A Practical Application Study of Grammar Patterns in Senior High School English Textbooks in Taiwan

• Main Authors: Nine Yi-Hua Hsieh, 謝宜樺
• Other Authors: Michael Tanangkingsing
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2018
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/rb2kvr

碩士 === 國立臺北科技大學 === 應用英文系 === 106 === Releasing the most updated curriculum guidelines of senior high schools in 2011, the Ministry of Education has been promoting that course arrangement must comply with the requirement of practicality. However, English education in senior high schools in Taiwan currently tends to be carried out in a test-oriented way; otherwise, due to the major focus of examination on grammar knowledge, teachers and students spend huge efforts on grammar rules to enhance exam performance, which leads to a neglect of English practicality in the learning environment. Owing to the inconsistent status on achieving practicality between the MOE’s requirements and the present education operation in schools, as well as the crucial learning objective of grammar knowledge in senior high schools, the study aims to explore to what extent that authentic paragraphs apply grammar types compiled in high school English textbooks published by three different book companies in Taiwan, and similarities and dissimilarities of those textbook grammar types compiled in three versions from the three publishers. Grammar types compiled into the three English textbook versions, Far East, Lung Teng, and San Min, are the research objectives, and in order to inspect their practicality, two college textbooks in English, Student Solutions Manual for Stewarts Essential Calculus: Early Transcendentals (ECET) and Calculus: Early Transcendental Functions (CETF) are treated as investigated authentic materials in the study. On the basis of results, the study firstly reveals that Far East’s selected grammars are the most practical among the three versions on grammar application extent in ECET and CETF; Lung Teng and San Min’s grammar applications are relatively not pragmatic for Far East’s performance. Second, the applications of Far East grammar sets in ECET and CETF are also relatively practical for the other two versions; however, the study finds that the performances of the three versions are all not at high rates, which indicates most of selected grammars are not applied in the two authentic materials. Third, similarities and dissimilarities over grammar type selections between the three versions are displayed, and further found out that dissimilar grammar compilations further influence the performances of token frequencies. Finally, several suggestions concerning textbook improvement and instruction are presented.