Coursebook Analysis Project – interchange Student’s Book 1

Coursebook Analysis Project – interchange Student’s Book 1

Christopher Stern

This is a brief analysis of the coursebook interchange (Student’s Book 1), Third Edition, by Jack Richards.  The framework used is primarily that produced by Littlejohn, in which he claims his concern is “to enable a close analysis of materials themselves, to investigate their nature, as a step distinct from evaluating their worth for specified purposes or contexts.” (Littlejohn, 2011: 181)  However, I will conduct my analysis in prose, rather than utilizing his very effective grid format for analysis.  Although admittedly certain stages of this process require more subjective judgements (ibid, 185), I will attempt to avoid making many conclusions regarding worth, and so I have titled this report and analysis, and not an evaluation.

Beginning with what Littlejohn refers to as the aspects of publication (ibid, 183), Book 1 begins at a false beginner level, starting, as is common for this level, with introductions, question formation, and “getting to know you” activities, and ending at an upper beginner or lower pre-intermediate level with description of changes, the use of multiple verb tenses, and discussing the future.  It is a 113-page full color softbound A4 page-sized coursebook, with an activities section including one activity for each unit of study, a condensed self-study section for review, self-study audio scripts, a self-study answer key, and an appendix containing lists of countries and nationalities, irregular verbs and comparative and superlative adjectives at the back of the book.  It comes with a self-study audio CD.  Therefore, in regards to access, the coursebook allows for and even appears to encourage a good degree of learner autonomy.

The course material is divided into 16 units, each unit subdivided into topics, speaking, grammar, pronunciation/listening, writing/reading and activity sections.  According to the authors “The course combines topics, functions, and grammar” and focuses on “the four skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing, in addition to vocabulary and pronunciation.”  (Richards, 2005: iii) Accordingly, it reflects “some degree of integration” of functional, topical, task and skills based underpinnings, and, as in most courses, there is “a number of different syllabus strands, such as grammar linked to skills and texts, tasks linked to topics and functions, or skills linked to topics and texts.”  (Richards, 2001: 164)  Upon examination of a random unit, 5 (greater depth follows), in which almost all activities maintain a focus on the topic of family, the above mentioned qualification remains very much in place.  This unit is placed between a unit with the topical focus on music, likes and dislikes, and one focusing on sports, fitness and routines.   Thus, in regards to continuity, interchange appears to offer a high degree of continuity within units, and a sufficient degree of continuity, also accommodating variety, between units.

In order to assess what Littlejohn calls design, which “relates to the thinking underlying the materials” (Littlejohn, 2011: 183), I will look at unit 5 in more detail, providing an analysis of the learning activities, what they require learners to do, their interaction requirements, and how they draw on learners’ competence.  I will then infer their principles of selection and sequencing.   In the process, I will briefly discuss the implications of language selected for learner instructions, learner roles and teacher roles, and the role of the material as a whole in regards to how it might fit into a course framework. (ibid)  Because this involves moving through “different ‘levels’ of analysis, making more and more inferences, with increasingly subjective judgements” (ibid, 185), this stage of the process will inevitably become less an analysis and more an evaluation.  To provide an overview, the various strands of the unit as presented in the book’s plan are (summarized): titles/topics – Tell me about your family, speaking – talking about families, grammar – present continuous and use of quantifiers (all, nearly all, a few, etc.), pronunciation/listening – intonation in statements and listening for family relationships, writing about family and reading about changes in family activities, and an activity – “family facts” (a “find someone who” activity).  The units comprises six pages (out of a total of 113), and activities are laid out with sufficient space, attractive color illustrations and photos, and plenty of white space.

The unit begins with a vocabulary presentation activity in the form of a family tree.  Learners are instructed to “Add these words to the family tree” (All following coursebook related quotes are from: Richards, 2005: 30-35.) and are given a list of seven words.  The assumption, based on instructions, is that learners would operate individually, although the teacher could easily instruct learners to work in pairs, or to check their work in groups.  Part B of this first activity personalizes the vocabulary, by asking learners to “Draw your family tree (or a friend’s family tree).  Then take turns talking about your families.  Ask follow-up questions ...”   Clearly, learners are instructed to work in pairs, and the activity requires learners to speak.  As units 2 and 4 had previously focused on question formation, this activity provides good recycling of language.  Activity 2 provides photographs of pairs of famous people and instructs learners to “Listen to four conversations about famous people.  How are they related?”  This activity requires learners to use new lexis, and possibly to make inferences (i.e. ‘Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones are married’ > They are husband and wife.) 

The following activity 3 ‘Conversation Asking about families’, following the same topic, is also listening focused, fist asking learners to “Listen and practice” (a transcript is given), and then (B) to “Listen to the rest of the conversation” and answer two questions.  Activity 4, pronunciation, is also a “Listen and practice” activity focusing on falling intonation in statements.  While activity 2 is a solo learner activity, both activities 3 and 4 ask learners either directly or indirectly to work in pairs.  Both activities 3 and 4, incidentally, and without mention, introduce learners to statements in the present continuous.  While input is provided here, the activities do not ask learners to direct their attention to it.  In this regard, it appears that the book provides an initial inductive approach to structure. 

