The incongruity between efl textbooks content and rural andor lower class students’ reality

ESI-UNCo Research Project
Seninario Rotativo de Investigación

The Incongruity between EFL Textbooks Content and
Rural and/or Lower Class Students’ Reality

ABSTRACT
This project aims at identifying whether ELT textbooks cater for rural and/or lower-
class students and, if it were not the case, how this would hinder students’ language
learning process. The study will be carried out with students in fourth and fifth form at
the rural secondary school of El Cholar, Neuquén and with students in fifth form at a
secondary school in Bario Nuevo, General Roca. Data will be gathered from the
analysis of ELT textbooks, questionnaires and interviews. The report may conclude that
ELT textbooks portray the urban and upper-middle class culture and lifestyle as the
norm, which makes their content irrelevant and meaningless to students who do not
belong to these groups. This may severely affect these learners’ motivation and capacity
of storing information, which could have a significant impact on these students’
language learning process.

INTRODUCTION
During the last few decades, learner-centred approaches in ELT teaching have been
given especial attention since research has shown that students learn more efficiently
when they are the main focus, the starting point and the ones who play the central role
in the language teaching process. For this reason, ESL textbooks, which fulfil a crucial
role in the process of teaching, should be carefully analyzed in order to see whether
their content is related and relevant to the students’ everyday life. However, little
attention has been given to the socio-cultural and geographical contexts in which these
books are used and to how meaningless their content may become to certain social
groups, namely, rural and lower-class students. This live issue has prompted the present
investigation. The ultimate aim of this study is to sensitize English teachers to the
necessity of adapting EFL textbooks to suit their students’ reality.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS
 Do secondary EFL textbooks cater for rural and /or lower-class students?

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Jorquera; Anahí Page 1 out of 12 6/4/2012

 If it were not the case, to what extent would the lack of meaningful, relevant and
social background-related ELT activities, tasks, topics, situations and
illustrations hinder these students’ language learning process?

OBSTACLES IN THE PATH OF THIS RESEARCH
There are some limitations in this study that are worthy of note. First, there are not
many investigations concerning the issue of the use of TBL textbooks in rural and/or
lower-class contexts, which constrains the project theoretical support. Second, due to
the time factor, only three books have been thoroughly analyzed, which may be seen as
a restriction when generalizing the results. Lastly, even though many aspects of these
two social groups, rural and lower-class students overlap, they have some important
idiosyncratic characteristics which may require two different studies.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
English textbooks are part of every teacher and students’ lives fulfilling a crucial role
in language teaching. For this reason, the influence these textbooks may have on
students should not be underestimated. Textbooks are not only a resource teachers use
in the classroom but they perform different functions
[...] A textbook is potentially a teacher, a map, a resource, a trainer, an authority, a de-
skiller and an ideology.
A textbook can be a teacher, in the sense that it contains materials which are intended to
instruct students directly about English speaking cultures. It can also be a map in the sense
that it gives an overview of a structured program of linguistic and cultural elements,
showing teachers and learners the grounds to be covered and summarizing the route taken
in previous lessons...A textbook is also a trainer. For an inexperienced or untrained teacher
the explanations and guidance, the step by step instructions of a teacher’s guidebook, can
be very useful. Teachers can learn from them, not least about culture. A textbook is also
seen as an authority in that it is reliable, valid, and written by experts. Often a textbook
carries the authorization of important publishers or ministries of education...Though a
textbook is generally designed to evoke tasks and provoke activities on part of both the
learners and the teachers, it may also become a restrictor or a de-skiller. Sometimes, to
cope with the requirements of the book, teachers cannot use a more creative, interpretative
approach. This can be considered as a restricting function of the textbooks. Finally a
textbook can be seen as an ideology in the sense that it reflects a worldview of a cultural
system, and a social construction to teachers and students, which indirectly constructs their
view of culture. (Mohammad Aliakbari, Ph. D p.3)

