Textbook evaluation:

The case of English textbooks

currently in use in Vietnam’s upper-
secondary schools

Nguyen Thi Thuy Minh, Ph.D

College of Foreign Languages

Vietnam National University Hanoi

SEAMEO REGIONAL LANGUAGE CENTRE

2007
Abstract

The textbook is a key component in most language programs. In an English as a

foreign language context, it may even constitute the main and perhaps only source of

language input that learners receive and the basis for language practice that occurs

both inside and outside the classroom. However, research has suggested that despite

their important role, textbooks are not always professionally designed and do not

always fit the curriculum and closely correspond with the aims of the teaching

program and the needs of the students.

Thus, textbooks should be carefully evaluated and selected before being used for a

language program. Textbook evaluation helps the managerial and teaching staff select

the most appropriate materials available for a particular course. It also helps to

identify the strengths and weaknesses of a particular textbook that is already in use.

This is to inform teachers in the process of textbook adaptation and decision-making

for the next course.

It is in this view that the present study seeks to evaluate a new series of English

textbooks currently developed for use at the upper secondary school level in

Vietnam. Specifically, it seeks to examine the communicative nature of the textbooks

and the ease of their use with a view to proposing practical implications for both

textbook authors and teachers who have been and will be using the books.

2
Acknowledgements

My research project has been completed with the support of a great number of

people.

First of all, I wish to express my deepest gratitude to the Board of Directors of

SEAMEO RELC for having sponsored my project. Their generous support is highly

appreciated. I would also like to thank Mr. Nguyen Van Loi, Rector of College of

Foreign Languages, Vietnam National University Hanoi, and Dr. To Thi Thu Huong,

Head of English Department for having granted me one month research leave so that

I can complete this study.

I am greatly indebted to my supervisor at RELC, Dr. Willy Renandya for his excellent

insights and thoughtful comments throughout the project. My appreciation is also

extended to all the staff of RELC - Dr. Gloria Poedjosoedarmo, Ms. Indra Sellapah,

Ms. Fionna Muhalib, and Mr. Mohammad Yusri bin Osman for the administration

work and arrangements for my stay in Singapore.

I would like to especially thank Dr. Graem Cane, Dr. Hayo Reinders, Dr. Lim Beng

Soon, Dr. Chan Yue Weng and Dr. Christopher Ward for their constructive feedback

on my study.

I owe a great debt of gratitude to the anonymous participants who contributed data

to this study.

3
My sincere thanks also go to my bosses and colleagues at VNUH – Dr. Nguyen Hoa,

Ms. Hoang Thi Xuan Hoa, Dr. Do Tuan Minh, Mr. Le Van Canh, Ms. Luong Quynh

Trang, Ms. Vu Mai Trang, Ms. Nguyen Thu Ha and my friends Ms. Nguyen Thuy

Anh, Mr. Jason Sparks and Dr. Pham Hoa Hiep for their constant support while I

have been on leave completing my project.

And last but by no means least, my heartfelt thanks are due to my loving parents and

brother for their unconditional love, understanding, encouragement and support over

time and distance.

4
Table of contents

ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................................................... 2
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................................................................................. 3
TABLE OF CONTENTS ..................................................................................................................... 5
1.1. INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................ 6
1.2. RATIONALE FOR THE PROJECT ............................................................................................ 10
1.3. AIMS AND SCOPE OF THE PROJECT ...................................................................................... 14
1.4. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PROJECT........................................................................................... 15
1.5. METHODS OF THE PROJECT .................................................................................................. 16

CHAPTER 2: THE NEW TEXTBOOKS - AN ANALYSIS AND EVALUATION ............. 18

2.1. OVERVIEW OF THE NATIONAL CURRICULUM AND SYLLABUS FOR ELT ........................... 18
2.2. OVERVIEW OF THE TEXTBOOKS ........................................................................................... 18
2.3. THE TEACHING OF LANGUAGE SKILLS................................................................................. 23
2.3.1. READING SKILLS .................................................................................................................. 23
2.3.2. SPEAKING SKILLS ................................................................................................................. 28
2.3.3. LISTENING SKILLS ................................................................................................................ 41
2.3.4. WRITING SKILLS .................................................................................................................. 43
2.4. THE TEACHING OF LANGUAGE ELEMENTS .......................................................................... 47
2.4.1. GRAMMAR ........................................................................................................................... 47
2.4.2. PRONUNCIATION .................................................................................................................. 48
2.4.3. VOCABULARY ...................................................................................................................... 49
2.5. TEACHERS’ BELIEFS ABOUT THE NEW TEXTBOOKS ............................................................ 51
2.5.1. STRENGTHS OF THE NEW TEXTBOOKS ................................................................................. 51
2.5.2. WEAKNESSES OF THE NEW TEXTBOOKS .............................................................................. 52

CHAPTER 3: CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS .......................................................... 56

3.1. SUMMARY OF FINDINGS ........................................................................................................ 56

3.2. IMPLICATIONS ....................................................................................................................... 57
REFERENCES ................................................................................................................................ 59
APPENDICES.................................................................................................................................. 62

5
Chapter 1: The textbook evaluation project

1.1. Introduction

The textbook is “the visible heart of any ELT (English Language Teaching) program”

(Sheldon 1988: .237). In an English as a foreign language (EFL) context it may even

constitute the main and perhaps only source of language input that learners receive

and the basis for language practice that occurs both inside and outside the classroom

(Richards 2005).

Researchers have suggested several advantages of using textbooks. For example,

textbooks help to standardize instruction and assessment. That is, by giving students

in different classes the same textbook, teachers can teach and test them in the same

way (Richards 2005). Textbooks also provide syllabus for a program, thus supporting

novice teachers, training them in methodology and saving their time and effort for

more worthwhile pursuits than material production (Cunningsworth 1995). What is

more, since textbooks are always carefully tested before being brought into the

market, students tend to give them more credibility than teacher-generated or ‘in-

house’ materials. Students also often expect to use a textbook in their learning

program (Sheldon 1988). Without textbooks, they may think their learning is not

taken seriously; thus, textbooks are psychologically essential for students. Finally,

textbooks may constitute an effective resource for learning in the classroom and self-

6
directed learning (Cunningsworth 1995). A learner without a textbook might be out

of focus and teacher-dependent.

In spite of the aforementioned positive view of textbook use, however, there have

also been certain reservations about this use. One of the most cited concerns is that

textbooks are often implicitly prescriptive and thus might control the methods,

processes, and procedures of classroom practice and ‘deskill’ teachers (Allwright

1982). Another concern is that since textbooks are often written for global markets,

they might not suit all classrooms and might require adaptation to better meet

students’ true needs (Richards 2005).

More importantly, recent criticisms have been targeted at the quality of textbooks. It

has been repeatedly shown that many English textbooks represent biased views of

gender and stereotyping (Clarke and Clarke 1990; Carrell and Korwitz 1994; Renner

1997). For example, Hartman and Judd (1978) found that women suffered low

visibility in textbooks due to the use of sexist language. They also found that women

were often stereotypically related to such social roles as housework and childcare in

many textbooks for young and mature learners. The consequence, as the argument

went, is learners might absorb these personal biases and develop undesirable

prejudices (Gilbert and Rowe 1989).

Other researchers such as Prodromou (1988) and Alptekin (1993) pointed out that

textbooks are often cultural artifacts because it is impossible to teach a language

without embedding it in its cultural base. However, in many instances this might

7
alienate learners if they are forced to express themselves within a culture they have

hardly had any experience with and been prepared for.

Besides, recent appraisals of commercially produced textbooks have also suggested

that many textbooks tend to offer classroom learners little opportunity for learning

how to properly communicate intentions such as requesting, inviting, disagreeing,

complaining, and so on in the second language (L2) (Bardovi-Harlig 2001; Vellenga

2004). This is firstly because many textbooks either do not present or they present

communicative functions (i.e. speech acts) unrealistically. Boxer and Pickering (1995),

for example, found that textbooks generally do not contain indirect complaints (i.e.

complaining about oneself or someone/ something that is not present in the

conversation) as a solidarity-establishing strategy. Bouton (1996) pointed out that the

textbook that he investigated taught invitations that rarely occur in published native

speaker (NS) corpora. The reason for the unrealistic description of communicative

functions in many textbooks is textbooks are often based largely on NS intuition

about how communicative functions are linguistically expressed instead of making

use of authentic speech (Boxer and Pickering 1985). As research has shown, in

contrast to intuition about language forms or grammar, NS intuition about language

use is generally unreliable (Wolfson 1988) and therefore cannot adequately inform

instructional materials (Boxer and Pickering 1995).

Secondly, what also adds to the difficulty in learning how to communicate intentions

via textbooks is many textbooks seem unhelpful in teaching appropriate rules of

8
using different communicative functions. In order to use a communicative function

appropriately, learners need to know not only linguistic resources to express it but

also the rules of use. However, previous research has indicated that textbooks

generally provide insufficient information regarding when and for what purpose it is

appropriate to make use of a communicative function and which expressions would

be appropriate in a particular situation (i.e. meta-pragmatic information) (Crandall

and Basturkmen 2004). Teacher’s manuals, unfortunately, rarely supplement this

information (Vellenga 2004).

Similarly, proponents of authentic classroom language models such as Brazil,

Coulthard, and Johns (1980), Levis (1999), Cathcart (1989), Bardovi-Harlig et al

(1991), and Yule, Matthis and Hopkins (1992) have also pointed out that many

scripted textbook language models and dialogues are unnatural and present an

oversimplification of language. Thus they tend to inadequately prepare students for

the types of pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar and discourse that are used in real

world communication. While authentic materials do not automatically bring about

effective learning and definitely should not be considered more important than their

relevance to learners’ needs and experience (Day 2003), an unrealistic and

oversimplified presentation of language use can be more inhibiting than helpful in

developing learners’ language proficiency and communicative competence.

It is owing to these potential problems that textbooks should be carefully evaluated

and selected before being used for a language program. Textbook evaluation helps

9
the managerial and teaching staff select the most appropriate materials available for a

particular course (i.e. predictive evaluation). It also helps to identify the strengths and

weaknesses of a particular textbook that is already in use (i.e. in-use and retrospective

evaluation). This is to inform teachers in the process of textbook adaptation and

decision-making for the next course (Ellis 1997).

1.2. Rationale for the project

Given that textbook evaluation is an essential component in any language program,

this project is conducted to analyze and evaluate a new series of textbooks developed

by the Ministry of Education and Training of Vietnam (MOET) for upper secondary

school students across the country. Before the project is discussed further, it would

be helpful to provide some background to the situation of ELT in Vietnam in general

and English textbook development projects in particular.

Foreign language education in Vietnam has undergone major changes since the

country was unified in 1975. The late 1970s saw the rise of Russian as a predominant

foreign language in both the North and the South of Vietnam (Do 1999). This was

both due to the government’s policy to promote the teaching and learning of Russian

and the former Soviet Union’s substantial aid in education (Do 1999). English, on the

other hand, though deep-rooted in many social strata in the South before the war,

lost its status during those years, mainly due to the country’s weakened ties with the

West (Do 1999).

