VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
****** PHẠM THỊ MINH TÂM HOW TEACHERS EXPLOIT THE TEXTBOOK: A SURVEY
AT VINH TUONG HIGH SCHOOL, VINH PHUC

(CÁCH GIÁO VIÊN KHAI THÁC SÁCH GIÁO KHOA: KHẢO SÁT TẠI
TRƯỜNG THPT VĨNH TƯỜNG, VĨNH PHÚC)
M.A MINOR THESIS
Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 601410
v

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgements
Abstract
List of figures
PART I: INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………. 1
1.
Rationale of the study…………………………………………………
1
2.
Aims of the study…………………………………
2
3.
Research questions……………………………………………………
2
4
Significance of the study………………………………………………
2
5.
Scope of the study………………………………………………………

3.
Review of related studies……………………………………………….
13
4.
The influence of context on teachers‟ use of textbook……………
16
CHAPTER TWO: THE STUDY

1.
Setting and background…………………………………………………
18
vi 1.1. The school………………………………………………………
18

1.2. The teachers and the students……………………………………
18

1.3. The textbooks…………………………………………………….
18

1.4. Assesment procedure……………………………………………
19
2.
Participants……………………………………………………………

Suggestions for further research………………………………………
35
REFERENCES……………………………………………………………….
36
APPENDICES……………………………………………………………
I
Apendix A-1
A format of observation notes………………………………
I
Appendix A-2

An extract from the observation data of one of the
participants………………………………………………….

II
Appendix B-1
A format of interview notes………………………………
III
Apendix B-2
A sample of an interview note with one of the participants
V
1

PART I: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale of the study
According to Richards (2005), textbooks are the core element of most
language programs. They are expected to provide teachers and learners with

disadvantages of textbooks
(ii) To investigate the way the teachers exploit textbooks
(iii) To give some suggestions and recommendations to contribute to the
teaching and learning English at Vinh Tuong high school.
3. Research questions
In order to achieve the aims of the study, two research questions are
raised:
1. What are the teachers‟ attitudes towards textbooks?
a. What are the teachers‟ opinions about the advantages of textbooks?
b. What are the teachers‟ opinions about the disadvantages of textbooks?
c. What do the teachers use textbook for?
2. What kind of adaptations do the teachers make when using textbooks? Why?
4. Significance of the study
Although the study is carried out as a small scale one, the researcher
hopes that its results can (1) help the English teachers at Vinh Tuong high
school have an overview about the advantages and disadvantages of the
textbook in order to find the most effective way to exploit it; 2) keep teacher
trainers aware of the way that some high school teachers exploit the textbook.

3

5. Scope of the study
The paper focuses on the exploitation of the textbook to teach English
at a particular high school. The participants of the study are restricted to a
group of English teachers at Vinh Thuong high school, in Vinh Phuc province.
6. Design of the study
The study consists of five chapters

th
edition), textbook is
generally defined as “a book that teaches a particular subject and that is used
especially in schools and colleges”. This definition just provides a simple
understanding about textbook. For a more comprehensive view about who use
textbooks, and how they are employed, the definition of Tomlinson (1998) is
more suitable. He states that a course book or a textbook “provides the core
materials for a course. It aims to provide as much as possible in one book and
is designed so that it could serve as the only book which the learners
necessarily use during a course. Such a book usually includes work on
grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, functions and the skills of reading,
writing, listening and speaking” (Tomlinson, 1998, p.vii).
1.2. The role of textbooks in the EFL/ESL classroom
According to Sheldon (1987) as cited in Lawrence (2011, p.5), textbook is
especially designed and published to help learner to improve their language
skills. Textbook is not only a learning instruments, it also supports teachers in
their teaching (O‟neil, 1982; Ur, 1996).
Textbook has been used widespread in different ELT contexts and it plays a
vital role in ELT classrooms all over the world (Laurence, 2011). It is almost
a universal element of ELT teaching (Hutchinson & Torres, 1994) and
essensial in any ELT program (Sheldon, 1988). It is extremely common to see
5

ELT teachers use textbooks in their daily teaching; very few of them would
not (Laurence, 2011).
The important role of textbooks in ELT teaching is obvious. However, the
question of whether textbooks can actually help or hinder the teaching and
learning process has been discussing. From this point, the researcher would
like to review on both the advantages and disadvantages in using textbooks in
ELT teaching.

