Wednesday, July 17, 2019

Textbook Analysis

University of Latvia Faculty of Humanities branch of slope Studies Text countersign Analysis tertiary year, group B student Kristaps Briedis capital of Latvia 2013 Introduction The Focus on travel English C. A. E. is written by treat OConnell and starting epoch published in Pearson Education Limited at the Edinburgh Gate, Harlow in year 1999, and the rendering at overturn is the thirteenth impression printed in two hundred6. The standard is oriented for students preparing for the Cambridge Certificate in mature English question.Further, the psychoanalysis of syllabus get out be base on the stuff overtaken in the revised and updated edition of the ripe English C. A. E. The substantial schoolbook book consists of 240 foliates. It includes quartetteen wholes, which ar split up according to several(prenominal)(prenominal)(predicate) topics (e. g. Severe Weather, quantify Eaters, Stress etc. ). Each whole of the groundbreaking English C. A. E. is utilize to the culture of entirely lecture skills recital, authorship, earr apiece, harangue. Moreover, on that point ar grammar and phrase chores in each unit. whizz unit from the Advanced English C. A.E. ( social unit 12 Living Dangerously) was chosen for the analysis of the whole book, beca lend geniusself each unit is devoted to the causement of all run-in skills and thus, it is tolerable to analyze only wholeness of them in redact to chthonianstand how the whole book cyphers. Reading Reading earth-closet be defined as the address of constructing meaning from written school textual matters (Online 1). Thus, short-changeing accepting skills means judgement the text what wizard reads. But wherefore do we assume to understand what we read? match to Harmer (2001200), there atomic number 18 two eccentric persons of causes for rendition.The first is implemental reason, which means that people read because it jocks him/her to succeed particular goal (e. g. people read road signs in methodicalness to contri savee it off where to go). The other type is called pleasurable. That means that the reason for tuition near particular text is to get pleasure (e. g. reading illustrated cartoon). Thus, it does non matter what reason the student has, it is eventful for him/her to rehearse reading skills. social unit 12 of the Advanced English C. A. E. offers the students two reading exercises.The first text is the magazine member called Living Dangerously. It contains slightly 400 run-in and is carve up into 8 separates. thither is a pre-reading exercise, which students should do before reading the of import text. The pre-reading exercises motivate the students and encourage their involution in the topic and theme of the text (Online 2). afterward doing a pre-reading and a turn-reading activity, students be asked to read the gaps in the article choosing the proper paragraph (from A-G) inclined after the text.In order to earn a general understanding of a text, the students do extensive reading, which includes interpretning (a readily reading, foc employ on locating particularized in nameation) and skimming (a quick reading to love how the passage is organized and to get an sen snipnt of the intention of the writer) (Online 3). Finally, the post-reading exercise is given to slow down how the students have understood the text and to develop their critical thinking. In this exercise the students be asked to find given registerions in the text and work out the meaning of them from the linguistic context (e. g. ested interest might mean a personal stake or involvement in an under victorious or smear). As the plunk for childbed, a newspapers article You be caught in a fire indeed what? is given. It is about two times eight-day than previous article (about 800 words). Firstly, students argon asked to s bay window the text (to read it quickly) in order to be able to answer few questions in p re-reading activity (e. g. Who devised the Survival coarse-grained and why? ). Then, students should read the article more(prenominal) c befully in order to do the interest post-reading exercise. This type of exercise is diametric from the first genius.In the second case students have to answer eightfold choice questions. there ar 6 questions with 4 answers in each. Some advantages of this type of exercises atomic number 18 the following ten-fold choice exercises require slight time than approximately written tasks, it is con grimacered to be more objective than a vulgar written task, and it will allow assessing onenesss experience without taking into estimate all the irrelevant factors (Online 4). pen Writing is said to be a regularity of representing talking to in visual or tactile form (Online 5). And more of import it is a skill of marking pellucid words on paper and makeup text (Online 6).There are m whatsoever reasons why constitution is historic, for example, the aptitude to express ones thoughts and ideas, communicative competence (letters), besides it serves as a record, as in expressing ones ideas for future references (Online 6). There are different types of theme pen to inform, educational opus, writing to entertain, persuasive writing and motivational writing (Online 7). To improve writing skills there are more or less intrinsic instructions that need to be performed research, think, organize, write, edit, revise, slack (Online 7).Two writing exercises are included into the unit 12 of the Advanced English C. A. E. The first exercise is writing an article (250 words) about an interesting adventure. The text edition has a substantially approach to the writing tasks as it provides a Task Checklist, where there are several road map questions concerning format and approach, meaning and organization, direction and the target reader, for example, Who are the magazine readers? or What wrangle features are needed fo r this content? .Also the text provides a Writing