Investigating senior high school literature teaching by analyzing the literary texts in different new versions of English textbooks

• Main Authors: Chen Hong-wen, 陳虹雯
• Other Authors: Prof. Sun Jia-yi
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2003
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/11378292593744179617

碩士 === 國立臺灣師範大學 === 英語研究所 === 91 === Abstract This research aims to investigate the status quo of senior high school literature teaching by analyzing the literary texts in different new versions of English textbooks in Taiwan. Besides the content analysis that the researcher conducts on the three major sets of textbooks, including the Far-east, Lung-teng, and San-min Shieh, this research also uses questionnaires for senior high school teachers to survey the opinions they have concerning the value of literary texts and the arrangements of these texts in the in-use textbooks. Among the 120 questionnaires that distributed to teachers in northern, central, and southern Taiwan, 101 were returned. Among the returned questionnaires, 93 teachers chose the Far-east version as the one they are most familiar with and answered the related questions; Another 7 teachers chose the Lung-teng version as the basis for their responses; only one teacher chose the San-min Shieh version as her most familiar version. As for the content analysis, it is mainly conducted in terms of the percentages of literary texts in the three major versions, the way these texts are presented, the designs of the pre-reading as well as post-reading activities, and the supplementary materials in teachers’ manuals. The result of this research shows that over 90 % of respondent teachers identify with the idea that literary texts play an important role in the English learning process of senior high school students, and thus there are supposed to be certain percentages of literary texts in their English textbooks. In terms of suggestions for improvement in the Far-east version, teachers feel it necessary to have better-designed pre-reading activities; while for the Lung-teng version, post-reading activities and discussion questions need more improvements than other aspects. As for the San-min Shieh version, the improvements are not discussed due to the inadequacy of questionnaire samples. Last but not the least, most teachers expect there will be more training courses, practicable lesson plans, and exchange of effective teaching approaches in the hope of improving literary teaching in senior high schools.