An investigation into teacher's beliefs and practice about developing supplementary materials for ielts learners at language centers in Ho Chi Minh city

kinaesthetic, and they can be presented in print, through live performance or display, or on cassette, CD-ROM, DVD or the internet”. This view is akin to that of Allwright (1981)

– good materials should promote language learning, not teaching. Hutchinson and Waters (1987) extend the notion with five more principles as a “lodestar” for the design (pp. 107-108) and, to some extent, for the evaluation and adaptation of materials. According to these principles, materials should consist of:

1. A reasonable sequence of content that assist the teaching and learning process

2. A perspective on language and learning nature

3. A reflection of tasks in their own right

4. An introduction to new teaching techniques, which is helpful for teacher training

5. Models of accurate and appropriate language use

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These principles appear to be strictly followed to augment the upsides of a textbook which will be discussed as follows.

2.2.1.1. Ready-made coursebooks

Ready-made coursebooks (or commercially published coursebooks) are books published by professional publishers or developers with careful consideration of users, content, and aesthetics. These coursebooks can be used globally in widely different nations or narrower scale in some regions, local institutions, or schools. Based on the markets of implementation, coursebooks can be categories into global, regional, or in- house/ domestic/ national ones (Bao, 2008; Tomlinson, 2011a; McDonough et al., 2013; McGrath, 2013). It seems that ready-made coursebooks are an indispensable feature of most English language programs because of their enormous influence on both teachers and learners. Overall, as Richards (2001) puts it, some teachers may use textbooks as their main teaching resource while others appreciate the role of supplementing their instructions. As regards learners, coursebooks provide adequate contact with language

besides teachers. Before further scrutinizing their effects in the field of English language teaching (ELT), it is worth mentioning the concept of textbooks or coursebooks in this study. The terms are often used interchangeably in ELT literature but with two different implies. One strictly refers to a single book that contains “the core materials for a language learning course” (Tomlinson, 2011b, p. Xi), while the other takes a broader sense of “an organized and pre-packaged set of teaching/ learning materials.” The latter, in order words, assumes that core materials can both constitute a coursebook or present in a package encompassing the coursebook itself and other components or add-ons; namely workbook, audio disc, or teachers’ guide (Hutchinson & Torres, 1994, p. 328). This notion of textbook appears to be contemporary and innovative as nowadays, hardly is any coursebook published as a single one but rather in a package with “a wealth of extra material” (Harmer, 2001, p. 7). As a result, it is sensible for the current research to adopt Hutchinson and Torres’ broad sense of textbooks.

Despite the widespread popularity of ready-made coursebooks, they have not always been received affectionate attitudes toward them by both teachers and scholars. Indeed, for the past few decades, there has been much controversy regarding the role of this kind of material in classrooms. Those who are in favor of coursebooks (Hutchinson & Torres, 1994; Harmer, 2001) argue that teachers and learners can benefit from them in several ways. Rubdy (2003) identifies a list of seven major advantages for the use of textbooks as follows:

Textbooks can

 fulfill numerous practical demands;

 offer a “route map” for both teachers and learners”;

 offer “structure and predictability”;

 allow teachers to focus on other vital aspects of lesson planning (including materials adaptation and supplementation) and on using their creativity in teaching;

 enhance teachers’ sense of self-confidence and security, especially those lacking experience and training;

 be designed and developed by experts in the field, in line with contemporary pedagogical approach and practice;

 act as agents of change. (p. 39)

Textbooks are able to meet a number of practical needs or contexts as the result of commercial purposes. Nearly all publishers hope their products will be best sellers and thus, can make the most profit out of them. This motif prods them to improve coursebooks through a series of needs analyses, market researches, and materials pilots, which are usually kept confidential (Masuhara, 2011, p. 253). Consequently, coursebooks are usually designed in global and regional perspectives that the more needs are covered, the more profitable it will be.

Textbooks offer a “route map” so that learners and teachers “know where they are, what they have done and where they are going” (Harmer, 2001, p. 7). Hutchinson and Torres (1994) described the need for such maps or plans to demonstrate the coherence of each lesson in relation to the course as a whole (p. 319). For example, most coursebooks comprise a thorough table of content that illustrates the “unit of progression” and lesson objectives broken down from the general aims or goals of the program. The map should be necessarily comprehensible, comprehensive, and accessible for three reasons – Negotiation (Textbooks provide a basis for negotiation through the overall picture of what will happen in lessons), Accountability (In addition to teachers and learners, other stakeholders also care about and have an impact on what is done “in the

closed and ephemeral world of the classroom”) and Orientation (The knowledge of standards, objectives, and amount of work secures teachers and learners in relation to self-assessment).