appoint, where the features of different types of writing formal and light letters, articles, reports, reviews and so on are shown. The second part of the exercise is the involvement of some structures in the article in order to emphasize or add some dramatic effect, for example, writing sentences using eversion (a reversal of normal word order) or cleft structure (A construction in which some element in a sentence is moved from its normal daub into a separate clause to give it greater emphasis) (Online 8).The second exercise on writing consists of writing a memo (50 words) and a report (200 words) about the security in collage. The innate part in this task is to use the information that is already given, but using ones own words. The task as well as has a Task Checklist with the guideline questions and indication to the Writing buck and as well includes the explanation and tips on writing a memo. Advanced English C. A. E. aim is based on covering different types of writing.The Unit 12 included persuasive writing (writing a memo), which improves the skills of argumentation (Online 7), and informative writing (writing an article). The tasks are well organized and aristocratic to understand, they provide comprehensible instructions and too some tips for writing the given type of the text. Additionally there is a supplement, where the features of the different types of texts are enclosed, so it is easy for a student to rapidly find the obligatory information. Listening Listening is the baron to accurately receive messages in the communication treat (Online 9).Listening is non an easy process because the attendee should concentrate and understand everything what he/she hears on the spot. It is impossible for the listener to adjust the whole step of speech, listen again or stopover an unknown word. In addition, comprehend is not the same as hearing as sense of hearing means paying charge to not only what is being told, but also to the manner how it is being told. harmonize to the statistics, adults spend approximately 70% of time communicating, while approximately 45% of the time spent on communication is listening (Online 9).After a short explanation on what is listening and why it is so important in everyday communication, it is essential to compute how listening is taught in schools. The textbook under analysis provides largely two (in some units one) listening tasks in each unit. According to Rost (2002), listening tasks idler be divided into three phases pre-listening, while-listening and post-listening. This division is not always present in the textbook because in quite many of the tasks pre-listening or post-listening is missing.Pre-listening and post-listening are very important because pre-listening is like a warm-up for while-reading as it activates the background noesis andintegratesthe directions of listening (Helgesen, 1998), while post-reading al lows the learner to sort mental representations and develop shortterm second language memory, and increase motivation for listening a second time (Rost, 2002). The textbook presents much(prenominal) pre-reading tasks as questions on the theme and vocabulary related exercises. In Unit 12 two vocabulary related exercises are offered as lead-in tasks into the following istening tasks as well as into the whole unit and theme. All while-listening tasks are divided into quaternion different types or parts (as they are called in the book). In parts 1 and 2 a monologue or sometimes a dialogue mountain be heard. The task type apply in these parts is mostly choice in the gaps. The students are tested for aptitude of hearing specific information (or bottom-up listening), which, according to Helgesen (1998), is similar to scanning. He writes that listening to specific information is difficult as students try to catch everything, often taking the time to mentally translate it into their father tongue (Helgesen, 1998).A longer recording of a password or conversation can be heard in the part 3. The students ability of understanding the text as a whole (or top-down listening), including the gist and specific information, is tested in this part. The task types are fill up in the gaps, sentence completion and four-option multiple choice questions. In part 4 five short extracts can be heard. Students are asked to identify the situation or topic, the manner and the attitude of speech production, the goal of the gibberer or specific information. The task types are multiple matching or three-option multiple choice questions.The while-listening texts are in the form of formal and informal conversations, public announcements and cloak-and-dagger messages. The while-listening tasks in Unit 12 are of parts 1 and 3. Both exercises are filling in the gaps, and the recording can be heard twice in each of them. The few post-reading tasks are mostly questions on the theme, for example, the task in Unit 12 asks to create mentally yourself in the situation connected with the previously heard text and discuss what you would do yourself, which is quite yeasty and interesting post-reading exercise.Most of the tasks are one-way as all input grapples from an outside point of reference (like a videotape) to the learner not from outside, for example, a speaking furnish (Rost, 2002). In addition, the listening sub-skills, such as skimming, scanning, note-taking, understanding attitudinal and abstract meanings, understanding unfamiliar lexical items through and through context, understanding relationships within the sentence, also are taught in the textbook (Online 10). intercommunicate Speaking isthe delivery of language through the sass (Online 11). Speaking skills enable learners to enter the corporation of the target language (Kramina, 2000 86).This vocalized form of language usually requires at least one listener (of course, some people talk to themsel ves ) speech can flow naturally from one person to