they can be tested in the same way. Wen-Cheng,W (2011) also shares
Richards in the idea that textbooks may provide multiple learning and
teaching resources, for example, workbooks, CDs and Videos .
In general, the most prominent positive effect of textbooks is they meet the
teachers‟ and learners‟ needs. Learners need a textbook for it shows them
what is to be learned and what will be tested; it makes their learning outside
classroom possible. Teachers need a textbook because it is a map, a structure
for their teaching; it saves their time and effort in designing materials; it helps
to standardize the instruction and testing; a highly developed textbook can
even improve the teachers‟ teaching skill. Besides, administrators can use
textbooks to ensure that there is some degree of standardization and parents
can use them to measure their children‟s progress.
It is obvious that “Textbook not only survives, it thrives” (Hutchinson &
Torres, 1994, p.316) for many of its advantages. However, we should be
aware of its potential negative effects in order to make full use of the textbook.
One of the advantages of the textbooks mentioned earlier is that they provide
a basic framework on how a lesson can be delivered. In fact, many teachers,
therefore, would rely heavily on the textbook and become uncreative in
7

teaching and follow the textbook uncritically (Ur, 1996, p.185). This might
lead to the situation that teachers do not want to design their own materials
and teach the textbook, not the language itself (McGrath, 2002). Although the
textbook can be a structure for both teaching and learning process, they
cannot satisfy all the needs of every different learner or class (Ur, 1996;
Williams, 1983). Allwright (1981) argues that textbooks may affect the
involvement of students in the language acquisition process. He suggests that
a pre-packaged set of textbooks cannot sufficiently cater for the complex
learning process. The set structure of textbooks may confine the teachers‟
creativity and imagination and demotivate the learners (Ur, 1996). Teachers

McGrath (2006) investigated the metaphors or similes that teachers and
students in a particular context in Hong Kong used for English language
coursebooks then compared them. He asks the participants, both teachers and
students to complete the statement “A course book is…” through metaphors
or similes. The teachers‟ images are organized into three positive categories,
guidance, support and resource and a negative one, constraint.

9 Figure 1: A thematic classification of teacher images for English-language
course books (McGrath, 2006, p.174)
Theme
Instances
Guidance
map
path
guideline
lighthouse
compass
Support


rainbow
Daily bread

Umbrella

Ring for the
fingers menu
Constraint
Road block
millstone
straitjacket There were also metaphors that did not belong to the classification above
because they express mixed feelings through explicit comparisons. For
examples:
A coursebook is like a choker that can make you look good but can also
make another feel suffocated.
A textbook is a thick wood, rich, you learn a lot, you see a lot [but] you get
entangled, you get lost.
A course-book is a smokescreen [subsequently explained as a sop to the
parents rather than a guide to what is actually done in class]
A textbook is like a pair of shoes. It takes time to choose one that you feel
comfortable to wear for a long time. A bad pair will kill you, give you
blisters. A good one will give you confidence to run, to jump, to fly high.
(McGrath, 2006, p.175)

(2010, p.6) gives more specific explanations of some techniques introduced
by Tanner and Green (1998) and McDonough and Shaw (2003).
Deleting: Some materials or activities are not used for the lack of time,
inappropriate level of difficulty or being irrelevant to the examination in
future.
Editing: Teacher may take the activity in the textbook and change it so that it
is more suitable and interesting to their students. For example, the teacher can
use the vocabulary in the textbook to write exercises which help learners to
develop strategies in vocabulary learning.
Adding: The teacher can use different materials to supply to the textbook
being used.
Replacing: When the teacher sees that an activity in the textbook is not
suitable for their learners, they can replace it by another one.
Reordering: The teacher may reorder some activities in the textbook for
some specific purposes.
In relation to textbook adaptation, the question of supplementary materials
should also be revised. According to Tomlinson (1998, p. XIII)
supplementary materials are “materials designed to be used in addition to the
core materials of a course. They are usually related to the development of
skills of reading, writing, listening, or speaking rather than to the learning of
language items”. Block (1991, p. 213-215) argues that teachers should design
supplementary materials for three reasons. The first reason is
"contextualisation"; the information presented in textbooks is sometimes not
relevant to students. Teachers should use supplementary materials in these
cases to make the lessons more interesting to students. The second reason is
"timeliness" which means the information in textbooks may be out of date.
The third reason is "personal touch" explained as students appreciate the
12

teachers' effort in preparing supplementary materials and are encouraged to

make effective adaptation of the textbook as well as design appropriate
supplementary materials when necessary.
3. Review of related studies
Hutchinson and Torres (1994, p.315) point out that the use of ELT textbook
has not been paid much attention. Menkabu (2010, p.6) also claims that the
number of researches in textbook use in classroom is limited; researchers
often carry our studies on the quality and appropriateness of the textbook. In
this section, some studies on the use of textbooks, both in ELT and non-ELT
context will be reviewed.
The first one is a non-ELT study which is carried out in the United
States by Stodolsky (1989) reviewed by Menkabu (2010, p.7-10). The
researcher investigated the use of textbook in mathematics and social classes
at some elementary schools using the data collected for another study. Though
the observations of six maths and six social studies teachers were not aimed to
study the textbook use, the records of every class were used for this purpose.
Stodolsky explored three aspects in textbook use:
The extent to which topics presented in the textbook were cover,
which sections of the textbook or other materials were used, and
which suggestions in the teacher‟s guide were followed.
(Menkabu, 2010, p.7)
Stodolsky found that the participants used the textbook in different ways.
They preserved all the topics presented in the textbook, but they changed the
order. The observed teachers did not follow all suggestions in the teacher‟s
guide; they just chose the ones that were suitable for their classes. She
concluded that the participants did not use textbooks in a “slavish” way
14