10
Since the Sixth National Congress of the Vietnamese Communist Party, however, the

situation has changed dramatically. The government’s “Đổi mới” (i.e. renovation)

policy introduced in 1986 has definitely marked a new era for economic and socio-

political cooperation with the West. As a result, the decades that followed have

witnessed a remarkable revival of English in the country. English language education

began to experience explosive growth in the early 1990s and later on even replaced

the teaching of Russian in most schools after the collapse of the former Soviet Union

(Denham 1992). A MOET survey conducted in 2003 revealed that today up to 98.5%

of Vietnamese secondary school students studied English as a foreign language

(Hoang, Nguyen and Hoang 2006). This figure is a plain indicator of the renewed

status of English as the most important foreign language for a majority of

Vietnamese students.

Today English is taught to school children from Grade 6 (aged 11) through to Grade

12 (aged 18). In some primary schools in large cities, English is even taught from

Grade 3 (aged 8). However, before 2003 foreign language teaching began only in

Grade 10 (aged 16) in many schools in rural and remote areas. As a result, before

MOET launched the new, uniform textbook project in 2002, there existed at least

two different sets of English textbooks for upper secondary school students.

The first set of textbooks, unofficially called “Sách Tiếng Anh hệ ba năm” (i.e. the three

book series) were intended for students who began to learn English in Grade 10. It

consisted of English 10, English 11 and English 12. The second set of textbooks,

11
unofficially called “Sách Tiếng Anh hệ bảy năm” (i.e. the seven book series) were

intended for students who began to learn English in Grade 6. It consisted of English 6

through to English 12.

Both sets were produced by Vietnamese authors with funding from MOET. The first

set was completed in the early 1980s and the second set was completed in the early

1990s. They both followed a traditional approach to foreign language teaching and

drew heavily on structural syllabi. The difference between them is while the first set

placed more emphasis on oral skills development, the second set attached more

importance to grammar and reading skills development (Hoang et al 2006).

Needless to say, the two sets gradually fell out of favor as the influence of the

communicative approach became more powerful in Vietnam in the late 1990s.

During this period, the need for a uniform and communicative set of textbooks grew

stronger and a new set of materials called English for Vietnam was produced with

funding from an American education organization called the Business Alliance for

Vietnamese Education (BAVE) (Nguyen and Crabbe 1999). The BAVE series

consisted of seven books for Grade 6 through to Grade 12. The series was tested out

in a number of selected schools throughout the country but unfortunately, was never

officially approved for classroom used by MOET.

In 2002, therefore, MOET announced a new textbook project. The new textbooks

were expected to incorporate the latest methodology in second language teaching and

replace the two existing series of textbooks once completed (Hoang et al 2006). The

12
new textbooks for upper secondary school level comprised two sets. Set 1,

unofficially called “Sách chuẩn” (i.e. ‘standard textbooks’), was intended for students

pursuing Ban cơ bản (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 humanities). Each set

comprised of three books, from English 10 to English 12, accompanied by respective

student’s workbooks and teacher’s manuals.

The first drafts of this new series were completed in 2004 and began to be piloted in

some selected schools across Vietnam in the same year. English 10 and English 11

were approved and officially introduced into schools by MOET in the academic years

2006-2007 and 2007-2008, respectively. English 12 is being revised and will be

implemented nationwide from the next academic year 2008-2009.

As a teacher trainer and mentor to senior B.A TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign

Language) students in their school-based teaching practicum, I have worked quite

closely with the new textbooks. I have noticed that although the books have shown a

great deal of improvement as compared with the old series of grammar-based

textbooks, they also bear several limitations. These limitations may cause considerable

difficulty for teachers who wish to teach in a communicative way.

Firstly, the limitations lie in the seeming predominance of mechanical and meaningful

practice and a corresponding inadequacy of communicative practice. They also lie in

the unrealistic presentation and simplification of language use and the elimination of

13
many elements of genuine communication such as unpredictability and the need for

use of communicative strategies. Especially, the introduction and practice of discrete

grammatical points which do not serve the language functions taught in the units

could have made the books more structurally oriented than their authors would have

expected. The limitations of the new textbooks have motivated me to conduct this

study. Based on the findings, I hope to propose some practical implications for both

teachers and textbook authors in the process of adaptation and revision of the books.

1.3. Aims and scope of the project

This study seeks to evaluate the new English textbook series in terms of their

methodology and practicality. Specifically, it seeks to examine the communicative

nature of the textbooks and the ease of their use. That is, it seeks to answer such

questions as how the four language skills and language elements are taught and

practiced, whether all components of the communicative competence are catered for,

and how much guidance students and teachers are provided with in using the books.

As this is only a medium-sized scale study, a number of issues, though intriguing,

would be beyond the scope of inquiry and would be best dealt with in a further study,

for example, how language contents are sequenced and recycled from English 10 to

English 12 textbooks, whether the books are suitable to the different teaching and

learning contexts of different localities within Vietnam, and so on. Also, I will only

look at Set 1 because a recent MOET survey has shown that more than 80% of

Vietnamese upper secondary school students have been and will be using this set of

14
textbooks. In the sections to follow, this set of textbooks will be referred to as ‘the

new textbooks’ or ‘the standard textbooks’.

1.4. Significance of the project

This project can be significant in a number of ways. First, as discussed earlier, the

textbook is a key component in most language programs. In an EFL context like

Vietnam, it may even constitute the main source of language input that learners

receive and the basis for language practice that occurs both inside and outside the

classroom. For many Vietnamese senior high school learners, textbooks may even

help to supplement teachers’ instruction, which is constrained by less than three class

hours a week.

In order to serve their purposes most effectively, textbooks need to be professionally

designed, fit the curriculum and closely correspond with the aims of the teaching

program and the needs of the students. However, a close look at the MOET funded

new textbooks has indicated that there might be several problems with them. Thus,

teachers and learners working with the new textbooks might experience considerable

difficulty in achieving the ultimate goal of their teaching and learning program, which

is developing students’ communicative competence.

The current project helps to identify the problems and suggests ways of improving

them. This contribution would be of practical value to textbook authors, teachers and

teacher trainers in Vietnam. Besides, the project focuses on a teaching context that is

largely unheard of and under-represented in the world’s TESOL (Teaching English to

15
Speakers of Other Languages) scholarship. Therefore, for the scholars outside

Vietnam, the project report would be a rich source of information for their use and

reference.

1.5. Methods of the project

The major methods employed in this project included textbook analysis, teacher

survey and textbook author’s interview.

For the purpose of textbook analysis, an in-depth evaluation of the three books

English 10, English 11, and English 12 and their accompanying workbooks and

teacher’s manuals was conducted using the checklists provided by Cunningsworth

(1995) with some modifications. Cunningsworth (ibid)’s checklists were adopted

among the various available for practical purposes. They seem to be more

manageable within the time constraints of the project while still covering the most

important evaluation criteria (see Appendix 1 for the modified version).

Teacher survey (Appendix 2), on the other hand, enabled to collect teachers’ opinions

about the quality as well as practicality of the new textbooks. In designing the survey

I was more interested in the diversified opinions and comments from the teachers

than being able to quantify the data. Therefore, I used open-ended questions rather

than closed questions to allow for as much information to be provided as possible.

The survey was written in Vietnamese and included two parts. The first part gathered

demographic information about the respondents but carefully allowed for anonymity.

The second part consisted of five questions asking the respondents to comment on

16
the strengths and weaknesses of the new textbooks as well as the difficulties they

might have experienced in using the books. The respondents of the survey were 250

upper secondary school teachers and teacher trainers working in various provinces

and cities throughout the country. Data collection took place during July 2007 at the

two annual teacher training workshops organized by MOET in Ho Chi Minh city and

Nghe An province.

Finally, I also conducted a telephone interview with one of the textbook authors. My

purpose in conducting the interview was to understand the author’s underlying

philosophy about language teaching and materials development. This information

would help to explain my findings in a more objective manner. The interview lasted

approximately 30 minutes and I used note-taking techniques to record the

information.

In what follows, I will present and discuss the major findings (Chapter 2), draw

conclusion and propose recommendations for teachers and textbook authors

(Chapter 3).

17
Chapter 2: The new textbooks - An analysis and

evaluation

2.1. Overview of the national curriculum and syllabus for ELT

Before an analysis and evaluation of the new series of textbooks is offered, it would

be helpful to provide an overview of the national curriculum for ELT in secondary

school education and the syllabus for each grade.

In 2006 MOET issued a new curriculum which defines English as a compulsory

subject, which is “instrumental to the access of world science and technology as well

as world cultures” (MOET, 2006: 5). It describes the aims for ELT at secondary

school level as enabling students to:

1. “Use English as a means for basic communication both in spoken and written

channels.

2. Master basic and relatively systematic knowledge of English suited to their

levels of proficiency and ages.

3. Acquire some general understanding of the people and cultures of some

English-speaking countries and develop a positive attitude towards the people,

cultures and language of these countries; cultivate the pride in, love for and

respect to the Vietnamese culture and language”.

18
 (MOET 2006: 5)

In other words, ELT should train students in communicative competence so that

they can perform basic language functions receptively and productively, using correct

language forms and structures. Besides, it should also “educate students into both

good national and international citizens who are knowledgeable about the target

culture as well as their own national culture” (Le, 2007:4).

Methodologically, the new curriculum is claimed to adopt the communicative

approach to language teaching as its guiding principles and specifies that

1. Communication skills be the goal of the teaching and learning process;

linguistic knowledge be the means by which communication skills are formed

and developed.

2. Students play an active role in the teaching and learning process and teachers

be only organizers and guides.

3. Teaching contents be selected and organized according to themes to

guarantee a high level of communicativeness while catering to the accuracy of

the modern language system.

4. Textbook writing, management of teaching and learning, testing, assessment

and evaluation follow the curriculum guidelines.

(MOET 2006: 6)

19
The curriculum also specifies the teaching contents and class time allocation for each

grade. As mentioned earlier, the teaching contents are organized according to themes

in order to provide contexts for language skills, language elements and socio-cultural

knowledge to be taught and developed in an integrated manner. These themes are all

drawn from the contexts of students’ daily life such as home and school, health,

recreation, community and the world. The themes are recycled from grade to grade in

a cumulative and spiral manner, which means they are repeated at each higher grade

with increasing levels of difficulty to suit students’ intellectual and cognitive maturity

levels. Table 1 illustrates how the themes are introduced into Grade 6 through to

Grade 12. Table 2 describes the general objectives to achieve in each of these grades

(the detailed syllabus for each grade can be found in Appendix 3).

The curriculum guidelines specifies the following principles for the selection and

sequencing of topics, skills, language elements, instructional units, exercises and tasks

in ELT syllabuses:

 Contextualizing language via realistic communicative situations.

