Academic Reading

TEXT BOOK EVALUATION :

A FRAMEWORK FOR EVALUATING THE FITNESS OF THE
HONGKONG NEW SECONDARY SCHOOL (NSS) CURRICULUM
Kelompok 1 :
Muhammad Fajar 20208100008
Muhammad Fikri Kartawijaya 20188100068
Rima Agustina 20178100061
 The Recent Introduction of the New
Secondary School Curriculum
In 1999, the Curriculum Development Council
(CDC) recognized that there was a great shift towards
an increasingly globalised economy. This demands
flexibility, openness of the mind, and the ability to
think critically. Good language and communication
skills were also heavily emphasized as high global
mobility was in demand. In order to cope with such a
constantly changing and interdependent world of the
21st century, the CDC saw that there was a need to
reform the basic education curriculum (CDC 2001).
The New Secondary School (NSS) Curriculum was then
developed with an overall aim to
prepare local students for whole-person development,
equipped with life-long skills that can be used
outside schools (CDC 2009). The curriculum has been in its
full implementation since September
2009.
The NSS English Curriculum as
summarized by Wong (2009) has the
following main objectives:
• The use of learning tasks to promote “learning by doing”
and to involve students in “three
interrelated strands which define the general purpose of
learning English.” Interpersonal Strand (for interpersonal
communication), Knowledge Strand (for developing and
applying knowledge),
Experience Strand (for responding and giving expression to
real and imaginative experience);
• The development of specific learning targets to provide a
clear direction for learning;
• The need of catering to individual learner differences so as
to adopt teaching and learning to
different student abilities and learning styles;
• The promotion of learner independence and lifelong
learning so that students can become more
actively involved in constructing knowledge and skills in
classroom activities and in their own
time;
• The use of task-based learning as an integral part of
teaching, learning and assessment;
• A greater emphasis on school-based assessment rather
than one-off assessment based on public
exams;
• An incorporation of an elective part of modules to allow
for more creative approaches in learning
English.
The introduction of the NSS curriculum brings the local
ELT curriculum in line with modern ELT
teaching trends, such as the use of task-based teaching and
learning approaches (Wong 2009). At the
classroom level, teachers are expected to take up the
important role, acting as the agent delivering the
curriculum objectives through appropriate teaching
approaches and strategies (CDC 2007:71).
Overview of the Textbook Situation
In Hongkong
students and society” (Fu 1975:89). Yet in Hong Kong's EFL
language classroom, textbooks remain
an important teaching and learning element (Edb 2010). Reynolds
(1974) stated that a high dependence on textbooks indicates that
local teachers are generally inadequate in their English
proficiency, as competent teachers will disengage from the use of
textbooks. Localof textbooks
secondary school English teachers tend to show a strong
dependence on the use. textbook. In a survey conducted by
Richards, Tung & Ng (1992) with 149 local secondary school
English teachers, it was reported that textbooks are one of the
main sources of teaching materials. Only 28% percent of the total

respondents stated that they had used significantly self-developed

teaching materials.
Purpose of This Study
The recent introduction of the new curriculum has therefore provided a
natural platform for a post-use textbook evaluation to emerge, because
of the importance given to textbooks in the Hong Kong EFL
classrooms, where a post-use evaluation can yield the most relevant
data concerning the extent to which newly written NSS textbooks can
assist current teachers in delivering the fundamental of the new
curriculum. This study not only can help to enrich the literature by
providing an empirical post-use evaluation study, but it can also help to
provide a perspective as to what are the strengths and weaknesses of a
current NSS textbook. The evaluation results can help to enhance the
effectiveness of the use of the textbook by helping teachers to
understand what areas of the textbook need further modification, or to
what extent adaptation of other new teaching materials is necessary
THANK YOU