Chapter 2 Literature Review
2.3 Children’s English Learning Materials in Taiwan
2.3.1 Introduction of Children’s English Learning Materials in Taiwan
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2.3.1 Introduction of Children’s English Learning Materials in Taiwan
English Textbook
Textbooks can also be called as coursebooks, and in Chen’s (2001) study, it was defined as “a set of systematically organized books that teachers and students have for language teaching and learning”. Gray (2002) pointed that ‘coursebooks are
commodities to be traded, but they contain the result of the interplay between
contradictory commercial, pedagogic and ethical interests”. However, “ELT publishers may be said to present a vision of world in the texts they produce”. In order to find out whether the contents in coursebooks are informative and educative rather than cultural imperial and commercialized, it is important to take a closer look at how different cultures were represented in coursebooks.
Many researches have examined and evaluated textbooks in different ways. In Ho’s (2004) study, she aimed to provide a better understanding of the characteristics of textbooks of instruction guides i.e. teacher’s manuals in elementary and junior high school textbook sets that contain distinct instruction types, and tried to find out the potential influence on students’ English proficiency and the overall distribution of instruction types and their subtypes in elementary and junior high school textbook sets, including basic and supplementary instruction units. In addition, she tried to compare exported elementary English learning materials with local English learning textbooks and found that exported English materials use higher percentage of communicative language teaching approach (CA) than local textbooks. Chen’s (2001) study also showed that by examining 5 coursebook sets; she found the imported coursebooks appear to have a higher degree of communicative activities and contextualization than the local coursebooks.
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English Learning Magazines
English learning magazines share high rate of market occupation among different types of magazines such as technology, fashion, and music. In Lin’s (2000) study, she claimed that the release numbers of English learning magazines in Taiwan have been rapidly increased since 1999. Currently, there are more than twenty different English learning magazines sold in bookstores, which includes learning magazines including children English learning magazines, GEPT (General English Proficiency Test) preparation magazines, and reading comprehension practice English magazines. The following list is a brief introduction of English magazines currently sold at market, and it is classified according to its publisher:
(1). Studio Classroom: The publisher was founded in 1962 by Doris Brougham. It is the English learning magazines that owns longest history in Taiwan. Now, there are three English learning magazines targeting at different English level being published:
“Let’s Talk in English”, “Studio Classroom”, and “Advanced”.
(2). LIVE ABC Interactive English teacher group (Hebron publisher): It was established in 2000 in Taipei. There are five monthly English learning magazines published:
ABC interactive, LIVE interactive, All Plus interactive, BIZ interactive, and CNN interactive English magazines. All the magazines put emphasis on interactive and situational learning.
(3). Ivy League Analytical English Publisher: It was founded by Professor Peter Lai in 1988. There are two monthly English learning magazines, Ivy League Analytical English and Enjoy English.
(4). American Magazine Center (AMC): It was established by Peter Hsu in 1979.
Currently, AMC produces monthly publications that consist of
high-intermediate learning (English Digest), intermediate learning (English 4U), and elementary levels (A+ English), which are all based on GEPT
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standards.
(5). Global Village Organization: This organization is mostly known as English and Japanese learning center. However, it produces abundant language teaching materials. For their monthly publication, there are two English learning magazines: Global Talk (地球村生活美語) and Global Voice (地球 村時尚美語).
(6). EZ Talk (Keliopolis Culture Group 日月文化集團): This publisher
produces many educational books and the only English learning magazine it publishes until now is EZ Talk.
Most of the English learning magazines differentiate their target readers by using GEPT (General English Proficiency Test) as the standard (See Table 2-1-1).
