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Prepared by Şenol Çakmak, Veli Kart, Bayram Korkmaz, Mehmet Çetin, Metin Yıldız

THE ANALYSIS AND EVALUATION OF

NEW INTERCHANGE

CONTENT

PART I.   DESIGN AND ORGANISATION                                                                  

1.COMPONENTS OF THE COURSE BOOK PACKAGE                                    

                        Student’s Book     Teacher’s Book    Workbook      Class Audio Cassettes and CDs          Student’s Audio Cassettes    Video     Video Activity Book         Video Teacher’s Guide   CD ROM     Placement Test  Lab Casettes And Lab Guide                                          2. ORGANISATION OF THE CONTENT                                                            

A.       SYLLABUS OF THE COURSE BOOK                                                                   

B.      GENERAL FEATURES                                                                                       

·         Complexity   Learnability       Usefulness    Continuity                                                    

·         Techniques for Recycling and Reinforcement of Learning       Route of Learning                                                                                         

C.       THE KIND OF CONTENT                                                                                   

D.      CONTENT OF EACH UNIT                                                                                 

Snapshot          Conversation     Grammar Focus       Fluency Practice   Pronunciation                                                                                     

a.       Listening           Word Power       Writing          Reading             Interchange Activities                                                                  

     3.SPECIAL CONSIDERATIONS IN THE ORGANISATION OF THE COURSE BOOK                  

Student’s Book 1       Student’s Book 2         Student’s Book 3 Student’s  

4. REVISION                                                                                                         

5. LAYOUT                                                                                                        

PART II. LANGUAGE CONTENT                                                                           

1.      GRAMMAR                                                                                               

  a) Included grammar items and their correspondance to student’s language needs  

  b) How are the grammar items presented?                                               

  c) Emphasis on Language Form and Use the Balance between them    

  d) New Items Related to and Contrasted with the Past Items           

  e) Different meanings of one form                                                                  

2.      VOCABULARY                                                                                               

a) Quantity of vocabulary taught b) Selection of vocabulary         

c) Distinction Between Active and Passive Vocabulary  d) Presentation of Vocabulary    

 e) Vocabulary Learning Exercises                                                                  

3.      PHONOLOGY                                                                                                   a)Systematical covering some aspects of Phonological System      b) Integration of Pronunciation Work   c) Use of Phonological Terminology     d) Use of Phonemic Alphabet  e) Quality of Models Provided by Cassettes for Pronunciation     f) Use of Diagrammatic System                                                                      

 PART III. TOPIC and METHODOLOGY                                                               

1.      TOPIC                                                                                                          

a)       Reality and Variety of Topics Included in the Course Book                 

b)       Relation of the Topics to the Learners’ Knowledge System                  

c)       Types of Topics Treated in New Interchange                                      

2.      METHODOLOGY                                                                          

  Approach    Attitude Towards the Use of Students’ Mother Tongue                

  Orientation  Principles   Student’s Role                                                                      

PART IV. SKILLS                                                                                              

1.     Balance of All Four Skills    2. Integration of Skills in Realistic Context   

3. LISTENING   4. SPEAKING     5. READING    6. WRITING        

PART V. EVALUATION OF TEACHER’S BOOK                                                     

1. TEACHER’S BOOK                                                                                 

a) Guidance for Teachers        b)Comprehensibility and Flexibility of the Teacher’s Book   c) Cultural Explanation                                                                             

  2. TEACHER’S ROLE                                                                                     PART IV. ASSESSMENT OF NEW INTERCHANGE                                                  

Assessment Chart   QUESTIONNAIRE     References     Appendix                                                                                                                 

 THE ANALYSIS AND EVALUATION

 OF NEW INTERCHANGE

We analysed and evaluated New Interchange to identify particular strengths and weakness of the course book. We try to see what New Interchange might be good for and ehat stiations it could be expected to be successful. İn fact, this is an evaluation of materials in the course book package for their potential. We examined the course book in various ways: First of all, we divided our examination into five main parts. Secondly, we divided these main parts into more spesific parts and analysed them in detail.

PART I.   DESIGN AND ORGANISATION

1 . COMPONENTS OF THE COURSE BOOK PACKAGE

  Student’s Book 

 The Student’s Book contains 16 six-page units. The exercises in each unit are grouped into two topical/or functional sections; these sections are referred to as “cycles” in the teaching notes. There are four review units. There are a set of communication tasks called Interchange Activities and Unit Summaries at the back of  the book. 

