3.1. THE APPROPRIATENESS OF THE MATERIAL TO THE STUDENTS’
3.2.2. The Guidance and Support from the Material for Teachers 1. Document Analysis
The material “Elementary Market-Leader” has a number of components. Besides Course Book, the material set consists of Teachers’ Resource File, Practice File, Audio CDs or cassettes, and Test File. Moreover, the website www.market-leader.net can also support teachers of the course.
Course Book provides 12 topic-based units, plus four revision units. It finishes with additional support for both teachers and students on various sections like Grammar
Reference with more explanation on the focused grammatical issues, Writing File with samples of different genres of writing, Activity File assisting the Case Studies, Vocabulary File listing the key words, and finally Audio scripts.
Practice File gives an extra practice in the areas of grammar and vocabulary, and writing. Additionally, Talk Business – a section in Practice File - provides some pronunciation and listening work which can be used for self-study or class study. At HUBT, this section is put on the syllabus as an official practice in pronunciation and listening in class. The Audio materials are available on both cassettes and CDs, so they’re quite convenient for teachers. However, students are required to do other parts of Practice File at home and just consult their teachers on any difficulty they find while doing it.
Test File offers five progress tests to teachers to monitor students’ progress through the course. These tests are in used quite regularly for the students at HUBT.
Teachers’ Resource Book provides teachers with more teaching notes, and background briefings on the business topics of the twelve units. Besides, it offers the Text Bank with 24 extra reading texts, and the Resource Bank with photocopiable worksheets practicing communication skills. At HUBT, the Text Bank is put on the teaching syllabus to enhance students’ practice on reading skills.
The website of the material provides teachers and students with useful support such as links to the articles and companion websites of Business English, free Longman dictionary use and some other resources.
In general, it can be concluded that “Elementary Market-Leader” offers quite good support for teachers in terms of quantity.
3.2.2.2. Teacher Interviews
The information collected in the teacher interview is presented in Table 4.6 as follows:
Material components Really useful
Not really useful
Remarks
% %
Course Book 90 0
- Interesting and useful.
- There is not enough writing coverage.
- The Vocabulary file is not very helpful.
Teacher’s Resource Book 30 70
- The Business briefings are good.
- The Text Bank is useful and interesting.
- The lesson notes are not detailed.
- No language or culture notes.
- The Resource Bank is not very necessary.
Practice File 100 0 - Interesting and useful
- The Talk Business is good.
Test File 60 40 - Useful.
- Grammar and Skill sections are too easy.
Audio Materials 100 100 - Good.
Websites 50 50
- The website is useful.
- Not much of use.
Table 4.6: Teachers’ Evaluation of the Guidance and Support from the Material
As can be seen from the table, not all the material components bring sufficient support for teachers. There is some dissatisfaction about some of the components.
Although Course Book was agreed by 90% of the teachers to be really helpful, some of them stated that there was not enough writing coverage and guidance. This also reflects the students’ opinions on the writing section which was previously mentioned as one of the reasons for the difficulty of the material. According to the teachers, the writing samples are good, but there should be more guidance and instructions for this skill.
Besides, the teachers found the Vocabulary File not very useful because of its design.
Some of them pointed out that the Vocabulary File did not supply definitions or pronunciations of the words and expressions, which made it inconvenient even for students to self-study. Moreover, the word lists are presented in their fields of meaning which does not entirely match the topics of the 12 units, so it is sometimes rather unsuitable to use this part in line with the vocabulary practice of the 12 units. As a result, some of the teachers confessed they hardly had their students open this section in class.
Teachers’ Resource Book was evaluated as a component with inadequate guidance and support for teachers. Seven teachers out of ten believed this book was not really useful
for the following reasons. Firstly, they found the teaching notes a little too sketchy. The instructions for teachers in the teaching notes just gave them the general steps to go through the lessons and most of them thought these instructions were nothing new while they really wanted to see more examples and detailed suggestions as well as some recommendations for the teaching strategies to carry out in class. Secondly, the teachers reported that they could not find any language or culture notes in the Teachers’ Resource Book. As most of them were not majored in business and just came to teaching Business English by accident, it would be of great help to them of they could find some explanations on the difficult words and expressions or on the cultural issues mentioned in the lesson content.
Test File was agreed by 6 teachers to be a really useful support, but some others said the Grammar and Skills sections in the tests are a bit too easy for the students. On the contrary, the other sections like listening, reading, vocabulary, and writing are quite effective.
The website of Market-Leader was found interesting and helpful by half of the teachers. They especially liked the links to the articles written on the topics that were related to the twelve course book units. These articles could provide them with more background information on the issues they dealt with. Also, they said they found some other unexpected benefits from the website. In contrast, the other teachers in the interview said they did not pay much attention to it. These teachers seemed to follow a traditional way of teaching and they hardly made use of the Internet as a source of support for their teaching.
Practice File and Audio Materials are the two components that get 100% agreement from teachers to be really useful and of good guidance and support for the course.
In general, the material was evaluated as offering quite good guidance and support for teachers in terms of quantity. In contrast, it was revealed to have a number of limitations with some of its components in terms of quality.