Full name
Class
Course
: PHAN THỊ Ý ANH
: 18SPATH01
: ADAPTING TEACHING MATERIALS
ESL TEXTBOOK EVALUATION CHECKLIST
ENGLISH 5 – TIẾNG ANH 5
Criteria
Your assessment
Ideal
Method
Acceptable
Poor
Reasons
Unacceptable
x
The textbook shows good consistency among
teaching
methodology,
teaching-learning
modes.
The teaching methods are applicable to
different groups of English teachers.
The learning-teaching activities are quite
various which enable teachers to flexible apply
different teaching methods into different
learners.
Appearance
x
Flick through the book briefly, the overall
appearance is attractive and will be appealing
to learners with colorful covers.
The book’s description of itself appears to
match the contents.
Teacher–
x
Sufficient guidance is given for the needs of
friendly
both experienced and inexperienced teachers.
Extras
The manual provides teachers with exercises to
practice, test, and review vocabulary words
(Student's Book and Teacher's Book, Workbook
or Activity Book, CD) but there aren’t
instructions on how to incorporate audio-visual
material produced for the textbook.
Realistic
x
The material discusses and identifies areas of
student need.
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Materials used in the book are authentic and
up-to—date to an acceptable degree.
Any cultural bias in the book is restricted to a
degree acceptable to learners in the sense that
the cultural tone overall is appropriate for
grade 5 learners.
Interesting
x
Each unit is taught in 6 periods, a shortening
period lasting 35 minutes, which is believed to
be more motivating than very long ones as they
give learners a sense of progress.
Materials with variety and pace are used while
personal involvement of learners is quite
encouraged.
Affordable
x
The book reasonably costs 32 thousand dong,
meaning that many students are able to
purchase the books for language courses.
Level
x
The content is understandable for students
aged 9-10, which is in the right level of
difficulty.
Skills
x
There is practice in all four skills (listening,
speaking, reading, writing).
The textbook makes a balance of the four skills.
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ESSAY
There is no doubt that textbooks play an imperative role in language teaching and learning in most
language programs. However, no textbook is perfect in a particular teaching situation; therefore,
textbook evaluation is essential in deciding which textbook should be chosen before applying it to
any course. This not only helps to select the most appropriate materials available for a particular
course, but also helps to identify the strengths and weaknesses of a particular textbook that is
already in use.
It is in this view that the essay seeks to evaluate a textbook called Tiếng Anh 5, currently used in the
fifth grade of primary schools in Vietnam, particularly in Phan Thanh Primary school in Da Nang city,
considering its general appearance and design, level, content, tasks and activities, and usefulness
for developing language skills according to the ESL Textbook Evaluation Checklist above.
Before an analysis and evaluation of Tiếng Anh 5 is offered, it would be helpful to provide an
overview of the target learners who are located in the city central, Da Nang City. At this grade,
students who are aged 10 need to be able to understand and use familiar everyday expressions and
very basic phrases aimed at the satisfaction of needs of a concrete type. They can introduce
themselves and others and can ask and answer questions about personal details such as where
he/she lives, people he/she knows, and things he/she has. Moreover, they could be able to interact
in a simple way, provided the other person talks slowly and clearly and is prepared to help.
Impressively, they are physically active and understand meaning from what they see and hear; they
can not only understand direct interaction between people but also are more aware of language
forms, making fewer mistakes in these forms and use as well as accepting language more
consciously, etc.
The textbook under analysis designed for aforementioned learners was the collaboration between
CEPH and MacMillan Education. Firstly, flicking through the book briefly, the overall appearance is
attractive and is appealing to learners with colorful covers. The book contains pictures, models, and
photographs that help clarify and contextualize information. Nevertheless, the lack of real life
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pictures could not portray a friendly and motivating atmosphere. The pictures are merely added for
a cosmetic effect, which sometimes make it difficult to explain the theme to the learners. For
example, in Point and say, Lesson 2, Unit 16 page 42, pictures a does not show clearly the distance
between the characters and the post office, which make students find it hard to identify the the
phrase “walk for 5 minutes”, as a result, it is necessary for teachers to re-design the picture before
teaching. The same problem can be seen in picture c which does not clearly illustrate what a coach
looks like.
