An ‘ Najah National University
Faculty of Graduate Studies
Methods of Teaching Department / TEFL section
Evaluation of Palestinian 4th-6th Grades' EFL Textbooks for Their
Content Creativity Level
This study was analyzed by Islam Asim Ismail
First semester 2017/2018
Introduction
"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime". This old Chinese proverb comes to my mind every time I start to think of the English textbooks that are used in our classrooms in Palestine.
We as Palestinians the strongest way to fight against Israeli Occupation is learning and education. Since 1948, Palestinians have realized that the only reliable basis for their freedom survival is their knowledge and learning; through schools and universities.
In the Palestinian context, it is obvious that, textbook consider as the main recourse for students to learn. So in the selection of any new textbook, it is important to take in consideration some specific steps to ensure that it is suitable and full of creativeness for learners and students. These steps are widely acknowledged as a powerful means of improving the quality of education.
Most English Language Teaching (ELT) textbook complains in Palestine, they are already have been searching for new authors with fresh ideas to write new textbook. ELT textbooks are written for students who are studying English as a second language (ESL) or English as a foreign language (EFL). So there are things should take in consideration by PCCS (Palestinian curricula designers) when designing the English textbook to make a successful learning.
Teachers in the Palestinian public schools are provided with the textbooks that they use in their interaction with their students, in contrast, teachers in the private schools a little bit feeling satisfied with the foreign curricula.
Several researchers such as ‘Broad foot’ have drawn the attention of educational planners to the possibility of using changes in some steps practices to reform the curriculum. (Broadfoot et al. 1990, Stake et al. 1991)
Successfully writing for Palestinian textbooks will test the designers’ ability to write simply and clearly. In the past six years in, the Palestinian Ministry of Education introduced a number of new textbooks.’ This investigation was a result of evaluation the new Palestinian curriculum, especially as it relates to the principles of civil society, peace, tolerance and diversity.
Therefore, it is important to ensure that any textbook must has higher mental abilities and skills needed to develop and educate learners for the creation of the next generation, and cretin criteria must be followed in the evaluation of the Palestinian textbook.
It is clear that the use of types of creativity such as oral language is notably absent in most of Palestinian English classes and most students seem to be incompetent to use the language to communicate. The problem in this case could be finding ways to help students take part in class discussion and practice what they have learned. Having reviewed literature on dialogue, it has been found that it is an effective technique which helps students convey a meaningful message, respond to the situations with which they confront and transfer their responses from one situation to another.
Using dialogs is important to increase their creativity; encouraging students to learn carefully and listen to the controversial issues and increases the possibility of making some inquiries about the subject under discussion. Students feel free to express their ideas and misconceptions, clarify meanings, assess their understanding and test their decisions by comparing their solutions to those of others. Most importantly, dialogue encourages students to be active listeners. (Dorfman, 2000 )
The study shows that one of the aspects that motivate Palestinian students is interest in knowing about foreigners' cultures. The study shows that Palestinian students' desire to carry on their higher education is one 40 of the important motives to learn English as a foreign language.
The researcher’s review of literature showed that no research has been carried out in Palestine to investigate the role of creativity in language teaching. This leads the researcher to carry out her study.
Methodology
This study uses the qualitative methodology with a triangular data collection approach to answer the research questions.
Descriptive statistic is used to describe and analyze the triangulated data collected from the three sources (i.e. the researcher, the teachers and an EFL expert).
The aim of the study
This research aims to explore the level of creativity in content design of the English Textbooks used in the public Palestinian schools for grades four to six. It is also aimed to decide whether these textbooks' content design has the potential to motivate the learner to learn creatively. Moreover, the researcher provides some pieces of advice to the Minstery of education and scholars.
The questions of the study:
The researcher tries to answer the two major questions: To which extent is content design of the Palestinian EFL textbooks for grades (4th -6th) creative? And to which extent is there a potential in these textbook design to contribute to the fostering of creativity in students in the Palestinian middle primary stage (4-6 grades) from teachers' viewpoint?
The research questions are as follows:
A. To which extent are the instructional materials in comprehension passages designed creatively?
B. To which extent are the instructional materials in evaluation sections designed creatively?
C. Does the content of instructional materials motivate students to learn EFL creatively at the level of comprehension passages?
D. Does the content of instructional materials motivate students to learn EFL creatively at the level of evaluation activities?
Limitations of the study
Results are limited to the English language textbooks taught in grades (4-6) in the Palestinian public schools for year 2010-2011, and only to the content of the comprehension and the related questions for lesson evaluation level.
Tools
Content analysis technique is used for evaluation of the text by using a prepared evaluation scale.
The sample
A stratified sample from the targeted textbooks is chosen to cover 24 units. The sample constitutes 9 units, 3 units from each textbook. It is also contained a sample of seven teachers and two supervisors is chosen to apply the in-depth interview of their view of the texts.
