Chapter 3: Analysis of data and suggestions for materials adaptation
3.4. Evaluation on the content of the course book
Table 6: Proportion of the macro-skills
Looking at the figure above, we realize that 70% of teachers and 78% of students share the same opinion that listening skill is distributed in a good way, and they also think the proportion of reading skill is acceptable in the course book. In contrast, skill of reading is only received the approval of 30% of teachers and 24% of students, and writing skill is considered not to be logical with percentage of teachers and students in turn about 40% and 37%.
Proportion Skill
Reasonable Unreasonable Ts(%) Ss(%) Ts(%) Ss(%)
Listening 70% 78% 30% 22%
Speaking 30% 24% 70% 76%
Reading 70% 66% 30% 34%
Writing 40% 37% 60% 63%
Therefore, as can be seen from table 6, the proportion of the four skills is distributed into two groups: reasonable and unreasonable. While the proportion of listening and reading skills is considered to be acceptable with the high agreement of teachers and students, two skills left remain the negative response from the users.
When being interviewed to explain for this result, two types of respondents supposed that the course book - NCEE seems to focus much on listening and reading skills, and then other skills are not paid attention adequately; as a result, the proportions of these ones are not much enough.
3.4.2. Topics in the course book
As the findings of research, there is a great satisfactory of response to the question relating to the suitability of the topics in the course book. 92% of students admitted that the topics are suitable whereas the number of students that had negative assessment is minimal, only taking 5%.
For students of the first group, they said that many topics are suitable for their ability then help them have more skills in daily communication such as the topics: loves and hates (module 4), eating and drinking (module 6), buying and selling (module 9), etc, and other topics: people and places (module 3), extraordinary life (module 7) have good effect in learning as at their teenager they often admire someone famous, and these lessons come to them as the special gifts. In regard of teachers‟ opinion, 7 of 10 teachers, making up 70% to share the same point of view that the topics in the textbook are appropriate your students‟ age, ability and hobbies and bring the latest information in many field. To make the opinion of 30% supposing these topics are not appropriate, they honestly complain that as a country has their own cultural value and people of the country also have their typical hobbies or living manner in general, so it is understandable that they can‟t sympathize with the overall topics mentioned in the course book by the authors.
3.4.3. Vocabulary in the course book
With the aim of improving communicative skills in daily conversation, the vocabulary is one of the most important elements to the success in the content of the course book.
According to the survey results, the majority of students and teachers said the vocabulary is familiar to their daily life and general communication.
Chart 4: Teachers and students‟ evaluation on the vocabulary of the course book They confirmed that there were not too many new words challenging them, then only few words rarely in use such as guava, tortilla. That is why 53% of students and 70%
of teachers agreed that vocabulary provided in this book satisfied them. However, about 35% of students have their own ideas about the words introduced in NCEE. To give the explanation for this, some students were interviewed, when being asked they said that the book seemed to be very useful for the language learners; students also would like the language terms that have closer relation with Vietnamese characteristics and specialties, which may help students a lot at work when they want to introduce and talk about their country.
3.4.4. Practice in the course book
Teachers (%) Students (%)
Easy and useful 10% 24%
Easy but useless 10% 42%
Difficult but useful 0% 11%
Difficult and useless 80% 23%
Sufficient enough to the students‟ learning
demand 30% 12%
Insufficient to the students‟ learning demand 70% 88%
Table 7: Teachers and students‟ opinion on the Practice of the course book It is probable that students pay much attention on the Practice of the book. It should seem, therefore, further studies are needed to learn how difficult the Practice is for the students‟ ability. As can be shown in the table 7, more than a half of students (66%)
stated that the practice in the book was easy; however, 67% added that they were not useful, only 35% said they were useful, and 34% of them claimed that Practice was too hard to fulfill. Moreover, 88% affirmed that the practice exercises in the book were insufficient for their further study. In detail, they also emphasized the amount of sentences in each Practice should be added more to help them use fluently the new words or structure they have just learnt. Also, the students wish that the formats of Practice should be varied to attract their attention and improve their skills.
Most of the teachers expressed their disappointment to the Practice in the book when 8 of 10 survey teachers chose that they are difficult, useless and insufficient to the students‟ learning demand. They suggested that in some modules, the language focus needs providing much practice, however, the amount of sentences in each exercise is considered not adequately. As a result, students lack their opportunities to practice their language skills when they learnt in class.
3.5. Evaluation on the methodology of the course book