                                 Teacher’s Book

The full-color Teacher’s Edition features page-by-page instructions interleaved with reproductions of the Student’s Book pages. The instructions contain detailed suggestions on how to teach the course, lesson-by-lesson notes, numerous follow-up suggestions for optional tasks and Optional Activities, complete answer keys, and transcripts of the listening activities. The instructions for the Interchange Activities, an optional Activities Index and Additional Optional Activities, answers to Workbook exercises, four photocopiable achievement tests for use in class, transcripts for the tests, and test answer keys are located at the back of the book. A non-interleaved, black-and-white Teacher’s Manual is also made available for the teachers.       

 Workbook

 The Workbook provides a variety of exercises that develop students’ proficiency with the grammar, reading, writing, spelling, and vocabulary presented in the Student’s Book. Each six-page unit follows the same teaching sequence as the Student’s Book. Most Workbook units also contain “review exercises” that recycle teaching points from previous units in the context of the new topic. The Workbook can be used class work of for homework.

  Class Audio Cassettes and CDs

 The Class Audio Cassettes or CDs prepared for use in the classroom. They contain natural-sounding recordings of the conversations, Grammar focus models, Pronunciation exercises, and Listening activities in the Student’s Book, and the listening exercises for the tests. A variety of native-speaker voices and accents, as well as some nonnative speakers of English, is used. Exercises that are recorded are indicated with cassette and CD symbol.

 Student’s Audio Cassettes

 The Student’s Audio Cassettes or CDs are for self-study by students. They contain recordings o the Conversations, Pronunciation exercises, and Grammar Focus models the Student’s Book. They are available in split editions only.

  Video

 The Video is designed to review and extend the topics and language presented in the Student’s Book. It contains sixteen entertaining, dramatized sequences based on the language and vocabulary in the Student’s Book. There are also five authentic documentary sequences.

 Video Activity Book

 The accompanying video activity book provides comprehension and conversation activities, as well as language practice.

  Video Teacher’s Guide

 The Video Teacher’s Guide provides through instructional support, a complete answer key, and photocopiable transcripts of the video sequences.

  CD ROM

 The CD ROM is intended to be used in conjunction with the Student’s Book to review and practice the language learned in class. The CD ROM can also be used on a home computer or in a language laboratory. At the core of each of the sixteen units there is a video sequence taken from the New Interchange Video, and some of the activities are based on ones found in the Video Activity Book. In total, the CD Rom contains over 150 activities; students do the activities they want to do at the touch of a button. In addition, there are four tests to check students’ progress.

 Placement Test

 The Placement Test helps teachers and program administrators place their students, at the most appropriate level of New Interchange. The booklet contains the listening, reading, and grammar sections on photocopiable pages, and instructions for administering the oral placement exam. A cassette accompanies the listening section.

                      Lab Cassettes And Lab Guide

The set of four Lab Cassettes and the accompanying Lab Guide from the first edition of Interchange can be used in conjunction with the New Interchange series.

2. ORGANISATION OF THE CONTENT

A- SYLLABUS OF THE COURSE BOOK

 New Interchange has an integrated, multi skills syllabus that links topics, communicative functions, and grammar. Grammar –seen as an essential component of second and foreign language proficiency and competence- is always presented communicatively, with controlled accuracy based activities leading to fluency-based communicative practice. In this way, there is a link between grammatical form and communicative function. The syllabus is carefully graded, with a gradual progression of teaching items. 

 B- GENERAL FEATURES

    Complexity

The language items to be taught in New Interchange are selected and graded from simple towards difficult ones according to their difficulty and complexity degree. And they’re presented in units in sequence. As to be an example, “greeting” –seen as the simplest and easiest activity by students- is presented firstly and “pronouns”, the most basic elements of the language is intended to be taught in the first grammar focus section of the book (pp.5-7, Appendix 1-2)

 Learnability

Learnability much related with complexity and may be seen as same in some contexts is seen as well-arranged in teaching process of New Interchange. The major point in presentation of new language items and vocabulary their being presented with the previously learnt ones that’s going from familiar to unfamiliar so that the learners would not difficulty in acquisition of the language.

 Usefulness

Usefulness, which is a key element in appreciation of an activity, is concerned according to its importance and tried to be applied in New Interchange effectively. Each unit consists of 12 sections, which are worked separately from others and in a supportive way to each other are intended to be useful. And they can be said to be so, because the activities involved in New Interchange consist of pair work, group work or whole class activities with effective supportive materials like pictures, photos cartoons and listening cassettes and require no preparation and can be applied in classroom without having difficulty.

