Denise Santos
www.denisesantos.com
denise@denisesantos.com
The plan
 Overview of research into textbooks
 Approaches to textbook research
 Some findings from research
 Strengths/Weaknesses of different approaches
 From research to pedagogy
Research into the textbook
 The history of materials
 Materials development
 The sociopolitics of textbooks
 Content analyses
 Textbooks in situated teaching-and-learning
practices
The history of materials
„Textbooks have been used as source
material for studies of how particular
disciplines have developed within a
subject, but extensive investigations
are rare.‟ (Johnsen, 1993)
The history of ELT
(Howatt, 2004:161, from
Ollendorff‟s New Method of
Learning to Read, Write,
and Speak a Language in
Six Months, 1838)
Barbara
Peter
Barbara
Peter
Barbara
Peter
Peter, where layde you your nightcap?
I left it vpon the bedde.
Are you ready?
How should I be ready? You brought
me a smock insteade of my shirt.
I forgat myselfe: Holde, here is your
shirt.
Now you are a good wenche.
(Howatt, 2004:23, from Jacques Bellot‟s Familiar Dialogues, 1586)
The history of materials
 For more info, see Kelly, 1976 or Johnsen, 1993. The
latter is also available on http://wwwbib.hive.no/tekster/pedtekst/kaleidoscope/index.html
 Also see the journal Paradigm for a number of studies in
this area
http://faculty.ed.uiuc.edu/westbury/Paradigm/
Materials development
 Guidelines for writers (Byrd, 1995; Tomlinson,
2003, Part B)
 Data collection (Fox, 1998; Carter et al, 1998)
 Design issues (Richards, 1993)
 Role of visuals (Choppin, 1992)
 Cultural issues (Adaskou et al 1990)
 The process of writing (Johnson, 2000; Atkinson,
2007)
The sociopolitics of textbooks
 The textbook as cultural artefacts (Apple and
Christian-Smith, 1991)
 The textbook as a commodity (Wortham, 1997)
 In ELT, a few scholars take up this perspective:
(e.g. Gray, 2002; Pennycook, 1994:177-178;
Richards, 1993)
Some key issues
 Cultural differences: „the global export of English,
English language teaching, and English textbooks
frequently leads to situations of cultural conflict
where the norms presented in the texts are in direct
conflict with local social and cultural norms.‟
(Pennycook, 1994:176)
 The attempt to present „neutral language‟ (ibid: 177)
 The global coursebook (Gray, 2002)
 The de-skilling of the teacher (Richards, 1993)
Content analyses
 Most frequent approach to textbook research
 May take up the form of surveys
 Typically, content analyses focus on
(1)language
(2) pedagogy
(3) representations
Surveys, some examples
 Business English (Arthur, 1983; Reed, 2007;
Reed and Nolan, 2007)
 English for adults (Tomlinson et al 2001)
 Listening materials (Kellerman, 1992)
 Exam preparation (Scott, 2002)
Focus on language
 Language presented in textbooks vs language used in
the „real world‟
 Business language (Williams, 1988)
 Phone conversations (Wong, 2002)
 Speech acts (Boxer and Pickering, 1995; Jiang 2005)
 Lexical chunks (Biber et al, 2004; Koprowski, 2005)
 Features of spoken grammar (Cullen & Kuo, 2007)
 Discourse features in interaction (Gilmore, 2004; Lam,
forthcoming);
 Order of presentation vs frequency of use (Mindt, 1996);
Koprowski, 2005)
Focus on pedagogy
 Emphasis on cooperation? (Jacobs and Ball 1996)
 Recitation/authentic activities? (Santos 2002)
Recitation
Series C
Series B
Series A
Authentic
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
Focus on representations
and/or conceptualisations of…
 Gender (Jones et al, 1997; Carrell and Korwitz,
1994)
 Ecological issues (Jacobs and Goatly, 2000)
 Social harmony (Hayes, 2002)
 English varieties (Chelliah, 2001)
 The target culture and its people (Kramsch, 1987,
1988; Santos, 2002)
Insights? Challenges?
 Historical, sociopolitical, pedagogical, linguistic
insights
 Multiple perspectives complement each other
 What do we look at?
 What method(s)?
