This study is about the use of textbooks in teaching English as a second language and about teachers’ attitudes and opinions of using textbooks during lessons. The aim of the study is to receive a deeper understanding of the use of textbooks in English teaching and to learn about why teachers choose whether to use the textbook approach or not. The study contains an analysis of the textbooks the teachers in our study used. The analysis shows the actual content and the types of texts together with the design and the structure of the textbooks. We have also conducted an analysis of materials that accompany the textbooks in forms of workbooks and the guides for teachers. This part of the analysis shows what kind of competencies the exercises in the workbooks promote and whether they are consistent with the Swedish curriculum for English. We have also interviewed 10 teachers and one special needs teacher to get a view of their thoughts around their teaching of English and the use of textbooks in children’s education. We have also performed a short observation to see what kind of exposure to the English language the children had in their classrooms. Our study shows that a lot of teachers use the textbook as a base for their teaching of English. They explain that they use the textbook to find relevant content to which they add their own ideas or material from other sources to complement the textbooks. The analyses of the textbooks show that when it comes to content the textbooks seem to fulfill the intentions of the curriculum. The competencies that the exercises in the workbook promote, especially for years 4-6, were mainly the written production. As a contrast to the textbooks for years 1-3 where the oral production and interaction was the most promoted competencies. This study concludes that the teaching of English has not gone through any radical changes even though we now have a new curriculum for English. The textbooks are still more focused on written production instead of the communicative aspects that has been promoted in the new curriculum. However the newer textbooks show a greater understanding for the new curriculum and have more exercises that promote the communicative aspects of the English language. A conclusion of this study is that the teaching of English has changed since our time in school; however the change can be said to be processing slowly.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:umu-64558 |
| Date | January 2013 |
| Creators | Danielsson, Sandra, Lundberg, Malin |
| Publisher | Umeå universitet, Institutionen för språkstudier, Umeå universitet, Institutionen för språkstudier |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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