The Rationale For Checklist Criteria Selection

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

We have chosen five main criteria for our check list which consist of 2 impressionistic evaluations and 3 in-depth evaluations; Layout, Appropriateness, Content, Exercises and Activities and Value, respectively. First of all, a good textbook must have an attractive and organized layout. A layout is how the materials in the textbook are organized and arranged. A good and attractive layout would allow easy access and navigation for both the teacher and the students using the textbook. Besides that, the materials in the textbook must also be arranged in a systematic and logical order. What we meant by systematic and logical is that the materials are arranged according to the prescripted curriculum or following the logical sequence of taught linguistic concepts. Without a good layout, the textbook would be a messy pile of materials with no direction.

Next would be the appropriateness of the materials. Each of the materials chosen must be appropriate for the students’ level. It should also be sensitive to the socio-cultural diversity of the country and must adhere to our country’s current education philosophy. Text, graphics, examples and exercises used in the book must first deemed appropriate for the Malaysian context before publication and a good textbook would adhere to the sensitivities of the community. This is vital as misunderstandings will arise should there be a mismatch between the materials and the students’ culture. Not only will it inhibit learning but it would also incite undesirable sentiments should the authors are not sensitive towards the culture of the community.

The most important evaluation criteria would be the content. A book without its content is as good as a stack of telephone directory; useless. A book’s worth is within the content and a good ELT textbook should have quality content which will induce learning of the language. The importance of content is immeasurable as it is the main source of input for the learners. With no input, there would not be any learning.

It is not enough for a textbook to have only excellent content within its pages. Sufficient exercises must be provided for the students to check their understanding and to reinforce the taught concepts within the textbook. Without exercises and activities, a textbook would be like a novel, where students would read it for entertainment not for learning. Exercises provide the students an avenue to put learnt skills to practice and activities within the book are used to induce learning and to communicate the intended concept to the students. The activities inside the textbook can also put the taught language skills to practical use, thus, creating a pseudo-world where students are able to practice taught lessons into practical usage.

Lastly, we would be evaluating the textbook for its value. Books cost money and in an increasingly demanding economic landscape, it is in everyone’s best interest to cut the cost down and textbooks do not come cheap. It is important for us to see whether the textbook would be worth the price to justify our purchase. Some books have good content but it is not friendly to the wallet and some books are excellent and provides excellent value for its content but it is a pain to obtain as it is only sold overseas. This factor is crucial if it is going to be used as a textbook in the classroom as not many students can afford to invest in a textbook blindly. As teachers, it is prudent for us to properly evaluate the value of the textbook before asking the students to buy the book.

Short description of chosen material.

I have chosen an English textbook written for a primary 4 student under the old KBSR curriculum. This textbook was written in 1998 and was tailored to the curriculum specifications of that era. Thus, it should be noted that many of its intended objectives/illustrations/examples are outdated. For its evaluation, I have chosen a unit from the textbook, Unit 3: Time Lines. This unit talks about how time functions, how to read the calendar, the different seasons, date and times of the day. Within this unit, various activities are included to teach the different linguistic skills of English (i.e. speaking, reading, writing and listening). Grammar and vocabulary enrichment exercises are also given in this unit.

Critical analysis of the chosen material.

First of all, I’ll evaluate this textbook from the Layout criteria. The content was not arranged properly. Even from the table of contents it showed no logic in its arrangement. What is worse are the activities within the teaching unit. It is haphazardly done and the overall layout is messy and cluttered. It can potentially distract and confuse the young learners using this textbook. The book is user-friendly as it started off with a table of contents and its page number is easily located. Students and teachers alike would have no problem navigating the textbook but it still lacked an appendix and a glossary for the students to refer to. The monotonous monochrome scheme of the book robbed the textbook off its aesthetic value, rendering it visually unattractive for a 10 year old. A thorough analysis of the graphics revealed that almost all of the graphics used in the textbook are relevant to its content, meaning there are no redundant graphics.

Next would the Appropriateness of the textbook. From the unit we evaluated, we have found that most text and examples used in a book are not suitable to be used with a 10 year old kid. Most of them contained advanced vocabulary and complex jargons which will only be introduced in their year 6 syllabus. Even though it is not suitable for a year 4 standard, it is suitable for use in local context and function. In an example given in the evaluated unit, students are required to read the calendar and a mock canteen menu. They are then required to answer questions on when will the canteen offer a particular food. This is extremely useful for the students as that would help them in their daily communication with the society. They can extend this knowledge outside when they go with their parents to order food with daily/weekly specials.

