This article explores how leading textbook authors select and instruct vocabulary in beginner and intermediate Chinese textbooks used in the United States. Leading textbook authors were approached; subsequently; four authors completed interviews with pre-designed questions. Grounded theory methodology was used to analyse the interviews, and their…

Coursebooks exist all over in the world of education. They are generally used as one of the major course materials. To write a coursebook for a particular course is challenging. This study was purposively conducted to develop a English grammar coursebook for teachers to meet the needs of teacher students in English education programs. The study…

This paper is built on the assumption that there are no perfect language teaching textbooks; therefore, it hopes to draw the attention of Moroccan BLT practitioners to the viability of using textbook evaluation to improve the quality of these teaching-learning materials. It aims to investigate ways in which grammar lessons are presented in three…

The development of local wisdom based sensitizing reading material is aimed at penetrating one of the imperishable gaps between authentic and non-authentic reading materials dispute in an EFL teaching context. Promoting EFL learners' needs for the first semester students of English department at university level, who rarely or even never have a…

Using "begin" and "start" as examples, it is shown that English grammars (for German schools) are syntactically deficient in their description of verbs. Several typical grammar books are cited. Conclusions are drawn and proposals are made for constructing a new English grammar for German schools. (Text is in German.) (IFS/WGA)

The author of the "Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language" responds to two areas of criticism of the textbook: its size and its intended audience. These aspects and the general construction of the book are discussed in relation to the information needs of the foreign language learner and in comparison with the information…

In the form of a review article, the "English Minimum Grammar" developed by Hans G. Hoffmann (Max Hueber Verlag, Munich, 1973) is discussed, and the problems that beset the writer of a modern teaching grammar are pointed out. (Text is in German.) (IFS/WGA)

Evaluates the first stage of "Lernpunkt Deutsch," a new three-stage German course designed for upper elementary and early secondary school. Describes the publisher's package of materials and the appropriateness of the course, utility of the different package elements, format of the materials, and assesses whether the course provides pedagogically…

Italian pedagogical texts in general hold the position that the partitive is not obligatory as it is in French. However, some of these texts devote a great deal of time to repetition and transformation drills while others never mention the construction at all until the chapters on the pronoun replacement of accusative complements. Italian phrase…

Analysis of beginning second language textbooks for German, Swedish, English, and Finnish looked at the readability of the contents. Finnish and English texts are examined more closely here as illustrations of the problems found in all four languages. Specific passages are cited and discussed; two are appended. A general framework of text…

Pedagogical grammar is the presentation of grammatical information for teaching purposes. Two important distinctions are relevant here: reference books versus teaching grammars programmed into a course, and generalized versus specialized grammars, (depending on the extent to which they have been designed to meet specific teaching/learning…

This volume includes papers presented at the 1998 Japan Association for Language Teaching Conference. Section 1, "Voices of Experience," includes: "Towards More Use of English in Class by JTEs" (Midori Iwano); "Paperless Portfolios" (Tim Stewart); "Textbook Creation in Reverse Order for Chinese" (Chou Jine…