An Evaluation of Speaking Activities in Junior High School English Textbooks for the Nine-year Integrated Curriculum

• Main Authors: Huang, Szu-chieh, 黃思潔
• Other Authors: Yeh, Chieh-yue
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2009
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/72920121432544905294

碩士 === 國立政治大學 === 英國語文學研究所 === 98 === In the language classroom, textbooks are the primary resources which teachers and students rely on, so the content and the activity design would have direct influence on how the teaching/learning process proceeding. The present study analyzes speaking activities in two sets of English textbooks, trying to evaluate how they design the speaking activities and what similarities and differences are found between these two sets. These speaking activities are investigated from the perspectives of activity types, pre-communicative and communicative activities, and communicativeness, and then are discussed and evaluated based on the Nine-year Integrated Curriculum Guidelines. According to the results, it is found that both two sets of textbooks apply similar types of speaking activities, where pronunciation, drills, and dialogue are used most. Moreover, most of these activities are pre-communicative and fall into Category 4 (new information being transferred) and Category 6 (no information being processed). Overall, the design of speaking activities is not communicative enough. Although both sets try to provide more opportunities for students’ verbal practice, the proportion is not high, and meaningful contexts are usually ignored. Furthermore, the structural method is emphasized, using repetition and memorization as main techniques for language teaching and learning. Finally, with regard to the Nine-year Integrated Curriculum Guidelines, it seems that activities in the textbooks are not closely in compliance with the guidelines for the large proportion of less communicative activities. Also, definitions of each guideline are not precise or clear enough, and this situation results in influences on how textbook writers realize and interpret these guidelines, and how they design the activities.