 Continuity

Continuity, which is another important point in organization of a course book, has taken place in New Interchange. Because, it is rarely sufficient for students to meet new items only once. As it is known, in the case of grammar and vocabulary, items not only need to be met in context and actively practiced, they need to be recycled three, four or more times to be stored in the long term memory. To provide this, New Interchange uses many times the first introduced items in the next units by integrating them into activities.

  Techniques for Recycling and Reinforcement of Learning

New Interchange recycles the structures in different contexts by comparing and contrasting methods. As an example; “Simple Past Tense” is first introduced in the first unit of the Student’s Book-2 in page 3 and contrasted with “Present Perfect Tense” in page 21 so that both the introducing of “Present Perfect Tense” and the reinforcement and revise of previously learnt structure of “Simple Past Tense” is achieved (see Appendix 3). Again, in later pages of the same book, we see the contrasting of  “Simple Past Tense” with a new structure, “The Past Continuous Tense”(p.73).

In addition, there is a Review part consists of six sections after every four units in which the previously dealt items are revised and reinforced briefly.

 Route of Learning

New Interchange has a straightforward route, which takes the learners from the very beginning of language items to the end. And the syllabus is designed according to this route. The teaching items are graded carefully and taken into the process of the course.

So, the teacher feels himself comfortable throughout teaching. The students are expected to show the development, which is aimed as the course goes on.

 C- THE KIND OF CONTENT

New Interchange has an adult and international content. It deals with contemporary topics that are of high interest and relevant to both students and teachers. The topics have been selected for their interest to both homogenous and heterogenous classes.

D- CONTENT OF EACH UNIT 

Each unit consists of six pages and twelve sections and each section deals with a different skill or activity as snapshot, conversation, grammar focus, fluency exercise, pronunciation, listening, word power, writing, reading and interchange activities. Here, we’ll have a brief look at these parts but later, in Language Content and Skills parts of our work there will be detailed analyses on them.

 a. Snapshot

The Snapshots graphically present interesting real-world information that introduces the topic of a unit or cycle, and also develop vocabulary. Follow-up questions encourage discussion of the Snapshot material and personalize the topic (as an example, see Appendix 1).

 b. Conversation

 The conversations introduce the new grammar of each cycle in a communicative context and present functional and conversational expressions (for example, see Appendix 1).

 c. Grammar Focus

The new grammar of each unit is presented in color boxes and is followed by controlled and freer communicative practice activities. These freer activities often have students use the grammar in a personal context (An example is shown in Appendix 4).

 d. Fluency Exercise 

Fluency exercises consist of pair, group, whole class or role-play activities and these activities provide more personal practice of the new teaching points and increase the opportunity for individual student practice (for example, see Appendix 5).

 e. Pronunciation

 These exercises focus on important features of spoken English, including stress, rhythm, intonation, and reductions and blending (see Appendix 5).

 f. Listening

 The Listening activities develop a wide variety of listening skills, including listening for gist, listening for details, and inferring meaning from context. Charts or graphics often accompany these task-based exercises to lend support to students (see Appendix 6).

 g. Word Power

  The Word Power activities develop students’ vocabulary through a variety of interesting tasks, such as word maps and collocation exercises. Word Power activities are usually followed by oral or written practice that helps students understand how to use the vocabulary in context (see Appendix 7). 

  h. Writing

 The Writing exercises include practical writing tasks that extend and reinforce the teaching points in the unit and help develop student’s compositional skills. The Teacher’s Edition demonstrates how to use the models and exercises to focus on the process of writing (see Appendix 8).

  i. Reading

 The reading passages use various types of texts adapted from authentic sources. The readings develop a variety of reading skills, including reading for details, skimming, scanning, and making inferences. And pre-reading and post-reading questions that use the topic of the reading as a springboard to discussion are also included (see Appendix 9).

   j. Interchange Activities

  The Interchange Activities are pair work, group work and whole class activities involving information sharing and role-playing to encourage real communication. These exercises are a central part of the course and allow students to extend and personalize what they have practiced and learned in each unit.  

 3. SPECIAL CONSIDERATIONS IN THE ORGANISATION

OF THE COURSE BOOK SERIES

           Student’s Book 1:  Intro Level is designed for early beginners and takes them from the starter to low-intermediate level.

