| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立政治大學 === 英語教學碩士在職專班 === 96 === The purpose of the study is to explore junior high school teachers’ opinions of current English textbooks and their usage in greater Taipei area. The participants of the study were 300 junior English teachers from greater Taipei area. The instrument used in this study was a questionnaire. The data was analyzed by means of descriptive statistics.
The findings of this study are summarized as follows:
1.Han-lin and Kang-xüan are the two top widely- used English textbook. On the whole, the English Teaching Committee of each individual school has the power to decide which set of textbooks to be adopted. The top three considerations in textbooks selection are the overall content, suitable level of difficulty, and whether the design of teachers’ manuals and students’ workbooks facilitating instruction. Most of the teachers utilize supplementary materials in addition to their existing textbooks. The top two resources they use to enhance students’ learning are self-produced supplementary materials, and English teaching magazines.
2.Most of the teachers are satisfied with the layout, contents, students’ workbooks, teachers’ manuals and supplementary materials. Lots of the teachers point out teaching students with highly diverse competence is the main problem in their teaching.
3.Most of the teachers observe that students who use current textbooks are more interested in the contents than students who used centralized textbooks. In general, current textbooks are satisfactory to most of the teachers and more appropriate to students compared to centralized ones. Many of the teachers sense that students who use current textbooks are better in listening and speaking than students who used centralized textbooks, while a certain number of the teachers feel that students who used centralized textbooks outperform those who use current textbooks in grammar and writing.
4.For most of the teachers, it is best for National Institute for Compilation and Translation to develop and generate centralized textbooks. However, an equal number of the teachers consider it is best for the commercial produced textbooks to be used in conjunction with the centralized textbooks. The most ideal way of adopting junior high school English textbooks is to use the same set of textbooks. Hence, the majority of the teachers support the local governments’ (including Taipei City, Taipei County and Keelung City governments) policy to use the same English textbooks.
The study provides an understanding of teachers’ opinions on the usage of junior high school English textbooks. Some pedagogical implications are offered for the educational authorities, the textbook publishers, and English teachers.
|
|---|
