Book
Criticism
Book’s
name: Sea Star.
Authors: Nisreen Sinjab, Thomas Royko.
Editor: Sami Jalbout.
Cover: Charbel Mattar.
Reader Consultants: Makram Haddad, Sam Najjar, Maurice Haddad.
To be a teacher is to be a guider, a monitor, an assessor, a
designer… and a lot more roles are included under the bigger term “Teacher”.
However, the teacher is not alone in accomplishing these duties; there are the
authentic materials which can help him/her a lot, the internet from which he/she
can search plenty of methods techniques, ideas… which he/she can use in
teaching the students. But, one of the most common and effective assistants
which all teachers in any domain can benefit from, is the textbook, which can
play the role of the guider, the designer, and even the assessor. However,
textbooks don’t always succeed in doing this mission. Even if it seems an easy
task that any teacher can achieve, to choose the right book, is a very hard
task that requires asking many questions before trusting one single book in
your journey as a teacher.
One
of the English textbooks, that teachers of grade eleventh use, is called “Sea
Star”, and is divided to two parts: Part A, and Part B.
Regarding some elements and building on some questions every teacher should ask,
I am going to evaluate and criticize this book in order to find out if it meets
the students’ needs and the teacher’s goals. The questions that need to be
asked about every book’s effectiveness can be overwhelming, but once we find
the answers of some specific questions about this book, we will be rewarded by
having the awareness whether we should or should not adopt this book between
our hands (Sea Star).
I
will start with the first question: Goals of the course: Will this textbook
help to accomplish your course goals? Or in other words, are this book’s goals
are clearly set?
This book have a table of contents in which each unit’s title is written and
each text in the unit is written under the goal that it serves, for example, in
the first unit, where the theme is “Human values”, there are six texts under
the six main general titles or goals: Reading strategy, reading and writing
integrated, reading and speaking integrated, listening strategy, think twice
before…, and inspirational article.
However, these general goals aren’t enough in a textbook, because they are so
general and wide. Going deeper through the first lesson, we notice that there
are two activities before reading, then six questions while reading, and then
four after reading. And at the end, there is a critical reading section where
the students answer and discuss with their partners six open-ended questions
that provoke their opinions. In the second lesson, where the reading and
writing are integrated together, there are six during reading comprehension
questions, and then there are six writing tasks after reading. As for the part
where the general goals are reading and speaking integrated together, there are
three speaking tasks after reading. Under the listening strategy part, there
are two main activities before listening, then two while listening, and then
three activities after listening.
Think twice before… part is a part under which the students are asked to search
online a certain topic (Precisely a topic related to the subject of the unit
they are taking, which is in this example “Human values”) and find some
specific information, then they are asked to apply this new knowledge in their
country and compared to their country’s beliefs, which is in other words
related to their lives, what makes of the materials more interested, reliable,
suitable ones for the students. After that, the students are asked to prepare a
presentation of their findings and share it with the class, which helps them
practice their speaking skills.
This part (Think twice before…) helps students to practice their speaking
skills, but above all, practice their skills in doing researches, which is
something they are going to do and need a lot in their upcoming years.
At the end of every single lesson (Text), there is a “Glossary” part in which
the hard vocabularies that the students will encounter in the text are defined
and explained.
Finally, under the inspirational article, the students read an inspirational
story of some public figure. In this unit, the inspirational article is about
“Desmand Tutu”. The person that the inspirational story is about must be
related to the topic of the unit of course.
This
book’s activities meet the students’ goals which serve the four skills equally,
where each unit constitutes of six parts, and each part serves one or two
skills integrated together. However, the problem is in the book rhythm. This
textbook is so monotonic and follows one single rhythm, where each unit is
constituted of six parts and each part is the same as the one in the previous
unit. The only thing that is changing is the topic of the lesson, and therefore
the topic or object of the questions is changing, however, still is the same
type of questions and activities in every unit. This will definitely reflect
negatively, especially that this book is directed to teenagers who can easily
get bored, and therefore, can easily lose their focus and attention.
I
asked my brother (Abbess), who is studying in this book about this issue; he
told me that they really got bored, even though they really love and enjoy the
topics of the lessons (Which will discuss later). He said that they always
predict what the teacher will ask them or do for them as an activity, and their
predictions are always right, even if they don’t look in the book, because they
have already taken the same type of activities and questions in the previous
unit. They are always waiting for the surprising element that will take them
out of their boredom, but this element never comes.