 Using materials that are authentic and applicable in real world communication.

 Ensuring an integration between the four language skills and integration

between language skills and language elements.

 Recycling language sufficiently and in a spiral manner.

20
  Tailoring teaching contents to suit learners’ ages, levels of general knowledge,

needs and preferences.

 Using materials and tasks that are stimulating and at students’ levels of

proficiency while still challenging enough.

(MOET 2006: 17)

Table 1: Themes covered in the new English curriculum

Themes 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
1. You and me/ Personal Information x x x x x x x
2. Education x x x x x x x
3.Community x x x x x x x
4. Health x x x x x x x
5. Recreation x x x x x x x
6. The world around us (I) x x x x
7. The world around Nature and x x x
us (II) Environment
People and places x x x

The total number of class hours for English education is illustrated in Table 3. In

upper secondary school the time allocation is 315 for the standard textbooks and 420

for the advanced ones (see Table 3). Each class hour is 45 minutes in length, called “a

period”.

The curriculum guidelines specify two forms of assessment: continuous and regular.

These include oral tests, fifteen-minute tests, 45-minute tests, end-of-semester tests

and end-of-year tests. The guidelines also emphasize that assessment should cover all

four language skills and language knowledge with weighting given equally to each.

21
Table 2: General objectives to achieve in Grade 6-Grade 9

Grade 6 Grade 7 Grade 8 Grade 9

L Understand simple classroom Understand the main ideas of Understand the main ideas and Understand the main ideas and
instructions and language. simple monologues or dialogues specific details of monologues or specific details of monologues or
Understand simple questions about the topics covered. dialogues about the topics dialogues about the topics
and answers or sentences of Understand the main ideas of covered. Understand monologues covered. Understand monologues
40-60 words in length about monologues or dialogues of 40-60 or dialogues of 80-100 words in or dialogues of 100-120 words in
basic personal information, words in length, delivered at a low length, delivered at a relatively length, delivered at a relatively
family and school. speed. low speed. low speed.
S Ask and answer about basic Ask and answer about basic Ask and answer about, describe, Ask and answer about, describe,
personal information, family personal information, studies, and explain personal information, explain, and present personal
and school. Perform some recreation activities and daily studies, and recreation activities. opinions about the topics
basic communicative activities. Perform some basic Perform some basic covered. Perform some basic
functions and notions such as communicative functions such as communicative functions such as communicative functions such as
greeting, ordering and expressing intentions, inviting, informing, presenting, requesting, suggesting, persuading and so on.
following order, talking about advising, giving feedback, arranging accepting or refusing requests,
the position of objects, asking appointments, asking and giving promising and so on.
and answering about time, direction and so on.
describing people and
weather.
R Understand simple dialogues Understand simple dialogues or Understand the main ideas and Understand the main ideas and
or monologues of 50-70 monologues of 80-100 words about specific details of texts of 110-140 specific details of texts of 150-180
words in length about the the topics covered. words in length about the topics words about the topics covered.
topics covered. covered. Understand basic punctuation
and cohesive devices.
W Write simple sentences of 40- Write passages of 50-60 words Write passages of 60-80 words Write passages of 60-80 words
50 words about the topics about the topics covered or letters about the topics covered based about the topics covered based
covered. of invitation and acceptance. on prompts or thank-you letters on prompts or fill forms, write
Rewrite what has been orally or letters of invitation and so on. messages, invitation letters or
produced. personal letters.

16
Table 2 (continued): General objectives to achieve in Grade 10-Grade 12

Grade 10 Grade 11 Grade 12

Listening Understand the main ideas and details of Understand the main ideas and details of Understand the main ideas and details of
monologues/ dialogues of 120-150 monologues/ dialogues of 150-180 words monologues/ dialogues of 180-200 words
words on the 6 topics covered. on the 6 topics covered. Understand texts on the 6 topics covered. Understand texts
Understand texts that are delivered at a that are delivered at a relatively near-natural that are delivered at a near-natural speed.
slow speed. speed.
Speaking Ask and answer about the topics Ask and answer about the topics covered. Ask and answer about the topics covered.
covered. Perform some basic language Perform some basic language functions Perform some basic language functions
functions such as giving instruction, such as expressing likes and dislikes, such as expressing opinions &
expressing opinions, asking direction, agreement and disagreement, distinguishing viewpoints, talking about needs and likes,
asking and giving information, etc. facts and opinions. explaining.
Reading Understand the main ideas and details of Understand the main ideas and details of Understand the main ideas and details of
texts of 190-230 words on the topics texts of 240-270 words on the topics texts of 280-320 words on the topics
covered. Develop vocabulary strategies: covered. Develop vocabulary strategies: covered. Distinguish main ideas and
using words in contexts, dictionary skills,
using words in contexts, dictionary skills, supporting ideas. Use main ideas to
etc. etc. Recognize grammatical elements and summarize texts.
discourse markers.
Writing Write texts of 100-120 words on familiar Write texts of 120-130 words on familiar Write texts of 130-150 words on familiar
topics based on models or prompts for topics based on models or prompts for topics based on models or prompts for
personal or basic communicative personal or basic communicative purposes personal or basic communicative
purposes. purposes.

(MOET 2006: 19-25)

17
Table 3: Time allocation for ELT in Lower and Upper Secondary school

Lower Secondary Upper Secondary

Grade Grade Grade Grade Grade 10 Grade 11 Grade 12
6 7 8 9 Set 1 Set 2 Set 1 Set 2 Set 1 Set 2
Periods/ 3 3 3 2 3 4 3 4 3 4
Week
Weeks/ 35 35 35 35 35 35 35 35 35 35
Year
Periods/ 105 105 105 70 105 140 105 140 105 140
Year

2.2. Overview of the textbooks

The three textbooks English 10, English 11, and English 12 were developed based on

the new national curriculum, which was in the draft form at the time they were

written. As mentioned earlier, the books are claimed to adopt a theme-based syllabus.

However, this syllabus may be more appropriately described as a ‘multi-strand’ one

since there is almost everything in it: topics, tasks, functions, notions, skills, grammar,

vocabulary and sounds. The methodologies the books are claimed to follow are the

“learner-centered approach and the communicative approach with task-based

teaching being the central teaching method” (English 10, Teacher’s Manual: 12). The

teaching contents for each unit are summarized in a book map which is provided on

the first page of each book. Each of the textbooks is accompanied with cassette

tapes, student’s workbook and teacher’s manual.

There are 16 teaching units and six review units in each book. Each teaching unit

covers a topic (see Table 4) and is structured into five sections: Reading, Speaking,

18
Listening, Writing and Language Focus. Each section is supposed to be taught in one

period of 45 minutes. According to the textbook author that I interviewed, Reading

skills are dealt with first and foremost in a unit because the authors expect to use the

reading text to provide language input and ideas for practice of other language skills.

There is a glossary at the end of each textbook. The glossary contains both phonetic

transcription and Vietnamese translation for each entry. The phonetic transcription is

based on the system of transcription symbols found in Oxford Advanced Learner

Dictionary (7th edition) (English 10: 4; English 11: 4).

The Reading section is structured according to the conventional stages of a reading

lesson. It begins with one or two Before you read activities, the aim of which is to

introduce students to the topic, activate their background knowledge of the topic,

motivate them to read and elicit new vocabulary. It then presents a short text

followed by 2-3 While you read activities, the aim of which is to develop reading skills

and strategies such as scanning, skimming and guessing meaning in context. The

section ends with one or two After you read activities to offer students some further

practice, e.g. oral or written language production.

The Speaking section consists of 3-4 activities, termed “tasks” by the textbook

authors (however, my analysis suggests that not all of these ‘tasks’ correspond to the

concept of tasks as used by Willis 1996, Skehan 1996, Long 2001, and Ellis 2003. See

2.3.2 for more detail.). The first and second activities provide language input and

develop specific language functions such as expressing opinions, agreements and

19
disagreements. The remaining activities involve short talks on a specific topic possibly

with or without prompts.

Table 4: Topics in English 10, English 11 and English 12

Unit English 10 English 11 English 12

1 A day in the life of … Friendship Home life

2 School talks Personal experiences Cultural diversity
3 People’s background A party Ways of socializing
4 Special education Volunteer work School education system
5 Technology and you Illiteracy Higher education
6 An excursion Competitions Future jobs
7 The mass media World population Economic reforms
8 The history of my Celebrations Life in the future
village
9 Undersea world The post office Deserts
10 Conservation Nature in danger Endangered species
11 National parks Sources of energy Books
12 Music The Asian Games Water sports
13 Films and cinema Hobbies The 22nd SEAGAMES
14 The world cup Recreation International
organizations
15 Cities Space conquest Women in society
16 Historical places The wonder of the The association of South
world East Asia nations

Like the Reading section, the Listening section is also structured into three stages.

Before you listen activities aim to motivate students to listen, activate their background

knowledge and provide vocabulary. While you listen activities develop such micro-skills

as listening for general understanding, listening for specific or detailed information

and take the form of matching exercises, True-False questions, multiple choice

questions, or open-ended questions. After you listen activities often involve text

20
summary or reproduction in oral or written forms, and/or further discussion of the

topic.

The Writing section may begin with a model, followed by activities that guide

students through the writing process such as model analysis, language work, and

guided writing. The text types students are required to produce vary from personal

and formal letters to narratives, chart, graph and table description and expository

essays.

The Language Focus section comprises two parts, Pronunciation and Grammar and

Vocabulary. The Pronunciation component focuses on practice of sounds (vowels,

consonants, and clusters) that might present difficulty to students, basic stress

patterns, rhythm and intonation. These features are firstly practiced as discrete forms

and then repeated in sentences. The Grammar and Vocabulary component aims to

consolidate the target forms covered in the unit. Despite the claim made in the

preface of the books that the forms are to be practiced both in exercises and

communicative situations, this practice, however, is de-contextualized and non-

communicative (see 2.4.1 for more detail).

The six review units, called “Test Yourself”, aim to help students assess their own

progress and serve as sample tests for teachers when designing 45 minute tests for

their classes. Each review has four main components: Listening, Reading, Writing and

Language Focus. No speaking practice is included.

21
As mentioned earlier, the three textbooks are accompanied by student’s workbooks

and teacher’s manuals. Like the student’s textbooks, each workbook consists of 16

units structured into four sections: Reading, Language Focus, Speaking and Writing.

The workbooks are constructed based on the same topics as the textbooks. Each

teacher’s manual comprises three main parts: introduction to the English syllabus,

overview of the textbook, and lesson plan guidelines with keys to exercises.