 From a research perspective: importance of a clear
focus, related questions and coherent methodology
Textbooks in situated teachingand-learning practices
 Prescriptive approach (Early, 1991)
 Learning how to make sense of the world
through textbooks‟ (Baker and Freebody,
1989; Maybin and Moss, 1993)
 Teachers‟ talk around text (Sunderland,
2000)
„our data shows cases of the “traditional”
focus of texts being endorsed,
“progressive” texts being undermined,
those parts of texts that can be seen as
containing “traditional biases” being
passed over, and talk about gender issues
within texts being characterized by “gender
blindness”.’
Textbook appropriation: a makingmeaning process
1 How participants describe / talk about the
textbook
2 How participants describe / talk about the event
in which the textbook participates
3 How participants open and close the event in
which the textbook participates
4 How participants rearticulate the text
19
Theoretical assumption
 Language as a mediating tool (Vygotsky , 1978): to
engage in talk is „to engage in a social mode of
thinking‟.(Mercer, 1994:95)
 Readings are constructed, contested and negotiated
through talk at the point where texts are first
calculated and reshaped again when they are jointly
recalled. Talk also helps to construct the text’s
legitimate audience and the reader’s position within
it. (Maybin and Moss, 1993:138)
The teacher as interpreter
THINK
LOOK
ANSWER
(From Littlejohn and Hicks, 1996a:9)
21
T:
S:
T:
T:
maybe you you could share . er . if you look at this picture here
on page nine . look . . and think a little bit about it .look at
this . ((shows students the page)) look at this picture here . and
see how many words can you write
words?
yes . how many words can you write? okay ? you look at this
picture . How many words can you understand
[…]
yes . the student’s book . .look at this one . can you share this?
you look at the picture and see how many words can you
understand . okay? . so this is for you
[…]
T: look at this picture here . look . there are many words here .
there are many things look there are many words here . right? I
would like to you to write on this paper the words that you can
really understand
[…]
T: look at the picture . look at the picture . see the words that you
can understand . there are some words that you can
understand . the ones that you understand the ones that you
22
understand . okay? you write down on a piece of paper
T:
S:
T:
T:
maybe you you could share . er . if you look at this picture
here on page nine . look . . and think a little bit about it
.look at this . ((mostra pagina aos alunos)) look at this
picture here . and see how many words can you write
words?
yes . how many words can you write? okay ? you look at this
picture . How many words can you understand
[…]
yes . the student’s book . .look at this one . can you share this?
you look at the picture and see how many words can you
understand . okay? . so this is for you
[…]
T:
T:
look at this picture here . look . there are many
words here . there are many things look there are many words
here . right? I would like to you to write on this paper the words
that you can really understand
[…]
look at the picture . look at the picture . see the words that
you can understand . there are some words that you can
understand . the ones that you understand the ones that you
23
understand . okay? you write down on a piece of paper
T:
S:
T:
T:
T:
maybe you you could share . er . if you look at this picture here
on page nine . look . . and think a little bit about it .look at
this . ((mostra pagina aos alunos)) look at this picture here .
and see how many words can you write
words?
yes . how many words can you write? okay ? you look at this
picture . How many words can you understand
[…]
yes . the student’s book . .look at this one . can you share this?
you look at the picture and see how many words can you
understand . okay? . so this is for you
[…]
T:
look at this picture here . look . there are many
words here . there are many things look there are many
words here . right? I would like to you to write on this paper the
words that you can really understand
[…]
look at the picture . look at the picture . see the words that
you can understand . there are some words that you can
understand . the ones that you understand the ones that you
understand . okay? you write down on a piece of paper
24
Insights?
 Preferential (socially endorsed) interpretations
and „codes of behaviour‟
 Naturalised meanings
 Joint negotiation of these meanings
 Knowledge representation and construction
 Role of language in these semiotic processes
 Not too much on textbook content
25
What can we learn from
textbook research?
 Different perspectives, different (a lot of!) insights
 Awareness of strenghts/weaknesses of different
approaches
 Attention to students’ voices needed
 Not an ‘attractive’ topic?
 Critical uses of the textbook (Santos, 2007; Santos and
Silva, 2008; Smith et al, 2009; Wallace, 1992)
 What do you think?