(totally dependent on the textbook); the textbook and the suggestions in the
teacher‟s guide were used critically. However, it is necessary to bear in mind
that the teachers in this study were highly experienced ones; this may be the

The data were collected with a semi-structured questionnaire and follow up
telephone interviews. The study revealed that the teachers used the prescribed
textbook in classroom to teach language skills but they often made some
changes so that it was more suitable for their students. Though the teachers
were aware of the advantages of the textbook, they usually used supplemented
materials which helped the students get exposed to the examination format. It
is obvious that the teachers in this study were not completely reliant in the
textbook. However, the potential reasons for this were explored by Lee and
Bathmarker (2006) in Menkabu (2010, p.9-10), they were “demands of
examination and teachers‟ perceptions towards Normal Technical pupils‟
cognitive weakness in English and their behavioral problems”.
Menkabu (2010) worked with 7 female English language instructors at
a Medical university in Saudi Arabia to explored the ways they used the ESP
textbook and the teacher‟ guide in teaching the first year students. The
research instruments used were class observations and interviews. For the
question how the teachers used the prescribed textbook, the finding was that
the teachers used the textbook in various ways. They often made some
adaptations according to their students‟ needs or their own preferences and
beliefs. It should be noted in this study that the teachers were working in ESP
context and they were always under the pressure of time, examinations and
limited knowledge on medical fields.
In Vietnam, it is difficult to find a study which directly investigates the
language teachers‟ attitudes towards the textbook and the way they use the
16

textbook in classroom. However, there are a considerable number of studies
about difficulties which students and teachers in certain contexts face when
using the prescribed textbooks and the ways they overcome them (Vu, 2010;
Nguyen, 2010; Vu, 2011). We can infer that the prescribed textbooks in Viet
Nam do not completely fit to every teaching context and the teachers are
18

CHAPTER TWO: THE STUDY
This chapter presents the context where the study took place followed by the
background information of the participants and the instruments as well as the
procedure used for data collection.
1. Setting and background
1.1. The school
Vinh Tuong is a 10-year-old high school, located in Vinh Tuong town – Vinh
Tuong district, Vinh Phuc province where students come from different
communes nearby. It was a semi-state school from 2003 to 2008. In the year
2009, the school was declared state school. It started with 10 classes, and
widened its number of classes up to over 24 up to now. Each of class has from

The participants of this study are 5 teachers of English (ranging from 25 to 32
years old) teaching at Vinh Tuong high school. All of them have at least 3
years‟ experience teaching at upper-secondary schools. They are willing to
participate in the study after the researcher has explained to them about the
investigation. The five teachers agreed that each of them would take part in an
interview after the researcher has randomly observed their five classes. The
information about the participants is described in the table below.

Figure 2: Description of participants

Teacher (T)
Gender
Qualification
Years of teaching English
T1
Female
University
3
T2
Male
University
5
T3
Female
University
7
T4
Female
University
6

carried out later to investigate the teachers‟ reasons for their practises in
21

classroom. The two research instruments enhance the validity and the
reliability of the study. 3.1. Classroom observation
It is worth using observation method because it provides a reseacher with
„live‟ data from real situations (Cohen et al., 2007 as mentioned in Menkabu,
2010). That is, it can help a researcher to avoid “limitations of self-report bias,
social desirability, or response set” (H.Macmillan & Schumacher, 1993,
p.257). In other words, “it allows researchers to see what people do without
having to rely on what they say they do” (Dornyei, 2007, p.185). However,
researchers should always bear in minds that observations may carry the risk
of bias. The presence of an observer in classrooms may cause the participants
to change their behaviours. For example, they may try harder in class; their
performance can be better or worse than normal. Consequently, “the quality
of oservational data is dependent on the skill with which the researcher
conducts the observation” (Dornyei, 2007, p.186).
According to Cohen et al. (2007) as introduced in Menkabu (2010, p.20),
there are three types of observation, which lie on the structured-unstructured
continuum. In structed observations, researchers have a specific focus with a
list of observation categories, whereas in unstructed observations, a researcher
will observe first then decide what is important for research. A combination
of structured and unstructured observation will form the third type.
Classroom obsevations in this current study are structured. The observation
note is a list of adaptation techniques that the participants may use in their
teaching. For the reason that each unit in the three textbooks English 10,
English 11 and English 12 have the same structure with 5 sections, reading,