Summary of curriculum evaluation
By evaluating the textbook that I am teaching with right now, I learned teaching cannot be done without well-organized textbooks. Textbooks are a great tool to teach English in an integrated way. It was not hard to analyze the textbooks by using the given rubrics.
The textbook is designed for 9th graders. The school where I work at now divided the students into their English proficiency levels: advanced, intermediate, and elementary. These different levels are using the same textbook though. The content of the courses in the textbook covers various themes, such as American holidays, stories of celebrities in the world, different cultures and customs, etc. The book, also, provides these contents in a variety of sections of English: listening, speaking, reading, and writing/grammar. Currently I am teaching intermediate level students. Some of them are not motivated and interested in English at all. Others are interested in English and want to do well on tests, but they do not know how to study English in a strategic way. The students are required to take mid-term and final exams per semester. Most of my students’ goal is to get a good score on the tests. In Korea, the tests are usually focused on reading comprehension and grammar expressions. This naturally designated the whole English class to pay careful attention on reading and writing with grammar only.
The textbook that I evaluated was excellent for grammar part for ESL learners. The book provides ample questions to practice certain grammar expressions, however the other domains of English (e.g. speaking, reading, listening, and writing) were covered less. This textbook, also, has a week point in the assessment area. It does provide various practice for grammar and several reading comprehension questions, and pair-up activities for listening and speaking only. The DVD, which was provided with the textbook, also does not supply a variety of assessing tools for the students’ level. Offering ample practice help students to achieve a certain goal of grammar expressions, reading comprehension, speaking, and listening. However, teachers had to create their own assessment worksheets in order to check their student’s level or to check if the goals were achieved.
Through the evaluation of the textbook with the two rubrics, I noticed there were some similarities and differences. Some similarities that I found are the following:
The textbook is designed for 9th graders. The school where I work at now divided the students into their English proficiency levels: advanced, intermediate, and elementary. These different levels are using the same textbook though. The content of the courses in the textbook covers various themes, such as American holidays, stories of celebrities in the world, different cultures and customs, etc. The book, also, provides these contents in a variety of sections of English: listening, speaking, reading, and writing/grammar. Currently I am teaching intermediate level students. Some of them are not motivated and interested in English at all. Others are interested in English and want to do well on tests, but they do not know how to study English in a strategic way. The students are required to take mid-term and final exams per semester. Most of my students’ goal is to get a good score on the tests. In Korea, the tests are usually focused on reading comprehension and grammar expressions. This naturally designated the whole English class to pay careful attention on reading and writing with grammar only.
The textbook that I evaluated was excellent for grammar part for ESL learners. The book provides ample questions to practice certain grammar expressions, however the other domains of English (e.g. speaking, reading, listening, and writing) were covered less. This textbook, also, has a week point in the assessment area. It does provide various practice for grammar and several reading comprehension questions, and pair-up activities for listening and speaking only. The DVD, which was provided with the textbook, also does not supply a variety of assessing tools for the students’ level. Offering ample practice help students to achieve a certain goal of grammar expressions, reading comprehension, speaking, and listening. However, teachers had to create their own assessment worksheets in order to check their student’s level or to check if the goals were achieved.
Through the evaluation of the textbook with the two rubrics, I noticed there were some similarities and differences. Some similarities that I found are the following:
It is an excellent curriculum if…
- Materials meet objectives and goals.
- A variety of activities were provided and appropriate for a level.
- Instruction is progressed in an organized manner.
- The course used teaching technology effectively.
- The course provides enough chances for students to participate actively.
- The course provides extended homework which is integrated with the separated acquired skills.
There were some differences from the rubrics, too. Most of them were neglected when I created my own rubric. I did not think those were much important.
An excellent curriculum should…
- Provide a variety of strategies for teachers, such as direct instruction or paired/group projects.
- Provide research-based materials which are appropriate to student’s needs.
- Provide well-organized teacher’s guide.
- Provide support materials and parent support materials.
- Offer suggestions for re-teaching a concept, providing additional practice for struggling students.
I would like to recommend this textbook for intermediate and elementary levels. For advanced level, if the textbook supplies additional challenging materials, then it would be okay. Goals and objectives are also written on the first page of each lesson. Overall, the content of the textbook meets the goals and objectives appropriately and is well organized. If teachers prepare extra materials according to the students’ proficiency levels, this textbook will be practically used.
Always your assignment is the example model of all. Your neat and clear demonstration and description helped me a lot to organize and present my assignment. I agree with you that any book with proper additional materials could be available for English classes of every level.
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ReplyDeleteI’m teaching at a middle school like you, so I can totally understand your situation and I have the same opinion of yours. All the students are quite different in many aspects such as level, background, interest, etc. But we have to teach those different guys with the same book. Thus, a well-rounded textbook is necessary to us. That’s why we are struggling to design an ideal course, which is well-balanced in four skills along with authentic activities and various evaluation tools. In addition, teachers need to develop a variety of strategies to teach the same book in different level classes. I’ve learned the importance of teaching strategies as reflecting your rubric and the other rubric. In fact, I didn’t consider the strategies when designing my rubric like you.
ReplyDeleteYou are always a good pattern i can follow and refer to, I was no idea how to start this assignment before I looked at your's.
ReplyDeleteBrowsing your evaluation curriculum, It really helped me to have an idea how to evaluate a textbook accoring to evaluation rubric.
Looking at your work here, I can really see that you put out a hundred and one percent on every work you made. That's why there are a lot of people who look up to your works and set them as an example - that includes me.
ReplyDeleteJust as always, this is very detailed and comprehensive. Really inspiring. Comparing this evaluation to the rubric that I made, I can definitely say that this is a better textbook evaluation than what I made. It has more guidelines which are really needed when you want to evaluate a material. Great job.
Wow what a great blog, i really enjoyed reading this, good luck in your work. SIOP Feature 12 Use a Variety of Techniques to Make Concepts Clear
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