Narrative Report on Evaluation of Textbook PDF

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Western Mindanao State University College of Liberal Arts Master of Arts in English Language Studies Graduate School Zamboanga City Name: RYAN JIMENEZ Subject: PREPARATION AND EVALUATION OF INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS Professor: DR. CLAIRE AGANA-MADRAZO Topic: An Introduction to Language (Fromkin, et.al...

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Western Mindanao State University College of Liberal Arts Master of Arts in English Language Studies Graduate School Zamboanga City Name: Subject: Professor: Topic:

RYAN JIMENEZ PREPARATION AND EVALUATION OF INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS DR. CLAIRE AGANA-MADRAZO An Introduction to Language (Fromkin, et.al (2014): Narrative Report on Textbook Evaluation

On General Attributes Textbook creates learning significant when its purpose to facilitate

the

learners

becomes

more

relevant

to

their

growth

and

development in the learning process. On the other hand, teachers as well get more involved when the textbook utilized provides interconnectedness on the school curriculum towards its objectives, implementation and evaluation. The success of the utilization of the textbooks greatly determines the feedback of the learning performance of the students on how those materials used in the process encourage the students to participate when appropriate by leading the students to achieve the behavior or learning outcomes that are indicated in the learning objectives and providing reinforcement to the improving students.

At this point, the textbook that I have used in teaching in college is titled An Introduction to Language authored by Victoria Fromkin, Robert Rodman, and Nina Hyams (2014, in 10th edition). The textbook itself is aligned to the one of the core subjects Introduction to English Language Systems offered in the program of Bachelor of Arts in English Language (BAEL) with the CHED memorandum number 24. The program curriculum includes the general education, core courses, cognates and other subjects.

The textbook matches to the specifications of the syllabus by explaining the nature of language, defining the discipline of linguistics and its major subfields, describing and analyzing the essential features of the English language system, and explaining how the knowledge of the English language

system leads to its

effective

learning and use.

However,

Methodology provides activities that can be exploited fully and can embrace the various methodologies in ELT and activities can work well with methodologies in ELT. In every chapter at the end of its abstraction are the differentiated exercises that serve as the activities for the learners. The

various activities greatly depend on the creativity of the teacher on how the class works well in the success of the methodologies.

The suitability to learners and its compatibility towards age needs and interests is achieved by the textbook used. Since I teach in college, the suitability fits to the major subject for the BAEL students because the textbook can facilitate articulation of a comprehensive and contextualized

view

of

the

English

language

and

development

and

recognition of the need for and demonstration of the ability for lifelong learning. Their interests of this textbook identify multi-perspectives and interrelations among texts and contexts and application of analytical and interpretive skills in the study of texts.

Looking closer look at the textbook, it was printed in the international publication in the United States of America under Cengage Learning that is a leading provider of customized learning solutions with office locations around the globe. In other words, this textbook becomes the language resources in terms of studying the foundation and progressions of language system which serves the utilitarian attribute.

The book has 604 pages with a good quality of printed paper like a glossy touch of magazine. Its layout is attractive from the cover page with perceptual cubic geometric placed altogether that signify the systems of language have dynamic ways to acquire and learn in the face of diversity of languages in the world. Moreover, the textbook indicates efficient use of text and visuals through highlighting the general concept with a significant quote from

renowned

writers,

novelist

or

researcher

which

serve

as

the

springboard of the discussion. There are thought-provoking analyses on conversation of the characters in the comic strips taken from international newspaper that impact on the use of convention and arbitrary relationship of sound and meaning. Then, its durability is maintained by the quality of materials used in the textbook. Lastly, the textbook is cost-effective that can be bought online like Amazon.com for hardbound copy or e-copy in a reasonable price or any reliable online bookshop that caters scholarly books like linguistics.

Efficient outlay of supplementary materials is the additional resources. The textbook has also a Linguistics Coursemate which helps students gain a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of the textual materials. The book is supported efficiently by essentials like audiomaterials. Not just those, but also including interactive eBook, with highlighting, note taking and search capabilities. The interactive learning tools including quizzes, flashcards, audio files, web links and more. There are answer key containing answers to all exercises in the core text, and is available to instructors through the publisher. It contains Instructors Companion Web Site which contains password-protected companion with useful resources for instructors including chapter-level Powerpoint lecture slides, and downloadable versions of the Answer Key.

On Learning-Teaching Content

In overall view of the textbook, most of the tasks in the book are interesting and challenging. It contains 250 exercises that continue to be abundant and more oriented exercises that have been added for those instructors who wish their students to pursue certain topics more deeply. Many of the exercises are multipart, amounting to more than three hundred opportunities for homework so that the instructors can gauge their students’ progress. Some exercises are marked as challenging questions which they go beyond the scope of what is ordinarily expected in a first course of the language study.

Tasks move from simple to complex. Each chapter provides activities as it progresses to the simplicity of the foundation of language towards the complexity of the language systems. Task objectives are achievable. Given the opportunity to cover the objectives, indeed they can be attained because every chapter provides series of tasks that every learner with the facilitation from the teachers can accomplish the textbook. On the other hand, the book itself considers cultural sensitivities through providing diversity of cultural language examples that can be also explored not just the English language systems but also other cognates or world’s languages to view the distinctions and similarities between or among languages. Furthermore, the language in the textbook is natural and real for

it creates meaningful digestible comprehension for the readers and terms used in the texts are easy to understand that can either have less supervision from the teacher or have a self-study structure on learning the concepts of the textbook. It is real in a sense that the authenticity of the exemplification and examples leads to a real-life situation whereby the learners can come up with generalization that supports to application of learning. On the other note, the situations created in the dialogues sound natural and real. The textbook provides interactive learning tools like audio files for the learners to observe the dialogue easily. By the religiosity of the teacher’s passion to assist the students, the textbook can be natural and real in a way exposing them for language acquisition for fluency purposes.