Table 2-1-1 the English level requirement for each English learning magazine Name of the magazine Readers’ English level (GEPT level)
1. Let’s Talk in English Basic level 2. Studio Classroom Intermediate level
3. Advanced High-intermediate to advanced level
4. ABC interactive English Basic level 5. Live interactive English Intermediate level 6. All plus interactive English Advanced level 7. BIZ interactive English Office English 8. CNN interactive English News English
9. Ivy League Analytical English Intermediate to high-intermediate level 10. Enjoy English. Basic to intermediate level
11. English Digest high-intermediate level
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12. English 4U intermediate level
13. A+ English elementary level
14. Global Talk (地球村生活美語) Basic to intermediate level 15. Global Voice (地球村時尚美語 ). Advanced level and above
16. EZ Talk 美語會話誌 Intermediate to high-intermediate level
Among the seventeen monthly published English learning magazines, only three are triggered at basic level English learners: “Let’s Talk in English”, “ABC Interactive English Magazine”, and “A+ English”. In the present study, the researcher chose two English learning magazines from three. “Let’s Talk in English” and “ ABC Interactive English Magazines” were selected because both of them have won thirty-one times as outstanding publishing by Government Information Office in the year of 2009. And both magazines have great selling numbers at market; the monthly average numbers are two hundred and ninety thousand for “Let’s Talk in English”, and one hundred thousand for “ABC Interactive English Magazine” (Magazine Business Association of Taipei website).
Cultural Imperialism in Coursebooks
In Taiwan, when it comes to culture teaching in English instruction, the importance is usually attached to American culture. Many scholars realized the imbalanced situation and pointed out the consequences. Chen and Chien (2003) examined the culture
instruction in thirteen elementary and junior high school English textbooks approved by MOE, and found 5 out of the 10 publishers introduced Western festivals more than Chinese ones. They advocated that foreign culture and customs from various countries should be included in English courses to cultivate students’ cultural competence.
McKay (2003) claimed that the cultural content of English as International language (EIL) should not be limited to native English-speaking cultures (pp. 140). In his
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investigation on examining the teaching of English in Chile, the result showed Chilean students from grade 7 to 12, the majority of them preferred cultural content dealing with the diverse life and culture of different countries in the world.
Gray (2002) criticized “the absence of the local was a problematic aspect of global coursebooks”. There is a “need for something to connect the world of English with the world of the students”. He suggested the bridge of “two-way traffic of cultural exchange, of the place for the local in the global” is necessary and important. Some cultural themes are recognized by ELT as “glorified Anglo-American popular culture”. Cem Alptekin (1993) also pointed out that “most textbook writers are native speakers who consciously or unconsciously transmit the views, values, beliefs, attitudes, and feelings of their own English-speaking society—usually the United States or United Kingdom.
As such, when learners acquire a new set of English discourse as part of their evolving systemic knowledge, they partake of the cultural system which the set entails”.
In Sun’s (1996) study, he adopted content analysis to examine one of the English learning magazines-- Studio Classroom. He pointed out that the magazine used most of the content to report American-related information (44.86%); therefore, he concluded that the situation of Americanism existed in the English learning magazine. Sun (1996;
pp 20) defined Americanism as the media report on America tends to be positive and is obviously America-centered. The media tries to impose the American value system on audience and encourages people to judge other culture with this standard and make it the mainstream.
In the study, the researcher will try to evaluate the text with the above mentioned standard and statement to find out whether “cultural imperialism” and “Americanism”
would be detected from the two English learning magazines.
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Suggestion for English Learning Materials
Cao (1987) suggested that the content in children’ English learning materials should combine with their daily lives so that children can learn things and people relevant to their lives. By doing so can learning English satisfy children’s curiosity and develop their interests. Chang (2000) examined on the development of web-based multimedia courseware for children's English, and she claimed that in order to encourage students to learn different cultures through exploring, appropriate learning materials with sufficient footnotes and background introduction concerning cultures are essential. The design of the learning page should use pictures or animation as supplement to explain and analyze texts, so that it can not only make up for children’s lack of understanding of abstract rules and concepts but also help increase students’ learning interests.
In most researches on the evaluation of English teaching materials, researchers provided similar suggestion-- English learning materials should also include more dialogues and activities in which students can take part, such as games, and role-playing activities, and should provide actual cultural experiences. Practical information should be included in main texts and also in appendices, such as conversation tables of
measurements, air fares among major cities, denominations of currency, and maps of major cities. (Mckay, 2003; Tseng,1999, Tsai, 1999; Dai, 1999; Su, 1999)
Hsu (2004) promoted the use of situated learning in children’ English learning materials for situated learning emphasizes that learning take place in real life context and promotes “learning by doing” and “practical intelligence” to help build meaningful knowledge.