The present continuous is then formally (in every sense) introduced on the following page in activity 5, “Grammar Focus,”  which provides a text box with a number of sample questions with positive and negative responses, all in the present continuous.  This is followed by a set of (phone conversation) cloze dialogues, with interpretive illustration to provide clues to meaning, requiring learners to “Complete these phone conversations using the present continuous.”  This is clearly a focus on form activity, to be completed individually.  The activity does not provide any contrast with the present simple, and its particular set of meanings.  It seems there has been an opportunity lost here to activate learners’ higher order thinking skills through having to differentiate between present continuous and present simple (think two illustrations, job – john at a desk, now – john at a café:  John  ______________ a lawyer.  John ______________ coffee with friends).  Part B, pair work, asks learners to practice the conversations.  The activities, up until this point, are highly instructive, and allow learners to use language while focusing on meaning.  Activity 1B allows for personalization as well as some open spoken production of language.  However, the other activities are fairly rigid, allowing learners to produce only scripted language, and engaging primarily lower-order thinking skills.  On the other hand, the prescriptive aspect of these activities may be excused as the presentation stage of the lesson, and they are to a degree cooperative if not communicative, as they take every opportunity to make use of pair work.

Activity 6, discussion, is a group work activity in which learners are instructed to “Ask your classmates about people in their family.  What are they doing now? ...”  Here, the focus is clearly on getting learners to use the present continuous tense in a meaningful and non-prescriptive way.  A text box with some suggested “topics to ask about,” as well as some sample questions, is provided.  The following activity 7 utilizes one of the “interchange activities” provided at the back of the book.  It is titled “Family Facts” and it is a “find someone who” mingling activity.  While it does not have a clear goal-oriented outcome, it is the closest to a real task among any of the activities in the unit.  While “find someone who ...” activities usually only provide the requisite information (“Find someone who is an only child”), leaving learners the task of working out the associated question (“Do you have any brothers or sisters?”), this activity sheet provides scripted questions as well.  As such, it effectively fails to capitalize on an opportunity to activate learners’ higher order thinking and unscripted production.  (While the final instruction is to “Ask follow-up questions on your own,” this appears as an afterthought, and seems would be as easily ignored by learners as it was initially by me while writing this analysis).  Considering that this has been required of learners in activity 6, there is every reason to believe learners should be capable of unscripted oral production in this activity.  Furthermore, some of the items are tricky.  For example, items 6 and 8 are inconsistent.  Item 6, “...who has a great-grandparent still living,” has the associated question “Is your great-grandmother or great-grandfather still living?” while item 8, “...whose mother or father is studying English,” has the associated question “Is either of your parents studying English?  Where?”  Why not “Is your mother or father studying English?” as in item 6?  And not only has item 8 introduced the only logical follow-up question, thus denying learners an opportunity, it has introduced, but not explained, the problematic construction “Is either of ...”   In any case, if “Where?” is the type of follow-up question learners are intended to ask, it seems that the expected verbal output is a drastically reduced and under-challenging form.  To compound matters, while activity 10, “Grammar Focus – Quantifiers” introduces many new lexical items, this relevant item “either of,” is not included. 

The remainder of the unit consists of five additional activities.  Activity 8, Snapshot, provides information about typical US families, and an opportunity for students to personalize the activity by providing information about their own country (asking learners to “Write your guesses.” and “Tell your class your guesses.”).  This would be another good opportunity to allow group discussion, as it surely would generate more discussion, and perhaps disagreement, than “Tell your class” would engender.  Activity 9 is another scripted “Listen and practice” dialogue.  Activity 9B asks learners to “Listen to the rest of the conversation. What does Mei-li like about being an only child?”  Thus, it is training learners in selective listening strategy.  However, the instructions do not provide for any check up on answers, either in pairs, groups, or as a class.  This is the case with many of the activities (1A, 2, 3B, 5A, 9B, and 12A).  For this reason, it seems this coursebook allows a good degree of teacher discretion with regard to how activities might be followed up.  While this is an advantage for experienced teachers, it could lead to some oversight by less experienced teachers (although this is likely addressed in the Teacher’s Book).  Activity 10 provides an additional grammar focus, taking the shape of a text box with language input and transformation exercise.  Activity 11 is a writing activity, “An email about your family.”  In groups learners are then instructed to “Take turns reading your emails.  Ask questions to get more information.”  In 12 - Reading, “The Changing Family,” activity A asks learners to read the article, then “answer these questions” which require learners to scan the text for specific information.  It is not clear whether scanning is an activity which is supposed to be done after, or in place of reading for general understanding, as the instructions “Read the article” do not appear on their own or above the article, but only below it, and in tandem with the instructions “Then answer these questions.”  The first two questions asks learners about which people “is/are benefitting from” something.  It seems that this particular lexis item has not been introduced in the coursebook so far – it is not to be seen in this unit or in the associated reading passage - and may be beyond the level of students at this level.  Activity B instructs learners “Pair work   What problems are Steve and Judy having?  Which do you think is the most serious?  Offer some solutions for that problem.”  These instructions also may be troublesome.  First of all, learners are not specifically instructed to discuss.  Secondly, up to this point in the coursebook there has been no introduction of the language learners would need in order to “Offer some solutions,” namely modals of ability can and could, or of obligation, should, ought to or must.  This seems to set learners up for a situation in which the teacher will almost certainly instinctively intervene, in order to introduce new language, language which could not be reasonably expected of them.

