UNIVERSIDAD CATÓLICA DE LA SANTÍSIMA CONCEPCIÓN

FACULTAD DE EDUCACIÓN

PEDAGOGÍA EN EDUCACIÓN MEDIA EN INGLÉS

“COURSEBOOK EVALUATION”

Course: English Methodology II Teacher: Astrid Guerra

Student name: Ana María Luna

Claudia Parra H.

Concepción, Noviembre 4th, 2014

Factual details

Title: Texto para el Estudiante. Global English.

Author (s): Jolanta Polk Reyes

Publisher: Ediciones Calycanto/ Ministerio de Educación Price:

ISBN: 978-956-8623-97-5 No. of pages: 151 pages

Components: Student’s Book/Teacher’s Book/ Audio CDs Other:

Level: High School Physical size:

Length: 1 year Units: 6 units Lesson/section:

4 Lessons. Hours:

Target skills: Reading, listening, speaking & writing.

Target Teacher: High School.

Target Learners: High School.

Assessment: (* Poor ** Fair ***Good ****Excellent)

Rationale: The book intended to fill in first place pre-communicative activities: mostly

structural activities. The objectives are clear at the beginning of each unit. It cover the

principal need of the class which are related with the communicative tasks.

Availability: It is provided by the Chilean Ministry of Education, It is easy to obtain simple

copies, so teachers can support their classes with the material, nevertheless it seems more

difficult to contact with the representatives in case of doubts or comments, or for more

details about the book.

User Definition: There is a clear cultural specification which is related with our country, i t

has plenty of activities related with our context. It also has units which are more difficult than

others in terms of vocabulary but it is increasing. The book assumes some vocabulary and

grammar knowledge.

Layout/ graphics:Each unit starts with specific vocabulary items, and then moves to

grammar, communication activities, listening activities, reading and writing exercises. The

course book has attractive images, and each activity has an example to follow.

Accesibility: The material is well organized students can go to the beginning of the book

and they can look for the units. If they have needs to cover they can check the vocabulary

and the activities of the book. Learners are aware of the book organizations. The book has

self evaluation at the end of each unit, so students can see if they know or if they have

learnt.

Linkage: The units presented are not very connected with each other, but some activities

are linked so students can understand and do the exercises.

Selection/grading: The course book starts with a basic level of English, and it goes up to a

higher and challenging level of proficiency.

Physical Characteristics: The book does not have lot of spaces to write, so students have

to use their copybooks. The book is not to heavy, it is easy to move from one place to

another. Students can use it at least two times, because the book gets marked when

students write on it.

Appropiacy: Some of the units are not very interesting to hold hold the attention learnes,

nevertheless it will depends on the teacher how he present these new contents. The units

are good for the level of students maturity. The language is appropriate for the level.

Authenticity: The material is realistic to the students context. It could be presentend only

by using the text and its activitiess.

Sufficiency: The class could be developed using only the book for certain activities. Other

activities will need the use of Cd's, power point presentation or worksheets. There are some

units with activities that will not need the use of aids.

Cultural bias: British & American oriented.

Educational Validity: The book has not many aspects are related with the education

concerns. It has different contents, so it does not promote knowledge about education, or

what is happening, is more focused on the use of the skills in different situations.

Stimulus: It is mostly focused on pre-communicative activities when the importance

nowadays is to get the students to produce English. There are not enough speaking and

writing activities for students to practice spelling, pronunciation or language usage.

At the end of the book there are “self-evaluation” and “test your knowledge” exercises,

which help students to identify their strengths and weaknesses in certain activities/units.

Moreover, there is a list of answers for each activity, so students can constantly checking if

what they are doing is correct or wrong. It also includes useful web pages for students, in

which they can find activities and exercises which are similar to the ones in the course book.

Flexibility: It would not be possible to move from one unit to the other since the structure of

the book is designed to be done sequentially. One activity requires the previous knowledge

provided by the previous exercises and activities.

Guidance: There is not much guidance in the book. There is lack of information of how to

guide the book or how to present the lesson in different ways.