Intro provides simple and comprehensible activities that adult and young adult learners can understand and make easily. It also builds on the foundations for interactive learning and communication.

Student’s Book 2:  Level One builds on the foundations for accurate and fluent communication already established in the Intro Level by extending grammatical, lexical, and functional skills. The syllabus covered here in Level One also incorporates a rapid review of language from the Intro Level, allowing Student’s Book 1 to be used with students who have not studied with Intro.

Student’s Book 3: Level Two is for intermediate students and takes from the low-intermediate up to the intermediate level.

Level Two builds on the foundations for accurate and fluent communication already established in Intro and Level One by extending grammatical, lexical and functional skills. The syllabus covered in Level Two also incorporates a review of key language features from Level One, allowing Student’s Book 2 to be used with students who have not studied with Level One.

 Student’s Book 4:  Level Three takes students from the intermediate level up to the high-intermediate level.

Level Three builds on the foundations for accurate and fluent communication already established in the previous levels by extending grammatical, lexical and functional skills. Through the use of a wide variety of stimulating and challenging activities, the students are able to consolidate and develop their communicative competence in English. A range of higher-level comprehension skills is also developed. Listening activities involve listening to narratives, commercials, discussions, and interviews. Reading activities are derived from authentic sources and often reflect cross-cultural themes, exploring life-styles and values in different countries. The syllabus covered here in Level Three also incorporates a review of some key language features from Level Two, allowing Student’s Book 3 to be used with students who have not studied with previous levels.

 4. REVISION

It is normal that students forget the things they learnt after they first introduced with. To prevent this, beside recycling the language items throughout the course systematically and integrating some of the skills, New Interchange has a Review Part after every four units, which enables the learners to review the previously learnt items. Each Review part contains six useful, well-qualified activities consisting of pair works, group works and whole class listening and conversation activities, which provide the student to check and reinforce the learning ( for a review part, see Appendix 10-11).

In this way, pages seem lively and attractive for the learners.

Also, new structures and key words are highlighted with bold and colorful types (examples can be seen from the papers in Appendix section).

    PART II   LANGUAGE CONTENT

  Language content is one aspect of evaluating a course book. In fact, it forms the basic step on deciding the suitability of course book for students from the points of objectives in teaching grammar, materials used and the most important, needs of the students. Therefore, language content in the course book should reflect and correspond to our students’ needs and the objective of teaching program. But what are the actual items of a language to be taught?

Here, the question determines our way, our idea in evaluating the course book. Indeed, there are three actual parts of a language, which are grammar, vocabulary and phonology. These actual items of language form the foundation of everything to be taught that contributes to complex process of language teaching. So, now we will examine the language content of New Interchange from the aspects of grammar, vocabulary and phonology in subtitle.

 1. GRAMMAR

 Grammar is a major component of any language course. Student will be create their own utterances and express their own feelings, experiences after gaining the grammar of a language. So, grammar should be conveyed systematically in a language course book.

In order to understand whether a course book is suitable from the point of grammar content and presentation, it’s necessary to ask some questions about how it covers the grammar items as follows:

1-    What grammar items are included? Do they correspond to students’ language needs?

2-    Are they presented in small enough units?

3-   Is there an emphasis on language form and use(meaning)?

4-    How balanced is the language form and use?

5-    Are newly introduced items related to and contrasted with ones already familiar to the learners?

6-    Where one grammatical form has more than one meaning, are all relevant meanings taught?

 Under the lights of these questions we can easily evaluate the suitability of a course book from the point of grammar. Now, we have the criteria, we can start to evaluate the course book New Interchange over these aspects.

a) Included grammar items and their correspondence to students’ language needs

Related to the first question, the course book, New Interchange covers all the grammar items that any learner needs while he wants to make use of the language. Beginning from simple towards complex, it tries to build the grammar items in its learners’ minds. When we have a look at the content sections of all four series, it is easily understood that New Interchange presents all grammar items and brings the learners’ grammar capacity from elementary level to advanced.

Grammar items taught in New Interchange correspond to students’ language needs. Because, each unit exploits a grammar piece in a communicative and conversational context. For instance, in the conversation section of Unit 1 there is a dialogue about introducing yourself supported by listening (see Appendix 12). Here, the learner is expected to get the grammar rule in a communicative way without knowing the rule itself. Then comes Checking Information with listening activity. After that, there is a group work related to the grammar item to be taught. After having students practice and use the grammar in a meaningful way, Grammar Focus part comes with focusing on the examples of “wh-questions” and statements with “be”. Here, there is no explanation. Only the examples are given.  By presenting the grammar item in a meaningful way and making an emphasis on the form it intends to make students acquire the language easily.

 b) How are the grammar items presented?