All of the other units offer roughly the same types of activities in more or less the same sequence.  So, each unit in this coursebook can be said to be arranged in a cycle (Graves, 2000: 141).  As a whole, interchange seems to offer a good amount of incidental recycling of language, but no actual spiraling among any of its organizing principles – topics, functions, and grammar.  This is typical of a single coursebook in a series, and it is likely that interchange 2 or 3 spirals back to some of the elements introduced in this book.  The language input is generally quite sufficient, and aimed at an appropriate level, although at times, as noted, some potentially problematic elements may have been left unattended.  Overall, the activities make good use of variety of interaction patterns, and frequently require learners to produce verbal output.  However, the output is often of a scripted or reduced form.  While the cycle in each unit seems to follow a P-P-P format, there is actually very little free production expected of learners.  Furthermore, opportunities for learners to produce language for a real audience or to engage in a real task seem to have been missed.  As an example,  I will discuss activity 11, Writing, in more detail.  The instructions are to “Write an e-mail to your e-pal about your family.”  A portion of a sample e-mail is given.  “Your e-pal” is a fictional construct.  It holds no reality for learners.  Furthermore, this is likely to be done in a classroom, so it will be done in pen on paper, not in an e-mail format.  Instructing learners to ‘write a message to your classmates about your family,’ would provide them a real and immediate audience.  In part B learners are asked to “take turns reading your e-mails.  Ask questions to get more information.”  Although this is a communicative activity, it is not very dynamic, and lacks any clear goal.  With such a writing assignment, I would frequently give students half an A4 sheet of paper on which to write their message, thus giving them a clear spatial limit.  I would then impose a strict time limit.  Following this, I would instruct learners to stand up, with half on one side, and the other half on the other side of the classroom.  Learners would then be instructed to crumple their message into a little ball and throw it at someone on the opposite ‘team.’  I would instruct them to keep picking up and throwing paper balls for a period of time.  They should then find one paper ball and uncrumple it.  If it is their message, they must crumple and throw it again.  Finally, they must read the message and ask questions of other learners in order to determine whose message they have.  This is a dynamic activity with a clear communicative goal, and is not entirely of my own invention.  It shocks and activates a sense of fun in learners of any age.  However, I would not expect any textbook to instruct learners to do any such thing.  I provide this activity merely as a contrast, to show how much more meaningful, and fun, some of the activities in interchange could be made to be.  Accordingly, it might be interpreted as an advantage that interchange allows so much from for creativity on the part of teachers, as many of its activities easily lend themselves to modification.

Overall, interchange is an attractive, and very competently developed coursebook, offering effective and engaging activities for learners, presented clearly and in an appropriate sequence.  However, it reveals several shortcomings, as elaborated above, and could certainly be improved upon in future editions.  For the novice teacher, it appears to cover enough bases, with enough clarity, that little oversight may occur, although there is room for improvement.  For the experienced teachers, it offers a sufficient degree of adaptability that they may easily use it as a starting point for developing new and more engaging activities tailored for their particular learners.  Within the framework of an average single level, 40 hour course, inclusive of mid-term and final tests, probably only the first half of the book would be covered, as one unit appears to be appropriate for roughly four hours of learning activity, although this will vary according to teacher and class.  With regard to the “value system encoded” (Singapore Wala, 2003: 62) in the coursebook, interchange offers a fair representation of English speaking cultures, a culturally inclusive cast of fictional characters, and sufficient opportunities for personalization of content by learners.

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References

¨ Graves, K.  (2000).  Designing Language Courses – A Guide for Teachers.  Boston: Heinle & Heinle.

¨ Littlejohn, A. (2011).  ‘The analysis of language teaching materials: inside the Trojan Horse’ in Tomlinson (Ed.) Materials Development in Language Teaching.  Cambridge: CUP.

¨ Richards, J. (2001).  Curriculum Development in Language Teaching. Cambridge:  CUP.

¨ Richards, J. (2005).  Interchange, Third Edition.  Cambridge:  CUP.

¨ Singapore Wala, D.A. (2003).  ‘A Coursebook is What It is because of What It has to Do:  An Editor’s Perspective,’ in Tomlinson, B. Developing Materials for Language Teaching.  London:  Continuum.