VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

NGUYỄN THỊ MINH NGUYỆT AN EVALUATION OF THE MATERIAL “REWARD”
FOR THE FIRST-YEAR NON-ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS
AT HAIPHONG PRIVATE UNIVERSITY

(Đánh giá giáo trình “Reward” dành cho sinh viên năm thứ nhất không chuyên
của trường Đại học Dân lập Hải Phòng) M.A. MINOR THESIS

M.A. MINOR THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60 14 10
Supervisor: Vũ Thị Thu Thủy, M.A.

HA NOI, 2010

iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
DECLARATION …………………………………………………………………
i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS………………………………………………………
ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS…………………………………………………………
iii
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS……………………………………………………

5
2.1. Definition……………………………………………………………………
6
2.2. Types of materials evaluation………………………………………………
6
2.3. Criteria of materials evaluation……………………………………………
7
2.4. Materials evaluation procedure…………………………………………….
8
3. Materials adaptation…………………………………………………………….
8
4. An overview of Communicative Language Teaching………………………….
9
4.1. Communicative competence………………………………………………
9
4.2. Communicative Language Teaching………………………………………
10

iv
4.2.1. Definition of CLT……………………………………………………….
10
4.2.2. Principles of CLT………………………………………………………
11
4.2.3. Good points and limitations of CLT…………………………………….
11
Chapter 2: The study…………………………………………………………………
13
1. Description of data collection instruments and procedures……………………
13
1.1. Survey questionnaires……………………………………………………….

23
2.2.2.5. Students’ satisfaction level in each skill and teachers’ assessment
on their skill improvement…………………………………………………………
24
2.3. Teachers’ and students’ evaluation on the content of the materials………
25
2.3.1. Topics of the textbook…………………………………………………
25
2.3.2. Skills allocation …………………………………………………………
26
2.3.3. Aims of the units………………………………………………………
26
2.3.4. Tasks and exercises in the textbook…………………………………….
27

v
2.4. Teachers’ and students’ evaluation on the methodology of the book……….
28
2.5. Teachers and students’ opinions on the textbook’s appearance and current
time for teaching and learning the textbook………………………………………….
29
Chapter 3: An evaluation of the textbook “Reward” for the first-year non-English
major students at Haiphong Private University……………………………………
31
1. Materials requirements of the course……………………………………………
31
1.1.Objectives…………………………………………………………………….
31
1.2.Contents……………………………………………………………………
31

REFERENCES ……………………………………………………………………
43
APPENDICES………………………………………………………………………
I
Appendix 1………………………………………………………………………
I
Appendix 2………………………………………………………………………
VII
Appendix 3……………………………………………………………………….
XIII vi

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CLT:
Communicative Language Teaching
ELT:
English Language Teaching
ESP:
English for Specific Purposes
GE:
General English
HPU:
Haiphong Private University
Ss:
Students
Ts:

Students’ point of view on the aims of the units
Table 13:
Teachers’ and students’ opinions on the tasks and exercises of the textbook
Table 14:
Teachers’ and students’ points of view on the methodology of the book
Table 15:
Teachers’ and students’ opinions towards the layout of the textbook and the
current time for teaching and learning the book
Table 16:
The distribution of tasks in each unit
- 1 -
PART A: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale of the study
Responding to the changes brought by the international integration tendency, mastering
foreign languages, especially English, has become one of the prerequisites for success. English
is, hence, necessary for both undergraduates and on-the-job employees. The demand of
English study has resulted in the development of ELT industry as well as ELT materials.
Publishing commercial textbooks is considered a million – dollar industry and serves as an
abundant materials resource so that English teachers and learners have quite a wide range of
selection of the textbooks that are suitable for their own purposes.
Regarded as “an inevitable teaching partner” and “the visible heart of any ELT program” by
Sheldon (1988, p.237), ELT materials in general and textbooks in particular have been proving
themselves one of the most important factors in every English class, functioning as the
teaching and learning tool, the tutor, guidebook as well as gauge. However, among various
textbooks commercially available in the market, choosing the one that is appropriate to the
students‟ learning purposes and that can help students enhance their communicative
competence is not an easy job. It is, therefore, necessary for the teachers to be good at