Overal Value for many: In general terms the book is easy to use, it does not take much

time to prepare a class, it is not expensive if we want to use it and prepare a class.

a Do the materials provide a balance of activities that is appropriate for your

students? Yes X No___

Comment: The book provide a wide number of activities, despite of they are not

connected each other, they are appropriate for students. Activities within the book

are meaningful to students because they are related to real context involving topics

such as love, technology , science , films.

b) Is there a sufficient amount of communicative output in the materials under

consideration?

Yes X No_

Comment: According to the text and the activities it provides several communicative

output in certain units, which are very helpful for the students, so they can see hoy to

produce the new language.

c) Do the materials provide enough roughly-tuned input for your students?

Yesx No___

Comment: activities within the book are accurate to the level of English that students

supposed to have. Some activities provide enough roughly-tuned input

3.Answer these questions related to language, skills, topics and methodology.

Answers :

The test book cover the main grammar items according to the students’ needs.

However, we found that the activities are more related to grammar , focusing mainly in

structural activities than help learners to relate the structure they are studying to the use of

language. In addition, the book does not have material for pronunciation. We consider it as

the reason why learners presented different problems, for example in pronunciation and

spelling mistakes. Related to structure and conventions of language , the text book present

poverty in these aspects. It mainly focus in grammar instead of students make use of what

they are learning. style and appropriacy are accurate to students. The text book present a

language style formal and according to the classroom situation.

Answers 2 : The four skills are adequately covered, each unit of the book contains activities

for each skill (reading, listening, writing and speaking). However, this course book does not

adequately cover the four skills in a productive way. Most of the activities are pre-

communicative. In addition, the reading material is very complete and it has new vocabulary

in each unit for the learners. Related to listening skill, the recorded material included in the

course book in authentic and easy to follow. It includes activities which are accurate to the

level of English of students. However, he listening activities that can be found in the course

book are very structured and teacher oriented when it is supposed to be completely the

opposite. Regarding the spoken activities, the speaking skill is the least developed in the

entire course book, causing different problems on the learners, for example pronunciation

and spelling mistakes. Finally, writing items within the book are accurate and students can

produce writing in real contexts, such as writing love cards or to their music idols.

Answers 3: The material is really authentic and it catches the attention of students.

The topics of the course book are really updated, they engage students to learn. The

material seems to be carefully selected in order to draw the attention of the students. The

variety of the course book is one of the key elements in order to keep the students busy;

love, films, literature, young art, science. Some of the units present in the course book are

very well structured, but the most important aspect is that they are related to the students’

interest. For instance, exercises which include famous films or singers or activities related to

technology are something very unique and engaging for students, making their attention

span grow .This course book does not show any proof or any type of discrimination.

Actually, ethnic groups and even women are shown as equals as any kid or man appearing

in the book. This fact promotes respect among students, which is an important matter in

school nowadays.

Answers four: The course book does not really help students to expand their language

awareness since it only focuses on topics that are mainly related to entertainment. Thus, the

course book focuses on general aspects and it does not create consciousness about the

outside world. However, the course book can be really successful because the topics that it

provides are really connected with what students are interested.

4. Conclusion :

The course book that we analyzed covered the four skills of the language and according to

Oxford (1990), these steps must be included to enhance our own language learning. The

term skill simply means ability, expertness, or proficiency which is what students are

expected to develop with the use of this book.

As a conclusion, the course book has some notorious advantages and

disadvantages. In terms of skills, even though the text book covers the four of them, they

are not appropriately integrated with one another. Moreover, some skills are clearly more

developed than the others, being the listening skills the less developed in students.

Furthermore, the varieties of topics included in the course book are one of the positive

aspects of it. Even though this book is mostly teacher oriented (pre-communicative

activities), it has good and appropriate images and graphics, being attractive to students

and obviously engaging for them.

References

Oxford, R. (1990). Language learning strategies: what every teacher should know. Boston:

Heinle&Heinle.

Polk, J. (2008). Global English: texto para el estudiante. Ediciones Cal y Canto Ltda.