Now, I will evaluate the third and most important criteria in a textbook, its Content. It has become a universal law that an educational textbook should contain instructions which will guide both the teacher and the students in using the textbook. This vital piece of information was magically deleted in this textbook and was replaced with a cheap heading with one word instructions (i.e. Read, Write, Speak, Listen and Write etc). No clear instructions were given at all; this is a serious flaw in this textbook as it would be almost unusable without the Teacher’s Guide. This textbook is not a good book for a self-assess learning approach due to this slight. Explanations for most of the linguistic input in the book were not given. The authors seemed to expect the students to figure out the grammatical rules themselves just by looking at the given examples without any explanations. Like the exercise given on page 36, students are expected to write down conversions for the different units of time without actually being told on how the conversion takes place. This activity is blatantly unsuitable for the students as it was not clear to begin with. No explanations were given to aid the students in completing the activity and it was inappropriate for this exercise to be included. The activity relied heavily on the mathematical knowledge of unit conversion which will only be taught in their secondary school mathematics syllabus. Thus, the activity itself seemed out of place and lost in the whole objective of the textbook. Not only did this book have a problem with its explanations, it also had problems with its examples as well. Most of the examples given are not easily understood by the students and it was written in such a way that in order for a student to understand it, he/she must possess some form of background knowledge of the presented context in order to fulfill the objectives of the lesson. For example: the passage given on page 40 talks about the monsoon winds of Malaysia. This is a highly advance geographical concept, again, are only taught in their secondary school syllabus. How can the student answer comprehension questions if they do not understand the passage at all? From this poor design, I strongly think that the authors themselves are confused as to the path of this book; are they designing a general English textbook or an ESP textbook?

As per the direction the ministry had adopted to focus on the communicative aspect of the English language, grammar components are taught deductively in this textbook. Grammatical exercises are presented in such a way that there were no rules explained and the students would have to form their own grammatical rules based on a few examples. Like the exercise on prepositions in page 43. The usage of these prepositions are not written or directly explained in the book, instead, students would have to rely on previous texts to deduce the grammatical rules of prepositions. The content of this textbook does not prepare the learners for their impending public examinations. Since our education system is designed in such a way that focus are given to public examinations such as UPSR, PMR, SPM and STPM, hence, naturally, the textbook used should be able to prepare students for these examinations. The content I have evaluated does not follow the format of the examination at all and the difficulty of the exercises given is not even anywhere close to what was used in the real examinations i.e. it is just too simple. It is suffice to say that the author clearly did not design this textbook with the thought of public examinations in mind and what is certain is that a student who rely solely on this textbook, would not be able to pass the examination.

Despite all of its flaws, the content presented in this textbook is very much suitable for a students’ linguistic development in terms of speaking, listening and writing. The only downside is that the potential was not obvious to an untrained eye. On the surface, the activities may carry no meaning but if teachers are able to adapt and manipulate the materials, the activities can unlock the learners’ potential in their macro skills development. For example, an activity on page 42 which asked the students to tell their friend about their ideal weekend: the activity itself is weak and misdirected due to the lack of guiding questions, sample dialogue, pictures, vocabulary guide etc., but, if the teacher is able to enhance the activity by adding external information into the lesson, the activity will become a rich avenue to develop the student’s speaking ability. This, however, is marred by the unbalanced focus given to the three macro skills. The authors seemed to forget the importance to the writing aspect of the English language. As a result, very few activities in this textbook focused on writing. Nevertheless, everything was crafted perfectly following the curriculum specification and was in line with the ministry’s national education plan.

For my next evaluation, I’ll shift my focus to its Exercises and the Activities contained in the textbook. The activities given inside the book are very much meaningful as it gave a practical rationale for its usage and how to use them but, it is too accurate. So much so that it would be awkward to use the examples in public. Like the dialogue given on page 48:

" …A: look out! The cat! Three eggs are gone and so is the packet of milk.

B: oops! I’m sorry nora, but I broke another egg.

A: now we have to go and buy more eggs and milk."

