Mayumi Tanaka (PhD student) The University of Warwick

1. ELT coursebooks: past, present, and possible symposium Dealing with Constructed Cultural ‘Reality’ in Japanese High School Coursebooks Mayumi Tanaka (PhD student) The University of Warwick Nagaoka National College of Technology 21/March/2012 46th Annual International IATEFL Conference and Exhibition

2. The overall aim of the project • To develop an appropriate pedagogy for working critically with cultural contents of English textbooks in the Japanese senior high school context • This presentation focuses on • My lessons of critical reading of a cultural text • Students’ interpretations of the text • Students’ feedback on my lessons • Teachers’ feedback on one of my lessons

3. Background of the research • Textbooks as ideology(Cortazzi & Jin, 1999) • Ideology of internationalization in English textbooks published in Japan (Tanaka, 2004) • Critical reading (Wallace, 1992; 2003) critical discourse analysis (Fairclough, 1989), systemic functional grammar (Halliday, 1985)

4. Research methodology Incorporating other teachers’ advice and views into my practice • An action research approach High school, and university teachers in a local ELT study group

5. Context of the research • School: A national college of technology in Japan • Students: 43 students aged 16-17 (2nd year) • English level: Lower intermediate • Course: ‘English I’ (Reading course) • Textbooks: Prominence English I, Prominence English II

6. Procedure of lessons Text: Unit 2 A Fast-food Star – Born Japanese, Going Global – (Prominence English II) • My critical discourse analysis of the cultural text • Designing questions for students’ critical reading of the text • Giving those questions to students • Students’ group poster presentations in English about their critical interpretations of the text  Group discussions in Japanese

7. An example of questions for critical reading of the cultural text (translated from Japanese) Q (Part 1): What tendency is there in the use of adjectives and relative clauses describing instant noodles? Why is there such a tendency?

8. Group poster presentations • Perspectives • Consistency • Data We don’t think instant noodles are a fast food star. […] We thought there are more popular types of fast food, and conducted a questionnaire. […] Please look at this. These are four major fast foods. We asked 10 people, “Which fast food do you like the best?” […] Hamburgers were chosen by 5 people. This result shows that hamburgers are more popular than instant noodles. So, we think instant noodles should not be called a star.

9. Students’ feedback on my lessons • Regularity • Consideration of task load It is very good to have opportunities to give presentations in English, but it is meaningless if students’ English is not understandable. • Freedom I didn’t find critical reading itself so interesting. […] I think it is good to allow students to discuss their first reactions to the text they read more freely, before having them read it critically

10. Teachers’ feedback on my lesson demo • Views of text • Delivery of English • Opportunity to speak • Transferability A lot of lessons were conducted before this lesson (demo). Is it possible to do the same things in normal schools or academic-oriented high schools?

11. To make critical reading more appropriate in other senior high school contexts … • Task frequency • Task design • Critical thinking skills • Knowledge of CDA? ⇒ Developing a toolkit to help teachers and students to engage critically with the content of textbooks

12. Thank you for listening. tmayumi0516@hotmail.com