describe one of the water sports The simplifying technique is also applied to simplify the challenging topics such as writing a report based on given information and describing chart, these topics should be deleted and replaced by another topics or we can reduce the level of their difficulty In terms of the amount of knowledge, it is advisable that there should be the reduction in the amount of knowledge in the writing component so that the students can focus on and have deeper understanding about some kinds of writing such as writing letters, description and have more practice time to gain the knowlegde 39 It is also recommended that in order to maximize the chances of learning, the tasks and exercises in the writing component should be designed in more detailed to develop four intergrated skills but not only writing skill Only by doing so, students can benefit from the content of the writing component in the textbook Methodology adaptations As shown by the study, the writing component in the textbook does not provide very clear instruction or guidance It is hoped that a clear, systematic but flexible material with a different types of tasks and activities, different kinds of illustrations and clearer instruction should be added to make the writing component more appropriate Another improvement recommended is that the teaching method in the writing component should tend to be process-approach that means the tasks and exercises should be designed in a way so that students have more chance to practise, to be more active in class And in writing lessons, they can generate the ideas for freer writing not imitating, copying and transforming models of correct language texts to the new writing task Moreover, the writing section should specify the readership and the purpose for writing so that it will meet the requirements of the course in terms of teaching communicative approach Teaching techniques or interaction patterns should also be considered in the study As we can see, in the writing lesson teacher’s talk and individual work seems to be predominant It is advisable that communiative teaching approach should be applied so that students will have chance to work in pairs or groups and this will step by step replace passive habit of individual learning style among some students In general, with some teaching method, teaching technique improvements, the writing component of the textbook can be more relevant to the levels and needs of the students 40 PART III: CONCLUSION Conclusion of the study Evaluation of teaching materials is obviously a very important process in language teaching and learning The results from materials evaluation help to determine whether the set of materials is suitable for a particular situation Most often materials evaluation is carried out to find out the strengths and weaknesses of the materials so that changes need to be made to improve the suitability and enhance the effectiveness of the materials This is also the reasons for carrying out this evaluation study In this study, literature on materials evaluation has been reviewed referring to many authors in this research area, such as Ellis (1997), Hutchinson and Waters (1987), Mc Donough and Shaw (1993) Basing on the teaching and learning situation, the model and criteria set by Hutchinson and Waters were chosen The study was conducted for the purpose of evaluating the appropriateness of the writing component in terms of content and methodology at Uong Bi high school In order to so, survey questionnaires were carried out to gather information The study fully answered the two research questions In general, the findings have shown that the book meet the requirements of the course and suitable to the students’ needs in terms of content and methodology except for following things Regarding to the topics presented in the book, some of them are irrelevant to students because they are believed to be uninteresting and difficult to them And the amount of knowledge seems to be quite a lot for the students, they not have time to practice In addition, four integrated skills are not fully applied in the writing component In terms of methodology, some disadvantages were given, some writing tasks did not have clear instruction, teaching technique and teaching method seems to be inappropriate to the students in some aspects The study also gave suggested recommendations to improve the writing component of the textbook with a hope of contribution to the material development 41 Limitations of the study Due to limit of time and scope, limitations and shortcomings are inevitable Firstly only survey questionnaires have been used as an instrument to collect data Secondly, this study only investigated learners and teachers’ evaluation, but not the evaluation from course designers and other outsiders for a more objective result Thirdly, all the informants taking part in the survey are within one course Findings would be more comprehensive and insightful if the study used other instruments such as interviews and if other informants involved themselves in the evaluation process, which also provides more valid suggestions for further study Suggestions for further study Materials evaluation plays an important role in improving the materials And it is suggested that more materials evaluation will be conducted with other skills and different levels and in different teaching context so that we can have overall view to see the good points and the bad points of the materials especially the series of the textbooks: English 10,11 and 12 From that on, we will have suitable adaptations in order to have perfect teaching materials 42 REFERENCES Brown, J D (1995) The Element of Language Curriculum Newbury House Teacher Development Canh, L.V (2004) Understanding Foreign Language Teaching Methodology Hanoi: VNU, Hanoi Publishing House Dudley – Evans, T., & St John, M J (1998) Developments in English for Specific Purposes Cambridge University Press Ellis, R.(1997) The Empirical Language Teaching Materials ELT Journal, 51(1), 36-42 Gillham, B (2000) Developing a Questionnaire Continuum Hutchinson, T., & Water, A (1993) English for Specific Purposes Cambridge University Press May, T (2001) Social Research: Issues, Methods and Process Buckingham: Open University Press McDonough, J.,& Shaw, C (1993) Materials and Methods in ELT A Teacher’s Guide Blackwell Nunan, D (1988) Syllabus Design Adelaide: Oxford University Press 10 Nunan, D, (1991) Language Teaching Methodology: A Textbook for Teachers Prentice Hall 11 Raims, A.(1983) Techniques in Teaching Writing Oxford: Oxford University Press 12 Richards, J.C (2001) Curriculum Development in Language Teaching New York: Cambridge University Press 13 Robinson, P.C (1991) ESP Today: A practitioner’s Guide Prentice Hall 14 Sheldon, L.E (1988) Evaluating ELT Textbooks and Materials ELT Journal, 42(4), 237-246 Oxford University Press 15 Tomlinson, B.(1998) Materials Development in Language Teaching Cambridge University Press 16 Tribble, C (1996) Writing, Oxford: Oxford University Press 43 17 Van, H.V.et.al.(2007) Tieng Anh 12 Hanoi: NXB Giao Duc 18 White, R.V (1988) The ELT Curriculum New York: Basil Blackwell ... materials designers); each method has its own advantage as well as disadvantages 1.2.4.1 Materials evaluation by outsiders As many researchers think, the advantages of having outsiders involved in materials... 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 Then we can decide whether... they find has already been found ( Dudley- Evans & St John, 1998) 1.2.4.2 Materials evaluation by insiders Materials evaluation by insiders has some advantages especially if the overall purpose