The dialogue given was too scripted and perfect, so, naturally, nobody would ever use them in public, not even the native speakers. It may be grammatically correct, it may be polite but it is not real. The examples given in the textbook are simply not authentic enough. It had been altered to be very grammatical and structured. Discourse analysis tells us that oral utterances are often ungrammatical but its meaning is understood by the community. Therefore, it would not be practical for an example like this to make an appearance in the textbook.

For a Year Four student, the exercises given in the book are sufficient for them to enforce their own learning of the various linguistic concepts they have learnt. Most of the activities and exercises given were meant to polish their communicative competence, which was what the ministry wanted the students to be. However, there are not arranged according to its difficulty. Some of the activities are too simple and some are too complicated, there should be an indication in the textbook to guide both the teacher and the students so they can properly select an exercise to attempt which are just right for their proficiency level. To make things worse, there are no answer keys for the given exercises. This is an extreme flaw as it takes away the ability for students to keep track of their own understanding. Many textbook writers did not provide answer keys for the students’ edition for the fear of copying but what they did not realize is that by taking away the answer key, they are robbing the students off their chance for self assess learning. The students would not know their mistakes thus, risking their mistakes to be fossilized.

Last but not least, I would be judging the Value of the book; whether it’s a book of good value of not. The availability of this book is a problem for students as the government had made the Textbook Loan Scheme public and bookstores had stop selling copies of it in their stores. This made students who planned to buy this book for their own reference disappointed. Being covered under the scheme also means that the students are not allowed to do anything to deface the book, including writing down notes inside the book. This made the already rigid textbook more rigid and provided the students no chance to jot down important details which the teacher may have discussed in the class. What is the point of having a textbook of students can’t write their own opinion of their understanding of the lesson in it? The price of the book is affordable for an average student. At the price of RM 8.40 per book, it would not be considered as expensive compared to other textbooks published by independent publishers. However, the end value of this book doesn’t justify the RM 8.40 price tag as this textbook was poorly designed. With its design hanging at the dismal state, both pedagogically and linguistically, the price should have been a lot cheaper.

All in all, this textbook is not a good textbook to be used in an ELT classroom. The activities are mostly obsolete and it’s littered with design flaws. Nevertheless, teacher can still use materials from this book to adapt into their classroom.

Description of the SJK (C)/(T) English Year 4 Textbook

The textbook that I am evaluating is the English Year 4 Textbook which it is for the use of the Chinese and Tamil primary school students. For the description of the textbook, I will select one chapter of the textbook to summarize the entire book. The chapter of the textbook that I have selected is Chapter 3 with the topic "Many Happy Returns". This chapter is basically teaching the students about birthday greetings and comparison. The first part of the book is a lyric where the students will be required to sing the birthday song.

After the first part which is the singing part, there are three speaking activities where the students will be required to speak. The activities for speaking are related to birthdays and comparison. After the speaking activities, the activities that follow are three reading activities and one writing activity. The reading activities are integrated with the listening activity where a CD is provided for the listening activities. The students will use the same activities for reading and listening. There is only one writing activity in this chapter and it is the final activity for the chapter. The writing activity given is completely unrelated to the theme of the particular chapter.

Other chapters of the book are almost of the same format where interaction activities are the main scope of the book. However, some chapters may have more than one writing activity. The reasons why I disregard that because some of their writing activities are just fill in the blanks. There are only several writing activities which require the students to really write.

Evaluation of the SJK (C)/(T) English Year 4 Textbook

In this part of the paper, I will be talking about the evaluation of the textbook. I will talk about all the five criteria of evaluation of the checklist developed. First, I will talk about the layout of the textbook. The layout is the first criterion of evaluation of the textbook.

The content of the textbook is not arranged systematically. When you open the book, you will not know where to start because everything is quite messy. Despite the fact that the book is not well organized, the book is actually quite user friendly because of the table of contents provided. Although references and appendices are not available, I still think that it is user friendly. This is because if you see the book, you will feel that there is no need for the references and appendices for this book. In terms of visual attractiveness, the book is actually quite visually attractive. All the pictures in the book are with color and this will definitely attract the students’ attention, especially when the students are only year 4. Besides being visually attractive, the graphics used are actually relevant to its content where the students will be able to grab the idea of the content even though they do not really understand the words.