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Moreover, the ideology presented in the EFL textbooks is that of the hegemonic
groups, which are those belonging to urban places and upper/upper-middle classes. This
becomes a critical educational issue if considering that, in general, English coursebooks
are thoroughly covered without a pre-selection of content and the ideology underlying
them is largely overlooked.
In an analysis carried out in Hong Kong, researchers also concluded that “the
representation of social class is somewhat biased” because “middle class lifestyles are
taken as ideal. They are what people aspire to. This coincides with the master myths in
society like “ it is good to be professionals because they are respected and make lots of
money” and “you can’t be rich or great if you are a blue collar worker” (Eva Lo, Shirley
Lit and Fion Cheung)
Urban areas are also taken as ideal: “while rural place remains invisible in these
books, urban location is clearly visible, adding to the impression that these books have
an urban-centric focus. This invisibility might leave the reader vulnerable to stereotypes
of rurality.” (Ayalon, Aram)
Due to the idealization of certain groups, “the needs of the students from other social
groups are neglected (...) and they may find it difficult to identify with the ideas and
characters projected in the textbooks (Eva Lo, Shirley Lit and Fion Cheung)
As Mohammad Aliakbari, Ph.D. (p.13) claims:
It is right to worry that such biased and simplistic cultural presentations reinforce pre-
existing assumptions and stereotypes because the literature indicates that shallow
presentation of culture can reinforce inaccurate stereotypes.
This is an important concern since it has been amply demonstrated that when students
do not see the content of textbooks relevant, meaningful or related to their day-to-day
lives, their language learning process is likely to be adversely affected. Cecilia Bixio
(2006) states that:
Se ha diluido el interés por aprender dado que las propuestas de las actividades
escolares son poco significativas desde el punto de vista lógico, psicológico y
social…Llamamos conocimientos significativos a aquellos objetos de conocimiento que
el sujeto pueda otorgar algún tipo de significación porque cuenta con esquemas
asimilativos previos, a partir de los cuales otorgarles sentido. Esto significa que el niño
ha construido significados que le permiten comprender ese conocimiento ya que cuenta
con algún marco de referencia previo para hacerlo…Los nuevos materiales de
aprendizaje habrán de relacionarse de manera sustancial y no arbitraria con los
conocimientos anteriores, para que los aprendizajes sean efectivamente significativos.

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Por eso es que hablamos de esquemas de significación o esquemas de asimilación y no
de información previa…Esto nos remite a la distancia (…que abarca problemas lógicos,
psicológicos y socio-culturales) que hay entre la explicación del docente –que puede
haber sido clara y coherente -y la interpretación del alumno- cuya falla no está dada por
incapacidad intelectual-. Mas bien lo que sucede es que no siempre se toma la
precaución de indagar qué sabe el alumno sobre el tema, a partir de qué datos previos
interpreta la explicación.
In language teaching the lack of significant content in coursebooks may have a
overwhelming influence on students’ motivation and in turn on their language learning
process. In Dörnyei’s (2001) study on motivation he quotes Chambers:
Chambers on the significance of the “relevance” in L2 teaching: if the teacher is to
motivate pupils to learn, then the relevance has to be the red thread permeating activities. If
pupils fail to see the relationship between the activity and the world in which they live, then
the point of the activity is likely to be lost in them… If pupils do not see the relevance of a
subject, the teacher has from the outset a major challenge.
Dörnyei also discusses the main factors that demotivate students, among which
textbooks are included (p.152-153). He concludes that:
Due to the amount of time students are to spend working with their textbooks, it is also
logical that the attitudes toward these have a significant impact on the overall appraisal of
the learning process; this was also confirmed by Chambers’s (1999) empirical findings,
according to which the importance of textbooks is second in importance (after that of a
teacher) in determining student attitudes towards the language course (Dornyei.2001.p
154).
Furthermore, learning experiences must be relevant and meaningful for students if
they are to remember them in future time. This is so because, as Jensen (1997) argues,
the brain contracts meaning if what it perceives is relevant, connected to already
existing materials and/or provokes some sort of emotion.
The brain contracts meaning in three different ways:
 Through relevance: learning that is considered to be relevant should activate a
learners’ existing neural network.
 Through patterns and connections: when information is relevant the brain starts
building new connections with already known material easily and with the help
of emotion the connections become more personal.
 Through emotions: emotions, no matter if positive or negative, play an
important role in the storage of information in the long term memory, since it
triggers the release of chemicals in the brain marking the experience as
important and meaningful.

Fonseca, Viviana

Considering all the aspects discussed above, it is worthy of consideration that EFL
coursebooks must be seen as a tool that has to be adapted in relation to the students that
use them.
Textbooks are tools that can be figuratively cut up into component pieces and then
rearranged to suit the needs, abilities, and interests of the students in the course. The
material in a textbook can be modified to incorporate activities that will motivate students
and move them beyond the constraints of the text. Das (1988: viii) points out that materials
should not “pre-specify learning outcomes or attempt to control or substantially guide
learning…” (Graves 2004 p27)
One of the main “factors in developing, choosing, or adapting materials…is
appropriateness…that includes student comfort and familiarity with the material…and
relevance” (Graves p26). Thus
The teacher has the responsibility for the students’ learning. This learning takes place
within the context of particular school or learning environments. A key role for the teacher
is to make sure that the learning goals and teaching methods are appropriate to the context
(Holden, S and M. Rogers 1999 p 4)
It is essential for the teacher to consider students’ socio-cultural background and
incorporate it in his/her lessons.
The world outside the classroom is also important for providing real things to talk about.
It is where students’ lives are centred, and it is more meaningful for them to use this as
topic material than some hardly understood environments. Bus timetables and roads maps
from your own area are more immediate than plans of the New York subway or London
underground (Holden, S and M. Rogers 1999 p 47)

METHOD
In this study we will follow an analytic-inductive approach. We will adopt an analytic
method because we will examine some aspects of some topics, situations, activities,
tasks and illustrations in three ELT textbooks. The purpose of our project will be
inductive since we will try to discover if the questions we have posed can be answered
and after gathering and exploring the data, we will formulate (a) hypothesis/es.