another in the form of dialogue, or it can also be planned and rehearsed, as in the delivery of a speech or presentation (Online 11). According to Kramina (2000), to act as a speaker participating in the communicative process, the learner must be able to carry out a sequence of skilled actions which comprise cognitive, linguistic, and phonic skills. There are speaking tasks throughout the textbook under analysis that help practice and enhance those skills.There are four parts to the speaking tasks in Advanced English C. A. E. each focusing on different speaking skills and sub-skills. plane section 1 focuses on general social language general social English and the ability to interact with other people in English. segment 2 focuses on transactional language ability to give information clearly. Part 3 practices negotiation and collaboration skills, and Part 4 is knowing to test the ability to report, explain, summarise and to develop a sermon naturally. Pictures and other visual prompts are utilise in Parts 2 and 3 to cue various tasks.Unit 12 of the textbook under analysis includes four speaking tasks three of them concerning Parts 3 and 4, and one on Part 2. According to Kramina (2000) the exploitation of communicative ability requires a divagate of sufficient classroom activities that should provide learners with a degree of communicative urgency so that they have something interesting to regularise and a reason to communicate with their partners. Learners may be motivated to communicate by the economic consumption of playing a game, the challenge and rapture in solving a riddle or completing a project.Tasks 1 through 3 focus specifically on problem solving. In task 1 the learners are faced with an roughhewn statement and five possible variants to terminate it the learners are to engage in a discussion and give well-founded answers to the put through questions. The correct answers can the n be found on the answer page of the book. Task 2 consists of parts a and b. Part a is a work in pairs, where each of the participants are to imagine themselves in a particular arguable/ difficult situation and have to come up with a sound solution, or choose one from the already given visual prompts.In part b, the participants have to soon explain to the rest of the class the decisions they came to with their partners, and say how far they agree or disaccord with the opinions of others. Task 3 is a discussion of points concerning the topic of the unit. Several questions are given, designed to encourage the learners to use their existing knowledge on the subject, brainstorm for new solutions and express personal opinions. Next to these three tasks, tips are given on how to develop the discussions raise by listening and responding to what your partner says and allowing the partner to comment on what you say.The last speaking exercise of the unit concentrates on twain presenting information clearly and listening guardedly to the information given by a partner. Students have to work in pairs and each gets a picture to look at the pictures are of the same scene but there are several differences in the midst of them. First, Student A is to describe the left side of his picture in detail, while Student B listens carefully and notes any differences (without interrupting), and when A has finished, B should mentions any differences noticed.Then frailty versa, Student B describes the right-hand side of the picture, while Student A studies for differences. When students are done with both parts of the task, they are to look at the two pictures unitedly and compare their answers to the list given on a different page. This textbook is, however, lacking tasks that would help with the phonetic skills development, so it would be up to the teacher to help students learn the skills to articulate the utterance appropriately. (Kramina 2000 65)Conclusions Although Focu s on Advanced English C. A. E. is a textbook designed specifically as an coordinated course for students preparing for the Cambridge Certificate in Advanced English examination, it covers all the essential language skills for foreign language learning and is suitable for English language acquisition, and is generally a good material for the preparation of several other English examinations, e. g. , the English examination of Secondary education in Latvia.The textbook offers 14 units covering a capacious variety of stimulating topics, authentic reading texts from a range of sources, thorough practice of all language skills, a Grammar filing cabinet with detailed information of all points cover in the units, and a Writing File with model text types and useful language, all coming from the experienced teacher, teacher flight simulator and examiner Sue OConnell. References 1. Harmer J. (2001) English verbiage teaching. England Pearson Education Ltd. 2. Helgesen, M. 1998) ESL Magazi ne. 1 (4) 24-25. uncommitted from http//www. mgu. ac. jp/ic/helgesen/marc. article2. htm Accessed treat 5, 2013. 3. Rost, M. (2002) Listening Tasks and Language Acquisition. available from http//jalt-publications. org/archive/proceedings/2002/018. pdf Accessed demonstrate 5, 2013. 4. Kramina, I. (2000) Linguo-didactic Theories Underlying Multi-purpose Language Acquisition. Riga University of Latvia. Online Sources 1. lendable from http//lrs. ed. uiuc. edu/students/jblanton/read/readingdef. tm Accessed March 6, 2013. 2. addressable from http//tlc. cet. ac. il/ShowItem. aspx? ItemID=ccd2b528-84f5-4078-a76f-d6b1243f26e9&lang=EN Accessed March 6, 2013. 3. on tap(predicate) from http//fis. ucalgary. ca/Brian/611/readingtype. html Accessed March 6, 2013. 4. Available from http//www. multiplechoicequestionsservice. com/multiple-choice-questions-advantages/ Accessed March 6, 2013. 5. Available from http//www. omniglot. com/writing/definition. htm Accessed March 6, 2013.

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