Next, I will talk about the second criterion which is the appropriateness of the book. The texts and examples used in the book are not suitable for its intended level. This textbook is meant for year 4 Chinese and Tamil students where they are second language learners of English. The texts provided are just too lengthy for the level of a year 4 student. It is completely not suitable because it will just be too tough for the students. However, despite the unsuitability of the texts and examples for the intended level of the students, the content of the book is suitable for the local context and function. It is appropriate for the use of a multiracial country like Malaysia and the content of the book is related to the context of Malaysia.

After that, I will talk about the third criterion of the evaluation which is the content of the textbook. First of all, the instructions given are not clear at all. Students will not be able to understand what to do with the instructions given if there is no one to guide and explain the instructions to them. Besides being not clear, the instructions are also not easily understood. In most of the activities, students will not be able to know what to do and how to do the activities if they just read the instructions without a teacher’s guidance.

As for the explanations given in the book, they are clear but the problem is that only minimal explanations are given. There are simply not enough explanations for the students. However, for the explanations that are given, they are easily understood where the students will be able to understand the explanations with minimal help from the teacher. Besides being easily understood, the explanations given are also accurate and relevant to its intended content. Besides the explanation, the examples given in the book are also relevant to its intended context. There are some examples which are not relevant but it is minimal. The examples given are also easily understood because simple language is being used in the explanation itself. There are also grammar components inside the book. For the grammar components, everything is being taught deductively where examples are given to the students first before the explanation of the grammatical rules.

However, it is sad to say that the textbook does not prepare the students for their upcoming examination. All the contents inside has nothing to do with UPSR. It does not prepare the students for the exams. Since the textbook does not prepare the students for the exams, it definitely does not follow the format of the examination. The difficulty level of the book is just too high for the students and it is much tougher than what is in real examinations. The texts in UPSR examinations are not lengthy at all but in this book, the text is just too long. Besides that, there are no analysis of the past year questions for this textbook. This is not weird at all considering the fact that it does not prepare the students for the examinations.

Despite the fact that the textbook does not prepare the students for the exam, the book did focuses on macro skills development. However, more emphasis is put on speaking, reading and listening skills. There is only minimal emphasis on the development of writing skills. This is a major drawback of the book because in UPSR examinations, the students will need to write and this skill which is very much needed is not emphasize in the textbook. However, the good thing is that this textbook actually has the appropriate content for the curriculum where it meets the aims and objectives of the curriculum of Malaysia.

The next thing that I will be talking about is the fourth criterion for the evaluation which is the exercises and the activities in the textbook. First, the activities in this textbook are not meaningful. This means that the activities are not practical for daily usage. Although there are a lot of communicative activities in this book but it is just not practical for daily usage. For example, one of the sentences in this book goes like this ‘Happy Birthday Francis. Here’s a gift for you. We will not say something like that in real life; the most we will say is ‘Happy Birthday Francis. This is for you’. Thus, we can see that it is not practical for daily usage. Besides that, the practices given in the textbook are just too few and it is not sufficient for the students. Technically, in some of the chapters of the book, you cannot detect which one is the practices because they are like activities for the students and not practices. Since there are not sufficient practices for the students, there are no assortments of exercises according to difficulty because the exercises given are just too few. To make things worse, in this textbook, no answers are provided for the exercises which make it difficult for the students to check their answers.

The final criterion that I am going to talk about the textbook here is the value of the textbook. This book is not available at any local bookstore because all the schools in Malaysia have the SPBT Scheme where the students are allowed to borrow textbooks from the school and there is no need to purchase the textbooks. However, there are some students who are well to do and they are not qualified for the scheme. Hence, they need to buy their own textbooks. In these cases, where are the students going to find and purchase the book? The book is not available at any local bookstore. This is a major problem for this book because you just cannot get it anywhere except the school. However, the price of the book is reasonable and it is affordable for an average school student but since the book is not available at local bookstore, it will not make a difference. Even though the price of the book is reasonable but the content of the book does not justify the price. It is not worth it to pay for a book which does not prepare the students for the examinations and at the same time does not provide enough practices for the students.

In conclusion, although the book has good visuals, good examples, good explanations and affordable price but with the insufficient explanations and practices and the fact that the book does not prepare the students for the examination, it can be concluded that this book is not a good English textbook. At the same time, the level of the book is just too high for the intended level of the learners. It is just not suitable to be used with the year four students.