interviews and direct class observation are applied with an aim to get more information for
any confirmation of the evaluation findings.
4. Scope of the study
The study limits itself at evaluating the student‟s book, excluding the accompanied teacher‟s
book, workbook and cassette tape with the focus on the evaluation of post-used textbook.
The evaluation criteria enclosed in the thesis is largely based on Communicative Language
Teaching approach and the objectives set in the syllabus of the first and second semester
designed for first – year non - English major students at Haiphong Private University.
5. Design of the study
The thesis is divided into three parts:
Part A Introduction presents the rationale, aims, scope, methods and design of the study
Part B Development consists of three chapters
Chapter 1 handles the literature review of the issues relating to materials, materials
evaluation and adaptation and CLT approach. Definitions of materials, materials evaluation,
evaluation types, models and criteria, its role in materials development and materials
adaptation have been discussed there. Also, readers are provided with a brief introduction of
communicative language teaching, the approach that is applied in the evaluation of the
textbook Reward Pre – intermediate, in this chapter. - 3 -
Chapter 2 is devoted to the analysis of the survey questionnaire of the textbook
evaluation implemented at Haiphong Private University in which objectives, description, data
collection and analysis are discussed in detail.
Chapter 3 deals with the evaluation of the textbook Reward Pre – intermediate for the
first – year non – English major students at Haiphong Private University in terms of the
materials requirement of the course, the analysis of the textbook, and gives out the evaluation
findings as well as encloses suggestions for the textbook adaptation.
Part C Conclusion summarizes all the obtained results and includes suggestions for further
study.

teachers and rob them of their capacity to think professionally and respond to their students
(Crawford, 2002, p.80). Particularly, Littlejohn (in Hutchinson & Torres, 1994, p.316), a
representative for the group of authors who have negative attitudes towards the role of
textbooks in a language program, claims that textbooks “reduce the teacher‟s role to one of - 5 -
managing or overseeing preplanned events”. However, there are still quite a number of
scholars recognizing the importance of textbooks. A textbook can serve different purposes for
teachers: as a core resource, a source of supplementary materials, an inspiration for classroom
activities and even the curriculum itself (Garinger, 2002). Richards and Rodgers (cited in
Nunan, 1991) view instructional materials as detailed specifications of content, and guidance
to teachers on both the intensity of coverage and the amount of attention demanded by
particular content or pedagogical tasks. Richards (2001, p.66) explains that materials provide
a basis for the content of the lesson, the appropriate proportion of skills taught, and the type of
language practice students take part in. Besides, useful teaching materials provide great
assistance to inexperienced teachers or poorly trained teachers (Nunan, 1991, in McGrath,
2002, p.11). It is obvious that in many cases, teachers and students rely much on textbooks and
the textbooks control the content, method as well as procedure of learning and teaching.
Therefore, to some extent, materials are the center of instruction and one of the most important
factors influencing what happens in the classrooms.
Confirming the important role of teaching materials, Hutchinson and Torres (1994, p. 315)
state “…No teaching-learning situation, it seems, is complete until it has its relevant textbook”,
adding that textbooks can support teachers through potentially disturbing and threatening
change processes, demonstrate new and/or untried methodologies, introduce change gradually,
and create scaffolding upon which teachers can build a more creative methodology of their
own.

2. Materials evaluation
Despite the acknowledged importance of materials, Cunningsworth (1984, p.15) warns

collected data and suggesting actions to make changes.

2.2. Types of materials evaluation
A number of researchers including Tomlinson, McGrath, Ellis and Cunningsworth use the
similar terms when discussing the types of materials evaluation.
According to Tomlinson (1998, p.xi), evaluation can be “pre – use” and focused on
“prediction of potential value”, it can be “whist – use” and focused on awareness and
description of what the learners are actually doing whilst the materials are being used”, and it
can be “post – use” and focused on analysis of what happened as a result of using the materials.
McGrath (2002, p.14) offers the way of classifying materials evaluation as a cyclical process
including pre-use, in-use and post-use evaluation. According to him, pre-use evaluation
establishes potential suits, in-use evaluation gathers data on planning decisions, - 7 -
implementation and response and this may stimulate preliminary reconsiderations and post-use
evaluation, considered “the most reliable when it draws on the experiences of several teachers
and several groups of learners” by McGrath (2002, p.15), uses data on in-course use and data
on effects to assess the suitability of selection.
The focus of the thesis is put on post – use evaluation to work out the value of the materials by
drawing on the teaching and learning experience of teachers and first – year non – English
major students at Haiphong Private University.