Textbooks, moreover, provide a consistent and predictable format which is served as a foundation for “negotiation and exploration.” It has been observed from experiences that coursebooks typically follow a particularly coherent order. For example, some may start with the practice of receptive skills before moving to productive ones; others may interweave the skills into strands. The predictability of textbooks can make lessons run smoothly because learners can soon get used to the learning procedures within parts of lessons (Nation & Macalister, 2010, p. 9). As a result, teachers do not have to spend much time familiarizing students with the new tasks or activities, which, in most cases, puzzle and worry learners for they have not done them before.

As mentioned earlier, the uniformity of lessons’ unit and language items in coursebooks is beneficial because they save teachers’ time and energies to “look for articles and listening material, […] plan and re-plan syllabuses, […] evaluate class progress, […] plan how to use the material once it has been found” (Harmer, 2001, p.7). Coursebooks, in this sense, are a useful resource for teachers based on which they can adapt or supplement with current and relevant materials to enhance learning. Moreover, Allwright (1981) notes the merit of leaving material design for experts in that it frees teachers to “develop the expertise needed for dealing with practical and fundamental issues in the fostering of language learning in the classroom setting” (p. 6).

Coursebooks can also support those teachers who are not well-trained and inexperienced with a sense of self-confidence and security. According to Allwright’s deficiency view, published teaching materials are able to save learners from deficient teachers in that they help to ensure the syllabus is comprehensively followed and tasks are properly conducted. Harmer (2001) shares a similar but less severe perspective. He

mentioned the pressure of time encountered by teachers as a result of external factors which may lead to ill-prepared lessons. In such circumstances, coursebooks are the perfect lifeline ensuring the emergence of a competent lesson (p. 8).

The next merit of coursebooks concerns the fact that they are designed, developed by experts, and are sensitized to contemporary “theoretical approaches and methodological practices.” Allwright (1981) illustrates this notion by mentioning the “different view,” which implies the disparity of textbook writers' and teachers’ roles (p. 6). Although they both share some identical expertise, there are special individual skills that make material designers superior to the other. For example, textbooks writers need to have an insight into the market as a whole and the nature of materials. Their prospective customers are teachers and students whom they have no connection with, and thus, whose needs and interests they have to forecast. In the process of writing, they should develop the skills of sequencing the activities and harmonizing them with visual illustrations (Bell & Gower, 2011, pp. 135-140). The demand for anticipation leads to several studies to gain a deeper understanding of the contexts where coursebooks will be implemented. Such researches are recommended to include discussion with syllabus designers, curriculum planners, and even teachers, for these parties hold different viewpoints. Wala (2003), as cited in McGrath (2013), emphasizes that, unlike teachers who only deal with the current contexts, syllabus designers, curriculum planners focus much more on future issues. Materials writers, thus, “occupy a kind of twilight zone – materials must answer present-day teacher needs for tomorrow’s class with a view to meeting the goals of education for the future” (p. 45). Textbooks are also subject to advanced principles of ELT. Hutchinson and Torres (1994) observe the improvement of Streamline (by Hartley and Viney, 1978) and its successor, Grapevine (by Viney and Viney 1989). The former represents the heyday of traditional Grammar translation and Audio-lingual methods with ample texts and drilling activities. Within less than a decade, Grapevine made excellent progress when employing Communicative language teaching

(CLT) principles. There was “an integrated video, information-gap activities, role play, further reading texts, songs, the development of reading, writing, and listening skills, games, grammar summaries, and tape transcripts.” The way that Grapevine is structured is much the same as a majority of General English textbooks nowadays.

Textbooks also serve as agents of change by maintaining security – the most salient element for a change to occur. Hutchinson and Torres (1994), by relating to the other studies of management and social sciences, identify four benefits of coursebooks. Firstly, it is because only a definite amount of change can be dealt with at once. Textbooks offer new ideas within their structured framework, which allow teachers and learners to develop harmoniously with these changes. Secondly, they support and free teachers from a number of tasks. Thirdly, they provide a thorough picture of the change. Finally, the selection of textbooks is not entirely of teachers’ responsibility, but other stakeholders. Therefore, teachers feel less stressed and more confident when introducing changes (p. 9).