In general, a brief glance at the new textbooks seems to suggest that they have a clear

organizational structure, which can be very helpful for teachers in conducting their

lessons and students in managing self-study. There is an adequate number of review

units, which means students have the opportunity for regular revision and self-

assessment. More importantly, the books seem to cover all four language skills

adequately and allow for an integration of skills at the pre and post stages. Thus, they

seem to look more communicative than the old series which focus almost on reading

and grammar. However, as many tasks are poorly designed and many language forms

are taught and practiced out of context, the book may not actually be as

communicative as they are intended to be. In the following sections, I will analyze

and evaluate the teaching of language skills and language elements to examine the

communicative nature of the textbooks in greater depth.

22
2.3. The teaching of language skills

2.3.1. Reading skills

Table 5 indicates that on average, there are 1.3 texts per unit, which seems to be an

appropriate amount of workload for both teachers and students. A comparison of

the textbooks and workbooks shows that the former contains fewer texts than the

latter. For example, the number of texts per unit is 1.1 for English 10 textbook and 1.0

for English 11 and English 12. In contrast, this figure is 1.6 for English 10 workbook

and 1.7 for English 11 and English 12. This is justifiable because the limited class time

does not allow for too much reading to be covered but at home students may have

more time for this.

Looking at the text length, the workbooks also seem to present longer texts. English

10 workbook, for example, contains texts of 200-300 words whereas the word limit

for a text in English 10 textbook is only between 180 and 220. English 11 workbook

presents texts of 250-350 words and English 11 textbook 240-270 words. Similarly,

the word limit ranges between 250-350 for English 12 workbook and over 300 words

for English 12 textbook. These lengths suggest that the type of reading required for

students is more of intensive rather than extensive nature.

A close investigation of the Reading sections indicates that the reading texts are not

necessarily stylistically various (see Table 5). The texts are claimed to be adapted from

different sources: stories, essays, small talks, letters, TV programs, and leaflet

information. However, essays tend to predominate (113 out of 148 texts) and the

23
other types tend to be under-represented. This is especially the case of English 11 and

English 12. The lack of variety of text types may cause boredom to students,

especially if they are not highly motivated readers. Apparently, while we certainly do

not want to overload students with too much stylistic variety at too early a stage,

some degree of diversity may help to both increase students’ enjoyment and

familiarize them with a wider range of genres, thus better preparing them for real

world reading.

Table 5: Distribution of text types per unit

English 10 English 11 English 12 Total

SB WB SB WB SB WB
Essays 14 20 16 20 21 22 113
Stories 4 5 5 5 1 3 23
Small talks 3 1 0 2 0 2 8
Letters 1 0 0 0 0 0 1
TV programs 1 0 0 0 0 0 1
Leaflet information 1 0 1 0 0 0 2
Total number of texts 24 26 22 27 22 27 148
Total number of units 22 16 22 16 22 16 114
Mean number of texts 1.1 1.6 1.0 1.7 1.0 1.7 1.3
per unit

As mentioned earlier, following each reading text there are 3-4 activities to help

students develop reading skills and strategies and reflect on the topic. The While you

read activities normally take the form of multiple-choice questions, open-ended

questions, gap-fill, True or False questions, and matching headings with paragraphs.

The After you read activities often require students to retell the story or summarize the

24
text in either oral or written form, and/ or discuss the topic further, relating it to their

own experience.

A close look at the types of micro-skills and strategies developed through while-

reading activities reveals that the three textbooks and their workbooks mostly focus

on reading for specific information (68/257 activities) and detailed understanding

(117/257 activities) (see Table 6). Reading for gist and guessing meaning in context,

though explicitly spelled out both in the syllabus and the book map of each book, are

not appropriately dealt with. Table 6 shows that only 16 out of 257 activities provide

a chance for practice in reading for gist. Even fewer activities (9/257) offer a chance

for practicing guessing meaning of unfamiliar words. In fact, many activities are

claimed to develop guessing skills but they hardly help to do so. This is mostly

because the activities are not properly designed. In some activities, there are

insufficient contextual clues for the guess work to be possible. In others, all what

students are requited to do is to translate the words into their mother tongue, which

could be simply done with the help of a dictionary.

Consider these two examples:

Example 1:

Task 1: The words in the box all appear in the passage. Fill each blank with a suitable
word.
mysterious ramp tomb
chamber spiral wonder

1. Last week we paid a visit to the ………………. of an unknown mandarin.

2. The movie was about a …………………… of the world.

25
3. A …………………… is needed at the exit and the entrance for wheelchairs users.
4. The Queen’s private …………………… is not opened to public.
5. It’s not known why Beson disappeared in ……………………. circumstances.
6. A snail’s shell is …………………… in form.
(English 11: 180)

Example 2

Task 1: give the Vietnamese equivalents to the following words and phrases:

human civilization …………… deep-seated cultural beliefs…………

child-bearing ………………… homemaking…. ..…………………..
involvement………………. … intellectual ability …..………………
Age of Enlightenment………… equal work opportunity ...…………..
(English 12: 151)

In Example 1, the six words mysterious, chamber, ramp, spiral, tomb, and wonder all occur

in the reading text but not all of them are guessable in the provided context. The

words ramp and spiral, for instance, occurring in a paragraph about the construction of

the Pyramids, would require some certain specialist knowledge to understand:

“Although it is not known how the blocks were put in place, several theories have been proposed.

One theory involves the construction of a straight or spiral ramp that was raised as the

construction proceeded. A second theory suggests that the blocks were lifted and placed using

thousands of huge weight arms’ (ibid: 179).

In order to enable students to guess these words, the exercise therefore should have

incorporated more contextual clues.

In Example 2, students are not encouraged to go back to the text, locate the instances

of the words and try to understand their meaning. On the contrary, they are only

26
asked to translate the words; thus they might just look the words up in a dictionary

for convenience.

Table 6 also shows that important micro-skills such as making inferences,

understanding references, understanding discourse markers, understanding text

organization, recognizing author’s purposes and attitudes, and summarizing are rather

under-represented in the books. For example, making inferences is dealt with in only

12 out of 257 activities, understanding references in three activities, understanding

text organization in one activity, recognizing author’s purposes and attitudes in two

activities and understanding discourse markers, though spelled out in the syllabus, is

not catered to at all. Summarizing skills are most often practiced at the post-stage.

The chance to practice these skills occurs only once in the while-stage.

Indeed, a close examination of the comprehension questions shows that most of

them are rather ‘straightforward’ and factual in nature, therefore requiring just literal

or surface understanding of the text. As a result, in extreme cases, many can be

answered by coping out the sentences in the text without any real language

reproduction. Very few questions actually require processing of the text at a deeper

level, for example, bringing different pieces of information together to give a

complete answer (i.e. summarizing), or reading between the lines (inferring,

understanding author’s attitudes and so on). This poses a serious limitation because

real world reading involves more than just literal understanding of factual,

straightforward information (Cunningsworth 1995).

27
Table 6: Micro-skills developed through while-reading exercises and tasks

English 10 English 11 English 12 Total

SB WB SB WB SB WB
Reading for gist 3 0 6 3 3 1 16
Reading for specific 8 12 9 16 12 11 68
information
Reading for detailed 22 14 23 15 24 19 117
understanding
Guessing meaning in context 1 5 0 2 0 1 9
Understanding references 0 0 1 0 1 1 3
Making inferences 1 5 2 0 0 4 12
Understanding discourse 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
markers
Understanding text 0 1 0 0 0 0 1
organization
Recognizing author’s purposes 1 1 0 0 0 0 2
and attitudes
Summarizing 0 1 0 0 0 0 1
Number of activities 48 34 50 37 51 37 257
Number of units 22 16 22 16 22 16 114

2.3.2. Speaking skills

Table 7 demonstrates the distribution of speaking activities in the three textbooks and

students’ workbooks. Overall, the textbooks contain nearly twice as many activities as

the workbooks. For example, English 10 textbook presents an average of 3 activities

per unit but English 10 workbook presents only half this number. Similarly, the

average number of activities per unit is 3.1 for English 11 and English 12 textbooks but

only 1.7 and 1.6 for the respective workbooks. The figures seem to suggest that there

is not much emphasis on speaking skills in the workbooks.

28
Table 7: Distribution of speaking activities

English 10 English 11 English 12 Total

SB WB SB WB SB WB
No. of units 16 16 16 16 16 16 96
No. of activities 48 25 50 27 49 26 225
No. of activities per 3.0 1.5 3.1 1.7 3.1 1.6 2.3
unit
No. of information- 29 4 24 5 23 3 68
gap activities
No. of information 1.8 0.2 1.5 0.8 1.4 0.2 0.7
gap activities per unit

Among the 225 speaking activities taught in three textbooks and workbooks, only 68

are information-gap activities (the term “information-gap” is used in this paper to

refer to all types of communicative activities that are based on the information-gap

principle such as opinion-sharing, reasoning-gap, information- gathering activities and

so on). That is, on average, there is less than one information-gap activity per unit.

The remaining activities might be described as quasi-communicative because they do

not involve an exchange of real information or expression of real feelings, opinions

and so on. Thus, they do not tend to present elements of genuine communication

such as unpredictability and cooperation between speakers in communicative

interaction. Nor do they tend to reflect interactional authenticity because there is

hardly any opportunity for negotiation of meaning and use of communicative

strategies.

Consider the following examples:

29
Task 2: Work in groups. Take turns to talk about the sports results of the

Vietnamese athletes at 14th Asian Games, using the information from the table

below.

Medal standing (Vietnam) 14th Asian Games held in 2002 in Busan, Korea

Sport Number of medals

Bodybuilding 1 gold, 1 bronze
Billiards 1 gold, 1 silver
Karatedo 2 gold, 1 bronze
Shooting 1 Bronze
Wushu 1 bronze, 1 silver

Example: In bodybuilding, the Vietnamese athletes won one gold medal and one bronze medal.

(English 11: 140)

Task 2: Complete the following conversation with suitable words, phrases or

sentences in the box and then practice it with a partner.

What’s matter with you

awful/ tired/ sick/ cold
a headache/ a cold/ backache/ toothache
You should/ You’d better go home and have a rest

A: Hello, Hoa. You don’t look very happy. ……………………….. ?

B: Hi, Nam. I feel ………………….. . I’ve got ……………………

A: Sorry to hear that. ……………………………………………….

B: Yes. That’s a great idea. Goodbye, Nam.

A: See you later.

(English 10: 25)

30
Task 2: A foreign visitor has taken some notes about President Ho Chi Minh’s

Mausoleum. Ask and answer questions with a partner, using his notes.

Example:

A: Where is President Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum situated?

B: It is situated in Ba Dinh District in Hanoi.

A: When did the construction of the Mausoleum start?

B: It started in September 1973.

PRESIDENT HO CHI MINH’S MAUSOLEUM

● Place: Ba Dinh District, Hanoi

● Built in September 1973, completed in August 1975

● 1st floor: a stand for important meetings organized at Ba Dinh Square, 2nd floor:
where the late president is lying, 3rd floor: the roof

● Visiting hours: 7:30 – 10:30 a.m. in summer and 8:00 – 11:00 a.m. in winter. Every
day except Monday and Friday.

