CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS
3.2. The attitudes of students and teachers towards the coursebook New Headway
Question 1: What is your overall rating of the coursebook New Headway?
When being asked to have an overall rating on the coursebook, the result showed that the students and teachers share the same view. There is little difference in their views on the same criterion.
As can be seen from the chart, no one thinks that the coursebook is excellent. 7 teachers (70%) accept the coursebook and 102 students (68 percent). Although 20 percent of teachers (2) and 15 percent of students (10) underestimate the coursebook, both of them
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have a favorable attitude towards this coursebook. It can be inferred that they all, to some extent, satisfy with the given coursebook. However, like any other coursebooks, once used, they are doubtless to have weaknesses. The users in this research gave a positive response to the use of the coursebook New Headway. However, it is in need of adaptation as to meet the needs of this particular group of students.
0 0
10 15
70 60
20 15
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Excellent Good Fair Poor
Teachers Students
Chart 1: Overall rating of teachers and students on the coursebook
Question 2: How well did the coursebook meet the following objectives?
a. Layout and design
The students‟ view on layout and design can be illustrated in the above chart. They find the coursebook appropriate and clear. In the researcher‟s opinion, it is the illustrations of the reading passages that make the reading texts more attractive and appealing to students.
This strong point is once again emphasized by the students when they list some strong points of this coursebook. Thus it will be taken into consideration by the researcher when developing the supplementary material.
2
11
69
16
2 0
10 20 30 40 50 60 70
Layout and design
very poor poor satisfactory good very good
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1: the sequence is very good 2: the sequence is good 3: the sequence is satisfactory 4: the sequence is poor 5: the sequence is very poor Chart 2: Students’ attitudes towards the coursebook’s layout and design.
b. The sequence of topics
Here is the topics‟ sequence introduced in module two:
1. Unit 11: Fashion 2. Unit 12: Sports 3. Unit 13: Feelings 4. Unit 14: Traveling
5. Unit 1: Personal Information
6. Unit 2: Lifestyle
7. Unit 3: Experience and Stories 8. Unit 4: Shopping
9. Unit 5: Ambitions and Hopes 10. Unit 6: Places
Generally speaking, the attitude of students toward the sequence of topics in module two is quite good. 24 out of 150 students (16%) say that the topics introduced in the second module are well sequenced, 60 think the sequence is good (40%), 48 think it is satisfactory (32%) and the number of students who complained that the topics‟ sequence is poor or very poor is 18 (12%).
Chart 3: Students’ attitudes towards the topics’ sequence
Therefore, those topics are still used as the core ones in the supplementary reading materials. Another reason to keep the topic unchanged is that the output is hoped to support the textbook used in class, not totally replace it. By doing so, the module will be viewed as a form of variety and unity.
c. The reading passages
As can be seen from the chart below, most students think that the reading topics in module two are acceptable or in other words, they feel quite satisfied with them. The length of reading passages is appropriate as nearly 40 percent and 20 percent of students think that it is satisfactory and good respectively. The situation is the same with level of difficulty. However, that is not the case of reading passages‟ content. 75 percent of students show their dissatisfaction in this aspect.
16
40 32
9 3
1 2 3 4 5
25
2 21
3 213 54
29 7
67
18 48
34 17
5 20
45
1 2 012
0 20 40 60 80 100
Ve ry poor
Po or
Sa tisfactory
Good
Ve ry good
Topics
Content
Length
Level of difficulty
Chart 4a: Students’ attitude towards the reading passages
In compared with Chart 3b, obviously the answer „satisfactory‟ seems to be favored by teachers. Such aspects as topics, length and level of difficulty of reading passages meet the need of the teachers (80, 70, and 100 respectively). Surprisingly, both the teachers and students are not satisfied with the content of the topics as 6 out of 10 teachers claim that the content of topics is very poor or poor. It is due to the fact that the coursebook New Headway was published long time ago of which the content is no longer informative.
0 10
0 0 10
50
10 0
80
40 70
100
10 0
20
0 0 0 0 0
0 20 40 60 80 100
Ve ry poor
Po or
Sa tisfactory
Good
Ve ry good
Topics
Content
Length
Level of difficulty Chart 4b: Teachers’ attitude towards the reading passages
Question 3: How do you specifically evaluate the coursebook?
After collecting and analyzing the data of question 3, the chart above is drawn to summarize the satisfaction level of both teachers and students. It reveals some conclusions.
The level of satisfaction of teachers is, on average, higher than that of students. After all, however, all of the participants would decide to use the coursebook again (see Chart 3c).
Thanks to this agreement of students and teachers, the material is hoped to be designed in a smooth way.
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0 2 4 6 8 10
a b c d e f g h Y j
0 2 4 6 8 10
Teachers Students
Chart 5: Coursebook evaluation average marking – a comparison between teachers and students
87
0 13 50 100
Favourable Unfavourable
Chart 6: Respondents’ view on using the coursebook