Findings
Findings show that most of the textbook samples failed to achieve the specified creativity levels. The only successful textbook is that of the sixth grade; it achieved creativity in designing comprehension passages only, not in evaluation activities design, while the textbooks of the 4th and 5th grades failed the criteria of creative content design of both comprehension passages and evaluation activities.
The creativity levels in textbooks of the 4th and 5th grades are found to fail at levels of (46.5% & 50.4%) respectively. Whereas, it is found that the 6th grade textbook's creativity level passes with (60.3%)
Recommendations
In the evaluation of the Palestinian textbooks, Ola Isaa found that the textbooks lack quality in their content design.
The textbooks do not conform to the required standards in curriculum design. Therefore, educational policy makers are invited to make use of research findings on text design of EFL textbooks.
The Ministry of Educations conducts annual review of the textbooks, but the resulting modifications are focused on typing errors, numbers of lessons in most of the cases, as some teachers argue.
Universities should spend more effort and money on analyzing Palestinian curricula to help the Ministry of education to develop its curricula.
Masters degree students are also invited to use the scale to evaluate other subject textbooks.
Literature review
Creativity in general is viewed within two dimensions: creativity as a cognitive process and creativity as a personal approach (Karkockiene, 2005).
In studying human development and learning styles with related to the Palestinian content, these dimensions are unified. In order to develop creativity in learners, resources for creativity as a process must be identified and combined to the personal characteristics. So we as scholars have to think and decide how to unified them in each unit of the Palestinian content.
Karkockiene states that knowledge and skills are not enough sources for creativity, but we have to find out and come up with new sources of creativity. It depends on learners' thinking styles as well as their motivation.
However, these are not the only sources for creativity. Personal characteristics such as persistence and determination, and environmental context are significant factors as well. (Karkockiene, 2005; & Guilford, 1978)
In my point of view, cognitive has three domains not two as mentioned above as Karkockiene claimed , Creativity as described by Guilford seems to be a three dimensional entity; namely content, operation and product. Thus, the individual ability to learn creatively has to have a creative input (for example the text which is the Palestinian content English for Palestine ) and has to go through creative steps (creative thinking and learning).
In reviewing Guilford (1987), it is seen that there are120 multiple abilities in the human mind. These abilities are: a). content b) operations and , c). products. Consequently, the interaction among these three dimensions shows the concept of divergent thinking in which individuals consider multiple possibilities in their attempts to solve life problems.
Creativity and Lifelong learning
Richards (2001) suggests that we need creativity in culture, schools and universities in order to change the linear communication modes in life. Therefore, Richards provides a number of characteristics of the perceived new learner including: having conscious awareness, risk taking, having greater self-acceptance, greater meaning, and connection with others.
Ecclestone (1999) argues that learning is needed to build human and social capitals. Learning must help to prevent people from being excluded. Therefore, learning should link between individual’s skills and motivation and economic survival and social cohesion through ideas of human capital and social capital. The author states that the type of learning that can achieve this is lifelong learning. The notion of human capital, as Ecclestone argues, motivates learners to develop their skills and solve their communication problems.
All in all, one can say that creativity is the result of interaction between divergent and convergent operations. Explanations of Guilford's model show that nature of human beings is not dependent only on the dividing aspect of thinking process. However, the analogical reason is not the purpose of the thinking process; solving problems is the purpose. It is the interaction between divergence and convergence in the thinking process that produces creativity (Mumford, 2001).
Students' awareness of their need to learn English and their interest in it have direct impact on their academic achievement. Musleh (2010) states that "learners' motivation to second language learning is affected by the culture and values context they experience in their learning process.
So if the teacher reaches the students harts then teach them, this will make the curricula as a blood in their bodies and information will remain forever.
Reflections
I personally totally disagree with the researcher’s findings.
According to the findings of this research, I disagree with the overstatement of this study that our Palestinian curriculum doesn’t have enough creativity.
Since the textbook is the most important resource for English as Foreign Language (EFL) classrooms in Palestine. So if we understand the curriculum design view that employed in the textbook from an educational point of view and the language learning processes used based on some specific steps we will find out that the Palestinian curriculum is really good one which is full of activities and creativeness.
Ola Mohammad claims the problem that exists in her thesis is the lack of studies on the approaches and processes used in the construction of the English textbook for EFL, but on the other hand this is not an enough reason to judge the textbook.
Moreover, Palestinian textbooks include a variety of learning resources such as workbooks, CDs, cassettes, and videos, cards, etc., which make the learning environment interesting and enjoyable for learners. They do not only provide a framework for teachers in achieving the aims and objectives of the course, but also serve as a guide to the teacher when conducting lessons. The content of English language textbooks influences what teachers teach and learners learn, so the teacher himself can create real content to be learned by the students.
If teachers know something about the nature of learning and teaching; learning and teaching are enjoyable, individual, permanent, activating and continuous process. These aspects are important as much as the course itself. So if the teacher conveys the information in the right way this will lead to better learning and so more creativity in learning.