● Usually closed September 5 – December 10 for maintenance

● No photography allowed inside

(English 10: 169)

Clearly, none of the above activities provide a chance for genuine exchange of

information or opinions. In the first activity, students listen to one another talking

about things they already know. In the second activity, they even do not need to

speak but only fill the dialogue with given phrases and read it aloud in pairs. In the

final activity, students possess the same information and thus there is no reason for

asking the questions. Activities of this type seem to reflect more of classroom use of

31
language than the natural use of language and do not involve students in realistic

communication. While it is absolutely appropriate to include activities that engage

students in developing accuracy like above, what textbooks also need to seek is a

good balance of both accuracy-focused and fluency-focused activities. Unfortunately,

however, accuracy-focused activities tend to predominate in these books (157 out of

225).

The use of information-gap activities in second language classrooms is crucial

because it gets learners to use the language they are learning to interact in realistic and

meaningful ways (Richards 2005). An information gap activity focuses on two aspects

- attention to information (but not to language forms) and the necessity of

communicative interaction to reach the objective. It reflects real world

communication in which people communicate to get the information they do not

process. Furthermore, one of the goals of communicative language teaching (CLT) is

to develop fluency in language use (Richards 2005). Information-gap activities help to

develop fluency by engaging students in meaningful, comprehensible and ongoing

communication in which they should negotiate meaning, use communicative

strategies, correct misunderstanding and work to avoid communication breakdown.

Thus, the under-representation of activities of this type in the three textbooks and

workbooks seems to pose a serious threat to their communicativeness.

Explaining for this limitation, the textbook author that I interviewed said that he and

his team were aware of the notion of information gap in CLT; however, since they

32
were also aware of the low levels of proficiency of the target student population, they

decided to aim low, which was to get students to start speaking English even in a

tightly controlled manner. This seemed to contradict the claimed methodology of the

books, which is “communicative” and “task-based” (English 10 Teacher’s Manual:

15).

Another close look at the speaking activities also suggests that they do not seem to

reflect the nature of communicative interaction in respect of structure of discourse in

interactions. Most model dialogues suffer a serious lack of elements of authentic

discourse such as openers, confirmation checkers, pre-closers, back-channeling and

fillers (hmm, ah, oh, well). What is more, insertion sequences, though prevalent in

natural conversations, do not occur once in the textbook dialogues. For example, this

dialogue represents a simple sequence of questions and answers, which do rarely take

place in reality even for the most straightforward conversations (Cunningsworth

1995):

A: I think married women should not go to work.

B: I quite agree. I think if they stay at home, they have time to look after their
children and husbands.

C: I don’t agree. It’s too boring to be housewives all their lives.

(English 12: 154)

Although such conversations are useful building blocks for learning conversation

skills (Cunningsworth, ibid.), they do not necessarily reflect natural conversations. In

33
real-life conversations people tend to interrupt their interlocutors more often, for

example:

A: Where did you get this wine from?

B: Do you like it?

A: I expect it was expensive.

B: Not at all!

A: Yes it’s good.

B: Well, it was only from the supermarket on the corner.

(Cunningsworth, ibid: 128)

At pre-intermediate level and above, students should have little difficulty in handling

insertion sequences because these also occur in their mother tongues. Thus, such an

oversimplification of language use might be more inhibiting than being helpful in

preparing students for real life interaction. Discourse is dynamic and certainly not “a

pre-determined series of (…) sentences” as textbooks tend to present them

(Cunningsworth, ibid: 129).

Looking at the teaching of communicative functions, it was found that the three

books tended to give adequate emphasis on this aspect of CLT. Table 8 shows a total

number of 27 functions that are taught and practiced. These range from quite basic

ones such as opening a conversation, closing a conversation and exclaiming to more

challenging ones such as agreeing, disagreeing, requesting, apologizing and so on.

Among the three books, English 10 presents more functions (20/27) than both English

34
11 (15/27) and English 12 (8/27). On average, 1.3 functions are taught in a unit in

English 10 whereas the corresponding figures are only 0.9 and 0.5 for English 11 and

English 12, respectively. While these figures might not be very high, the mean

frequency of recurrence of a function in tasks is, however, quite high for all three

books. For example, one function might recur 3.2 times in English 10, 3.8 in English

11 and 3.9 in English 12 (Table 9). This seems to suggest an adequate representation

of communicative functions in the three textbooks.

Table 8: Range of communicative functions

English 10 English 11 English 12

SB WB SB WB SB WB
1. Agreeing x x x x
2. Disagreeing x x x
3. Asking opinions x x x x
4. Giving opinions x x x x x
5. Opening a conversation x x x
6. Closing a conversation x
7. Suggesting x x x x
8. Accepting suggestions x x
9. Complaining x x
10. Apologizing x
11. Expressing regrets x
12. Responding to bad news x
13. Comforting x
14. Inviting x x
15. Accepting invitations x x
16. Declining invitations/ x
offer
17. Requesting x x x
18. Responding to requests x
19. Persuading x
20. Predicting x
21. Thanking x x

35
Table 8: continued

English 10 English 11 English 12

SB WB SB WB SB WB
22. Responding to thanks x
23. Complimenting x x
24. Responding to x
compliments
25. Asking for advice x
26. Advising x
27. Exclaiming x
Total number of CFs 20 15 8

Table 9: Distribution of communicative functions

English 10 English 11 English 12

Total number of units 16 16 16
Total number of CFs 20 15 8
Number of CFs per unit 1.3 0.9 0.5
Total frequencies of 64 58 31
recurrence in tasks
Mean frequency of 3.2 3.8 3.9
recurrence

When looking at the contextual and linguistic presentation of the different

communicative functions, however, the findings seem to suggest an inadequate

treatment. Firstly, the 27 functions, either presented in dialogues or taught as lists of

useful expressions, tend to be taught and practiced out of context (Table 10). That is,

there is no information about the relationship between the speakers, e.g. how close

they feel to one another and how likely one can impose wants on the others. Nor is

there a description of the contextual variables that might help to judge the degree of

imposition of the communicative functions involved, i.e. how ‘threatening’ the

performed communicative functions might be perceived to be within a particular

36
culture. For example, in this activity students are required to act out as villagers

discussing the plan to improve their village. The functions that taught and practiced

in the activity include asking and giving opinions, agreeing and disagreeing. However,

the activity does not include any specific information about the degree of familiarity

and solidarity as well as the relative power between the ‘villagers’:

Task 2: The villagers are discussing their plans. Read and practice the conversation in

groups of three.

A: I know what we should do first. We should widen the roads.

B: That’s a good idea. If the roads are widened, cars and lorries can get to our village.

C: Yes. And if lorries can get to the village, we won’t have to cart heavy loads of
farming products to the city.

A: And we should also resurface and raise the roads.

B: Yes. If we resurface and raise the roads, they won’t be flooded and muddy when it
rains.

C: And the villagers will be able to get around more easily, too.

(English 10: 85)

Table 10: Contextual presentation of communicative functions

English 10 English 11 English 12

Not presented 1/20 1/15 0/8
Presented in dialogues/ short 18/20 14/15 7/8
exchanges
Presented as (a list of) separate 4/20 2/15 4/8
expressions
Explicit description of Own roles 0/3 0/3 0/4
contexts Role play 0/20 0/14 0/5

37
According to Brown and Levinson (1978, 1987), there are at least three factors that

help one decide how to go about achieving politeness in using communicative

functions. These include the relative social power (P) and social distance (D) between

the speakers and the ranking of imposition of the functions involved (R). The

absence of this information would make it unlikely for speakers to perform a

communicative function successfully.

In some cases, the relationship between the speakers can be inferred from their roles

(e.g. customer and salesperson, father and son, patient and doctor). However, the

textbooks seem to offer little attempt, either explicit or implicit, to draw students’

attention to this variable and its effects on the use of communicative functions.

Unfortunately, the teacher’s manuals also do not provide guidance on how to present

the dialogues more communicatively.

An analysis of the linguistic presentation of the communicative functions in the

books tends to indicate that this presentation might not necessarily be always realistic.

Firstly, most dialogues in which different communicative functions are presented

tend to be short exchanges (between two and four turns). In real-life interaction, the

performance of face-damaging functions might involve extensive negotiation and

turn-taking and be normally prefaced with supportive moves such as positive remarks

or disarmers in order to reduce the potential face-threat to the hearer (Nguyen 2005).

Furthermore, many functions are also not presented in the way native speakers might

38
use them. For example, English 12 teaches a quite high level of directness in

expressing one’s agreements and disagreements:

Task 1: Study the expressions and practice saying them aloud.

Giving your opinion I think, I believe, In my opinion, From my point of view, As

I see it …

Strongly agreeing I quite agree, I agree with you completely, Absolutely, That’s
right!

Partly agreeing Well, I see your point but …, I don’t quite agree, To a certain
extent, yes, but …

Disagreeing I don’t agree, I’m afraid I disagree. That’s wrong, That’s not
true!

Strongly disagreeing What nonsense! What rubbish! I completely disagree!

(English 12: 153)

None the less, these expressions tend to rarely occur in a native speaker corpus that I

collected (Nguyen 2005). In this corpus, most disagreements are normally prefaced

with a token agreement, followed by the conjunction “but” to signal contrastive ideas

and then the speaker’s own opinion. E.g.:

Yes, but …
But …
I think …
Well, maybe but …
Well, my feeling is …

The question of whether communicative functions should be taught based on NS

models and what NS variety this instruction should follow is intriguing, especially in

39
the case of World Englishes. Researchers such as Ellis (1994), Hinkel (1996), Siegal

(1996) and Kasper (1997) have pointed out that non-native speakers (NNS) do not

always desire to totally converge with NS pragmatic behavior (i.e. how to perform

communicative functions). On the contrary, they may only attempt at becoming

competent L2 users while maintaining their own cultural identity. In fact, Giles,

Coupland, and Coupland’s (1991) cited in Kasper (ibid.) have made a valid claim that

in many situations successful communication means optimal rather than total

convergence. On these grounds, therefore, it seems that L2 teaching needs to allow

for students’ subjectivity and social claims. However, this does not necessarily imply

that instructional materials should not provide students with realistic language use.

On the contrary, students still need this information in order to make informed

choices that both fit their systems of values and beliefs and do not break

communication.

In the case of English, the fact that a number of NS varieties exist might complexify

the decision of which variety to introduce into teaching materials. Furthermore, the

status of English as a global language today seems to invalidate the extreme NS-NNS

distinction and the assumption of NS ownership of the language. This new

development in the role of English has brought about a number of implications for

textbook writers. In the case of ELT in Asian context, for example, we may think of

Asian English varieties which textbook writers might also draw on besides the other

varieties (Cane, personal communication).

40
Finally, the findings seem to suggest an inadequate amount of meta-pragmatic

information which is included for each communicative function. Meta-pragmatic

information is about when it is appropriate to perform a particular function and what

expression would be appropriate in a particular situation. Indeed, out of 27 functions

that are taught, meta-pragmatic information is available only for agreements and

disagreements. However, this information is not provided until students study English

12. Also, the information is only concerning the degree of agreements and

disagreements. No explanation is given regarding when and to whom different

expressions can be used.