2.3. Criteria of materials evaluation
One of the most difficult problems of any materials evaluators is to identify the evaluation
criteria.
According to Ur (1996, in McGrath, 2002, p.31), there are two types of criteria including
general (i.e. the essential features of any good teaching – learning material) and specific (or
context-related) criteria.
For more specific criteria, Tomlinson (1999, in McGrath, 2002, p.32) suggests the four


3. Materials adaptation
It is likely that the most expected activity after the process of materials evaluation is
adaptation with the aims to make the materials more appropriate to the circumstances in which
it is being used, in other words, as McDonough and Shaw (1993, p.85, in McGrath, 2002, p.64)
put it “to maximize the appropriacy of teaching materials in context” and to supplement for
Defining criteria
On what bases will you
judge materials?
Which criteria will be
more important?
Subjective analysis
What realizations of the
criteria do you want in
your course?
Objective analysis
How does the material
being evaluated realize the
criteria?
Matching
How far does the
material match your
needs?


Hymes‟s when he claims that “rules of use without which the rules of grammar would be
useless” (Hymes , 1972, p.15, in Brumfit, C. J. & Johnson K., 1979, p.14). Put it in other
words, if a speaker made grammatical sentences without considering the circumstances in - 10 -
which they were being used, he would be considered deranged. The notion of “communicative
competence” offered by Hymes includes several sectors such as possibility (or grammaticality
used by Chomsky) which is concerned with whether a language permits a structure as
grammatical or rejects it as ungrammatical, feasibility which is concerned with whether a
grammatically possible structure can be feasible, appropriateness which is concerned with
whether a grammatically possible and feasible structure can be appropriate to a certain context
and accepted usage which is concerned with whether a sentence which is possible, feasible,
appropriate in fact occurs .

4.2. Communicative language teaching
4.2.1. Definition of CLT
It has become known under a variety of names including notional – functional, teaching for
proficiency, proficiency – based instruction and CLT.
There are two versions of CLT namely “strong” and “weak” version of CLT distinguished by
Howatt (1984, p. 279)
… The weak version… stresses the importance of providing learners with opportunities to use
their English for communicative purposes and, characteristically, attempts to integrate such activities
into a wider program of language teaching. The strong version….advances the claim that language is
acquired through communication, so that it is not merely a question of activating an existing but inert
knowledge of the language, but of stimulating the development of the language system itself.
(in Le Van Canh (2004, p.80)
Most of the definitions of CLT are based on the “weak version” of CLT “favoring interaction
among small numbers of learners in order to maximize their talking time” (Le Van Canh, 2004,
p. 80). Inferring from the literature, CLT can be defined as “an approach that focuses on the

- Learning is a process of creative construction and involves trial and error. Applying this
approach, teachers may become facilitators assisting the communication process among
participants in the classroom and helping learners correct their mistakes in an appropriate way.
Errors made by learners are welcome because that serve as a good way to promote their
fluency.
4.2.3. Good points and limitations of CLT
CLT has manifested itself to be the most productive approach in ELT till now because it
incorporates many of the progressive characteristics of the previous applied methodologies
while at the same time avoiding their disadvantages. In the light of CLT, the traditional
“presentation – practice – production” model is recommended to be replaced by a more top – - 12 -
down model where learners begin with a communicative task which is monitored by the
teacher who is also responsible for error correction. (Le Van Canh, 2004, p.85)
It is undeniable that CLT has quite a lot of advantages in promoting learners‟ ability in using
language to communicate, however, some limitations of the approach also need to be taken
into consideration. According to Le Van Canh (2004, p.86-87), firstly, it is obvious that CLT
is not always appropriate in any contexts and cultures. A school culture of teacher – centered
classrooms with a focus on transmission of knowledge will have been influenced in part by
wider cultural notions of the teacher‟s authority as expert and leader. Secondly, things like
rote-learning, memorization, display questions and teacher talk mean bad with CLT while in
fact none of them is bad. Thirdly, the notion of “communicative competence” only applies to
the competence in the first language of native speakers and cannot be transferred to foreign
language teaching contexts. Put it in other way, communicative competence can mean
different things for different groups of foreign learners. Finally, even though CLT rejects the
theory of “structuralism” which was supposed to be based on behaviorism, its communicative
goals are all described in typical behaviorist terms.
No teaching method or approach proves itself to be the best. Consequently, when applying
CLT to ELT, teachers should use their knowledge of context, goals and characteristics of a