Listening becomes essential in search of language acquisition. It is potentially salient in improving the capacity of the learners to create comprehension through listening. In regards to the book, it has appropriate listening task with well-defined goals through the use of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) that guides the learners to identify the correctness of the sound production by analyzing the phonological knowledge in preparation of speaking performance. However, though the tasks are provided, they are efficiently graded with some probable answer key at the last part of the book yet no rubric is presented to how the students are assessed yet this becomes the role of the teachers to look for gauging tools to determine the level of the learner’s achievement according to complexity. Thus, tasks in the textbook are authentic or close to real language situations because most of the exercises challenge the students to use the learned concepts to their communicative setting for so that they will improve their listening competence.

The capacity to decode the message of the language other than writing is by speaking. This skill in speaking serves as the yardstick to let the students possess to compose orderly and systematically the verbal thoughts into delivery either extemporaneous or impromptu manner of speaking. In the textbook, activities are developed to initiate meaningful communication through the use of the audio files supported by technological advancement that links the learners to attentively listen to the exercises like the IPA (International Phonetics Alphabet) that helps them immerse in the

standard English sound or accent. Moreover, activities are balanced between individual response, pair work and group work. In the textbook, there are no specified procedures to what the students should be classified according to individual, pair or group work because the exercises of the activities are initiated by the teachers to group the students.

Reading is a decoding process involving psychological analysis grounded from the schema of the learners to relate on and bridge new concepts that can be beneficial their needs. From the viewpoint of the textbooks, the selections, concepts and some others are significant in the process of acquiring information through reading. Texts are graded in a sense by looking at the probable answer keys on the reading exercises. Then, texts are interesting in a way that how the printed words are presented in professional-looking texts and the words are comprehensibly friendly where the understanding of the reading concepts can be grasped thoroughly by the learners.

Though writing can be tedious at times because this serves as the production of language skill in encoding what the learners have understood from the textbook. Yet this can be meaningful through clarity of the purpose of writing. Tasks have achievable goals and take into consideration learner capabilities. At the end of every chapter the textbook provides writing tasks that requires analytical and creative processes that facilitate the students to come up with their understanding or argument. The tasks are achievable in determining the learning goals and have considered the levels of capabilities of the learners, though not uniform in the distribution of task capabilities, but how the teachers manage the class to achieve the goals is what the book aims for. Hence, the tasks in the textbook are interesting because they can explore the tasks in local and international contexts in language systems.

Mental lexicon in the process of linguistic performance directs the learners to have access on the choice of vocabulary. From the textbook, this can be evident that the load (number of new words in each lesson) is somehow appropriate to the level considering students’ comprehension. There is a good distribution (simple to complex) of vocabulary load across

chapters and the whole book. When texts are technical by nature, it is written in boldface to indicate that the term is specialized but the context is used in order to unlock the meaning of it by presenting what the terms mean. Another is the use of glossary. It is useful to guide the learners to look up the meaning of the terms from simple to complex. Words are efficiently repeated and recycled across the book. In this manner, the terms are episodic because each term discussed is the springboard on another level of usage in order to have complete and efficient manner of connectedness to each lesson being presented. Therefore, the vocabulary of the textbook is useful to let the learners grow in the occupational register skills that are beneficial to their professional development.

Syntax is the DNA thread of grammar in which the structure is orderly and logically arranged to achieve greater value of understanding. The spread of grammar is achievable. The textbook has a segment of discussion on grammar when and how this is used in linguistic and social settings. Taking a closer look, the textbook is authored by international English speaking native scholars whose presentation in the language is seamless and comprehensible. The structure of grammar is well-presented from simple to complex manner. The grammar is contextualized. Since the textbook does not only provide concepts on English language per se but also present comparative other languages that will determine each of their differences and similarities. Not just that, examples are interesting because they really challenge and leave in awe of the students’ performances in learning languages as systems. Grammar is introduced explicitly and reworked incidentally throughout the book. The textbook guides the learners to see the explicit ways how to study the structure and helps to come up with their understanding when and why use the grammar on the textbook.

On the other hand, pronunciation plays a vital role in phonetics and phonology chapters because the pattern and production of speech depend on the success how the teachers adroitly instruct the concepts seamlessly. It is contextualized in a manner of comparing the similarities and looking at the disparity of language speech tapestry of performances across select languages of the world. It is learner-friendly with no complex charts. The illustration of the chart is visibly good because it

practical and useful for the learners to see how the sound is mentally analyzed and physiologically produced.

Exercises in the textbook are situational problem sets which allow the students challenge themselves on scholarly works through reviewing critiques and commenting on the resiliency of data in the sentence examples. They are learner friendly. The exercises are interesting and friendly in the part of the learners because every item provides capacity to discern what problematized linguistic pattern should be exemplified. They are adequate in a sense the exercises stretch the capacity of the learners to explore more possibility to know other ways to analyze and identify the relationship and differences of each task or exercise. Moreover, they help students who are under/over-achievers. The textbook does not have ways how to help the students who either under or over-achievers because the ways how the book is presented is scholarly explained and exercises promote facilitating learning from the teachers and the willingness of the students to learn.

In a nutshell, the textbook I evaluated is highly recommended to the language teachers in colleges or universities especially those who are concentrating linguistics as foundation of language. There are no perfect textbooks but there are certain truths that can be perfect which will suit the needs, interest of the learners....