Other important and potentially face-damaging functions such as ‘advising’,

‘suggesting’, ‘complaining’, ‘requesting’, ‘declining an invitation’ (Brown & Levinson,

1978, 1987) are not presented with essential meta-pragmatic information.

Nevertheless, informal talks with teachers revealed they rarely supplemented this

information.

2.3.3. Listening skills

Like the reading skills, the listening skills are taught and practiced in these books

using both top-down and bottom-up processes. The Listening section begins with a

few Before you listen activities that encourage students to draw on their schematic and

contextual knowledge to make good predictions and focus their attention on the

topic. The activities also aim to pre-teach students new vocabulary that occurs in the

41
listening materials. The While you listen activities provide practice in such micro-skills

as listening for gist, listening for specific information, listening for detailed

understanding, note-taking, and inferring meaning from context.

Table 11: Distribution of while-listening activities and micro-skills they develop

English 10 English 11 English 12 Total

General 5 0 0 5
understanding
Specific 10 11 8 29
information
Detailed 28 28 35 91
understanding
Making 0 0 2 2
inferences
Note-taking 3 2 3 8
No. of units 22 22 22 66
No. of activities 42 38 39 119

Table 11 indicates that among the micro-skills that are developed, listening for

detailed understanding is given greatest emphasis, being practiced in 91/119 activities.

Listening for specific information ranks the second, being practiced in 29/119

activities. Listening for gist, though spelled out in the syllabus requirements, seems

under-represented, being taught only in English 10 via 5/119 activities. Important

micro-skills such as deducing/ inferring meaning from context, note-taking while

listening, recognizing function and discourse patterns/ markers are almost absent in

the books.

A close inspection of the questions that are asked in while-listening activities suggests

that like the reading questions discussed in 2.3.1, most listening questions also tend to

42
be rather factual, straightforward and do not tend to require processing of the

information at a deep level. Listening in the real life would be more challenging than

just extracting factual information. Thus, in order to prepare students for real world

listening, the comprehension questions might need to be made more challenging to

allow for practice in important skills such as deducing meaning.

2.3.4. Writing skills

Table 12: Distribution of writing activities

English 10 English 11 English 12 Total

SB WB SB WB SB WB
Preparation 20 1 9 2 16 0 48
work
Controlled 7 13 1 8 2 12 43
writing
Guided writing 7 2 7 3 3 4 26
Free writing 13 4 15 9 18 7 66
No. of activities 47 20 32 22 39 23 183
No. of units 22 16 22 16 22 16 114

The types of texts that students are taught and made to practice in the three books

are quite varied, ranging from forms, postcards, letters, and announcements to mini-

biographies, narratives, table descriptions, and expository essays. The writing

approach adopted in the books seems to be product-oriented in nature as emphasis

seems to be placed on the end-result of writing rather than the process of writing

itself. A brief look at the Writing section shows that it normally begins with some

preparation work in which students are required to analyze task requirements, work

on models, or generate ideas. It may then proceed with one or two controlled or/ and

43
guided writing activities and end with a freer writing activity. In this way, students are

engaged in imitating, copying and transforming models of correct language texts to

the new writing task. There seems to be no explicit emphasis on the process of

planning, drafting, revision, and editing.

Table 12 illustrates the distribution of different types of writing activities in the

books. Among the 183 writing activities included in 114 units, 66 are for free writing

practice, accounting for 36%. That is, there is an average of only 0.5 free writing

activity per unit. Given that the goal of teaching writing in CLT is to enable learners

to become independent and effective writers, the textbooks would have been

expected to offer more chance for free writing practice than they do at present.

A qualitative investigation into the writing activities suggests that not all provide

adequate and effective scaffolding for students. For example, in Unit 7 English 10

students learn how to write paragraphs about the advantages and disadvantages of

mass media. They are scaffolded through three activities. In the first activity, they

read a set of sentences about the advantages and disadvantages of television. The

purpose is to gather ideas and learn vocabulary and structures. In the second activity

they work in pairs to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the different mass

media including radio, newspaper and the Internet. The purpose is to generate ideas

for the free writing task which comes afterward where they write a paragraph about

the advantages and disadvantages of one of the mass media discussed earlier. It

should be noted that paragraph writing is a new task type for most students since it is

44
taught only from Grade 10 and Unit 7 is the first unit in which this genre is taught.

However, neither of the prewriting activities teaches the structure of the paragraph

(topic sentence, supporting ideas, cohesive devices and coherence). Nor do they teach

the process of organizing ideas into a good piece of writing. Apparently, writing

involves more than putting ideas into sentences and without adequate prior

preparation (e.g. instruction about paragraph writing, working on models, controlled

and guided practice, and so on), this writing task would probably be too challenging

and perhaps even beyond students’ ability.

Writing

Task 1: Read about the advantages and disadvantages of television below.

Advantages
 Television helps us to learn more
about the world and to know and
see many new things
 Television can make things
memorable because it presents
information in an effective way.
 It entertains us. Watching it is an
enjoyable way to relax.
 It increases the popularity of
sports and games.
 It makes us aware of our global
responsibility.
Disadvantages
 Television can make us passive.
We don’t have to think so our
brains become lazy.
 It encourages us to buy things that
we don’t need.
 It takes time away from activities
such as reading and games.
 Some television programs may
make people violent.
 Television interferes with family
life and communication.

45
Task 2: Work in pairs. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the mass media,

and write them down in the column below.

Advantages Disadvantages
Radio
Newspapers
The Internet

Task 3: Write a paragraph about the advantages and disadvantages of one of the

mass media discussed in Task 2.

(English 10: 78-79)

Finally, looking at the communicative nature of the writing activities, it is found that

many of them do not specify the readership and the purpose for writing. In real life,

writing is done with a readership and purpose in mind and writers need to know who

they write for so that they can choose the appropriate register. They also need to

decide how much knowledge of the topic their readers might have so that they will

not patronize or confuse their readers (Cunningsworth 1995). Unfortunately, this

aspect of writing has been somewhat overlooked in the books, making many writing

tasks rather unrealistic.

46
2.4. The teaching of language elements

2.4.1. Grammar

The teaching of grammar is perhaps the most problematic part in the books given

consideration. Despite the claim about the communicative and task-based approaches

underlying the books, however, grammar seems to be taught and practiced out of

context in most units.

Ellis (2003) distinguishes ‘task-based teaching’ and ‘task-supported’ teaching. The

former represents a strong version of CLT while the latter represents a weak version.

In task-based teaching, attention to form occurs within the context of performing the

tasks. In contrast, in task-supported teaching, forms may be pre-taught and then

practiced further in communicative tasks. In both types of instruction, grammar

needs to be practiced via communicative tasks which focus primarily on meaning.

However, a careful analysis of the books tends to demonstrate that this is not

necessarily the case for all target forms. Of 80 structures that are taught, only 47

occur in the reading or listening materials, or practiced in speaking or writing tasks.

Not few of them occur in the reading or listening materials for only one time and are

not reproduced in speaking or writing activities. The remaining 33 structures are just

taught in the grammar section in which they are practiced in exercises such as

sentence completion, sentence writing, change of verb forms, word formation and so

on. That is, there is no communicative practice of these structures.

47
What can make the situation worse is among these 33 structures, many are crammed

into one single unit which is taught in a period of 45 minute, together with other

language contents such as pronunciation and vocabulary. Thus, even if teachers want

to bring in some communicative practice to compensate for the books, they can

hardly find enough time to do so with all the structures. In many cases, the grammar

lesson is therefore just about de-contextualized presentation and practice of rules,

bringing the classroom back to the heydays of the traditional methods such as

grammar-translation and audio-lingualism. Thus, overall, the books tend to give an

impression that they emphasize a systematic presentation of rules rather than

teaching rules that arise out of communicative needs.

2.4.2. Pronunciation

The three books seem to cover almost all aspects of phonology, for example the

articulation of individual sounds, weak forms and strong forms, word stress, sentence

stress, rhythm and intonation. However, like in the case of grammar, the books also

seem to teach phonology non-communicatively. This is because they tend to teach

and practice sounds, stress patterns and intonation as discrete points rather than in

connected speech.

Consider these exercises in which the two sounds short /i/ and long /i:/are

practiced.

 Listen and repeat

48
 /i/ /i:/
Hit Kick Heat Repeat
Bit Click Beat Read
Little Interest Meat Eaten

 Practice these sentences

1. Is he coming to the cinema?

2. We’ll miss the beginning of the film.
3. Is it an interesting film, Jim?
4. The beans and the meat were quite cheap.
5. He’s going to leave here for the Green Mountains.
6. Would you like to have meat, peas and cheese?

(English 10: 19)

What we can see is the two sounds are taught and practiced almost mechanically via

repetition drilling. There are no communicative tasks for students to practice them in

connected, natural discourse. Unfortunately, this kind of practice is the only kind

available for phonology study in all units in the books given consideration.

2.4.3. Vocabulary

In the present books, vocabulary is taught and practiced via both materials for

language skills development and in its own right in the Language focus section. Thus,

vocabulary is both taught in meaningful contexts and further consolidated in form-

focused exercises. In the Reading section, vocabulary is taught through activities such

as matching definitions with words, gap-fill, finding antonyms and synonyms, and

translation. In the Language focus section, vocabulary is practiced most frequently via

gap-fill and word formation exercises. Among the different aspects of vocabulary

49
teaching, emphasis seems to be placed on denotational meaning rather than

connotational meaning, and word building rather than collocations.

The books also seem to give due attention to teaching vocabulary strategies via

activities which focus on developing skills in dealing with unknown words and using

dictionaries. Unfortunately, however, as mentioned in 2.3.1, many of these activities

are not properly designed; thus they are unlikely to achieve their purposes. For

example, as spelled out in the book map, the following exercise aims to teach

students how to use a dictionary for independent vocabulary learning. Yet, it only

instructs students to find the meaning of the new vocabulary items in the dictionary.

Presumably, dictionary skills involve more than just opening a dictionary and looking

up for a word. Students need to be taught at least what aspects (i.e. spelling,

pronunciation, meaning, use, collocation and so on) to look for and how, so that they

can develop their own vocabulary independently of the teacher.

Task 1: Find what the following words mean in the text. Use a dictionary when

necessary.

1. grand: ……………………… 2. agrarian: ……………………..

3. banner: ……………................ 4. pray: …………………………
5. sugared apples: …………….. 6. excitement: …………………..

