Book Criticism

                                             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”.

2-      Miekley, J. (2005). ESL Textbook Evaluation Checklist. http://www.readingmatrix.com/reading_projects/miekley/project.pdf

3-      Mukundan, J. (2012). Evaluative Criteria of an English Language Textbook Evaluation Checklist. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Vahid_Nimehchisalem/publication/259620754_Evaluative_Criteria_of_an_English_Language_Textbook_Evaluation_Checklist/links/0deec52ceb87057894000000/Evaluative-Criteria-of-an-English-Language-Textbook-Evaluation-Checklist.pdf