Secondly, Tiếng Anh 5 contains adequate supplementary materials, including items such as CD’s, a
student workbook, and a teacher’s guide to support teachers and students in teaching and learning
English. More specifically, the teacher’s guide includes useful page-by-page instructions, answer
keys, and transcripts for listening activities, but there are not many teaching suggestions and
instructional input, expansion activities and game ideas, tests, and opportunities for teacher
reflection. The student workbook, on the other hand, provides review exercises and a variety of
practice exercises that help the development of students’ proficiency in grammar, reading, writing,
spelling, vocabulary, and speaking and has enormous potential for classroom use or for home
assignments.
Thirdly, the book includes challenging topics, chosen especially for the interest level of the target
students. Topics such as favorite foods, dream jobs, places to visit, weather, and so on are extremely
appealing and motivating to students. Competences, sentence patterns, vocabulary, phonics, these
components are incorporated across titles such as Look, listen and repeat, Point and say, Let’s talk,
Listen and number, Let’s chant, Project, which contain varying communicative activities such as
exercises, games, songs, chants, and puzzles that require individual work, pair work, group work,
class discussion, and different patterns of interaction such as teacher and student, student and
student.
In addition, Tiếng Anh 5 Textbook is a multi-skills syllabus and therefore covers and integrates both
productive (speaking and writing) and receptive skills (listening and reading). The balance among
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the four skills is also justifiable : 35% listening, 35% speaking, 15% reading, 15% writing. The
materials used for each skill become more complex as the units progress. Every unit begins with a
Listen and Repeat of the topic to elicit the learners’ background knowledge and activate their
schemata. Then, the four language skills are presented and practiced in a systematic manner,
moving from listening to speaking and then reading to writing, with grammar and vocabulary coming
between the reading and writing activities.
Furthermore, the book also follows a Communicative Approach, which is achieved through "taskbased learning" (TBL). Such an approach creates a need for learners to acquire a new language
through the setting of tasks that require them to carry out and struggle through a communicative
task, before going on to focus on specific language items that the students find difficult or
problematic. The communicative tasks, such as making a presentation about health (Unit 11, page
11 ), doing surveys (Unit 16, page 45), and making a poster (Unit 12, page 17), tend to stimulate
interaction as well as require the use of language items. These tasks are not only intended to
introduce language forms through authentic material but also engage the learners in truly
meaningful and effective communication, such as the negotiation of meaning and ideas. Moreover,
the Oral Method can be used to teach the "Listen and repeat" activity effectively, which is designed
across the twenty learning units in Tiếng Anh 5—Student’s Book. For example, it can also be
effectively employed to teach chants (How can we get there, page 44), songs (Where’s the bus
stop?, page 41), and games. It especially encourages listening and repetition – activities that lead to
oral fluency in English among young learners.
However, the specific classroom methods outlined above cannot be effective without the teacher’s
exploitation of an appropriate teaching procedure. One of the classic tripartite procedures which is
often used to deal with the Tiếng Anh 5 textbook in Da Nang Primary schools, particularly in Phan
Thanh Primary school, is P-P-P which stands for Presentation, Practice, and Production. The PPP
method is intuitive and easy for teachers to apply as well as for students to remain the focus and
follow the lessons.
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Another important factor is the cost of the textbook. In Da Nang context, although there are some
areas where the economic conditions are somewhat less than desirable, many students with limited
incomes are still able to purchase the books for language courses thanks to the reasonable cost of
about 32 thousand dong. The printing standard and paper quality are still worth the price, and it is
currently in print and readily available in many bookshops in the city.
In conclusion, Tiếng Anh 5 textbook is applicable and appropriate in the context of Phan Thanh
Primary School in order to meet the urgent requirements for Vietnam that young learners can use
English to communicate confidently and effectively. Based on the preceding evaluation, I also
believe that the Tiếng Anh 5 textbook is a relatively modern addition to the ELT supermarkets thanks
to a number of notable and worthwhile characteristics of the book. For example, the entire textbook
package is well conceived and contains a variety of useful supplementary materials. The book is also
very attractive and organized in a clear, logical, and coherent manner. In addition, the book reflects
a multi-skills syllabus, and manages to integrate the four language skills without neglecting other
important aspects of ELT, such as grammar and vocabulary development.
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