(English 11: 92)

50
2.5. Teachers’ beliefs about the new textbooks

This section reports teachers’ opinions about the quality of the new textbooks. As

mentioned earlier, teachers’ opinions were collected via a survey questionnaire which

consisted of five open-ended questions concerning the strengths and weaknesses of

the books. The 250 teachers surveyed in this study were the key staff in various

schools and education services throughout Vietnam. Among them 173 were female

and 77 were males. Their ages ranged between 25 and 55. Most of them had been

teaching English for at least ten years. Concerning their experience with the new

textbooks, 210 teachers had been using the book for one year, which means they had

been using English 10. Twenty two had been using the books for more than two years,

which means they had been using all the three books. Eighteen of them had not yet

taught the new books but familiarized themselves with the books in a number of

teacher-training workshops. Thus, the teachers’ opinions discussed below were

mainly concerning English 10.

2.5.1. Strengths of the new textbooks

The teachers identified the following as the strengths of the new books:

 Clear objectives.

 Balanced coverage of language skills and language elements.

 Provision of systematic knowledge of language.

 Communicative and learner-centered.

51
  Varied, realistic, relevant, interesting and update topics and texts.

 Clear, helpful layout and beautiful visual illustrations.

 Allowing regular revision and self-study.

 Training teachers in teaching methods and procedures.

 Helpful glossary.

In general, they all agreed that the new textbooks possessed several advantages over

the old series. The most important advantage, according to them, was the books had

brought about positive changes in the way English was taught at secondary school,

making it significantly more communicative and effective.

2.5.2. Weaknesses of the new textbooks

On the other hand, the teachers also found a number of problems with the new

books, for example:

 Challenging for students in rural and remote areas.

 Challenging for teachers if they do not continue to improve their language

knowledge, skills and teaching methods.

 Teaching grammar non-communicatively.

 Teaching too many grammar structures in one unit.

 Difficult and long reading texts.

 Difficult listening materials.

 Inadequate number of communicative speaking activities.

 Deskilling teachers because there is no room for creativity

52
  More workload for teachers because the contents are more difficult and
teachers take more time to prepare their lessons.

 Inauthentic language.

 Unhelpful teacher’s manuals and no reference books for teachers.

The teachers also identified several difficulties they had experienced with the books.

Most of these difficulties, however, were not caused by the books themselves but

were more related to contextual constraints.

For example, the most frequently cited difficulty was insufficient time allocation for

the English subject. Most teachers reported that they were not able to complete one

section in one period of 45 minutes and believed more class hours would have been

necessary.

Secondly, the teachers also believed that the books were perhaps too challenging for

students in rural and remote areas. Students in large urban areas normally have more

access to different learning resources, for example libraries, the internet, books,

cassette tapes and so on. Their parents may also be able to afford to send them to

private language centers for extra English classes. Thus, their English language

proficiency levels are generally higher than those of rural students. As a result, they

may not have as much difficulty as rural students who are not offered all these

favorable conditions when studying the new books. Thus, the teachers requested that

MOET “allow for textbook adaptation and localization”, empowering teachers to use

textbooks in the way that is most suited to their students.

53
However, MOET in fact holds no policies against textbook adaptation and

customization. On the contrary, it is clearly specified in the teacher’s manuals of each

book that teachers should use the books flexibly and adapt them to suit their

particular classrooms. Nevertheless, what might have discouraged teachers from

doing so is the fact that the high-stake, external examinations such as end-of-year

tests, graduation or university entrance exams are not yet localized. There is only one

common test for students throughout the whole country. Thus, teachers are under

pressure to cover as much as possible in the books so as to most effectively prepare

their students for these exams and they hesitate to adapt the books. On the top of

that, many education managers in provincial education services tend to hold a view

against textbook adaptation and explicitly request that teachers strictly follow the

textbooks.

Furthermore, the teachers also mentioned some unfavorable conditions for adopting

CLT in their schools such as large class size, passive students, lack of a real need for

communication in English and grammar-based tests which had adversely impacted

on the teaching and learning. Finally, they also addressed some other issues, for

example schools lacking in technology and facilities and teachers lacking in good

knowledge of the history, geography, culture and people of English speaking

countries. Teacher’s manuals, unfortunately, did not supplement this information.

Concerning the discussion of the limitations of these books, it would seem unfair to

blame all on the textbook writers, however. Very often, textbook writers work within

54
certain constraints. There are parameters set by sponsors or/ and publishers that they

have to adhere to. The finished product, therefore, is often a sort of compromise of

these competing demands from different stakeholders (Renandya, personal

communication). In the case of MOET new books, the writers in fact have been

caught between a rock and a hard place. They have to adhere to the curriculum

guidelines which set quite high goals to achieve on the one hand, and cater to the

varied proficiency levels of the target student population, on the other.

55
Chapter 3: Conclusion and implications

3.1. Summary of findings

This project aims to analyze and evaluate the new series of English textbooks

currently developed and approved by MOET for use in Vietnam’s upper secondary

schools. It specifically looks at the methodologies and contents of the books with a

view to proposing implications for textbook authors and teachers who have been and

will be using the books.

To start with, findings show that the books generally present substantial

improvements over the old ones in a great number of aspects. First and foremost,

they are more communicative in the sense that they cater for all four language skills

development. The old textbooks, in contrast, focus mostly on reading skills and

language contents. What is more, although there is a separate section for practicing

each language skill, the books also manage to integrate these skills without

overlooking important language contents such as grammar, vocabulary and

phonology study. They also manage to cover a wide range of communicative

functions and notions, which seems neglected in the old books. Besides, they seem to

give due attention to learning strategies development and offer sufficient, regular

review and revision which proves useful for students’ independent learning. Finally,

the books look more attractive with beautiful visual illustrations and are organized in

a clear and helpful manner for both teachers and learners. With all these advantages,

56
the books therefore have received favorable considerations and positive comments

from teachers who have been using them.

Despites the strengths, however, the books also show several limitations. For

example, many of their speaking activities are found non-communicative, failing to

elicit negotiation of meaning and presenting unrealistic and unnatural discourse. Also,

guidance is not always available for students to complete tasks and socio-cultural

information is not included for learning the rules of speaking in the target language.

Writing tasks sometimes do not specify readership and text types, thus confusing

students and teachers. In receptive skills practice, emphasis tends to be placed more

on literal processing than deep processing of information, thus unrealistically

reflecting real world communication. Finally, the teaching of language contents does

not correspond with current theories of second language acquisition. In most

instances, forms are taught mechanically but not via tasks and consciousness-raising

activities, making it hard for rule internalization. Unfortunately, these shortcomings

might have made the books less communicative than they would have been expected

and intended to be. Other limitations as reported by teachers, for example,

overloaded contents for the student population in disadvantaged areas and unhelpful

teacher’s manuals, also tend to impact on the effective application of the books.

3.2. Implications

In conclusion, the findings of this study tend to suggest that despite a number of

shortcomings, the new series of textbooks can still make effective instructional

57
materials for Vietnamese upper secondary school teachers and learners in the current

situation. The problematic aspects of the books, however, can be modified, adapted,

replaced or/ and supplemented so that the books correspond more closely with the

aims of the teaching and learning program and the true needs of different classrooms.

Looking at the implications that it contributes to ELT in general, this study has made

another case for material evaluation and adaptation. As Cunningsworth (1984: 89) has

pointed out:

“no coursebook will be totally suited to a particular teaching

situation. The teacher will have to find his own way of using it
and adapting it if necessary. So we should not be looking for the
perfect coursebook which meets all our requirement, but rather
for the best possible fit between what the coursebook offers
and what we as teachers and students need.”

Therefore, textbook beneficiaries including both teachers and education managers

need to develop proper attitudes towards textbook use. Textbooks should not be

seen as the Bible but only guidelines for teachers. They should not be viewed as an

absolute authority which teachers need to completely depend on. On the contrary,

they should be used in a way that empowers teachers and enriches their professional

experience. Until then, they might hardly bring out the most effective outcomes for

the teaching and learning process.

58
References

Allwright, R. (1982). 'What Do We Want Teaching Materials For?' ELT Journal (36) 1,
8-12.
Bardovi-Harlig, K. (2001). Evaluating the empirical evidence: Grounds for instruction
in pragmatics? In K. Rose & G. Kasper (Eds.). Pragmatics in Language Teaching.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bardovi-Harlig, K., Hartford, B., Mahan-Taylor, R., Morgan, M., & Reynolds, D.
(1991). Developing pragmatic awareness: Closing the conversation. ELT Journal 45
(1), 4-15.
Bouton, L. F. (1996). Pragmatics and Language Learning. University of Illinois, Urbana-
Champaign: Division of English as an International Language.
Boxer, D., & Pickering, L. (1995). Problems in the presentation of speech acts in
ELT materials: the case of complaints. ELT Journal 49 (1), 44-58.
Brazil, D., Coulthart, M. and John, C. (1980). Discourse Intonation and Language Teaching.
Longman.
Brown, P., & Levinson, S. (1978). Universals in language usage: Politeness
phenomena. In E. Goody (Ed), Questions and Politeness: Strategies in Social Interaction.
Cambridge: CUP.
Brown, P., & Levinson, S. (1987). Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage.
Cambridge: CUP.
Carrell, D. and J. Korwitz. (1994). Using Concordancing Techniques to Study Gender
Stereotyping in ELT Textbooks in J. Sunderland (ed.). Exploring Gender: Questions and
Implications for English Language Education. Prentice Hall International.
Cathcart, R. (1989). Authentic Discourse and the Survival English Curriculum.
TESOL Quarterly 23(1): 105-126
Clarke, J. and M. Clarke. (1990). Stereotyping in TESOL Materials. In B. Harrison
(Ed.). Culture and the Language Classroom. ELT Documents 132. Modern English
Publications/British Council.
Crandall, E. & Basturkmen, H. (2004). Evaluating pragmatics-focused materials. ELT
Journal 58 (1), 38-49.
Cunningsworth, A. (1995). Choosing your coursebook. Oxford: Heinemann.
Day, R. (2003). Authentic Materials: A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing. Guidelines: A
Magazine for Language Teachers 25 (2), 21-24. RELC publication.
Denham P. (1992). English in Vietnam. World Englishes 11 (1), 61-69.