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2.3.2 Cultural Themes in English Learning Materials
Gray (2002) listed some inappropriate and cultural offensive themes with an acronym PARSNIP that represents politics, alcohol, religion, sex, narcotics, isms, pork. In contrast, the appropriate cultural themes are travel, holiday and festivals (pp. 157, 159, 165). Galloway (1985) indicated that the festivals played an important part culture teaching, and festival learning not only benefited the learners’ culture knowledge but also enhanced festival-related language usages. Chu (1999) stated that the topics, thoughts, knowledge, information, and comparisons between eastern and western cultures should be contained in English learning materials. In 1999, Tseng (1999) had done the survey about primary school students’ opinions toward English materials, and the findings of the topics in their favorite orders were hobbies, family lives, classmates and friends, leisure facilities, Chinese and western festivals and nature. In sum, English teaching materials must be designed in terms of students’ interests and needs, and the contents should be practical and vivid.
Pesola (1991) claimed that it might be useful to teach cultural elements for the elementary school foreign language classroom. She classified different cultural elements into three parts: cultural symbols, cultural products, and cultural practices.
(1). Cultural symbols includes flags; significant national or geographic monuments;
symbols associated with holidays; good and bad luck symbols; symbolic meaning of animals; heroes from history or myth.
(2). Cultural products are concrete objects such as virtual arts, significant examples of music and arts; important characters, events and themes from folk literature;
traditional children’s songs, rhymes, games; traditional stories and legends;
examples of folk arts; currency and coins, stamps; traditional and holiday food.
(3). Cultural practices are, for example, forms of greeting; celebration of holidays; use
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of gestures; meals and eating practices; shopping; favorite playtime and recreational activities; home and school life; pattern of politeness; types of and attitudes toward pets and how children and families move from place to place.
In some studies, researchers focused on specific cultural themes and gave
suggestion. For example, Chiang (2002) found out “holidays could give opportunities for children to experience activities associated with celebrations throughout the year in the target culture, to connect with historical and regional information, and to relate them to similar and contrasting celebrations in their own culture”. Tsou (2001) examined relation between culture and language learning. She designed a detailed lesson plan for culture instruction which was implemented to four elementary EFL classrooms and observed the effects of culture teaching on language learning. Her lesson plan includes the comparison of different festivals in eastern and western countries such as tomb sweeping festival versus Easter and Double Tenth Day versus Independence Day;
introduction of some important holidays like Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas;
elaboration on lifestyle-related topics such as meals and table manners, my house and neighborhood, social manners, for instance, to be on time and how to react after receiving gifts; and concepts about names including first name and last name. And the result showed culture instruction significantly facilitates language learning. Hirsch (1987) also listed that frequent topics for culture instruction are children literature, nursery rhymes, folktales, art, music, customs, values, habits, dress, foods, leisure, etc.
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Chapter 3 Research Method
In the chapter, the introduction of textual analysis, two English learning magazines, and the process and of this research will be included.
3.1 Textual Analysis
Textual analysis is the method communication researchers use to describe and interpret the characteristics of a recorded or visual message (Frey et al., 1979). It helps to
understand what is the nature of communication, how communication is related to other variables. To be more specific, it can be “written transcripts of speeches and
conversations, written documents like letters, personnel, records, newspapers, and magazines, electronic documents like audiotapes, films, videotapes, and computer files, or visual texts like paintings, photographs, and architecture. This research adopts text analysis as the only research method.
In qualitative research, text analysis is different from content analysis. Babbie (1995) defined content analysis as “the study of recorded human communications, such as books, websites, paintings, and laws”. In addition, Ole Holsti (1969) called it
“technique for making interferences by objectively and systematically identifying specified characteristics of messages”. Unit is the basic measurement. Each unit contains various textual units and activity units. Both textual units and activity units include dialogues with illustrations or visual cues, writing, reading, listening, story-telling, songs, rhymes, and chants, games, vocabulary recognition, question-and-answer, puzzles, role-plays, matching, and so on.
Text analysis is categorized as the philosophy of hermeneutics, which focuses on interpretation. Patton (2002) explains “hermeneutics provides a theoretical framework for interpretive understanding, or meaning, with special attention to context and original purpose”, therefore, in order “to make sense of and interpret a text”, it is essential to
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“place documents in historical and cultural context” (pp. 114). In brief, through text analysis can people understand how and what text is presented.