Even though, you cannot design a book with one hundred percent different
elements, questions, activities… in it, but you can always add something new
with each new unit or lesson that will make your students enjoy what they are
doing and wait for the next new surprising element in the next unit, and
therefore, build an intrinsic purpose in them that will make them love learning
and the course. Each book must have continuously surprising elements which will
break its monotony.
A second element or question to be searched for in a text book is
the topics discussed in it. Does it fit the students’ backgrounds? (Age,
educational background, native language and culture, and motivation or purpose
for learning English)
I loved this book’s topics, so did my brother. He told me that mostly the only
thing that keeps them focused in any lesson and interested in the materials is
the topic of the text and the theme in general. Some examples of this
textbook’s lessons are: Zidane’s Head-Butt, Sally, The star ducks, Who is
worrying about?, Movie services, Athenian democracy…
The students at this age (15 years old) become interested in more mature but at
the same time youthful topics. So regarding their ages, these book’s topics are
perfect for them.
Now regarding their native language and culture, this book is also respecting
and taking into consideration the students’ native culture, where, for example,
“Athenian democracy” has a photo of a woman wearing the Hijab and raising her
inked finger against the camera, which is a scene that could be seen in the
students’ native culture but never seen in any other cultures (Foreign
cultures). This makes the students more familiar, comfortable, and interested
with the story and the book as a whole. Moreover, there is an inspirational
article talking about Ziad El Rahbani, who is a Lebanese public figure.
What makes of this book an interesting and relevant book for the students is
the fact that it is designed for their culture particularly. The publisher of
this book is “World Heritage Publisher Ltd”, which preserves our Lebanese
heritage in particular and teaches the students our culture and to respect our
civilization. This makes the topics of the lessons relevant to the students and
interested, and it relates the lessons to the students’ lives, and therefore,
this makes the students more comfortable with the materials they are taking,
and makes them more convinced and satisfied, which will make the learning
enjoyable and fun.
A third element that every English textbook must have is whether it
serves all the four skills equally: Reading, Writing, Speaking, and Listening. Which
is something found in this book as we noticed from the first element where the
table of contents shows the four skills and we noticed how each lesson serves a
skill and sometimes two skills together. However, the responsibility here is on
the teacher him/herself. My brother told me that his teacher doesn’t follow the
book’s tasks in listening; instead he gives them the audio typed to read and
then reflect on it. So, in this case, the listening task is becoming a reading
task, which causes the lack of the listening skill in students.
A fourth element that we must make sure if this book includes and
we must pay attention to is the general content, as whether the book comprises
extra materials (CD, Answer key…) in addition to the textbook.
This book comprises two parts of textbook (Part A and B), a reinforcer, Audio
CD, and an answer key (The teacher’s guide).
These are all extra elements that enrich the textbook and make it easier to use
and more creative and flexible to teach our students with. The audio CD helps
our students acquire the perfect native English accent, which they will need in
their futures, whether in a job or a travel or even to simply communicate. The
answer key is something the teacher can always get back to whenever he/she is
not sure about her answer, but it isn’t necessary to take its answers as they
are. It guides the teacher and helps him/her make sure of their answers and
sometimes benefit from the answers inside it to enrich theirs.
The previous element brings us to
the teacher’s guide element, which can be: Methodological guidance, alternative
and supplementary exercises, suitability for nonnative-speaking teacher, and
answer keys. As we already mentioned, the teacher’s guide in this book is an
answer key. So all the activities and questions in the book have an answer key
that teachers can resort to whenever needed. It helps structure your answers in
a more suitable and right way, and helps the teacher notice anything that
he/she might have missed. I couldn’t get the answer key; however, any answer
key should be used in a limited and organized way, so the teaching process
don’t miss its purposes and its goals. The teacher after all must be his/her
own guider, getting some help or support from the extra materials.
Regarding the approaches used in
this book, we can easily and clearly notice that the approaches used are mainly
the communicative language learning approach (CLT), as activities are mostly
communicative and in each lesson there is at least one group work activity that
is built on communication between the students, and there are a plenty of
speaking activities that demand of the students to use their language through
natural and planned communication, both integrated.
Another approach that’s usually used in English textbooks is task-based
language teaching (TBLT), where the students are asked to perform many tasks
with educational purposes, and it focuses on the use of authentic language in
meaningful tasks while performing the target language. Such tasks can include conducting
an interview, or visiting a doctor for a purpose…
Unfortunately, this book includes no task-based language teaching (TBLT), which
makes it a poor book in activities. TBLT is a must in nowadays if you were to
teach the students the right English language that they might need and use
naturally in any situations or for any life purpose. This approach helps the
students acquire the natural English language and the native accent, plus it
helps them build their confidence in speaking the English language. So if this
approach was missing, for sure there is a side of the English language that
students must acquire, that will be missing, and therefore, the learning
process will lack some of its important factors and will not be fully achieved.