59
Do H. T. (1999). Foreign Language Education Policy in Vietnam: the emergence of English and
its impact on higher education. Paper presented at Fourth International Conference on
Language and Development, Hanoi Oct 1999.
Ellis, R. (1994). The Study of Second Language Acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Ellis, R. 1997. The Empirical Evaluation of Language Teaching Materials. ELT
Journal (51) 1, 36-42.
Ellis, R. (2003). Task-based Language Teaching and Learning. Oxford: OUP.
Gilbert, P. and Rowe, K. (1989). Gender Literacy and the Classroom. Victoria: Australia
Reading Association.
Hartman, P.L. and Judd, E.L. (1978). Sexism and TESOL Materials. TESOL Quarterly
12, 383-393.
Hinkel, E. (1996). When in Rome: Evaluations of L2 pragmalinguistic behaviour.
Journal of Pragmatics 26 (1), 51-70.
Hoang V.V., Nguyen, T.C., Hoang, X.H. (2006). Innovating ELT Methodology in
Vietnam’s Upper secondary school. Hanoi: Education Publisher.
Kasper, G. (1997). Can Pragmatic Competence be Taught? (NFLRC Net Work #6)
[HTML Document]. Honolulu: University of Hawaii. Second Language Teaching and
Curriculum Centre. Retrieved September 21, 2002, from the World Wide Web:
http://www.nflrc.hawaii.edu/NetWorks/NW06/
Le V.C. (2007). Teachers’ Beliefs about Curricular Innovation in Vietnam: A Preliminary Study.
Featured presentation at 5th Asia TEFL Annual Conference, June 7-8, 2007,
Malaysia.
Levis, J. (1999). Intonation in Theories and Practice Revisited. TESOL Quarterly 33
(1), 37-63.
Long, M. H. (2000). Focus on form in task-based language teaching. In R. D.
Lambert and E. Shohamy (Eds.), Language policy and pedagogy: Essays in honor of A.
Ronald Walton. Philadephia: John Benjamins.
Ministry of Education and Training. 2006. The English curriculum for the secondary school.
Hanoi: Education Publisher.
Nguyen, B. & Crabbe, D. (1999). The design and use of English language textbooks in
Vietnamese secondary schools. Paper presented at Fourth International Conference on
Language and Development, Hanoi Oct 1999.
Nguyen, M. (2005). Criticizing and responding to criticism in a foreign language: A study of
Vietnamese learners of English. Unpublished doctoral thesis. Auckland: University of
Auckland.
Prodromou, L. (1988). English as Cultural Action. ELT Journal 42 (2), 73-83.

60
Alptekin, C. (1993). Target Language Culture in EFL Materials. ELT Journal 47 (2),
136-143.
Renner, C. (1997). Women are busy, tall and beautiful: Looking at sexism in the EFL
Materials. Paper presented at Annual Meeting of the Teachers of English to Speakers
of Other Languages. Orlando FL, March 11-15.
Richards, J. (2005). The Role of Textbooks in a Language Program. Retrieved from
the WWW Nov 2007 at http://www.professorjackrichards.com/work.htm.
Siegal, M. (1996). The role of learner subjectivity in second language sociolinguistic
Sheldon, L.E. (1988). Evaluating ELT Textbooks and Materials. ELT Journal 42 (4).
Skehan, P. (1996). A framework for the implementation of task-based instruction.
Applied Linguistics, 17, 38-62.
Vellenga, H. (2004). Learning Pragmatics from ESL & EFL Textbooks: How Likely?
TESL-EJ 8 (2). Retrieved June 27, 2004, at http://www-writing.berkeley.edu/TESL-
EJ/ej30/a3.html.
Wolfson, N. (1988). Perspectives: Sociolinguistics and TESOL. Cambridge, MA: Newbury
House.
Yule, G., Matthis, T. and Hopkins, M. (1992). On reporting what was said. ELT
Journal 46 (3).
Willis, J. (1996). A Flexible Framework for Task-based Learning. In Willis, D. and
Willis, J. (eds). Challenge and Change in Language Teaching. Oxford: Heinemann.

61
Appendices

Appendix 1: Textbook evaluation checklists

Quick-reference checklist

Aims, approaches and principles

1. Do the aims of the book correspond closely with the aims of the teaching
program and with the needs of the learners?
2. What approach/ approaches to language learning are taken by the book? Is
this appropriate to the learning/ teaching situation?
3. Does the book make its guiding principles clear?

Design and organization

4. What components make up the total course package (e.g. students’ books,
teachers’ books, workbooks, cassettes, etc.)?
5. How is the content organized (e.g. according to structures, functions, topics,
skills, etc.)?
6. How is the content sequenced (e.g. on the basis of complexity, ‘learnability’,
usefulness, etc.)?
7. Is there adequate revision? Is some of the material suitable for individual
study?
8. Is it easy to find your way around the book? Is the layout clear?

Topic

9. Is there enough variety and range of topic?

10. Are the topics sophisticated enough in content, yet within the learners’
language level?
11. Will your students be able to relate to the social and cultural contexts
presented in the book?

Skills and language contents

12. Are all four skills adequately covered, bearing in mind your course aims and
syllabus requirements?
13. Is there material for integrated skills work?
14. Does the book include material for language work (grammar, vocabulary, and
pronunciation)?

62
Teachers’ books

15. Is there adequate guidance for the teachers who will be using the book and its
supporting materials? E.g. do teachers’ books adequately cover teaching
techniques, language items such as grammar rules and culture-specific
information?
16. Do the writers set out and justify the basic premises and principles underlying
the material?
17. Are keys to exercises given?

Checklist for communicativeness

General evaluation

1. Does the book claim to be communicative in its aims and objectives?

2. Is the syllabus of the book primarily communicative (e.g. by using
communicative activities, functions etc. as its primary units)?
3. Is there reference to communicative methodology?
4. Is there evidence that the design of the book is influenced by communicative
considerations (e.g. emphasis given to communicative activities, use of
authentic materials and realistic tasks?)

The teaching of listening skills

5. What kind of listening material is contained in the course?

6. Is the listening material set in a meaningful context?
7. Are there pre-listening tasks, questions, etc?

The teaching of speaking skills

8. What kind of material for speaking is contained in the course? This may
include oral presentation and practice of language items, dialogues, role plays,
communication activities (information gap)?
9. What elements of genuine communication are present (unpredictability;
opportunities to express real information, feelings, opinions, etc.;
opportunities for learners to structure their own discourse; need to formulate
and use communicative strategies; emphasis on co-operation between speakers
in communicative interaction)?
10. At the appropriate level, does the book include material that reflects the
nature of communicative interaction in respect of structure of discourse in
interactions (including openers, confirmation checkers, pre-closers, etc.);
complexity of structure; range of appropriate lexis; features such as fillers and
incomplete sentences; roles of speakers in interaction?
11. Does the material help learners in the skill of turn taking in conversations?

63
 12. Is any other help given with the organization and structuring of conversations
or other spoken interactions?

The teaching of reading skills

13. Is the reading text used for introducing new language items (grammar and
vocabulary), consolidating language work, etc.?
14. Is there a focus on the reading development of reading skills and strategies?
15. Is the reading material linked to other skills work?
16. How long are texts? Do they encourage intensive/ extensive reading?
17. How authentic are texts?
18. What text types are used? Are they appropriate?
19. Does the material help comprehension by, for example, setting the scene,
providing background information, giving pre-reading questions?
20. What kinds of comprehension questions are asked? Literal (surface) questions?
Discourse-processing questions? Inference questions?

The teaching of writing skills

21. How does the material handle controlled writing, guided writing, and free or
semi-free writing?
22. Is there appropriate progression and variety of tasks?
23. Are the conventions of different sorts of writing taught? If so, which ones and
how are they presented?
24. How much emphasis is there on accuracy? Is attention given to the language
resources specific to the written form, such as punctuation, spelling, layout
etc.?
25. Are learners encouraged to review and edit their written work?
26. Is readership identified for writing activities?

The teaching of grammar

27. How are new grammar items presented and practiced?

28. Is there an emphasis on language form?
29. Is there an emphasis on language use (meaning)?
30. How balanced is the treatment of form and use?
31. Are newly introduced items related to and contrasted with items already
familiar to the learners?
32. Where one grammatical form has more than one meaning (e.g. the present
continuous), are all relevant meanings taught (not necessarily together)?

64
The teaching of vocabulary

33. Is vocabulary-learning material included in its own right? If so, how prominent
is it? Is it central to the course or peripheral?
34. How much vocabulary is taught? How much new vocabulary is presented in
each unit, text, etc.?
35. Is there any principled basis for selection of vocabulary?
36. How is new vocabulary presented (e.g. in word lists, in a text, with visuals)? Is
vocabulary presented in a structured, purposeful way?
37. Does the material enable students to expand their own vocabularies
independently by helping them to develop their own learning strategies?
38. Is new vocabulary recycled adequately?

The teaching of phonology

39. How thoroughly and systematically are each of the following aspects of the
phonological system covered: articulation of individual sounds, words in
contact (e.g. assimilation), word stress, weak forms, sentence stress,
intonation?
40. Where phonology is taught selectively, is the emphasis on areas of
pronunciation that are important to meet learners’ needs and help avoid
misunderstanding?
41. Is the pronunciation work built on to other types of work, such as listening,
dialogue practice etc. or does it stand separately?
42. How much terminology is used? Is it comprehensible to the learners?
43. Is the phonemic alphabet used? If so, are students given any training in
learning it?
44. Does the material use a diagrammatic system to show stress and intonation?
45. Are there cassettes for pronunciation practice? If so, do they provide good
models for learners?

65
 Appendix 2: Teachers’ survey

Phiếu điều tra

Phiếu điều tra sau đây giúp chúng tôi thu thập ý kiến giáo viên và chuyên viên
về Sách giáo khoa (SGK) mới bộ chuẩn (dùng cho Ban A và đại trà). Đề nghị
Ông/ Bà cho ý kiến trung thực để điều tra của chúng tôi đạt kết quả chính xác
nhất có thể. Để đảm bảo tính khách quan và bảo mật thông tin, chúng tôi không
yêu cầu Ông/Bà tiết lộ danh tính trả lời câu hỏi.

Xin chân thành cảm ơn Ông/ Bà

Phần thông tin cá nhân

Giới tính (khoanh tròn): Nam Nữ Tuổi (ghi rõ): ........................

Nghề nghiệp (khoanh tròn): Giáo viên Chuyên viên Sở/ Phòng GD

Ông/ Bà tốt nghiệp (đánh dấu x):

฀ ĐH chính quy tiếng Anh

฀ ĐH tại chức tiếng Anh
฀ Chuyên ngành 2 tiếng Anh
฀ Lựa chọn khác (xin nêu rõ ..........................................................................................)

Ông/ Bà đã dạy học được .................. năm, trong đó số năm dạy tiếng Anh là
........................ (ghi rõ)

Ông/ Bà đã dùng Sách giáo khoa tiếng Anh mới bộ chuẩn được ...........................
năm (ghi rõ)

Phần đánh giá sách giáo khoa

Theo Ông/ Bà SGK mới bộ chuẩn (Quyển 10, 11, 12) có những ưu điểm gì so với
bộ SGK cũ (hệ 3 và 10 năm)?

66
Theo Ông/ Bà SGK mới bộ chuẩn (Quyển 10, 11, 12) có nhược điểm gì so với bộ
SGK cũ (hệ 3 và 10 năm)?

Ông/ Bà gặp những khó khăn gì khi sử dụng SGK mới bộ chuẩn?

Đề nghị Ông/ Bà cho biết ít nhất 3 điểm mà Ông/ Bà hài lòng nhất về SGK mới
bộ chuẩn

Đề nghị Ông/ Bà cho biết ít nhất 3 điểm mà Ông/ Bà không hài lòng nhất về
SGK mới bộ chuẩn

67