They are presented in small enough units by placing them into sections. It never gives the all of a grammar item in a unit heavily and densely but divides them into pieces and each piece is taught in a different section of the unit. For example, in Unit 1 the first section deals with “wh-questions” and statements with “be” while in Snapshot “yes-no” questions and short answers with “be” is presented and taught.

 c) Emphasis on Language Form and Use and The Balance Between Them

Regarding the questions 3 and 4, we’ll explain whether these features illustrated and dealt with care in New Interchange or not. For the examination of these features, we chose one of the most confused parts of grammar, “The Present Perfect Tense” since most students have difficulty in understanding of it. We’ll try to look at how New Interchange approaches and studies it on the point of form and use.

The tense is firstly presented in Unit 10 on page 60. It is introduced in a dialogue, as is for the others, supported by a cassette in the Snapshot section without giving the rule. Here, the focus is on the language use rather than form. And then, the Grammar Focus part comes. At this part there are examples about the tense with “yes-no” questions and the answers follow them (see Appendix 4). A few regular and irregular forms of past participle verbs are given down in the examples of this Grammar Focus chart. At the right side, contractions with the tense are demonstrated. In this way, by giving emphasis on the correct sentence, it focuses on the form and tries to teach the students the right form of the tense.

The balance of form and use is tried to be provided by the help of exercises, pair and group works and conversation. We mean, firstly the use is introduced in a dialogue. Students are expected to catch the meaning. And then the form is presented at the Grammar Focus part. Here, the students are taught how the sentence is structured. The following sections comprise activities and tasks, which try to support the balance of form and use in a meaningful and communicative context. As an example, in Unit 10, part 4 on page 62, the Conversation section asks students to listen the dialogue, which includes the structures of tense to be taught and practice it (see Appendix 12). By doing so, students are having opportunity first to catch the meaning (use) and produce correct sentences on the point of form.

 d) New Items Related to and Contrasted with the Past Items

Newly introduced items are related to and contrasted with the items already familiar to the learner in New Interchange. Let’s take the contrasting of “Present Perfect Tense” on page 62 of the Student’s Book 3 with “Simple Past Tense” which is first introduced in the second unit of Student’s Book 2 and familiar to the students. While “Present Perfect Tense” is being presented, a comparison is made with “Simple Past Tense” (see Appendix 12). The information and examples are given in Grammar Focus box and then the students are given an exercise to complete by using these tenses appropriately. Consequently, students are expected to make the difference between these two tenses.

 e) Different meanings of one form

Related to the last question, when a form has more than one meaning they’re presented in different units of the course book.

For instance; “Present Continuous Tense” is taught in Unit 5 of Student’s Book 1 on page 30(see Appendix 13). After the students have learnt this tense completely, “future with Present Continuous” is presented and taught in unit 15 on page 93 of the same book (see Appendix 14). Firstly the initial (main) meaning of the form is presented and the other meaning of the form is indicated. It is possible to see further examples in the book. From this point, New Interchange can be said to dealt with this matter sufficiently.

 2. VOCABULARY

  a) Quantity of vocabulary taught

Each Level of New Interchange presents and teaches at least 1000-1500 new words, each level of which takes 70-120 hours of class instruction time.

Each level of the course book presents different words according to the topics to be studied. Words are not given totally, they’re presented stage by stage. That’s each relevant words related to a subject are given in only one unit.

 b)  Selection of Vocabulary

There is a principled basis for selection of vocabulary in the New Interchange. According to the topic than each unit exploits the words are chosen. For example, in Unit 1 the topic is “greeting and introducing yourself”. According to this topic, the words “handshake, bow, kiss on the cheek, hug, put on the back” are given at the Snapshot section supported by picture showing what the words mean (see Appendix 1).

c) Distinction Between Active and Passive Vocabulary 

 There is a distinction between active and passive vocabulary in New Interchange. We normally know a lot of words but we do not use all of them in our daily life. The words that we do not use every time composes our passive vocabulary. They stay somewhere in our brain. We sometimes use them. In New Interchange, there is a focus on active vocabulary. The book firstly tries to teach the words we actively use. Passive words also taught through the course but the main focus is on active vocabulary.

 d)