or pursuing master courses. Though being young at age, the teachers have been adequately
trained to teach and evaluate the materials; therefore, their answers to the questionnaires are
reasonably reliable.
1.1.2. Description of the survey questionnaires
The survey questionnaires are designed for the teachers and students separately.
Questionnaire 1 (for the students) includes five sections. Section 1 with three questions aims
at discovering the students‟ English background and their expectations from the English
course at the university. Meanwhile, the last four sections deal with the materials‟
appropriateness in terms of objectives, contents, methodology and some other aspects in
comparison with the course as well as the students‟ expectations. Section 2 with three
questions tries to find out the students‟ improvement in language points, tasks completion and
their satisfaction level towards their advance in each language skill. Section 3 consists of five - 14 -
questions aiming at getting the students‟ opinions about the content of the materials including
the topics, skills allocation in each lesson and practice exercises. Section 4 puts its focus on
finding out the appropriateness of the methodology of the assessed textbook. Finally, the
students‟ opinions about some other features of the book such as its layout, its organization,
the usefulness of its appendices and vocabulary list are all surveyed in section 5 with three
questions.
Questionnaire 2 (for the teachers) is the same to the students‟ in terms of the objectives.
1.2. Formal interviews and class observation
As mentioned above, the survey questionnaire serves as the key research method; however, in
order to be able to get firm conclusion from the questionnaire results, it is essential to conduct
formal interviews with teachers and students as well as class observation in the class QT1301,
XD1303, MT1301 and VH1302 where the survey questionnaires are completed by the
students.
Formal interviews and class observation will be employed as the supplementary methods to
ensure that the results of the survey as well as the findings of the study are reasonably reliable.

their high schools. There are even seven students, equivalent to 6%, who have never
experienced learning English. When being interviewed, those students said that it is, for
example, French or even Russian to be their compulsory subjects at school but not English.
With the above information about the students‟ English learning time, it is much easier to
understand their own assessments on their English level.
Degree
Excellent
Good
Average
Under average
Percentage of the Ts
0%
0%
70%
30%
Percentage of the Ss
1%
25%
51%
23%
Table 2: Teachers’ and students’ assessment of students’ results in learning English
Table 2 figured out the fact that both teachers and students had a similar assessment on the
starting point of English learning at university, that is, the high percentage is put on the levels
of average and under average; however, the students seemed to be more self-confident in
themselves when some of them believed that they were good and even excellent at English. In
the students‟ assessment, the number of those excellent at English was extremely small (only
1%) while 51% confirmed that their English was average. Only 25% of the students affirmed
that they were good at English whereas 23 % admitted that they were still bad at this subject
when they entered the university. The teachers, more pessimistically than their students, with
their pedagogical knowledge in teaching and evaluating, claimed that none of their students

90%
87%
Difficulties in using English in daily conversations
90%
40%
Table 3: Students’ difficulties in learning English
As what is stated in Table 3, 90% of the students confirmed that their vocabulary was not
sufficient enough for them to confidentially complete their tasks in class. 85 % got into trouble
with grammatical structures. A similar rate (87%) also admitted their poor pronunciation,
which is one of their biggest problems when learning English. Listening skill appeared to be
the most challenging to the students when 95 % divulged that they were bad at it. Many
students were honest to say that they found listening really difficult and they could not fulfill
any listening exercises without the teachers‟ assistance. It seems that the lack of vocabulary,
poor grammatical structures, bad listening skills and pronunciation has led 40 % of them to the
failure of using English in their daily conversations.
Similarly, all ten teachers taking part in the survey complained that the students were
confronted with difficulties in listening and insufficient vocabulary. Additionally, most of the
teachers (90%) maintained that poor pronunciation and difficulties in using English in daily
conversations were some other problems that the students encountered in their English
learning while 70% revealed the fact that the students were also not good at grammatical
structures. Apart from main problems mentioned in the table, the teachers gave out some other
problems of the students such as their lack of confidence in speaking English, the influences of
their mother tongue on their English acquisition and their low motivation in English classes,
etc.
- 17 -
2.1.3. Students’ expectations from an English course
Ss‟ expectations

course. They just believed, similarly to the students‟, that communicating in English in daily
conversations and then getting to know and bettering grammar are the most appropriate
objectives to meet the students‟ needs.
2.2. Students’ improvement after learning the textbook
2.2.1. Students’ level of fluency in language points
Language points
Fluent
Not so fluent
Bad
Ts
Ss
Ts
Ss
Ts
Ss - 18 -
Present simple tense
100(%)
71(%)
0(%)
18(%)
0(%)
11(%)
Articles
20
25
70
61

Relative clauses
20
30
60
29
20
41
Past continuous tense
50
51
30
32
20
17
Past perfect tense
0
41
80
33
20
26
Conditional sentence type 2
0
61
70
28
30
11
Possessive „s/ Possessive
adjectives

30
22
10
28
Present perfect tense
30
40
50
37
20
23
Modal verbs
70
48
30
37
0
15
Present simple passive
20
39
30
41
50
20
Conditional sentence type 1
60
49
30
37