In the field of curriculum and syllabus design, materials, or more specifically textbooks, play a major role as starting points for teachers and developers to draw on in initial steps (Nation & Macalister, 2010, pp. 140-141). Masuhara (2011) outlines theoretical and original Model X in which the design process consecutively starts with an analysis of learner needs to establish goals and decide on appropriate methods and materials. Meanwhile, in more contemporary models, they tend to be non-linear and cyclical with consideration of teaching context and evaluation to make proper adjustments in other stages (McGrath, 2013, p. 61). It appears that need analysis and goal identification are conducted at the initial stages, and materials selection is delayed towards the end (Masuhara, 2011, p. 246). Examples of those innovative models can be found in Nation and Macalister (2010) or Graves (2000). The momentum behind this trend may result from the widespread practice of administrators or teachers observed

worldwide (ibid.). The reality suggests that materials selection comes immediately after the general profile of a certain class and learners is identified. In this stage, a commercially published coursebook, which matches the previously defined learner profile and teaching context, is chosen. This means other stages such as needs analysis, objectives specification, syllabus design, and selection of methodology may be at the hand of coursebook writers or publishers. These clues, found in the description or introduction of a textbook, support teachers and administrators for their selection (ibid). In commercially published ELT books, there also exists a “coherent syllabus” (Harmer, 2001, p. 7) which serves as a framework for teachers to count on and start teaching before adapting and supplementing them to satisfy the context. This use of textbooks echoes Hutchinson and Torres’ (1994) notion of making them as starting point for negotiation in classrooms, and Allwright’s (1981), Harmer’s (2001) of providing burden relief for teachers as their lack time and ability to carry out a complete analysis of learners and teaching situations.

On the other hand, there are many doubtful voices towards textbook-based teaching. The most pessimistic attitude may come from Brumfit (1980) with his allusion to “masses of rubbish that is skillfully marketed.” In this author's opinion, the content of textbooks may not match what they are advertised. Gray (2000) asserts that regardless of their excellency, coursebooks, in nature, cater to a wide range of learners and consequently hinder the effectiveness (p. 280). They, in essence, cannot perfectly fit the needs of a particular class (McGrath, 2002; Jolly & Bolitho, 2011). As the effect of the learner-centered approach in the ELT field these days, there is some concern about whether pre-designed classroom materials can fulfill the needs of more specific contexts. Moreover, the “business of the management of language learning” is too chaotic, dynamic, and complicated that hardly is it fulfilled by “a pre-packaged set of decisions” provided in coursebooks (Allwright, 1981, p. 5). Teachers and learners, consequently, may feel like being tightly bound by a textbook “straitjacket,” which may discourage

and demotivate their creativity. The situation will be even worse if a language school or institution nudges its teachers to follow a book rigorously.

Another drawback of a textbook is that the learners’ different learning styles are usually overlooked. Each student possesses a set of learning preferences varying in accordance with contexts (Brown, 2007, p. 120). One at a time may prefer to learn by seeing the written down language but feel more ease to memorize the language by hearing at others. Despite that fact, many modern textbooks seem to emphasize more on studial (i.e., learners like to focus on language form and accuracy), analytic (i.e., learners like to pay attention to single discrete bits of language) learning, whereas overlooking on experimental (i.e., learners care more for language use for communication than correctness), and assume that all learners can benefit from it (Tomlinson, 2011a, p. 18; Tomlinson & Masuhara, 2013). This “spoon-feeding” approach may harmonize with teachers’ favor of merely providing correct answers rather than having learners try one more time. Students are also assumed to expect teachers to correct their to share more responsibility with teachers and manage their own learning. Nevertheless, textbooks, in this case, may overindulge both teachers and learners by making them less “busy.” Too many teachers may abuse coursebooks and see them as “monolithic manuals which have to be followed to the letter, like playscripts” (Harmer, 2001, p. 8). They, then, are just merely a “technician” who rigidly follow the instruction manuals, but not a “professional” who is creative and able to make decisions. If the responsibility of decision-making is left in textbook producers’ hands, teachers can become “deskilled” individuals that only have an influence on “decisions about presentation, timing, and the

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