The book’s vocabularies are another
element to pay attention to. In this book, the vocabularies are perfectly
suitable to the age of fourteen or fifteen years old. It includes hard
vocabularies but at the same time understandable, so somehow it includes
challengeable vocabularies. However, there are some hard words that are defined
in the “Glossary” part in every lesson, at the end of it. So regarding teaching
new vocabularies, this book serves exactly the needs of the students and the
suitable level of language that they can understand from one side and is
challengeable and can add to their repertoire of vocabularies and helps them in
using the right accurate language from another side.
Regarding the activities in this
book, there is variety of activities that includes different types of
activities comprising controlled activities and more free activities. And the
activities are structured and communicated in a clear, direct, and
understandable way for both students and teacher, which helps them perform it
and benefit from it while enjoying it.
However, these activities lack the motivator that encourages the students to
work and perform, and therefore, active the students’ participation. As I
already mentioned in the first point, the book lacks the surprising and
motivating element that makes the students enjoy learning and want more
activities to do. Instead, these activities are so limited to the class and to
papers and pencils only. It doesn’t require from students to be engaged
physically and emotionally in the activities, but these activities are more
fixed ones, which make of these book’s activities insufficient ones that don’t
comprise every language skill component. However, there are no grammar
activities in this book, and when I asked my brother about the grammar, he told
me that the tenth grade don’t take grammar anymore. But, he told me that when
performing any other tasks, the teacher gives them grammar instructions, and
control their language.
Another factor that usually slips of the teacher’s attention is the
sequence of the lessons, whether the lessons are sequenced from the easiest to
the hardest, or the opposite, or they follow no sequence. This book is sequenced
from the easiest to the hardest lesson, and when I asked my brother what is the
sequence that the teacher follows, he told me that he sticks to the book’s
sequence, so they take the lessons as they are organized in the book.
Regarding the format of the book, this book is somehow attractive
to particularly this age of students. The layout of the book, even though isn’t
colorful, but it comprises all the lessons’ covers which includes the picture
of a woman wearing the Hijab, fat people working out, poor people working, two
girls hugging each other… as we know teenagers are very energetic and
sensitive, so such pictures will surely attract them and grab their attention,
especially the picture of poor people because students this age are very
revolutionary and start to notice the injustice in the world, and it is our
responsibility and our choice to either encourage them to walk this
revolutionary road and strengthen their interests and ideas by teaching them
suitable and related topics, or we can make them forget this revolutionary
spirit and convince them to care and be interested in other less important
ideas, and therefore bury their creativity, energy, and encouragement. This
book serves of course the first choice, which encourages them and provides them
with the cover of the book that grabs this age’s attention and makes them
unconsciously open the book and start reading it without even thinking twice
about it. Moreover, the title “Sea Star” is another factor that grabs the
students’ attention. It is so creative, which is another trait of teenager’s
traits. Moreover, the font size is also a factor that might affect the
students’ motivation to read and be engaged in the textbook. The font size is
not so big nor too small, unlike the font size of younger ages. The tenth grade
is the first grade where officially the students become older learners where
they must learn the language in a more formal way, and must be prepared to
their coming academic years. That’s why the size of the font is a more formal
regular size of 12, and the colors aren’t so bright, where the questions are
written in blue, and the sub questions (More detailed questions under the big
questions) are written in black. So the book’s colors and font are more formal
and suitable to this age, preparing the students to their next stage of their
lives, adulthood.
A last point to talk about is whether the book has any visual aids
with it, or extra books as resource books for students… unfortunately, this
book has no extra materials or available aids that help in the teaching and
learning process. It is another weakness point in this book that affects its
role negatively, because it limits the process of teaching and learning, and
doesn’t allow for students’ creativity. Plus, instead of investing in these
materials and benefit from them, the book wasted some extra important materials
and therefore, deprived the students from variety of experiences that could
have helped them.
As a conclusion, this book is somehow a good book with good
materials, however, it lacks a lot of more materials and factors that students
need to accomplish their learning process. The book needs more materials and
aids, and it lacks the different types of languages (British and American) it
has only the American language. The book also needs more natural and authentic
use of the language. It needs more tasks to practice the language through them.
Therefore, it needs to include the task-based language teaching, in order to
practice the language in more authentic situations.
References:
1-
The
“Methods” course book titled “Teaching by Principles, an Interactive Approach
to Language Pedagogy”, written by “H. Douglas Brown”.