Textbook Evaluation/Criteria for Teaching Material Evaluation
McDonough and Shaw (1993) provided three ways to evaluate teaching materials:
First of all, the external evaluation is the examination of “cover, introduction, and table of contents”. Second, the internal evaluation, which means the treatment and
presentation of the skills, the sequencing and grading of the materials, the types of reading, listening, speaking, and writing, the material content, appropriacy of test and exercises, self-study provision and teacher-learner balance in the use of materials.
Third, overall evaluation is to examine whether the syllabus developed in materials selected conforms to the objectives we work, and if the levels are graded in a measure of flexibility.
Besides, the Ministry of Education’s (MOE) evaluative criteria can be categorized into two parts: required criteria and general evaluative criteria. Required criteria focus on the framework and the structure of a textbook. General evaluative criteria, known as general criteria, evaluates language components, language competence, appearance of the textbook, teacher’s manual, and supplementary materials and visual aids. Moreover, evaluation of teaching activities and context, i.e. contextualized activities are included in this category.
In the present study, the text analysis will adopt the internal evaluation to analyze contents of English learning materials. Every sentence and description concerning the representation of culture will be listed and categorized. Besides, vocabulary and pictures related to culture themes, different ethnicity of characters, and famous historic heritage will be examined, listed, and categorized. There are five purposes in this study:
(1).Analyze the description and word choice of the magazine in order to show how
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cultural information is arranged and described
(2).Repetitively read and analyze the latent meaning of English learning materials, i.e., its connotation, and familiarize with the sentence structure, vocabulary, main idea of each paragraph, and concept description.
(3). Examine the representation Big C and small c in the text.
(4). Find out whether the countries and cultures introduced in the text are limited to native English-speaking cultures.
(5). Find out whether the text provides footnote and background information when introducing a new culture-related topic.
3.2 Material Selection
Most researches on English learning material examination focus on textbooks. For example, in Ji’s research (2007), he chose three versions of junior high school English textbooks to test their readability. They are: Kang Hsuan version (康軒 published by Kang Hsuan educational publishing group), Han Lin-Joy (翰林佳音 Joy Publishing corporation) , and Longman (朗文 Pearson Education Taiwan) for the academic year 2006. Ho (2004) selected a total of 7 English materials including 4 elementary school English textbooks (“Happy English” by Hess, “Learn it and like it” by Jordan’s, “Let’s Go” by Oxford, “Antics” by MacMillan) and 3 junior high school English textbooks (“Junior High school English Textbooks” by Kang Hsuan, “Hot English” by Joy &
Hanlin, “Junior High school English Textbooks” by national compilation and
translation). However, in this study, the teaching materials being examined are English learning magazines.
Due to the lack of research on English learning magazines in Taiwan on the aspect
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of culture, this study aims to find out how English learning magazines targeting at basic English learners present culture in their texts. In Taiwan, English learning magazines share high market occupation among whole magazine industry; however, English learning magazines targeting at beginning to intermediate level, here defined as at basic GEPT level, are limited to two: “Let’s Talk in English”, “ABC Interactive English Magazine 互動英語雜誌”, and “A+ English”. In the study, the researcher chose two representative English leaning magazines among three; they are: “Let’s Talk in English”
and “ABC Interactive English Magazine”. Here are detailed introduction of these two magazines:
Let’s talk in English
“Let’s Talk in English” was first published in 1981. Now, with “Studio Classroom”, it ranks number one and two as the best-selling English learning magazines in Taiwan.
The selling number is around 290,000 per month (Magazine Business Association of Taipei website, 2010). It uses everyday English which includes topics such as shopping, traffic, travel, recreation, family life, and American lifestyles. It is adequate for students at GEPT basic level.
There are about 4 to 5 lessons in one set, three parts of conversation a day. In addition to conversation, there are: “Key Words”, “More Information”, “Super
Sentence”, “Inspector English”, and “Question of the Day” sections. The selling price is 120 NT dollars, and 220 with an interactive learning disk.
The editor-in-chief is Doris Brougham, executive editor, Ruth Devlin; and managing editor, Andrea Bastke; all of them are from English as native language countries. Besides, most members of their editorial (80%) staff are native speaker of English. Judging by this high percentage, cultural themes in the text are expected to be
The editor-in-chief is Doris Brougham, executive editor, Ruth Devlin; and managing editor, Andrea Bastke; all of them are from English as native language countries. Besides, most members of their editorial (80%) staff are native speaker of English. Judging by this high percentage, cultural themes in the text are expected to be