TY - JOUR
T1 - A corpus-based approach to comparing English textbook pedagogies
T2 - The case of Hong Kong and the People’s Republic of China
AU - Chan, Hang
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by the Faculty Research Grant from the Faculty of Social Sciences of? Hong Kong Baptist University [FRG2/14-15/091]. I am grateful for Ms Ma Yao Yao Winifred, a former research assistant and a friend, and various student helpers from the BABEd programme of HKBU who worked steadfastly on the construction of the two textbook corpora. I am also grateful for the anonymous reviewers? and the two editors' constructive suggestions on the earlier drafts of this manuscript.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
PY - 2021/7/3
Y1 - 2021/7/3
N2 - The current study considers the notion that English textbooks produced for different markets are likely to manifest different pedagogical emphases. The study begins the research context by contemplating possible similarities and differences between English textbooks produced in two neighbouring markets, Hong Kong (HK) and the People’s Republic of China (PRC), citing socio-historical and educational reasons to elucidate why there could be a first impression of differences in the two sets of textbooks. A simple consideration of these factors does not aid an understanding of the teaching dispositions of these materials. The present study uses a corpus-based hermeneutic approach to examine collocational patterns in the task instructions of textbooks. Collocations within this section can effectively capture local teaching practices, as it is in these places task purposes are announced and pedagogies are specified. The findings section presents two collocation lists generated from the two textbook corpora. Based on these lists, the researcher interprets the local teaching practices of the textbooks. Key issues to be discussed include the distribution of four skills in the textbooks, different styles of literacy training, the strong lexical-grammatical focus of the PRC textbooks, and the genre-aware approach of the HK textbooks.
AB - The current study considers the notion that English textbooks produced for different markets are likely to manifest different pedagogical emphases. The study begins the research context by contemplating possible similarities and differences between English textbooks produced in two neighbouring markets, Hong Kong (HK) and the People’s Republic of China (PRC), citing socio-historical and educational reasons to elucidate why there could be a first impression of differences in the two sets of textbooks. A simple consideration of these factors does not aid an understanding of the teaching dispositions of these materials. The present study uses a corpus-based hermeneutic approach to examine collocational patterns in the task instructions of textbooks. Collocations within this section can effectively capture local teaching practices, as it is in these places task purposes are announced and pedagogies are specified. The findings section presents two collocation lists generated from the two textbook corpora. Based on these lists, the researcher interprets the local teaching practices of the textbooks. Key issues to be discussed include the distribution of four skills in the textbooks, different styles of literacy training, the strong lexical-grammatical focus of the PRC textbooks, and the genre-aware approach of the HK textbooks.
KW - collocations
KW - corpus-based analysis
KW - EFL textbook pedagogies
KW - literacy practices in textbooks
KW - socio-historical factors
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85087146291&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/1554480X.2020.1763799
DO - 10.1080/1554480X.2020.1763799
M3 - Journal article
SN - 1554-480X
VL - 16
SP - 256
EP - 285
JO - Pedagogies
JF - Pedagogies
IS - 3
ER -