An important keyword I would like to focus on here is the term ‘design’. Never mind that a curriculum is not a garden or a bridge or a traffic pattern as she claimed; my opinion against Ola is to see how things play out when we ( as teachers) apply the design practices of some steps in the creation of new curricula .
Our Palestinian curriculum is written by best educational Palestinian and international professors. So the teachers must understand the course environment and overall setting to choose appropriate way to convey the message. As Graves (1996: 13) indicates, ‘You need to know as much as possible about the context in order to make decisions about the course’.
Palestinian textbooks suit most of the learners. Learners’ needs typically are based on age and academic level. Their needs might relate to curricular objectives but could also be personal or specific to the individual. Their interests are linked to their socio cultural background and should also be taken into consideration, and their learning preferences will depend more on past experiences with technology and materials in general.
I tend to avoid the term ‘learning styles’ and prefer to think in terms of the engagement value that bridges content with learners.
The textbook designer needs to address these considerations using a range of need-analysis tools, such as writing assignments, corpora, and think-aloud protocols. To identify a student’s particular language learning needs and preferences helps target particular gaps and misunderstandings, and focuses on the essential skills needed for language development and use.
Teaching a language course is a difficult due to the fact that various components and conceptualizations are part of the actual design process. The components of curriculum teaching proposed by Nation and Macalister (2010) to a great extent contribute to the development of suitable language learning materials and for the present study will serve as a basis for analysis of the curriculum design of English language textbooks. (Mukundan et al., 2011)
The teaching of foreign languages has been around for many centuries and from time to time different aims and skills have been the focus of Second Language teaching. More importantly, more games, activities, tasks together with their classroom implementations can play a major role in teaching English as a foreign language.
I as a teacher see students becoming much more confident in terms of putting their hands up and being involved in things, and also having a much more dynamic interaction with their own learning because they have got a deeper understanding of their learning and their discipline.
I respect her idea about creativity, but I think the good teacher knows how to reach students and teach them. Once I was in a lecture with Dr. Fawaz Aqel, he showed us a report about what is the good teacher according to the American students; they simply say ‘The good teacher is someone of us’.
There are several limitations to Ola’s findings. The purposes of elementary and secondary education are many. Schooling is expected to foster healthy, socially responsible behavior among young people on their way to adulthood. A modern school system is expected to prepare students for citizenship, for work, and for coping with everyday life, even as it fosters universal literacy and encourages the development of each student’s particular interests and talents, whether academic, artistic, athletic, or any other. Accordingly, a lot is expected of a curriculum.
So if the teacher friendly and firm in the same time with a little bit of using teaching methods to deliver the material I think leads to a better learning. Looking at the topic of her thesis from a synthetic point of view, the researcher claims that no text for 4th, 5th and sixth has a distinguish creativity, but if you compare between the Palestinian curricula with other textbooks in the Arab world, the Palestinian one has a variety of words, phrases, sentences used in the passages.
The Lack of resources is a real problem; there are not enough resources that are related to the explaining of the hidden goals of the English textbooks used by the curricula writers. In other words, there are some researchers who talked with more teachers, supervisors and curricula writers, but she didn’t go deep in the connotative meaning of each religious, historical allusion.
I have a modest experience in teaching English as a foreign language, the English textbook it’s like a big garden which is full of fruitful trees, and you as a teacher you have to encourage them to pick up the fruits. Each student will choose the tree he likes.
M. H. and L. T. have claimed that the Palestinian Curriculum needs more efforts to cap students attention, also the teachers should be aware of the type of activities included in the textbook, while the designers of textbook do their best efforts to provide the best activities and lessons.
I don’t trust many academics to be able to do this because some of them will have no interest in doing this kind of thing. A lot of academia writing involves gate keeping: why change a system if the system works for them? If their view on an issue is the status quo, why would they give the time of day to competing worldviews?’
Self judging is a clear problem in her thesis. The researcher was supposed to explain the writers of curricula point of view, then analysis the textbook depending on the meaning that the writer intended.
If I were in her shoes, and give me the allowance to change something in her thesis. I will highlight the methods that we as teacher could follow to increase the amount of creativity in textbooks in the classroom.
If I have the opportunity to meet Ola, I would like to ask her the following question: What are the indicators that you depend on by your findings to evaluate the work of the English teachers?
References
1-Ahmed A. ( 2016 ). Analytical study of major curriculum for TEFL students 473518. Nablus
2-Ahmed A. ( 2016 ). Principles of Good Research. Nablus.
3-Benjamin L. Stewart. (2016, January 23). Designing a digital textbook: Things to consider. http://benjaminleestewart.blogspot.ru/2016/01/designing-digital-textbook-things-to.html
4-Greg Goodmacher. (2011, January 15). English Textbook Writing. http://writersweekly.com/this-weeks-article/english-textbook-writing-by-greg-goodmacher
5-L. T. ( 2016. Oct 5) Personal Interview.
6-M. H.( 2016. Oct 6) Personal Interview
7-Palestinian Curriculum.
8-Free recourses