A Correspondence Analysis of Nine Japanese Historical English-as-a-Foreign-Language Textbooks
Ryohei Honda, Kiyomi Watanabe, Toshiaki Ozasa · International Journal of Learning Teaching and Educational Research · 2017
The present paper aims to quantitatively describe and explain the features of nine Japanese historical EFL textbooks and their current counterpart, by using a correspondence analysis (CA), focusing on their similarities / differences. The following are the obtained results. First, the CA results proved capable of differentiating the features of the nine historical textbooks and their current counterpart quantitatively, showing their similarities and differences. In particular, the CA map comprised of the two major dimensions indicated that the ten textbooks acan be divided into four groups and that it was only Dimension 1 or the axis of ‘difficult vs. easy texts’ that differentiated the two major groups. Second, when compared with their current junior-high counterpart, Sunshine , all the textbooks, except for Seisoku , StandardP and Globe , proved to be similar to each other in terms of the ‘drill-centered vs. natural’ category (Dim 2). This suggests that the six historical textbooks are similar to their current counterpart, Sunshine and that the other three textbooks are different from their current counterpart in terms of the drill-centered vs. natural’ texts category. Third, the explaining categories (dimensions, axes) proved to be the ‘difficult vs. easy’ texts axis (Dim 1), the ‘drill-centered vs. natural’ structure axis (Dim 2), ‘multi-viewpoints vs. single viewpoint’ discourse axis (Dim 3), ‘redundant vs. concise’ texts axis (Dim 4) and ‘children’s vs. adults’ viewpoint’ axis (Dim 5).’ Finally, it was concluded that the results of the present study suggest that CA is a useful tool for describing, interpreting and diagnosing the features of Japanese EFL textbooks. https://doi.org/10.26803/ijlter.16.10.8