SUBJECTS
A total of 48 students will participate in the study: 25 EFL students in forth and fifth
form from a state school in El Cholar, Neuquén and 23 students in fifth form from a
state school in Barrio Nuevo, General Roca.

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El Cholar is a small rural town that has an average of 1 300 inhabitants. So the reality
of these students bears little, or no, resemblance to that of urban students. All of them
belong to middle/ lower social class and have been studying English as a compulsory
subject for 3 or 4 years. They are elementary students who study English only at school.
Out of 22 learners, 6 are male. Their ages range from 16 to 20 with a mean of 17,5.
Most of the subjects from Barrio Nuevo are from lower/lower-middle social class and
they have been studying English for 4 years. Information about their age and gender will
be gathered before administering the questionnaires.
When selecting the subjects, a number of factors were considered:
 Their geographical and socio-cultural context
 The time they have spent working with textbooks
 Form, which reveals students’ development of critical thinking

Two secondary teachers will be part of our study. One of them has been working in
El Cholar for six years and the other one is currently working in a state school in Barrio
Nuevo.

MATERIALS
In this study we will analyze three textbooks: Oxford New Headway-Beginners
(2002); Oxford New Headway-Elementary ( 2006); Longman What’s Up!-Starter
(2008). We will focus on three main elements of these books: illustrations,
activities/tasks and topics/situations because they are the mainstay of EFL coursebooks
and determine the way in which language content is presented and perceived by
students. In selecting the coursebooks, we considered their year of publication since we
wanted to deal with updated material.
Some of the illustrations that will be useful for our analysis
 Headway-Beginners
 Unit 4: Family and Friends (p 24-25)
 Unit 6: Every Day (p 42-43)
 Unit 8: Where I Live ( p 56-58)
 Unit 10: We Had a Good Time ( p 74-75)
 Unit 11: We Can Do it ( p 86)

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 Headway –Elementary
 Unit 1: Hello Everybody! (p 6-7)
 Unit 4: Take it Easy (p 30-31)
 Unit 5: Where do you Live (p 36-37)
 Unit 14: Have you Ever (p 125)

 What’s Up!
 Unit 3: Family and Home (p 32)
 Unit 4: Fun Time (p 39-46)
 Unit 5: Everyday Life (p 58)

Some of the activities that will be useful for our analysis
 Headway- Beginners
 Unit 8: Where I Live ( p 63: activity 5)
 Unit 9: We Had a Good Time (p 74: activities 1-3)
 Unit 10: What a Good Time! (p 76: activity 3; p 78:
activity 2)

 Headway-Elementary
 Unit 2 : Meeting People (p 12: activity 6)
 Unit 3: The World of Work (p 26: activity1)
 Unit 4: Take it Easy! ( p 31: activity 3)
 Unit 5: Where do you Live ( p 43: activity 5; p 36: starter
activities 1 and 2)
 Unit 7: Then and Now ( p 55: activity 2)
 Unit 10: Bigger and better (p 75: T.10.4, activity 2)

 What’s Up!
 Unit 3: Family and Home ( p 37: activity 2)
 Unit 4: Fun Time (p 39: activity 1; p 40: activity 1; p 47:
activity 1)

Fonseca, Viviana

Some of the topics that will be useful for our analysis
 Headway-Beginner
 Holidays (p 53, 77, 97, 104)
 My Home Town ( p 62)
 Where I Live ( p 56-57)
 We Had a Good Time (p 74)
 In a Restaurant ( p 92)
 An Amazing Journey (p 108)
 Going Sightseeing (p 119)
 Sports and Leisure (p 76)

 Headway- Elementary
 Leisure Activities
 Where Do you Live? (p 36-37)
 Places in Town
 Holiday
 Booking a Hotel
 At the Airport
 In a Café

 What’s Up!
 Home (p 32)
 Fun Time ( p 39)
 Thing in a House
 The Internet

DATA COLLECTION PROCEDURES
In order to carry out our study, we will collect two different kinds of data:
 First order data: we will examine ELT textbooks focusing on their
topics/situations, activities/tasks and illustrations. We will select those ones
which reflect the lifestyles and culture of urban and upper/middle class people.
 Second order data: we will administer a questionnaire to the students of both
schools and we will conduct a focus interview with both teachers

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 Questionnaires: they will include questions that are meant to reveal
students’ perception of and their relationship with EFL textbooks.
Questionnaires are written in Spanish in order to avoid
misinterpretation and not to constrain students by the use of the target
language. They will be administered in an English lesson and we will
explain the questions and each potentially misleading concept before
students start answering. We will stay with them until they finish so as
to help them in case they do not understand the questions.
 Interviews: we will interview both teachers before distributing the
questionnaires in order for them not to be influenced by the content of
them. The interviews will be carried out in English and if we are
allowed, they will be tape-recorded. We estimate that the interviews
will last approximately an hour. These meetings will serve the purpose
of finding out teachers’ view on English coursebooks content and how
they approach the apparent incongruity between textbooks content and
students’ reality.

DATA ANALYSIS PROCEDURE
Data analysis of textbooks
First, the researchers will analyze topic/situation, activities/tasks and illustrations in
context because it is the way in which they are presented and related that may show the
urban upper-middle class culture as ideal. Second, we will evaluate whether they
actually idealize this culture at the expense of the others.

Data analysis of questionnaires
The information gathered will be classified according to the regularities among
subjects’ answers. Then, we will examine the already classified data in order to
determine whether the content of the textbooks they work with has an impact on the
subjects in question

Analysis of the interviews
We will examine the teachers’ attitude towards the content of textbooks and find out
if they are willing to take action when it is irrelevant to their students. If this is not the

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case, it may reveal that some other teachers have the same attitude, which will
strengthen the issue of lack of meaningful content in English textbooks.

POSSIBLE OUTCOMES
The tentative results may be the following:

Question 1
The examples of the topics/situations; illustrations and activities /tasks may show
that these books take the upper/upper-middle urban lifestyle and culture as the norm
leaving aside other social and geographical groups’ reality. Many of the activities/tasks,
topics/situations and illustrations take for granted that students live in a city and have
upper-middle class standard of living. For instance, it is assumed that learners go on
holidays to different places, own luxurious houses and spend their free time going to the
cinema, going shopping and eating in restaurants. This way of life escapes from the
reality of rural and lower-class students.
Moreover, in the three books selected, the question of country life only appears three
times and in two of these occasions it is stereotyped. These places are described as
boring, unable to offer people the possibility of finding a good job, etc.

Question 2
It has been highly proved that when students are required to deal with topics and
carry out activities that are meaningless and irrelevant to their socio-cultural or
geographical background, their learning process is severely affected. What mainly
hinders students’ language learning is their progressively decreasing motivation when
facing content with these characteristics and the inability of the brain to construct
meaning from this kind of information. This in turn constrains the brain capacity of
storing these data in the long term memory.

CONCLUSION
Taking everything into consideration, it may be concluded that many of the elements
that constitute EFL textbooks ( topics, situations, activities, tasks and illustrations)
portray the urban upper-middle/upper class culture as the norm, which bears little, or no,

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relationship with learners belonging to rural and/or lower class groups. This may well
adversely affect these learners’ English performance.
In addition, it may be argued that the central problem lies in the manner in which this
content is addressed and not in the topics, situations, activities, tasks and illustrations in
themselves. They are approached in a way in which it is assumed that all students live in
a city and have a high family income. That is why the role of the teacher is of great
significance since it is in his/her hands the possibility of making the most of the
materials and adapting them whenever necessary so that students see the relevance in
them.
Finally, the issue of the lack of inclusion of rural and lower class groups’ socio-
cultural aspects may be reasonably predictable, providing that there is brief or no
mention of the Argentinean culture itself.

Fonseca, Viviana

REFERENCES

ALIAKBARI, Mohammad. The Place of Culture in the Iranian ELT Textbooks.
http://www.paaljapan.org/resources/proceedings/PAAL9/pdf/Aliakbari.pdf

AYALON, Aram. Why is rural education missing from multicultural education
textbooks?
http://www.allacademic.com//meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/1/8/6/9/5/p186954_index
.html?type=info&PHPSESSID=991264590521fe78f4e2932f174cecd8

BIXIO, C. 2006. ¿Chicos Aburridos? El Problema de la Motivación en la Escuela.
Homo Sapiens Ediciones.

DÖRNYEI, Z. 2001. Teaching and Researching Motivation. Longman

Eva LO, Shirley LIT and Fion CHEUNG. Stereotypes in Junior Secondary English
Textbooks in Hong Kong. http://www.tesl-hk.org.hk/pregen/teslv0006.htm

GRAVES, K. 2004. Teachers as Course Developers. Cambridge University Press. 7th
printing.

HOLDEN, S and M. ROGERS. 1999. Teachers, Learners and Classroom.

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